In a message dated 7/14/99 1:35:45 AM Central Daylight Time,
learnshops@thresholds.com writes:
>With hindsight, is there anything that might have been done to better
>integrate the new folks into the group in order to keep the team spirit
>and commitment to shared purpose alive?
Part of what happened to the Ft. Worth team from my perspective was the
lack of really understanding that we had a High Performance Work Team and
therefore we didn't realize just how dynamic we were and also how fragile
we were.
With the introduction of new people, both hourly and management, competition
raised its ugly head. Since there was no one who really had an understanding
of team dynamics and the need for different leadership and followership roles
during the various stages of what I term the "team cyclical" periods the
team faltered. It was particularly vulnerable because we had had no team
training. Ours was a natural work team that included management and hourly
workers that became dynamic, but we didn't understand the team process
issues, team growth issues, nor team role issues. There wasn't a strong
leader who knew when to direct and when to let go nor how to integrate new
people into the philosophy of cooperation.
In hindsight what could have been done to prevent the falter from team to
group?
Taking into consideration that this occured in 1990-91 and that for
Western style management, teams were still a relatively new concept,
training in team leadership, team dynamics and interpersonal skills would
have helped tremendously. However, the whole concept of teams and their
dynamics were under study about this time which is why the book "The
Wisdom of Teams" was written. There just wasn't a lot of research to draw
from. Too, competition was (and in most cases still is) the paradigm and
even though our team cooperated to be successful for a time it was easy to
fall back to the old paradigm of competition especially from outsiders who
came into either the plant or the organization to "make a name" for
themselves.
Our organization had not learned how to reward teams and certainly the
whole system of rewards is a big issue here. For instance, we later set
up competition between teams by having corporate mandated team goals.
Those teams that met the goals, won a trip to New York City for a gala
event. However, only one person from a team could go causing resentment
by the other team members. This was not conducive to the concept of
teams. We were still stuck into the win/lose mentality and I think that
is another big issue.
Some of my thoughts in hindsight. It's always interesting to think about
that period and the more I do the more I learn what we did right and what
we did wrong. As Dr. Deming once told me, "I've learned a lot since
then".
Linda Ortberg
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