April 2004
Vol. 1, No. 10
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From the Editor: While researching this month's issue, I had the odd experience of recognizing myself in a study. A task force I serve on as a volunteer has not been very effective, and I have had trouble influencing the group to adopt good teamwork habits. I'm not the chair, and my skills as a team developer were not made clear to the group even though they were part of the reason for my appointment. A light bulb went on as I skimmed a study indicating that a team member who identifies highly with his functional background and is the only person from that function on a team tends not to perform well. One corrective action the study suggests a manager can take—openly discussing functional contributions to the team—never happened. So other members felt I was trying to take over the team when I thought I was just suggesting best practices. Live and learn.
As you'll see below, the factors needed to create the kind of teamwork that brings high return on investment are complex, from laying the right foundation to overcoming worker and manager resistance. Whether you want general guidance or someone to manage the whole process for you, TeamTrainers can ease the way. Contact us today.
Study: Although diverse teams offer the promise of creative problem-solving and greater cooperation among functions, they also bring pitfalls. People tend to cling to those similar to them both inside and outside of a team, so team managers must find ways to make sure the team's goals come first.
Three German professors sent questionnaires to 129 members of 20 multidisciplinary software and project management teams. They looked at the relationship among:
The professors wanted to know how those three variables affected "organizational citizenship," defined as "the extent to which employees go above and beyond the call of duty to aid fellow workers and contribute to collective success…" They also looked at the effects on other positive qualities such as members' sense of identification with their teams and loyalty to their organizations.
Diversity only reduced these positive qualities when team members felt they had to work together to get their jobs done but didn't feel there were team goals, or in the opposite situation: they felt they were held to team goals, but did little with their fellow team members to achieve those goals collectively.
Application: The great news from this study is it hands team managers a prescription for encouraging team members to help each other. First, don't try to force permanent teamwork on a group whose daily tasks don't require much cooperation. Second, for diverse nonpermanent teams—such as quality circles or task forces—make sure members share their team-related tasks and responsibilities in ways that make them dependent on each other for success. Finally, for any team, permanent or not, make sure each member understands the group's goals and that he or she is accountable for achieving those goals with the group.
Regarding goals, try this simple test at your next team meeting. Say to the team, "Altogether now, please tell me this team's primary goal." Then turn to face whatever writing surface you have, marker poised mid-air. If what you get is dead silence, or a jumble of words, your team probably feels no sense of goal interdependence.
Source: Van der Vegt, G., E. Van de Vliert, and A. Oosterhof (03), "Informational Dissimilarity and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Role of Intrateam Interdependence and Team Identification," Academy of Management Journal 46(6): 715.
Studies: A pair of studies in Compensation & Benefits Review make clear that creating pay rewards based on team success for American white-collar workers remains a challenge.
The first compared the attitudes of Japanese MBA students with those of American MBA students from an earlier study on compensation practices. In the Japanese sample, group rewards were the second-most powerful predictor of their employer organizations' performance (after praise from their managers), but in the American sample group rewards had no effect. This is consistent with earlier reports in TeamResearch News about the effect of culture on team-related attitudes.
However, nearly 3/4 of the American students' employers (and 4/5 of the Japanese) were service firms, government, or nonprofits: white-collar organizations, in other words. The second study looked at a cross-section of Midwestern U.S. companies and found that group-based rewards raised blue-collar workers':
The only effect group pay had on white-collar workers was slightly negative, hurting satisfaction with pay and sense of pay fairness.
Application: It would be very interesting to repeat the first study using only manufacturing employees, because the second study suggests that the response of American blue-collar workers to group pay is a better fit with Japanese workers (of any type) than with their white-collar compatriots. Since case studies indicate team-based pay can be very successful for white-collar teams, American managers of white-collar teams must find ways to overcome initial resistance. One hint appears in the second study when the authors write: "employees must be able to associate the work they do with the rewards they receive. This 'line of sight' is critical to motivating higher effort and may have been obscured by the complex nature of typical white-collar work." This provides further evidence that true teams are composed of people with interdependent tasks who understand their mutual goals. In addition, my SuddenTeams® Program recommends that Western companies institute compensation systems rewarding both individual performance and team success, plus, ideally, individual performance as a team member.
Sources: Allen, R., et al. (04), "Rewards and Organizational Performance in Japan and the United States: A Comparison"; Howard, L., and T. Dougherty (04), "Alternative Strategies and Employee Reactions": Compensation & Benefits Review 36(1):7 & 41.
Study: A researcher poses a question: since there is proof that self-managed work teams improve company performance, but far less evidence that task forces or quality circles improve performance, why did the use of self-managed teams fall slightly in the mid-90s to 38% of firms while quality circle use doubled to 57%?
The answer, she says, is that cost-effectiveness is not the only factor top managers use to make decisions: for example, they must also consider politics. If subordinates do not perceive self-managed teams as benefiting them personally, they have powerful reasons to resist or even thwart implementation. So it would help to know, as the study title asks, "Who Benefits from Teams?"
The researcher studied a large "Baby Bell" telecommunications company using observation, interviews, and a survey of nearly 1,200 workers, line supervisors, and middle managers. This company had an ongoing quality circle program and also allowed middle managers to create self-managed teams if they wanted to. The manager, supervisor and team would negotiate a transfer of managerial duties and the supervisor would become a coach. "Team members received additional training but no additional pay and remained under the same contract provisions as other workers," the researcher wrote.
