Building the Team Organization

How To Open Minds, Resolve Conflict, and Ensure Cooperation

D. Tjosvold

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN:
  9781349590339
  9780230247123
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137479938
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Strategia di business
• Index: Business

Interdependence is a basic characteristic of organizations, yet it is only recently that managers, professionals, and employees have begun to appreciate that organizational success depends upon teamwork. This book provides managers, professionals, and employees with a concise and powerful understanding of productive teamwork in organizations.

chapter 1

Teambuilding is Necessary

I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community, and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.

George Bernard Shaw

Vineet Nayar (2010) was convinced that HCL Technologies, an information technology (IT) services provider based in Delhi, had to change if it was to meet the demands of customers for long-term partners, not just to hire discrete IT services. HCL did change. From 2005 to 2009, and despite the financial crisis of 2008, it nearly tripled its annual revenue, doubled its market capitalization, and was acclaimed as a best employer in India. Perhaps most significantly, it had developed an Employees First, Customers Second (EFCS) culture.

Nayar had the insight that he could not just transform his company single-handedly. He could not just take the “leap” into a new organization culture by himself; he had to help everyone take the “leap.” For people to work for change, they had to be convinced themselves that the present ways of operating were inadequate and that there was a clearly superior, viable alternative.

But how can thousands of employees become convinced that change is needed and possible? Nayar realized that giving charismatic speeches, even if he could, was insufficient; active participation was necessary. He met senior managers in small groups and employees in large meetings to challenge them to face the reality of HCL’s current position. These gatherings as well as meetings with customers helped to develop the alternative where the emphasis would be on customers partnering with HCL employees to provide IT solutions, which grew into the EFCS culture. Later these gatherings came to be called Mirror Mirror and were relied upon to reflect on HCL and plan for change.

In 2005, Nayar invited 100 senior managers for three days to form a strategy to define and implement the EFCS culture. Rather than talk and persuade, Nayar encouraged discussion where managers voiced their ideas and hopes but also their concerns, their “Yes, buts…”. Some managers feared that HCL would fail to win global customers while losing its local base; other managers raised questions about specific strategies; still others wanted to charge ahead quickly. Three days of expressing their views fully, listening to each other, and refining their strategies helped to build a solid consensus.

Employees also needed to appreciate the need for change and to understand the EFCS culture. Nayar held company-wide meetings called Directions that, though they might include 4,000 employees, stimulated discussion and thinking. To set an open atmosphere, Nayar began by dancing around the room to Bollywood music, asking individual employees to dance with him. He reasoned that employees would then see him as an open-minded person, though not a particularly good dancer, and be willing to voice their concerns. Indeed, two hours of animated discussion typically followed his opening remarks.

Small-scale catalysts complemented discussions on culture. An on-line system facilitated employees making suggestions and lodging complaints; staff recorded whether their manager’s response was satisfactory. This program put managers in the service of front-line employees, making the EFCS culture concrete.

HCL had a 360-degree feedback program to reinforce the need for managers and others to work together up and down and across the hierarchy. But few people gave their manager feedback. Nayar put his results on-line for everyone in the company to see and to give people more incentive to provide feedback to him. Many managers followed suit, revitalizing the 360-degree feedback program.

Managers and employees were given access to financial data on the company as a whole to appreciate the need for change and to measure their progress. Rather than review each of his 100 managers’ business plans himself, Nayar asked them to place videos on the company intranet where managers reviewed and discussed each other’s plans.

Employee First Councils reinforced that HCL valued individual employees and helped them to pursue their interests and values outside work. Employees formed groups around specific “passions” from art and music, to philanthropy and social responsibility. These councils helped to integrate work and personal lives, making work more meaningful.

Nayar also developed a good working relationship with the board. The board wanted to discuss major decisions before they were made and Nayar wanted their experience and support. The best way was to work transparently where Nayar kept them informed with frequent reports and meetings.

