Fast team concepts are being studied by executives to prepare companies for post recession market shifts. It is thought that fast teams will contribute to corporate agility in the face of rapid market shifts. What could possibly go wrong? Read more.
Corporate agility is one of the concepts executives are studying now to address consumer demand in post recession markets. But as the leaders of large hierarchies and internally competitive cultures learned in the late 1980’s and 90’s, throwing a team concept into non team cultures cause confusion. And, with the confusion comes lost productivity during a time when corporate agility is everything.
Innovative team based companies with congruent cultures know that a few well chosen and trained people can create extraordinary results. They know that there is no need to grow a large company to drive massive profits. Instead, a small company can sprint circles around a confused giant and snatch hunks of market share.
Therefore, what could possibly go wrong with a fast team concept for a company to stumble and slow?
First, companies are pulling back on employee training when they should be investing more to build team capacity that will align with new business strategies, systems and values demands.
Second, quick adaptation to rapid market change will rely on how fast an organization can pull together the key skills required to tackle a new problem.
Under current market conditions, many companies with competitive cultures have resorted to short term cost cutting strategies such as head count reduction to deal with reduced sales. Only now are many of them experiencing magnified productivity losses because of imbalances in business strategies not aligning with systems and workforce readiness. Likewise they are not demonstrating the values needed to build high performance teams.
For example, trust, a collaborative value necessary for team building, worker morale, problem solving, information sharing, learning, and creativity, is for some at an all time low. Once the market turns around, it will be interesting to see if the most talented employees will abandon ship for better opportunities.
Contrast this with team cultures such as Toyota. These cultures have resisted head count reduction in favor of other cost cutting measure to protect collaborative team values such as trust. Likewise, they have retained a workforce that is in alignment with their systems and strategies. These companies are better poised to respond to new opportunities with a loyal workforce.
Third, few internally competitive companies are structured to compensate teams for extraordinary gains. Instead, they bonus managers for unit gains, which confuses collaborative achievement with competitive rewards.
Compare this with a team culture that compensates team achievement and pay for knowledge performance. New teams can be assembled in a moments notice to deal with new problems and trends because both skill and rewards are aligned.
Given this, there are still many organizations that don’t have strategies, systems, values and workforce readiness aligned. They lack both capacity and capability. And, they are destined to go slow in a changing business climate that historically rewards the fastest and fittest.
Thank you for this article because I doubt many companies took into consideration “team collaboration and trust” when they downsized. They failed to consider that the ‘star players’ they retained won’t be able to perform as effectively without their teams—and that the other members matter more than they think.
I need your guidance though on books and articles I should read to guide me more on how to develop ‘knowledge performance compensation’ and ‘team-based performance compensation’.
Jeff,
This is true. Here is a resouce showing how Nortup Grumman used TIGERS to help them engineer their downsize in the 90’s. I met their head ethicist during my presentation to the National Ethics Institute in Long Beach, CA in the 90’s.
This takes 29 minutes to view: http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=22192158
IMPORTANT: You will need this password: TIGERS
Hi Dianne,
I’m also interested to learn more about ‘building high performance teams’. What do you consider are the most current and most authoritative books and articles on this subject.
Can you also direct me to other case studies aside that of Toyota?
Appreciate your help!
Will,
Thanks for asking. We published a book that shows 4 case studies from very small companies with 10 employees to a fully scalable organization with 1800. It is called TIGERS Among Us – Winning Business Team Cultures and Why They Thive. It has an endorsement from the author of the Toyota Culture, Mike Hoseus. You can find more about it at http://www.TigersAmongUs.com
Here is another resource that ties in nicely with the book. It is the TIGERS Team Wheel Game. This exercise and tool kit helps leaders get all their employees on the same page with regards to behavior that builds strong teams and how to avoid behavior that will predictably cause problems. More information about this resource is located here. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaoNAlxUIPY
There is also a webinar that share even more information here. http://InstantTeleseminar.com/?eventid=22192158
IMPORTANT: You will need this password: TIGERS
Will, I hope this helps. Please let me know.
Dianne
Hi Dianne. I’m interested in samples of team performance based compensation. What are the potential mistakes that I should watch out for in implementing such a system? Was also wondering if you can have both team performance and individual performances rewarded?
Allen,
I have seen three different examples. The first is based on gain sharing. This occurs when profits increase through the reduction of expenses. Examples would be shrink, accidents, insurance rates, theft, and waste.
The second is based on profits based on goals achieved.
The third is a complex computation taking into account the two previous examples.
All scenarios require a good compensation equation that is outside my field of experience to create. However, there are experts in the field of compensation that use these computations all the time and can make sure that a company does not give away too much profit in the process so that sinking funds are established for growth.
The biggest challenge is in not creating a compensation package that breeds a sense of entitlement and that ensures that firm and well defined actions are tied to compensation.
How do you assess a job candidates ability to work in teams? Does a lack of previous team experience, or previous team conflict make a candidate automatically undesirable?
The Japanese Toyota team culture is not far from their country’s own national culture where sense of community is strong. So for the U.S., where individualism or rival parties, unions vs. management culture reigns, how does even one start to build an authentic team culture?
And isn’t individualism and even selfishness the source of innovation in the U.S.—-like Facebook?