The study found that employees in self-managed teams (SMTs) felt more control over their work, more secure in their jobs, and greater job satisfaction than employees on standard teams. Middle managers who initiated SMTs felt no change in control or satisfaction, but sensed greater job security. However the "coaches" (line supervisors) lost ground on all three variables when their teams moved to self-management.
Involvement with quality circles had no effect on any of the ratings for any level of worker.
Application: I have noticed with striking regularity that the line workers I talk to about teams often hunger for empowered teaming, while the managers resist true teams despite the proven financial and human benefits. (In this study, 70% of line workers in traditional groups said they would prefer to be in SMTs.) This study confirms what the SuddenTeams Program already states: group supervisors tend to feel threatened by empowerment of their teams.
Of course, in many cases they have good reason. Most companies don't know how to take advantage of and compensate managers who don't spend their days directing work. And empowered teaming has been used to flatten organizations, eliminating managerial positions. So if you want to introduce the benefits of empowered teams into your company, you will have to give the current managers of those teams reasons to go along. A key question you must answer is this: How will this person contribute to the company when her traditional workload has been reduced—and then prove that contribution during performance reviews? You will also need to provide significant training to the supervisor on the difference between coaching and managing. And you will probably have to prepare to see some of your good managers leave, by choice or by termination when they can't make the transition.
Source: Batt, R. (04), "Who Benefits from Teams? Comparing Workers, Supervisors, and Managers," Industrial Relations 43(1):183.
Study: As defined for this study, a "shared vision" is a mental picture team members agree on regarding "the future state of the team or its tasks that provides the basis for action within the team." This is different from a leader handing down a vision. A shared vision results from members working together to create their own. The researchers wanted to know what effect, if any, a shared vision had on a team's ability to create and manage change.
A company that designs and builds car engines and transmissions put in place 71 process- and product-innovation teams, with each team member receiving 20 hours of teamwork training. Nearly two years later, after the teams had time to mature, researchers submitted questionnaires to team members, managers, and the internal "customers" of the teams' output in the spring and autumn of that year.
The higher the degree of shared vision among team members in the spring, the higher the team's ability to innovate, sense of power, teamwork, altruism toward other members, and courtesy that autumn. The opposite was true as well: the higher the springtime effectiveness, sense of power, etc., the higher the shared vision in the fall. "Social loafing"—the failure of some people to do their share of team tasks—in the spring hurt the level of shared vision by autumn, but shared vision had only a small effect in reducing loafing.
Application: As suggested earlier in this issue, a clear vision (or goal or mission) is vital to a team's success. You wouldn't take a group of people in separate vehicles on a road trip without deciding on the destination (or at least, a road and direction to start on). And to maximize the enjoyment of the trip, everyone would have a voice in deciding that direction or destination. So instead of handing down a vision, give your team the company goals and values and let it create its own path to supporting those goals.
But the reciprocal nature of the study shouldn't be ignored either: the various aspects of teamwork both predicted and were predicted by shared vision. This points to a holistic view of teamwork that standard teambuilding activities cannot address. Working on one aspect of teamwork at a time can improve a team, but if you want that team to be the best it can be, you have to address all the elements of teamwork as an interrelated web of performance.
Source: Pearce, C., and M. Ensley (04), "A Reciprocal and Longitudinal Investigation of the Innovation Process: The Central Role of Shared Vision in Product and Process Innovation Teams (PPITSs)," Journal of Organizational Behavior 25:259.
Study: Team research often focuses on issues within a given team, but this ambitious study looked also at how issues between teams can affect the success of a project. Three European researchers followed a $500-million product innovation project within a car manufacturer by interviewing members and managers of 39 cross-functional teams one, two and three years into the project. The goal was to see how internal and external team dynamics affected team performance, as measured by teams meeting the standard project goals of quality (or "scope"), schedule and budget. The results were:
How did these results translate to practical effects? The researchers ranked all 39 teams on combined scores for between-team coordination, project commitment, and teamwork quality. "The top 5 teams are 1.8 weeks behind schedule at (year) 3, while the bottom 5 teams are 10.4 weeks behind…"
Application: Experienced project managers will tell you that a behind-schedule project costs you money, both in direct project costs and lost opportunities (to use your resources elsewhere).
The three researchers emphasize the importance of "specific collaboration training…before the start of the project" as well as ongoing training. One highly successful team "held regular workshops where questions such as 'What would we improve in our team and in the cooperation with other teams if this project started right now?' were openly discussed." They also suggest maintaining project commitment by reiterating project goals and how team goals fit in, and by regularly providing feedback on progress.
Source: Hoegl, M., K. Weinkauf, and H. Gemuenden (04), "Interteam Coordination, Project Commitment, and Teamwork in Multiteam R&D Projects: A Longitudinal Study," Organization Science 15(1):38.
TeamResearch News summarizes the latest information from studies or articles on business teams, along with guidance on how to apply that research in your workplace. It is published the first full weekend of each month as a free service from TeamTrainersTM Consulting (www.suddenteams.com). Plain-text e-mail announcements are mailed to subscribers whenever a new issue is posted, containing a list of that month's studies and articles and a link to the newsletter. See our newsletter page for details about the newsletter, cautions about studies, and our privacy policy.
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