TEAMS AND GROUPS

Professor Bob Haigh & Professor D. S. Morris

Teamwork

Organisations are created because the goals and objectives, which they are seeking to secure, are beyond the capability and capacity of any one individual to attain. Thus, organisations represent the means through which collective effort in pursuit of a range of discrete and interrelated ends are sought. Those ends are the outcomes of processes and processes are conducted and managed through the collective endeavours of individuals acting in concert. Hence, all organisations have recourse to the utilisation of groups. For organisation managers this means that they must:

• determine when, how and where groups may be employed most effectively to achieve specified process outcomes and desired organisational goals.



• manage groups so that they perform at the highest attainable levels of effectiveness and efficiency.



• ensure that only the positive features of the use of groups are manifested and that any unwanted disadvantages of the use of groups, such as the development of a confrontational informal leadership, group norms and conformity which are below specified levels of productivity and the emergence of a counter-culture through the growth of group cohesiveness, are eradicated.

Although groups are an ever-present feature in all organisations, not all groups are alike.

Types of Groups:

in simple terms it is possible to distinguish between three types of groups which are to be found in organisations:

• Formal group: a group which is deliberately established and which is charged with conducting one or more specified tasks relating to the attainment of organisational goals.



• Informal Group: a group which emerges through individuals coming into contact with each other and interacting on a regular basis. Such groups have the potential to facilitate the attainment of organisational goals through, for example, the building of esprit de corps, but they also possess the potential to develop sub-cultures incompatible with organisational goals.



• Reference Group: a group to which an organisational member may or may not belong but which has norms and values with which the member identifies and which, therefore, has the potential to influence that member’s perceptions of, and actions within, the organisation.

All of these three types of groups are to be found in any organisation, Quality Management, whilst recognising the importance of both informal groups and reference groups, is primarily concerned with the creation and utilisation of formal groups working as teams.

Team:

A team is a small number of people with complimentary skills who are committed to a common purpose, who are collectively seeking the attainment of a set of performance goals, through a shared approach for which they hold themselves accountable and for which they are held accountable by others.

Rationale For Using Teams:

Expressed in its most simple terms the rationale could be "because groups exist they must be recast as teams and used in the most effective and efficient way to secure organisational goals". More profoundly, however, teams are used in Quality Management because, by actively involving employees in teams, advantages accrue to the organisation, which cannot be secured by the use of traditional management practices. By enhancing employee involvement through the use of teams. Quality Management gains the following advantages:

• replacing the adversarial mentality with trust and co-operation



• developing the skills and leadership capability of individuals, creating a sense of mission and fostering trust



• increasing employee morale and commitment to the organisation



• fostering creativity and innovation, the source of competitive advantage



• helping people understand quality principles and embodying within them the corporate culture



• allowing employees to solve problems at the source of those problems



• improving quality and, hence, corporate productivity.

Many writers and practitioners have emphasised the crucial role to be played by teams in pursuit of the goal of continuous quality improvement, which is sine qua non of Quality Management. Berg notes that "it is becoming increasingly evident that the success of future quality efforts will depend to a large extent upon the ability to create cohesive teams". (1) Similarly, Shannon observes that "Success in the 1990s will necessitate that rare combination of quality leadership….and project teams…..that are involved in making company decisions". (2) Stravinskas has no doubt that "Quality teams have been used extensively as a method of improving quality". (3) Whilst, for Musselwhite and Moran "self-directed work teams drive a quality improvement effort into every fibre(sic) of the organisation". (4)

Furthermore, it is the activities of teams, which essentially facilitate an organisation moving from what could be described a traditional work system to a high performance work system:

Types of Team:

In Quality Management the most common types of teams are:

• Quality Circles: teams of workers and supervisors which meet regularly to address problems of quality and productivity in the workplace.



• Problem-solving teams: teams whose members meet in the workplace to solve a specific process problem and, having done so, disband.



• Management teams: teams consisting primarily of managers drawn from various functional or process areas in order to plan the co-ordination of the work of other teams.



