March 2004
Vol. 1, No. 9
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From the Editor: Recently I decided to become more vocal in questioning the use of typical teambuilding activities, the kind of "experiences" or workshops that last a day or less and spend only part of that time (if any) on the team's specific issues. I am working on a talk titled "Why Teambuilding Doesn't Work" and have redesigned my home page to make the point more…well, more pointedly. A couple of this month's studies suggest one reason. Behavior change, the true object of any training, requires that a learner apply information gained in training to a work situation as it happens. The more abstract the training; the less often the information is reviewed; and the longer ago the training occurred, the harder it is to apply that information. Typical teambuilding fails on all these counts.
Study: The reviews on 360-degree feedback systems have been mixed at best. In this performance assessment system, input is drawn not only from an employee's supervisor, but from colleagues, subordinates, customers (sometimes), and the employee. But the apparent advantages of the system—primarily, a more complete picture of the performer—are balanced by a number of drawbacks, so there is no consensus on whether they help organizations perform better.
One key problem is that feedback from this many sources can conflict, making specific behavior changes hard to choose. So two researchers tested a different 360-degree feedback system with all 20 managers and 67 line workers at a small tool and machinery manufacturing firm. The researchers added a factor often missing when these systems are implemented: one-on-one coaching of the managers about their personal results. Feedback was drawn again two and three months after the coaching to look for changes.
Their approach had many positive effects:
Organizational performance numbers such as sales revenue, quality and customer satisfaction improved significantly more over that period than over the same period the previous year. But the researchers note that their study was not designed to rule out other causes.
Application: An effective 360-degree feedback system would be an ideal tool for creating the positive peer pressure that helps team members feel accountable to each other. So I find it frustrating that I cannot wholeheartedly endorse such systems due to their mixed results.
Although the small size of the company in the study made it possible to test an entire organization, the researchers admit this also leads to a major limitation of the study. We don't know if managers without coaching would have fared worse than those with coaching.* The only clear conclusion is that a 360-degree feedback system with individualized coaching overcame many of the problems often seen with such systems. We know that in many other contexts, ongoing coaching after training has proven more effective in driving home the lessons learned.
A company of much greater size, the authors point out, probably could not afford coaching for all of their managers. Alternatives they suggest are generalized online coaching or one-on-one coaching using electronic means (chats, video calls via the Web, etc.)
*If they had broken the managers into a control group (receiving no coaching) and a test group, the group sizes would have been too small to provide statistically valid results.
Source: Luthans, F., and S. Peterson (03), "360-Degree Feedback with Systematic Coaching: Empirical Analysis Suggests a Winning Combination," Human Resource Management 42(3):243.
Article: Every year Industry Week/IW Magazine and the Manufacturing Performance Institute name "World Class Plants" based on various objective measures of manufacturing plant performance. Their Census of Manufacturers attempts to figure out what separates world-class contenders from mediocre plants. The 2003 survey compared plants that believed they were world-class or making significant progress toward it (25% of the 910 respondents) with those who admitted they had made only some or no progress (49% and 26%, respectively).
The table below summarizes the results related to team development. "High," "Some," and "None" refer to the self-reported progress toward being a high-performance plant, and the numbers represent the percentages of respondents within each category who reported using the listed management practice. For example, in the first row, 41%* of plants claiming to be world-class or nearly so reported that most of their employees were in empowered teams. Only 20% of plants that had made some progress toward being world class, and 17% of those claiming no progress, had that many workers in empowered teams.
Plant Practices and Progress Toward High Performance
| Management Practice | High | Some | None |
| 50%+ of Employees in Empowered Teams | 41 | 20 | 17 |
| "Highly Effective" Teaming | 25 | 9 | 7 |
| 20+ Hours Training Per Worker | 47 | 32 | 18 |
| "Highly Effective" Performance Management | 32 | 13 | 9 |
| 2%+ of Labor Budget Spent on Training | 68 | 58 | 20 |
| "Highly Effective" Employee Development | 27 | 10 | 6 |
| "Highly Effective" Recruiting/Hiring | 32 | 17 | 7 |
*All percentages are rounded.
