Self-Directing Teams: Why Some Succeed and Some Don't
(Excerpts from a Moravec and Associates published article.)
As competition for high-quality "human capital" soars, companies are taking a fresh look at a participative leadership model refined in the l990s: self-directing teams (SDT) (sometimes known as self-managing teams).
- Our research indicates that SDT can substantially increase productivity as well as quality.
- For example, in one GE plant, delivery cycles were shortened from three weeks to three days after SDT were introduced, and customer complaints went down by a factor of ten. Costs are now 30 percent lower there than in comparable plants that don't use self-directed teams.
SDT also can help attract and retain skilled people: the critical resource of the 21 st., century.
- As one exceptional technical performer put it, "Now we own our part of the business, and we can make day-to-day decisions without people looking over our shoulders."
- Even union officials can be surprisingly supportive. One of them commented, "Everyone has teams. Self-managing teams provide benefits far beyond [those of] the common team. Finally the company has found a way of using our heads, not just our hands."
Unfortunately, despite their great potential, some SDT efforts have become expensive and dispiriting boondoggles because they were not planned and implemented according to a careful, disciplined strategy.
- SDT don't "come naturally."
- The way forward is strewn with potholes of misunderstanding and barriers of resistance, especially if the organization has been operating with top-down management.
Managers may fear giving up control.
- Technicians may be wary of divulging proprietary discoveries and practices.
- Participants are uncomfortable about taking on leadership.
- Everyone may be afraid of their new accountabilities.
- Leaders will say, "We tried SDT and they didn't work" and go back to their old way of doing things, even if THAT wasn't working.
In fact, this has happened a number of times.
Why go to the trouble of introducing SDT, then-
First, because the speed of change, particularly technological change, is so intense that it's no longer possible for a top-down leader, however gifted, to know everything that's necessary for a clear vision and perspective. To stay competitive, especially when everyone has to operate with the leanest possible staff, it's critical to draw out all of the organization's talents, strengths, and leadership capabilities.
Second, the exceptional performers a company must attract and keep are sending a clear message that good pay, perks, and benefits may be necessary but are not sufficient. They want affirmative answers to questions like
- "Do my opinions count-"
- "Does management let me use my skills-"
- "Can I influence the direction of work as well as my own development-"
- "Is the day-to-day experience energizing- (Because if it isn't, I don't have to stay here.)"
SDT provide the answers they want.
Secrets of getting started
If the launching of self-directed teams is bungled, the resulting disillusionment will set the organization back. From our own experience with companies introducing SDT, as well as extensive research into other companies' failures and triumphs, we've found that certain strategies increase the probability of success:
Get started quickly.
Speed matters. In fact, the bigger the corporation, the more velocity is needed to launch the SDT concept, which will need a rocket boost to escape from the gravitational pull of tradition.
Conduct workshops and regular 'just-in-time' training.
- A one or two-day workshops (with pre-work) may be sufficient to get everyone-managers, sponsors, and other participants-started with mutual understanding and commitment
- Working groups cannot become self-directing teams by decree. The workshop should do more than inspire; it also should identify what the members need to know about SDT framework and how it fits the business strategy, what skills and talents each member has or needs to acquire and use, and the order in which various team responsibilities should be taken on, as well as methods for problem solving, making decisions, conducting effective meetings and measurements of progress.
- Periodic on-the-job training accelerates progress and waylays problems.
Clarify what a self-directed team is.
- Don't let misunderstandings take root, and don't waste time in endless discussions of definitions
- Make sure everyone understands that in a SDT, team members-representing different functions and sometimes even different departments share or rotate leadership and hold themselves mutually accountable for deliverables in support of the organization's business plan.
- "Self-directed" does not mean "not directed or managed at all." In many well functioning SDT, a manager starts off leading the team, keeping projects on track and ensuring that everyone is working with the same
- Information,
- Understands the business vision, and
- Has set appropriate goals and deliverables
- Gradually, as the team earns its credentials (skills and competence) that manager relinquishes certain decision-making and conflict-resolution responsibilities.
- Since "self-directing" implies self-accountability, the manager/team leader needs to enforce and then reinforce this accountability.
- An astonishing number of managers are not aware of, or comfortable with, the need to hold team members accountable for their behavior and results.
Ensure active involvement of the sponsor.