• Work teams: teams which are organised to perform entire jobs, rather than just a small discrete activity within a wider process. (5)

Unpacking Teams:

It is important to delineate the agenda for these various types of team:

Quality Circles are small groups, ranging from 4 to 15 members with 8 members being considered to provide a feasible and realistic norm. All members come from the same shop or floor area which provides the Circle with its identity. The members work under the same supervisor, who is a member of the Circle. Customarily, but not always, the leader of the Circle as leader, he/she moderates discussion and seeks an organic consensus. The supervisor, as leader of the Circle, does not make decisions nor issue orders nor make decisions; the Circle members, as a group, make their own decisions.

Voluntary membership means that everyone is afforded the opportunity to join the Circle and to contribute to its deliberations.

Circles meet weekly or more frequently if deemed appropriate by Circle members, on company time, with pay, and in space set aside from their normal working environment.

Circle members receive training in the rules of quality circle participation, the mechanics of running and making presentations to management, and the techniques of group problem solving.

Circle members, not management, select the problems and projects that the Circle will address, are responsible for the gathering and collation of all information relevant to the problem or project, undertake the analysis of the problem and develop solutions to it.

Technical specialists and management assist the Circles with additional information and expertise when invited to do so. Circles receive advice and guidance from an adviser/facilitator who is present at all meetings but who is not a Circle member.

Presentations to management are given to those managers and technical specialists who would normally make the decision on a proposal.

Problem Solving Teams: are charged with generating a feasible solution to a particular problem and, having done so, are disbanded. In essence they are required to undertake a set of interrelated activities relating to that particular problem:

• define the problem



• observe the current process



• think of the causes of the problem



• select the most likely cause



• test the cause under operating conditions



• act to implement the chosen solution



• review and revise the implemented, chosen solution



• redefine the problem; if it is necessary to do so.

Management Teams are, as their title suggests teams consisting of managers drawn from the various functional areas of the organisation or from among those who have responsibility for designated process areas of organisational life. Their primary task is to co-ordinate the work of the diverse range of teams, which is brought into being in order to enhance quality and productivity and further, to provide managerial representation on the corporate Quality Council.

Works Teams are teams charged with performing entire process tasks rather than being assigned responsibility for a narrow and specific part of an entire process.

Employee Involvement Through Teams:

Employee involvement may be depicted as progressing through a series of stages which collectively constitute a continuum; a series of stages which is matched by a continuum of envisaged outcomes from each of these stages:

From Employee Involvement To Empowerment:

Here the emphasis is upon the one extreme of both of the above continuums; the areas where total self-determination generates the benefits of ownership. Self-determination demands, as a sine qua non, the emergence of self-managed teams; teams which exhibit the following characteristics in that they:

• share various management and leadership functions



• plan, control and improve their own work processes



• set their own goals and inspect their own work



• create their own schedules and review their own performance



• prepare their own budgets and co-ordinate their own work with other teams



• order materials, keep inventories and liase with suppliers



• determine their own training needs



• seek expert guidance and maintain team discipline



• take responsibility for the quality of their work

There are profound differences between teams which are manifestations of employee involvement and teams which are self managing or self directing ie teams which have become empowered. Such differences may best be revealed through a comparison of a Quality Improvement Team, which is an example of employee involvement and a Self Directed Work Team, which is an example of an empowered team:

The Move To Empowered Teams:

Empowered teams do not make their appearance in the corporate pursuit of the gains, which Quality Management can bestow by chance but by design. To move from teams which secure employee involvement to the self-directed work teams, which are the embodiment of empowerment demands that a number of actions be taken. It has been suggested that seven steps be followed in the design of self-directed work teams:

1. create a work unit responsible for the entire task



2. establish specific measures of the work unit’s output



3. design multi-skilled jobs


4. create internal management and task co-ordination


5. create boundary management tasks


6. establish access to information


7. establish support systems

The first six of the above seven steps will be ones with which practising managers will already possess something more than a passing familiarity because, as Evans and Lindsay note:

"The requirement to transform an existing organisation to a team approach aren’t considerably different from ones used to develop a start-up work-team organisational structure….Careful planning for both work-design and co-ordination issues is required for (the) successful introduction of self-managed teams."(6)

These are issues which the great majority of practising managers will already have successfully addressed. However, the last of the seven points, namely the need to establish support systems to sustain self-directed work teams, and thus to reap the benefits that empowerment can bestow, is one which requires further consideration because it is one with which most managers will not be familiar, one which is readily overlooked and one which is imperative if continuous quality improvement is to be attained. Here, the Facilitator has a crucial role to play.