Application: Reliance on empowered or self-directed teams was one of the biggest differences (by percentage) between top and lower performers in this survey. In empowered teams, the line workers make many or most of the decisions that managers make in traditional companies. By their own admission, plants that are not making much progress toward world-class performance are the ones that do not show trust in their line workers by turning over significant power to them. Note, however, that companies who do so accompany that transfer with far more training and have better hiring systems to control who gets into those teams.
The application is simple: you can move your company toward higher performance by giving power to your line workers, along with the training and information needed to wield that power in the company's best interests.
Source: Taninecz, G. (04), "Long-Term Commitments: Practices and Performances Validate Word-Class Plants," Industry Week/IW, 253(2): 51.
Study: "After two decades of research, empowerment is now widely accepted as a potent way to enhance job performance and satisfaction," according to a new set of cross-cultural studies. The authors define empowerment as "providing employees with discretion and autonomy in connection with their work." But, they write, there is growing awareness that empowerment is not equally effective in all cultures.
Three Hong Kong researchers used three different study methods to look into the issue:
The results fit together like a puzzle and provided the first proof that cultural power distance affects whether job performance and satisfaction is improved by empowerment. In cultures that believe in power sharing, empowerment improved an individual's job satisfaction and (in two studies) desire to help customers. Although empowerment also helped somewhat among workers from power-distant cultures, the effect wasn't nearly as strong.
Application: These studies indicate that empowering workers from different cultures can have a mixed effect. The researchers write, "…where unequal power distribution…is considered to be the norm, service employees may feel uneasy" and be reluctant to use the power given them. In that case, "Other management practices, such as building and maintaining authoritative but warm, trusting relationships with subordinates may prove…more effective…"
If you lead a team that includes people from both types of cultures—for example, a virtual team with members in the U.S. or Canada and in China or India—that should be a factor in deciding how much power to give the team. The researchers say, "for service employees whose job nature is simple and routine, tight service scripts and minimal discretionary power may be more desirable than empowerment for achieving high levels of marketing effectiveness and operational efficiency." As you move to empowerment, try to choose individuals who exhibit a desire for it (regardless of culture) when hiring or assigning teams, and provide plenty of training to keep the customers' needs in focus.
Source: Hui, M., K. Au, and H. Fock (04), "Empowerment Effects Across Cultures," Journal of International Business Studies 35:46.
Study: When a work group is turning into a self-directed work team (SDWT), the actions of a single individual can determine whether that team succeeds: the manager. Whether or not the manager can strike the right balance between giving enough guidance and not giving orders is critical to the team's success. To learn more about how managers handle the change, two researchers followed the progress of five teams in maintenance, customer service, and production for 18 months at a unionized 800-worker aluminum plant making the transition to SDWTs.
Team development goes through well-defined stages, and ideally managers will adjust their management techniques accordingly. Logic indicates that managers move away from giving orders and applying pressure ("hard" tactics) to suggesting and persuading ("soft" tactics). But that did not happen: on the whole, the team managers did not increase their use of soft tactics over time. They used hard tactics less often, but the researchers suggest this may be because the opportunity to use hard tactics goes down as power is transferred to the team.
Self-aware managers who were good at seeing themselves as others did and changing their own behaviors were more likely to increase their soft influence tactics, as you might expect.
Application: Ken Blanchard ("The One-Minute Manager") summarizes the research well when he talks about the need for team managers to shift from a "directive" style to a "supportive" style of management as a group matures. In my experience, the failure of a manager to make that transition is the biggest single killer of empowered teams. The researchers in this study did not measure team performance, but I'd be willing to bet that those whose managers increasingly used soft influence tactics were more successful than the others.
Be aware that one reason managers would not do this, the researchers say, is "threat-rigidity effects": when people feel threatened they tend to respond rigidly, refusing to change behavior. Managers often feel their own jobs are threatened when they turn power over to their employees.
This study was "descriptive" rather than showing cause-and-effect, but keep it in mind when you see teams that are struggling. Team managers need significant training, followed by long-term coaching, to:
Source: Douglas, C., and W. Gardner (04), "Transition to Self-Directed Work Teams: Implications of Transition Time and Self-Monitoring for Managers' Use of Influence Tactics," Journal of Organizational Behavior 25:47.
You can greatly improve the odds that your training dollars are well spent by:
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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