May 2004
Vol. 1, No. 11
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From the Editor: As TeamResearch News nears its first anniversary, I am weeding out journals that have not printed original team-related information over the year. This will give me time to review some other journals I found valuable in writing my SuddenTeams® Program that are located at another library on the University of Washington campus. Also, due to a recent survey on e-newsletter usability, I have added explanatory notes to the contents section to better help you decide which reviews to read. I'd love to think they are all so fascinating that you hang on every word, but in an age of information overload that would be unrealistic (not to mention conceited!). Regarding both changes, as I teach teams when discussing how to reach consensus on decisions, "Silence equals consensus." So I will assume you like, or at least don't mind, these changes unless you tell me otherwise!
Despite the wealth of facts showing the financial and intangible value of employee empowerment, overcoming manager resistance to empowered teams is complicated. But it can be done cost-effectively, especially with the help of a trained guide. Contact TeamTrainers today for help in winning the support you need to create a better working environment for all.
Article: "Knowledge work—work that requires significant investment in, and voluntary contribution of, intellectual capital by skilled professionals—is increasingly becoming team-based" with great success in a wide range of organizations, according to management professor Craig Pearce. In turn, Pearce wrote, these teams are shifting toward shared leadership, where members participate in guiding the team. The reason is, "It is ever more difficult for any one person to have all of the knowledge, skills and abilities required for all aspects of knowledge work…" He summarized what managers should know while developing such teams.
Shared leadership works best when group tasks:
When shifting to shared leadership, the manager is responsible for: "Designing the team, including clarifying purpose, securing resources, articulating vision, selecting members, and defining team processes." The manager must also oversee the interfaces between the team and its stakeholders (meaning both suppliers to and recipients of the team's work, among others).
Pearce says the manager sharing leadership will use the same tools as traditional (what he calls "vertical") leaders, but in different ways—and many of those tools will now be used by team members with each other. Order-giving will be limited to "providing task-focused direction or recommendations." The manager must coach members on interacting with each other and play cheerleader. Managers can also help teams "by clearly describing shared leadership, illustrating appropriate leader behaviors, setting clear expectations, and evaluating performance accordingly."
Three organizational systems are critical to developing shared leadership. Training is required to help both managers and team members make the transition, including learning the appropriate roles for each, "training on how to receive influence," and teamwork skills. Reward systems must partially reward team-related outcomes and behaviors in addition to the typical individual rewards. And the culture must support the change, though Pearce is vague on how that is accomplished. He mentions that top managers must "serve as role models and stress the importance of shared leadership," and notes the need to select employees and managers who will thrive in that environment.
Application: With the U.S. economy's shift toward the service and technology sectors, and the general spread of technology, knowledge work is becoming more the norm. In more and more workplaces, many of the recurring problems you encounter will be reduced if you share leadership among managers and workers. Even if you aren't in a position to lead such a shift throughout the organization, there are things you can do as a group manager:
Source: Pearce, C. (04), "The Future of Leadership: Combining Vertical and Shared Leadership to Transform Knowledge Work," Academy of Management Executive 18(1):47.
Study: Despite growing evidence that incentives based on group performance improve that performance, how this happens still isn't clear. Two researchers looked at the role of goal-setting by team members in this process. Small groups of U.S. undergraduate students were asked to create words using the letters of a sentence. Each person could expect to earn around $9 an hour, but some teams received that pay as a flat hourly rate; others received $6 plus 3¢ per word created ("low-variable pay"); and the remainder received $3 per hour and 6¢ per word ("high-variable pay"). Each group was given a practice session, then tried it two more times.
Groups with high-variable pay performed significantly better than flat-pay groups, while the low-variable groups did little better. High-variable groups were more likely to discuss and set goals for their round 2 and 3 performances than those with flat or low-variable pay, but the teams that chose the toughest goals had the most direct effect on performance.
Individuals with high-variable pay were much more committed to those goals than those with flat or low-incentive pay. For statistical reasons, though, the researchers felt they couldn't test to see if the average commitment level of all members in a given group had an effect.
Application: The researchers wrote that practitioners should be careful about applying any of this information, since this was a preliminary look at the issue and also has not been verified in the field with real workers. I have included it here in part because I want TeamResearch News to reflect all current research, and in part as a friendly warning: If a self-proclaimed expert claims he or she can tell you why group incentives create better group performance, that should raise a question about the person's credibility.