- An individual or team at a high level must be the identified champion of-and barrier buster for-the SDT initiative. Too many sponsors see their role to be reading from a script at a launch meeting or spending an odd half hour chatting with members of the team. Sponsors must meet with teams, use monitoring procedures to track results, and demonstrate their commitment to team deliverables by giving them high priority.
- At one multinational company, sponsors participated in SDT workshops and checked up informally by asking the participants,
- "What are you doing to get the self-directing teams underway- Give me some examples, please.
- What kind of help can I supply to achieve outcomes-"
- This company even had stakeholders evaluate sponsor performance
Coordinate information systems with SDT.
- Most information systems were not designed to provide information necessary to manage cross-functional projects.
- IT departments should be asked to fashion systems that deliver, on demand, project specific data.
Design recognition systems specifically targeted to team achievements.
- Some organizations provide inadequate recognition or forget to recognize team accomplishments at all.
- SDT rewards can be monetary or symbolic, and are always tied to outcomes.
- Many companies provide team bonuses. At Lincoln Electric, teams receive a piece rate plus yearly bonuses based on merit ratings, which consider such factors as dependability, ideas, quality, and output. These bonuses average 97 percent of their piece rate earnings. (Lincoln's pioneering ways have had impressive results: more than 58 years without a losing quarter and 44 years without layoffs.)
- Carrier, the air-conditioning company, has a gain-sharing system: when SDT workers produce better quality goods compared to their benchmark, the resulting savings in labor costs are split 50-50 between the company and the employees. Everyone from maintenance workers to managers gets the same percentage bonus. Stronger teamwork resulted in 24 percent higher productivity and a lower reject rate.
- Team members should be rewarded more often than once a year for smaller successes such as gaining a new client on their own, coming in under a project budget, successfully completing a tough volunteer assignment, or lowering costs in a specific area.
- The best way to find out how to recognize teams is to ask them what they'd like. Besides bonuses, team suggestions have included an increased training budget, attendance at a professional conference, tickets for a weekend in the big town, and handyperson or babysitting service.
Be prepared for emotional and performance ups and downs along the SDT learning curve.
- Progress and regression are experienced by each team member, and the team itself, as they struggle to escape the gravitational pull of the comfort and the safety of their familiar (old) ways of doing things
- As teams evolve, so should the role of the sponsor, who must manage pockets of resistance as well as pockets of support.
We have found that managers and supervisors, who have succeeded under the old hierarchical system, tend to be less enthusiastic about SDT than the people who report to them.
- Managers' resistance may be due not to dislike of the STD concept per se;
- But to the apprehension that their experience has not prepared them to perform well in the SDT
- The fear that they may not be needed any longer or
- They are unable ('to old') to adapt.
- Coaching and development, by experienced consultants (neutral outsiders), helps them with their transition.
- When managers realize that SDT can enable them to execute their strategic and operations outputs more easily, and that their experience, wisdom, and guidance and advice are valuable to the teams, they are more accepting.
Fewer layers may require alternative career paths be created so that everyone can grow without necessarily having to be promoted - to management jobs or another level.
Depending on the size and history of the organization, it can take two or more years for self-directed teams to fully mature.
- However accomplishment and significant business results are achieved during transition.
- And even after the transformation from "I" to "we" has become shared practices, some people may slip back into old habits now and then, especially in times of stress and uncertainty. Set progress measurements in place.
Successful SDT focus on deliverables, and measurements motivate behavior.
- Initially, sponsors should frame strategic outcomes and performance requirements, mapping the team's "solution space"- room for the team to set specific timing, approach, resource requirements and output objectives.
- As the team earns increasing accountability, members become confident enough to balance multiple and conflicting objectives and to set team business outcomes and performance measurements.
A delicate balance
Once launched, the SDT model requires a balance between structure and initiative-a balance that must constantly be adjusted as teams and their members gain competence.
ü Leadership needs to come from everyone, but at different times and in different ways. Self-direction does not imply that the group makes all decisions by consensus; rather, the best SDT figure out ways to draw on various individual leadership perspectives and talents in some selective or rotational fashion.
- In my own experience and research, I have yet to find total self-management or self-direction, and I don't believe organizations would want it. Top leaders will always need to create the vision, share knowledge, and remind others when they are in danger of veering off the tracks.
