What Happened?

Throughout the 1990’s a serious effort to evolve organizations into Team-Based Organizations (TBOs) swept manufacturing sites all over the country. The wave extended to other industries not engaged in manufacturing: financial services, transportation, hospitality, entertainment, health care, food services, and many more. Today, while many organizations claim to be TBOs, their “teams” fall way short of the potential and possibilities touted by advocates, then and now. The one exception seems to be the military whose training & development effectiveness is legendary. Back to the overabundance of under-performing teams...we’re talking here about all types of teams: engineering teams, work teams (on the manufacturing floor), support teams (finance, HR, Quality Assurance, materials and logistics, etc.), and even leadership teams. Most, if not all, failed to fully live up to their expectations. What happened?

An Answer

In studying teams of all types and in working with many customers who hope to someday fully gain from the promised performance of teams, many things went wrong in either setting them up or in sustaining them. For the most part, what many of our clients really have are work groups; or rather, groups of people who happen to work in the same area. What binds them together is their shared employer and their geography, not necessarily their vision, mission, or objectives. And, while some work groups are really close and share common causes, they don’t seem to see themselves as part of something else, nor are they emotionally tied to other operational aspects of their business. It is one potent defining factor between military and civilian success.

After 20 years of researching why teams fail to live up to the whole gamut of promises, the list of what went wrong is quite lengthy. Some of the

more common errors made range from lack of or poorly articulated objectives or team charters, to little or no training/development in teamworking skills, to not having repeatability and/or reproducibility in launching/developing teams, to inadequate, incomplete, flawed, or little or no planning, and more. Yet, regardless of what went wrong at the inception or what goes wrong in the course of the life of a team, one recurring theme pops up predictably: ownership.

Ownership

By all accounts, whether or not you have teams, ownership is THE key to achieving supremacy in the market. This holds true for teams, as well as for individuals not identified with a team. The workforce at large, from senior executives to the core workers, need to own THE BUSINESS – the whole business – not simply their work, their jobs, or their functional area. Even though they may not be financially vested in the enterprise, they nevertheless need to feel as if they were actual owners, who will agonize if the business is not doing well. They need to evolve from the 160- year old Traditional Contract to the new Partner-

ship Strategy.

An Antiquated Model

Under the Traditional Strategy, people saw themselves in a contract with their employer. They did the work required, complied with authority, stayed out of trouble, and in turn received compensation on a scheduled basis. They were a consequence of the business’ existence. They didn’t own the business or what the business what all about, the industry where they worked, or the parent organization. They simply put in their time and received their compensation.

The top leadership was looked at to make decisions and protect the viability of the business. Again, people simply put in their time, did what they were told to do, collected their pay and went home. Importantly, people also looked at the leadership to protect their jobs and livelihood.

The 21st Century Model

Under the new Partnership Strategy, it is quite different. People are invited and rewarded to participate in embracing the risk of being in the marketplace and in choosing accountability for the whole of the business. People become much more business literate, deal with their own emotional welfare, have a point of view about the business, and choose goodwill and contribution for the success of others. They maximize their skills and competencies to contribute to the overall mission of the organization - not just contribute to their own organization/department/function.

Recently, while working with an organization that manufactures and supplies building materials to the home construction industry, the leadership recognized that the way to advance the business would be if each and every employee felt about the company the way the top leadership did. The senior leadership, while not necessarily vested financially in the enterprise, felt as if the business was theirs. They fretted and worried when things didn’t unfold as expected. They rejoiced at the successes and accomplishments. They took it upon themselves to envision the future and drive their organization towards reaching the targets. And, they were quite frustrated at the amount of energy it took to just keep the wheels in motion. It was exhausting. They and they alone, bore the weight of success and/or of failure.

While the leadership recognized that if people felt the way they did all employees would then drive the organization and intercept things before they became obstacles, they were in fact trapped in the Traditional Strategy. Unaware, they were acting very paternalistic – in charge of decisions, solving problems for employees, responsible for results, and “looking out” for the well-being of the organization and its people. The people simply did as told and did not venture into those realms closely held by leaders.

After a 21st Century Leadership™ intervention that included the Conversations Workshop™, things changed. The business started to successfully evolve to an Adult-Adult culture (the new Partnership Strategy), where all employees are taking ownership of the whole business*. The results have been impressive. All indices that suggest the health of the organization (productivity, quality, delivery, customer satisfaction, profits, and more) have been consistently improving, even though today’s economic climate presents a formidable challenge to growth.

Conclusion

A paradoxical imperative in business is growth during market slowdowns. During these times, many organizations simply batten down the hatches and brace themselves to weather the storm. They tend to stress the organization into improving its performance and results (like parents demanding better behavior or ‘suffer the consequences’). In these time-honored Parent-Child cultures (the Traditional Strategy), a coping strategy of “don’t spend” drives most, if not all decisions. It gives the illusion of working. It is neither sustainable, nor viable long term.

In Partnership Strategy cultures, when times are tough, like owners trying to make their “store” survive, the people, on their own, deliver solutions – they deliver the objective: growth.

BANKSinternational, LLC P.O. Box 136 Clarkston, MI 48347 USA 248.394.1215 Fax 248.394.1299 e-mail: info@banksinternational.net