A Team Organization Leader

Vineet Nayar was a leader. He understood that the essence of leadership is working with and through others where others are not just direct reports. That meant that at HCL he should work with and through the thousands of employees worldwide as well as his own board. He listened to customers but he recognized that his primary focus should be to strengthen and prepare employees—“Employees First”—who then could take care of customers—“Customers Second.”

He was a team leader. Recognizing the value of teamwork, he developed various platforms and settings that encouraged managers and employees to work together. He vitalized the 360-degree feedback to let other leaders know that they worked with and through many people. Rather than provide feedback to managers individually, he had them share their plans with each other so that they could comment and brainstorm together. Rather than announce decisions, he and managers hammered out the company’s strategic plans together.

Specifically, Nayar was a team builder; he realized that it is not enough to put people in one room and call them a team. He could set the stage but he recognized that individuals must make these teams work; they must choose to commit to making their teams succeed. Before they will “leap” they must themselves be convinced that the teams are valuable to the company as well as useful for themselves. Despite the size of HCL, he encouraged everyone to consider the company’s strategies and methods; he worked for a shared understanding of the issues and difficulties and common solutions to deal with them.

To encourage open-minded teamwork, he kept his own speeches short, listened more than persuaded, and even danced to show that he was open and not afraid of showing his limitations. He realized that people must share their reservations as well as their enthusiasm; otherwise they may well build up their doubts about the value and the methods that Nayar was proposing. “Yes, buts,” if unanswered, harden into resistance to change.

Team Building’s Contributions

Vineet Nayar and HCL illustrate central points about building a team organization. Teamwork is valuable, indeed, needed for organizations, employees, and their customers; but it must be nurtured and developed. Leaders can play a critical role by laying the groundwork and setting directions, but managers and employees must take up the challenge and make their teams work. Team members must express their ideas and frustrations, listen and understand, and combine their ideas to solve problems. They must channel their energies and work out their frustrations with each other. Nayar, or indeed any other leader, cannot do that alone.

Nayar and the managers and employees at HCL had good reasons to develop and make their teams work. They were investing in teamwork to strengthen themselves so that, in turn, they could serve their customers. Then they could develop HCL into a company in which they would build their career and develop their lives.

Teambuilding is rational. HCL employees had to “leap”—they had to commit themselves to the company and to building it as a team organization. Emotions propel this leaping and the leap stimulates a great many feelings. However, the leap is rational as well as emotional. Nayar did not expect employees to leap blindly and follow him; they had to understand that this new team organization would pay off for themselves and their customers.

Teamwork is highly valuable and well worth investment because it serves essential conditions for effective organizations. Teamwork helps organizations to serve their customers; no organization can survive without the support and sponsorship of the people it serves. The second central condition is that an organization requires the energy and commitment of its people; teamwork can help employees find their organizational work valuable, as it helps them meet core needs and reach aspirations.

Organizations must serve customers and employees when marketplaces and, indeed, societies are changing. As illustrated by HCL, teamwork helps organizations manage change so that they can revitalize themselves as they adapt and take advantage of the evolving marketplace and world in order to serve their customers and their employees.

The next section briefly reviews knowledge, showing that teams have major advantages when it comes to innovation within organizations and provide more value to their customers. Considerable research has also demonstrated that teamwork is good for individuals as well as the organization as a whole. Teamwork is essential to adapt to the changing environment.

Teamwork to Serve Customers

Cooperative, open-minded teamwork is key to providing value to customers. Research has shown that these teams can overcome obstacles and innovate to develop new products and services that serve customers’ needs. Teamwork is also needed to solve important customer complaints and problems. In relationship marketing, employees and customers become their own team, committed to meeting customer goals and thereby creating customer loyalty to the company.

Innovation

Companies innovate by creating new, valued products and services, but also by developing new technology and methods that help them deliver their products and services more effectively to their customers. Innovation in an organization, though, is much more than a bright insight or a quick flash of inspiration. Teamwork where employees and managers work together is needed to confront and overcome significant hurdles and take the many steps needed to innovate in organizations.