The Role of The Facilitator:

The role of the facilitator is briefly discussed at this juncture because, although being an important part of the infra-structure necessary to drive the never-ending search for continuous quality improvement, the facilitator’s role is essentially defined in relation to those teams within the organisation whose development, to the status of self-direction and empowerment, is the facilitator’s primary obligation.

If the realistic assumption that:

"Every (team) brings both assets and liabilities to the task of problem solving (and that) it also brings factors that can be either assets or liabilities depending upon the skills of the members and leader", is accepted, then, the role of the Facilitator may best be viewed as capitalising on team assets whilst actively seeking to reduce team liabilities. (7)

If an audit were to be conducted of those assets and liabilities, the following balance sheet would emerge:

Team Assets :

• greater knowledge, information, experience and expertise: the team has a greater aggregation of these facets than that which can be possessed by any one individual; this is the raison d’etre of team creation and utilisation.


• more approaches to a problem: this is derived from the above and reason dictates that if delineation of more approaches to a particular problem can be generated, then, the better is the chance of discerning the best available solution to that problem.


• increased acceptance of a solution: solutions may not be effectively implemented by those who do not accept them as legitimate and appropriate. Individuals who actively participate in team based problem solving are more likely to perceive the chosen solution as one which they "own" and are more likely to acquire a "psychological stake" in its success.


• better implementation: this is derived from the above, for when the implementers have participated in the generation of a solution to a problem that solution will be better implemented because the chance of "communication error" between the solution and its implementation is reduced. (8)

Team Liabilities:

• premature decisions: most teams generate a number of solutions to a given problem, each of which has its advocates and disparagers. Often, the first solution gaining support from the team is accepted especially if it reflects past "knowledge", better solutions which may later emerge rarely receive the attention which they warrant.


• individual domination: a formal or informal team leader may dominate team discussions and strongly influence team problem solving activities even if unskilled in the techniques of problem solving demanded by the rigours of Quality Management.


• conflicting alternative solutions: a zero-sum game develops when what is required by Quality Management is the development of a win-win situation. Initial agreement on finding the best possible solution to a problem of poor quality, becomes a battle of wills to gain acceptance for a subjectively preferred solution as opposed to the objective (measurable) merits of a rival’s solution.


• prior commitment: some team members may have a prior commitment to a particular solution because of personal preference or commitments which are external to the team and its task. Alternative solutions to a problem of poor quality are, therefore, not fully generated, debated and evaluated.

Essentially, team assets are derived from the extent to which rational decision making criteria are employed by a team to resolve problems emanating from poor quality, whilst team liabilities have their origin in the extent to which such rational decision making criteria are avoided. What all organisations need to secure is the eradication of team liabilities and the enhancement of team assets which are imperative for the furtherance of the process of continuous quality improvement. It is in seeking that transformation that the role of the Facilitator assumes paramount importance. Some organisations have recourse to a Quality Champion as a means of emphasising the importance of team training in the introduction and usage of quality decision making techniques and the development of team.

The Role of The Quality Champion:

The characteristics with which the Quality Champion needs to be endowed may be designated as follows: (9)

• AMBIENT: walks the job


• AWARE: realises the presence of problems of poor quality


• ANALYTICAL: diagnoses the cause(s) of poor quality


• ANTICIPATORARY: acts in advance of crisis


• ACTIVE: leads suppliers and co- processors by example


• ACKNOWLEDGED: is recognised for his/her quality deeds


• ACKNOWLEDGING: gives recognition to the quality deeds of others

However such traits, whilst laudable in themselves and essential to the introduction and maintenance of the quality thrust in any corporate context, fall short of comprising the full persona required of the incumbent of the role of Facilitator. That this is so is directly attributable to the additional aspects of the Facilitator’s role, which are held to be imperative.

