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Making Sense of Change Management Authors: Cameron E., Green M. Published year: 2003 Pages: 22-23/96 |
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WHY WE NEED TEAMS
Why do we need teams and team working? Casey (1993) from Ashridge Management College researched this question by asking a simple question of each team he worked with: ‘Why should you work together as a team?’ The simplest answer is, ‘Because of the work we need to accomplish.’ Team work may be needed because there is a high volume of interconnected pieces of work, or because the work is too complex to be understood and worked on by one person.
What about managers? Do they need to operate as teams, or can they operate effectively as groups? The Ashridge-based writers say that a management team does not necessarily have to be fully integrated as a team all of the time. Nor should it be reduced to a mere collection of individuals going about their own individual functional tasks .
Casey believes that there is a clear link between the level of uncertainty of the task being handled and the level of team work needed. The greater the uncertainty is, the greater the need for team work. The majority of management teams deal with both uncertain and certain tasks, so need to be flexible about the levels of team working required. Decisions about health and safety, HR policy, reporting processes and recruitment are relatively certain, so can be handled fairly quickly without a need for much sharing of points of view. There is usually a right answer to these issues, whereas decisions about strategy, structure and culture are less certain. There is no right answer, and each course of action involves taking a risk. This means more team working, more sharing of points of view, and a real understanding of what is being agreed and what the implications are for the team.
THE TYPES OF ORGANIZATIONAL TEAMS
Robert Keidal identified a parallel between sports teams and organizational teams. He uses baseball, American football and basketball teams to show the differences.
A baseball team is like a sales organization. Team members are relatively independent of one another, and while all members are required to be on the field together, they virtually never interact together all at the same time.
Football is quite different. There are really three subteams within the total team: offense, defense, and the special team. When the subteam is on the field, every player is involved in every play, which is not the case in baseball. But the team work is centred in the subteam, not the total team.
Basketball is a different breed. Here the team is small, with all players in only one team. Every player is involved in all aspects of the game, offense and defense, and all must pass, run, shoot. When a substitute comes in, all must play with the new person.
Source: Adapted from Keidal (1984)
Many different types of team exist within organizations. Let us look at a range of types of team found in today’s organizations (see Table 2.2).
|
Team |
Group |
Work |
Parallel |
Project |
|
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Continuity |
Variable |
Stable |
Stable or one-off project |
Focused on project achievement |
|
|
Lifespan |
Variable |
Unlimited |
Variable |
Time limited |
|
|
Organizational links |
Can be part of the formal and/ or informal organization |
Part of management structure |
Outside of normal management structure |
Separate management structure |
|
|
Led by |
Dependent on nature and purpose of group |
One manager or supervisor |
Normally coordinated or facilitated |
Project manager |
|
|
Location |
Variable |
Colocated |
Converge for meetings |
Colocated, dispersed, virtual |
|
|
Purpose |
Variable |
Business as usual |
Maintenance function or part of change infra-structure |
Change or development |
|
|
Authority |
Dependent on nature and purpose of group |
Through the line |
Depends |
Via project manager and project sponsor |
|
|
Focus |
Communication |
Task |
Communication |
Task |
|
|
Team |
Matrix |
Virtual |
Network |
Management |
Change |
|
Continuity |
Stable as a structure but fluid by project |
Potential fluid |
Potential fluid |
Stable |
Fluid |
|
Lifespan |
Unlimited |
Variable |
Variable |
Unlimited |
Variable |
|
Organizational links |
Part of management structure Dual accountability |
Can be part of the management structure |
More distributed across the organization |
Part of management structure |
Variable |
|
Led by |
Project manager and functional head |
One manager or supervisor |
Potentially distributed leadership or coordination |
One manager |
Sponsor or change manager |
|
Location |
Colocated, dispersed, virtual |
Dispersed |
Dispersed |
Often colocated |
Colocated, dispersed, virtual |
|
Purpose |
Project achievement |
BAU or Project |
Change or development |
Business as usual Change and development |
Change and development |
|
Authority |
Dual accountability |
Through the line or project manager |
Depends |
Through the line |
Via project manager and project sponsor |
|
Focus |
Task |
Task |
Communication |
Task and communication |
Task and communication |
Work team
Work teams or work groups are typically the type of team that most people within organizations will think of when we talk about teams. They are usually part of the normal hierarchical structure of an organization. This means that one person manages a group of individuals. That person is responsible for delivering a particular product or service either to the customer or to another part of the organization.
These teams tend to be relatively stable in terms of team objectives, processes and personnel. Their agenda is normally focused on maintenance and management of what is. This is a combination of existing processes and operational strategy. Any change agenda that they have is usually on top of their existing agenda of meeting the current operating plan.
Self-managed team
A sub-set of the work team is the self-managed team. The self-managed team has the attributes of the work team but without a direct manager or supervisor. This affects the way decisions are made and the way in which individual and team performance is managed. Generally this is through collective or distributed leadership.
Self-managed work teams are more prevalent in manufacturing industries rather than the service arena. Once again there is an emphasis on delivery of service or product rather than delivering change.
Parallel team
Parallel teams are different from work teams because they are not part of the traditional management hierarchy. They are run in tandem or parallel to this structure. Examples of parallel teams are:
-
teams brought together to deliver quality improvement (for example, quality circles, continuous improvement groups);
-
teams that have some problem-solving or decision-making input, other than the normal line management processes (for example, creativity and innovation groups);
-
teams formed to involve and engage employees (for example, staff councils, diagonal slice groups);
-
teams set up for a specific purpose such as a task force looking at an office move.
These teams have variable longevity, and are used for purposes that tend to be other than the normal ‘business as usual’ management. They are often of a consultative nature, carrying limited authority. Although not necessarily responsible or accountable for delivering changes, they often feed into a change management process.