- However, the stretch goal for everyone should be the maximum delegation of leadership responsibilities.
The start-up procedure should establish customized, incremental measures for determining the group's accountabilities, as well as a plan for earning and transferring responsibility.
- This procedure begins by defining the current management responsibilities that are potentially transferable to the team.
- Do they include purchasing, budgeting, work planning and scheduling, discipline, compensation, performance management, hiring-
- At specific mileposts, the transfer plan should be compared with the members' current roles and accountabilities.
- The identified gap defines the magnitude of the task, the speed at which it can occur, and the training and earning of accountability that occurs with certification of each new responsibility.
Training and certification in technical skills, administrative skills, and team, interpersonal and influence skills help prevent the process from bogging down.
- After the first group is trained and certified by the trainers, team members can train other teams.
- Since SDT are peer-based, training in peer appraisal and 360 degree feedback processes are particularly important.
Whoever is the team leader needs to provide just enough structure-direction, guidelines, agenda setting, facilitation, process map-that other members can contribute their new insights, ideas, and energy.
- If management and team leaders step too far back from the team, letting members struggle and make mistakes, they may have to jump back in.
- If they don't hand off responsibilities as they are earned, however, people will assume that SDT don't produce real transformation.
- In our research on the false starts of SDT, a typical comment was, "Things haven't changed much. The supervisor still makes most of the decisions and I don't see how we can earn creditability from her"
Before being certified to handle new responsibilities, a team should earn accountability by demonstrating competence in work situations. I've seen teams take initiative quickly in this area.
- For example, at most TRW self-directed team work sites, teams gained access to up-to-the-minute production data, then posted a record of progress on computer terminals. This motivated daily discussion about progress and even, because of the public nature of the posting, encouraged dialogue with those outside the group.
- In another company, a round-table meeting is held early every morning to review results-in terms of how close the team is to its goal-from the previous day and brainstorm problem-solving ideas. The original manager continues to be a valuable team resource.
Some employees will undoubtedly be more eager for self-direction than others. No one should be 'forced marched' into membership in an SDT.
- Since some people become less effective when structure and direction from the boss are removed, informed consent should be the byword
- However, when STDs become the normal way of operating, those who are uncomfortable will probably either change their minds or transfer
The new workforce
The old paternalism has been dead for a long time. Employees at all levels have begun to realize that the hierarchical model has become dysfunctional. Having been through wave after wave of reorganizations and downsizings, managers and the workforce have become increasingly independent and accustomed to taking charge of their own career development. SDT fit perfectly with this new type of workforce and can be a powerful attraction device, especially for outstanding performers and innovators.
- Through exercising greater influence and creating new ways of attaining outputs, people have more opportunity to align their personal values with those of the business. Research shows that this is a top priority for innovators. As training - on the job and other - closes learning gaps, the competency depth of the workforce increases. Decisions are better, ideas spark other ideas, and implementation is faster and more effective. People are eager to be part of such an organization.
- Since the teams perform such functions as setting their own schedules, planning their work, monitoring quality, hiring new employees, and certifying members in new technical skills, members have more control over their jobs as well as more influence in the department and the company achievements as a whole. They see how much more valuable they are becoming, and they come to value the talents of others as well.
- SDT create a learning work culture in which employees are cross-trained (sharing intellectual wealth), to perform different tasks and can respond quickly to cries for assistance from colleagues. This collaborative leadership model creates bonds among employees, who are then less likely to heed the lure of a headhunter who seeks to separate them from their interdependent work community and culture of belonging.
- SDT apply collective knowledge - intellectual capital - to a company's goals and competitive edge.
With the new workforce gaining power and influence, the time is right - more right than ever-for self-directed teams. Ironically, one doesn't hear much about them lately, possibly because companies have stumbled so often in implementation that the term has acquired some negative baggage. Yet the organization building block, far from being a fad, is taking hold in all types of industries, including financial services, steel, paper, food processing, electronics, electrical equipment, autos, engineering, construction, health care, project management, government agencies and aerospace.
- I know of companies that were prepared to throw the SDT idea out in disgust after an initial failure, but rallied for a second try. With a better strategy, new tactics and tools, acquiring 'lessons learned' from outside resources and patience, they have leap the barriers and achieved:
- Financial outcomes and the
- Non-financial benefits of an engaged workforce.
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