Innovators must find problems and situations and turn them into opportunities. They cannot just throw up their hands in frustration, but need to use this frustration to dig deeper into the situation and think of alternatives.

Once the issue is understood, people must create different solutions. Typically, modifications of old approaches are first discussed but found unsatisfactory. Feeling blocked and frustrated, people may feel pessimistic and withdraw. During this period of frustration and doubt, ideas incubate as the problem is considered from several perspectives. Sometimes the solution comes in a great illumination: The “Aha! I’ve got it!” experience. Then the solution is elaborated and selected for more careful testing.

Creative solutions by their very nature can be highly damaging and costly. They must be vigorously tested and evaluated. Prototypes, field tests, demonstration projects, focus groups, and surveys are used to collect data. People debate and challenge each other’s conclusions and implications drawn from the data.

Well-tested ideas and insights are necessary for innovation in organizations, but so is persistence. People must be motivated to make the effort and bear the frustration and tension that usually accompany innovation and change. They need to believe that they have the courage and imagination and find working on innovations rewarding and exciting.

Innovators must overcome resistance. People are often comfortable with the status quo, have been rewarded for reliable, stable performance, and will want good reasons for why they should go through the effort required to make changes. They may suspect that the innovation will work against their interests, power, and status. They want to be convinced that the innovation is cost-effective, fair, has acceptable risks, does not stretch resources too far, and promotes long-term interests.

Individuals working alone cannot be expected to overcome all these hurdles and innovate. Effective teamwork throughout the organization is necessary.

Solve Customer Problems

Contemporary managers recognize that they must stay in touch and listen to their customers. Not only are retail stores and other consumer companies taking their customers more seriously, professional organizations, governmental agencies, and regulated companies are too. They must listen to customers who are frustrated with their service. But listening is only a first step. Companies must also respond to customer complaints and concerns. Successful companies listen open-mindedly, act appropriately, and use customer problems to improve service and win more customers. Teamwork is necessary to develop high quality customer service.

Serving customers is not accomplished by the skill and flair of individual salespersons. Coordinated action is needed to respond to customer problems successfully. Not often can the employee who hears the complaint solve the problem alone. The employee who listens must communicate and get others to assist in solving the problem. Especially in larger, bureaucratic companies, employees from different departments and outlooks have to coordinate. To market high technology effectively, for example, service, training, engineers, and technical personnel must coordinate with each other and with salespersons (Tjosvold, Meredith, and Wong, 1998).

As we have seen, HCL was learning that their customers wanted solutions to their problems, not simply technical expertise. It is not enough to give a client various kinds of computer knowledge or a solution that makes sense from only one standpoint. Clients want a solution that integrates the knowledge bases into a coherent approach that will work for them. To win and fulfill contracts, engineers and technology specialists must bring their various expertise and experience to bear and find ways to incorporate them. Nayar and other managers were working to develop a culture and vision, compensation system, and evaluation procedures that encourage and reward teamwork across functional areas among various specialists to serve customers.

Teamwork to Enhance Employees

Organizations must serve their customers to survive and prosper; but for innovation to happen and customer relationships to be developed, employees must make intense commitments. They must take the long-term view, suffer through frustrations, and master hurdles to help their companies adapt, often with little immediate recognition...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Section I Productive Teamwork
• 1 Teambuilding is Necessary
• 2 What Makes Teams Effective?
• 3 Applying the Model: The Method Reinforces the Message
• 4 Getting Started
• Section II Building Team Relationships
• 5 Leadership for Teamwork, Teamwork for Leadership
• 6 Strengthen Cooperative Goals
• 7 Working Open-Mindedly
• 8 Managing Conflict Constructively
• Section III Making the Organization a Team
• 9 Teamwork with Customers
• 10 Team Organization: Departments Working Together
• 11 Partnering with Competitors and Government: Moving to the Team Economy
• 12 Reflection: Learning to be a Better Team
• References
• Index