Project team
Project teams are teams that are formed for the specific purpose of completing a project. They therefore are time limited, and we would expect to find clarity of objectives. The project might be focused on an external client or it might be an internal one-off, or cross-cutting project with an internal client group.
Depending on the scale of the project the team might comprise individuals on a full or part-time basis. Typically there is a project manager, selected for his or her specialist or managerial skills, and a project sponsor. Individuals report to the project manager for the duration of the project (although if they work part-time on the project they might also be reporting to a line manager). The project manager reports to the project sponsor, who typically is a senior manager.
We know the project team has been successful when it delivers the specific project on time, to quality and within budget. Brown and Eisenhardt (1995) noted that cross-functional teams, which are teams comprised of individuals from a range of organizational functions, were found to enhance project success.
Project teams are very much associated with implementing change. However, although change may be their very raison d’tre it does not necessarily mean that their members’ ability to handle change is any different from the rest of us. Indeed built into their structure are potential dysfunctionalities:
-
The importance of task achievement often reigns supreme, at the expense of investing time in meeting individual and team maintenance needs.
-
The fact that individuals have increased uncertainty concerning their future can impact on motivation and performance.
-
The dynamic at play between the project team and the organizational area into which the change will take place can be problematic .
Matrix team
Matrix teams generally occur in organizations that are run along project lines. The organization typically has to deliver a number of projects to achieve its objectives. Each project has a project manager, but the project team members are drawn from functional areas of the organization. Often projects are clustered together to form programmes, or indeed whole divisions or business units (for example, aerospace, defence or oil industry projects). Thus the team members have accountability both to the project manager and to their functional head. The balance of power between the projects and the functions varies from organization to organization, and the success of such structures often depends on the degree to which the project teams are enabled by the structure and the degree to which they are disabled.
Virtual team
Increasing globalization and developments in the use of new technologies mean that teams are not necessarily colocated any more. This has been true for many years for sales teams. Virtual teams either never meet or they meet only rarely. Townsend, DeMarie and Hendrickson (1998) defined virtual teams as ‘groups of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers that are assembled using a combination of telecommunications and information technologies to accomplish an organizational task’. An advantage of virtual teams is that an organization can use the most appropriately skilled people for the task, wherever they are located. In larger companies the probability that the necessary and desired expertise for any sophisticated or complex task is in the same place geographically is low.
Disadvantages spring from the distance between team members. Virtual teams cross time zones, countries , continents and cultures. All these things create their own set of challenges. Current research suggests that synchronous working (being face to face or remote) is more effective in meeting more complex challenges. Team leadership for virtual teams also creates its own issues, with both day-to-day management tasks and developmental interventions being somewhat harder from a distance.
When it comes to change, virtual teams are somewhat paradoxical. Team members can perhaps be more responsive , balancing autonomy and interdependence , and more focused on their part of the team objective. However change creates an increased need for communication, clear goals, defined roles and responsibilities, and support and recognition processes. These things are more difficult to manage in the virtual world.
Networked team
National, international and global organizations can use networked teams in an attempt to add a greater cohesion to their organization, which would not otherwise be there. Additionally they may wish to capture learning in one part of the organization and spread it across the whole organization.
We might have grouped virtual and networked teams under the same category. However we could think of the networked team as being similar to a parallel team, in the sense that its primary purpose is not business as usual, but part of an attempt by the organization to increase sustainability and build capacity through increasing the reservoir of knowledge across the whole organization.
Networked teams are an important anchor for organizations in times of change. They can be seen as part of the glue that gives a sense of cohesion to people within the organization.
Management team
Management teams coordinate and provide direction to the sub-units under their jurisdiction, laterally integrating interdependent sub-units across key business processes.
(Mohrman, Cohen and Mohrman, 1995)
The management team is ultimately responsible for the overall performance of the business unit. In itself it may not deliver any product, service or project, but clearly its function is to enable that delivery. Management teams are pivotal in translating the organization’s overarching goals into specific objectives for the various sub-units to do their share of the organization task.
Management teams are similar to work teams in terms of delivery of current operational plan, but are much more likely to be in a position of designing and delivering change as well. We expect a more senior management team to spend less time on business-as-usual matters and more time on the change agenda.
The senior management team in any organization is the team most likely to be held responsible for the organization’s ultimate success or failure. It is in a pivotal position within the organization. On the one hand it is at the top of the organization, and therefore team members have a collective leadership responsibility. On the other hand it is accountable to the non-executive board and shareholders in limited companies, or to politicians in local and central government, or to trustees in not-for-profit organizations. Along with the change team (see below) the management team has a particular role to play within most change scenarios, for it is its members who initiate and manage the implementation of change.
Change team
Change teams are often formed within organizations when a planned or unplanned change of significant proportions is necessary. We have separated out this type of team because of its special significance. Sometimes the senior management team is called the change team, responsible for directing and sponsoring the changes. Sometimes the change team is a special project team set up to implement change. At other times the change team is a parallel team, set up to tap into the organization and be a conduit for feedback as to how the changes are being received.
Obviously different organizations have different terminologies, so what in one organization is called a project team delivering a change will be a change team delivering a project in another organization.
More and more organizations also realize that the management of change is more likely to succeed if attention is given to the people side of change. Hence a parallel team drawn from representatives of the whole workforce can be a useful adjunct in terms of assessing and responding to the impact of the changes on people.
We see the change team as an important starting point in the change process.
STOP AND THINK!
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2.4 |
Of the teams of which you are a member, which are more suitable to lead change and which more suitable to implement change? Justify your answer. |
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Making Sense of Change Management Authors: Cameron E., Green M. Published year: 2003 Pages: 22-23/96 |
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