The Role of The Facilitator Revisited:

In particular, it is contended that it is an integral part of the role of the Facilitator to act as the:

• GUIDE


• PHILOSOPHER


• FRIEND…

of the quality improvement team to which he/she is assigned as a central part of the organisational pursuit of the implementation of the tenets of Quality Management. Only in this way will the quality improvement team develop into the self-directed work team, which is the epitome of empowerment and crucial to the attainment of enhanced quality and continuous quality improvement throughout the organisation.

As GUIDE, the Facilitator must:

• aid in the training of the quality improvement team (QIT) members to ensure that every team member possesses all of the analytical tools and techniques necessary for the team to discover and analyse the presence of problems of poor quality and to solve, implement and monitor the solution to that problem under operating conditions.


• recount, both as an aid to training and as a means of maintaining QIT motivation, the lessons which have been learned from the experiences of other such teams both within and without the organisation.


• chart and manage the essential interactions between the QIT and other actors in the corporate infra-structure which has been created to succour and sustain the drive to enhanced quality. Among the other actors will be the corporate Quality Council/Committee and other QIT’s.


• ease resourcing, resource allocation and accountability for resource management within the QIT.

As PHILOSOPHER, the Facilitator must:

explain the organisation’s quality vision, mission, strategy and values, delineate the QIT’s terms of reference as these were devised by the corporate Quality Council/ Committee, as part of its central role in any quality initiative, and help to foster the team’s awareness of top management commitment to that quality initiative.

As FRIEND, the Facilitator must:

• assist in the building of a cohesive, viable and enduring set of relationships between the QIT’s members.


• advise on the directions which the QIT may elect to follow in order to effectively, efficiently and economically focus its collective quality improvement efforts.

For QIT’s to move from the team liability column to the team asset column of our audit sheet is not something which can be achieved in a short space of time. The reason for this lies in both the imperative for thorough training of the team in quality methods, but also in the very nature of team dynamics.

Musselwhite and Moran (1990) echo the author’s experience when they contend that all QIT’s have to progress gradually through five stages of development before they can realistically be accorded the accolade of being ‘self-directed and self-directing’: (10)

Start-up: a period of enthusiasm for the new role and the prospects, which the future holds.

State of confusion: with doubts emerging within the QIT as to what is required of it and its individual members, and while new relationships are brought to a state of stability.

Leader-centred teams: as one individual is supported as the primary source of the QIT’s internal direction and external liaison.

Tightly formed teams: as the QIT exhibits intense loyalty which may conceal both internal unrest and dysfunction, and generate hostility through competition with other QIT’s located elsewhere in the organisation.

Self-directed teams: as the QIT reaches maturity and all team members routinely acquire new skills, assume new tasks, seek out and respond to internal and external customer needs, refine work processes and make all of their own operational decisions.

Until stage 5 is achieved, the facilitator is imperative, since even as late as stage 4, the complete conversion of team liabilities into team assets has not been fully accomplished and will come to nothing if the facilitator withdraws or is prematurely removed. Should either of these undesirable events unfold, then a conversion process, which can be realistically estimated as taking in the region of between 2 and 5 years, will be further delayed if not irretrievably lost.

Conclusion

The facilitator is the key to the building of effective, self-directed QIT’s which are at the centre of the drive towards continuous quality improvement. Do not be over hasty and rush into creating QIT’s at the outset of a corporate quality initiative. The rewards which such teams bring lie well in the future. Forget the team and remember the facilitator and your efforts will show a wonderful return upon the investment that you make. First, facilitate the facilitator. The facilitator alone can create and sustain the essential movement from QIT’s in debit to QIT’s in credit. Succour and cherish the facilitator. Not only is the facilitator the QIT’s guide, philosopher and friend, he/she is also management’s guide, philosopher and friend on the long road to continuous quality improvement. The facilitator alone can bring into being and sustain that most powerful vehicle in the search for continuous quality improvement; the self-directed QIT which is itself the fulcrum of the movement from the detection of poor quality to the prevention of poor quality.