Source: Guthrie, J., and E. Hollensbe (04), "Group Incentives and Performance: A Study of Spontaneous Goal Setting, Goal Choice, and Commitment," Journal of Management 30(2):263.
Study: "Over 60 years of research on participative leadership has documented the many benefits of power-sharing," according to researcher Peter Coleman at Columbia University: "These include an increase in decision acceptance, commitment and quality, as well as enhanced employee development, satisfaction, and commitment" and greater managerial and organizational success. Despite this, many managers resist sharing leadership, and not all the reasons are known.
Coleman recruited 98 graduate students in MBA or organizational psychology programs. Each participant performed a bogus computer task that actually "primed" them by repeatedly flashing either words denoting competition ("winner," "opponent," etc.), cooperation ("mutual," "coworker") or neither (a string of asterisks). Finally, he asked their general feelings about sharing power and asked for responses to a managerial case study.
Some respondents believed that power—"the ability to bring about desired outcomes"—rested at the top of organizations and was something you had to compete for against colleagues. Others believed (more accurately, according to some studies) that real power is distributed unevenly throughout the middle layers of organizations, and can be developed in cooperation with colleagues. These groups gave this study a fascinating split decision: The "competitors" were less likely to involve employees in specific decisions than cooperators, as you might expect, but they were also more likely to delegate authority in general. People primed to be competitive were less likely to involve employees and to share resources in the case study responses, but priming had no effect on their general attitudes toward authority. In other words, a single shot of priming affected short-term judgement but not long-term attitudes.
Application: Obviously, as Coleman writes, "competitors" will resist shared leadership. To help this type of manager switch gears, he suggests you provide training that brings their view of power to the surface, questions its source, and makes clear the implications of holding onto it. At the same time, daily priming by a corporate culture can both create such ideas and reinforce them. If you emphasize competition when you create, assign and reward tasks, and your top managers give orders rather than invite solutions, motivating middle or line managers to seek the benefits of shared leadership is doomed to fail.
Source: Coleman, P. (04), "Implicit Theories of Organizational Power and Priming Effects on Managerial Power-Sharing Decisions: An Experimental Study," Journal of Applied Social Psychology 34(2): 297.
Study: "Structural" diversity benefits a team through the ability to tap a wider range of resources, according to doctoral student Jonathon Cummings of MIT. He studied 182 project teams in the competitive recognition program of a very large telecommunications firm (100,000+ employees worldwide) by reviewing project documentation, surveying all members and interviewing some. Performance ratings came from the program and included senior-executive ratings on seven metrics including teamwork, innovation, and quality.
Groups that shared more information in and outside of the group performed better. But this was especially true for groups with greater structural diversity: "Members in different locations, who represent different functions, who report to different managers, and who work in different business units can benefit from unique sources of knowledge outside the group," Cummings wrote. He cited three instances in which teams were able to speed up their work by borrowing technology they might not have learned about otherwise from the home organizations of group members. Diversity in age or sex, the only demographics measured, had little significant effect on performance.
Application: Cummings writes, "A clear practical message from this study is that managers should be explicit about the importance of external knowledge sharing in work groups." If possible given your employer's size, you should design your work groups with structural diversity in mind. Regardless, Cummings suggests, you should encourage cross-functional learning through tools such as structurally diverse workshops and by designing incentives for sharing knowledge. If knowledge sharing still doesn't happen, you may have to assign someone to act as a liaison between the group and its stakeholders. Finally, I would add, teach teams to gather data before making decisions and provide a knowledge management system for maintaining it in a retrievable, shareable format.
Source: Cummings, J. (04), "Work Groups, Structural Diversity, and Knowledge Sharing in a Global Organization," Management Science 50(3):352.
Article: A team at pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly had 15 members split among London and two locations in Germany. Adding to the challenges, though German members spoke English well enough for the team to communicate, it was of course a second language for them, and the team's customers were spread throughout Europe. Not surprisingly, major problems arose in communication, task coordination, customer requirements, and the issue of who was supposed to be doing what.
The team responded by starting face-to-face meetings three times a year that also included workshops and social activities. It took the time to clarify roles and procedures. Members also met in person with a service team in the United Kingdom that was holding up their work due to poor communication on processes and priorities. In short, a proactive response to the problems they were seeing allowed the team to turn around its performance despite its geographic differences.
Application: The researchers who wrote the article provide a list of suggestions that fits everything I've found in the academic literature on virtual teams. Their list said (using British spelling and grammar):
Source: Axtell, C., et al. (04), "From a Distance," People Management 10(6):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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