Cherish the facilitator and the QIT’s won’t quit management skills.

End Note:

TEAMS - HOW TO BUILD EFFECTIVE TEAMS - A checklist

Team Building Methods:

To build an effective team, it is vital to exercise leadership skills. It is particularly important to demonstrate to the team that:

• You know where you want them to go


• You know how they are going to get there


• You know what you expect each member of the team to achieve


• You know what you are doing


• Such an approach to leadership provides a firm base, which will allow you to concentrate on doing the following things:


• Encourage participation in agreeing objectives and targets


• Group related tasks together so that group members know that they can make their jobs easier by co-operating with others.


• Rotate jobs within groups so that group members identify with the team as a whole rather than with their own jobs.


• Ensure that communications flow freely within and between groups.


• Encourage informal meetings between groups to resolve problems.

Effective Teams

• An effective team is cohesive, self-supportive and knows where it is going:


• The atmosphere tends to be informal, comfortable and relaxed.


• There is a great deal of discussion in which, initially, everyone participates, but it remains pertinent to the task of the group.


• The task or objective of the group is well understood and accepted by the members. There will have been free discussion of the objective at some point until it was formulated in such a way that the members of the group could commit themselves to it.


• The members listen to each other. Every idea is given a hearing. People do not appear to be afraid of looking foolish by putting forward a creative thought, even if it seems fairly extreme.


• There is disagreement. Disagreements are not suppressed or overridden by premature group action. The reasons are carefully examined, and the group seeks to resolve them rather than to dominate the dissenter.


• Most decisions are reached by a kind of consensus in which it is clear that everybody is in general agreement and willing to go along.


• Criticism is frequent, frank and relatively comfortable. There is little evidence of personal attack, either openly or in a hidden fashion.


• People are free in expressing their feelings as well as their ideas both on the problem and on the group’s operation.


• When action is taken, clear assignments are made and accepted.


• The leader of the group does not dominate it, nor does the group defer unduly to him.


• These characteristics present an ideal, which might be striven for but seldom attained. There will be occasions when some of the more time consuming elements will have to be dispensed with eg. 2, 6 and 8 and concentrate on 3 and 9, ie ‘the task or objective of the group is well understood and accepted by the members….When action is taken, clear assignments are made and accepted’.

References

1. BERG, D H "Building Team Commitment to Quality." Proceedings of the American Society for Quality Control. 42nd Annual Conference. Dallas, Texas. 1988. pp 29 – 33


2. SHANNON, L L "Quality Leadership plus Empowered Project Improvement Teams = Overwhelming Success." Proceedings of the American Society for Quality Control 44th Annual Conference. San Francisco, California. 1990. pp 153 – 158


3. STRAVINSKAS, J "Analysis of the Factors Impacting Quality Teams." Proceedings of the American Society for Quality Control. 45th Annual Conference. Milwaukee, WI. 1991. pp 159 –162


4. MUSSELWHITE, E & MORAN, L "Self–directed Work Teams: the next quality frontier." Proceedings of the American Society for Quality Control 44th Annual Conference. San Francisco, California. 1990. pp 506–509


5. EVANS, J R & LINDSAY, W M The Management and Control of Quality. West Publishing Company. 3rd Edition. 1996. pp 465 – 466


6. ibid


7. MAIER, Norman F Problem–solving, Discussions and Conferences: Leadership, Methods and Skills. McGraw-Hill. 1963


8. ibid


9. HAIGH, R H & MORRIS, D S "Introducing Total Quality Management into an Alien Organisation Environment." Paper presented to the National Quality Management Division of the American Society for Quality Control." Atlanta, Georgia. USA. February 1991


10. MUSSELWHITE and MORAN op cit. pp 506 – 509

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