defining self managed teams

8/2/2019 Defining Self Managed Teams

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HumanResource

Project

Anushka Bhatia

BBS 2A

Roll no- 50034

Self Managed Teams


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Acknowledgements

Through this acknowledgment, I express our sincere gratitude to all those people who

have been associated with this project and have helped me with it and made it a

worthwhile experience.

Firstly I extend our thanks to the various people who have shared their opinions and

experiences through which I received the required information crucial for my report.

Finally, we express our thanks to my HR professor, Mrs Tarannum Ahmed who gave me

this opportunity to learn the subject in a practical approach and gave me valuable

suggestions regarding the project.


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Table of contents

Introduction

Methodology

o Defining Self Managed Teams

o Key features of a self managed team

o Roles and responsibilities of a self managed team

o Advantages of self-directed teams

o Challenges in developing self-direction

o Traditional groups v/s Self managed teams

o Conditions ideal for a self managed team

o HRM challenges in self managed teams

Cases from real life- Business without bosseso W.L Gore and Associates

o AT&T corporation

Findings and conclusion

Limitations of the study

Bibliography


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Introduction

Existentialist psychologist, Erich Fromm states that people are passionate beings, unable to

tolerate boredom and monotony and if unable to take a genuine interest in life, will becomecapable of perversion and destruction. If he is correct then much of the egotistical, greedy,

and undesirable behavior we are dealing with today are the symptoms of a greater illness in

the workplace. This classical paradigm of work and management is in the process of being

shifted to become congruent with the rest of life and the passion of an intelligent community.

The understanding of success has become broader and more people are thinking about

creating a world in which they want to belong. The way we perceive business and

organizational leadership is being radically reframed to suit the needs of a new environment.

The concept of a democratic workplace and a self-managing environment may have only

surfaced in the last 40 years but it has taken the workplace by storm. For a long time many

people considered it a fad but today many management theorists and consultants see its

revolution of the way we live and work.

The following project deals with the concept, structure and the purpose of one of the most

unique and popular concepts of HR- A self managed team. It attempts to explain its essence

and the reason why it is fast gaining acceptance in the workplace. It also covers the

challenges that come along with a self managed team.

The project includes a background study on two organizations that have successfully

embraced the concept of a self managed team:

1. W.L Gore and Associates2. AT&T corporation


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Defining Self Managed Teams

The origin of the word team can be traced back to the Anglo-Saxon word for family which

referred to harnessed animals to pull a load thereby implying common goals and cooperation.

With time, the concept of team-work gained importance with organizations taking measures

to ensure that a team is equipped and empowered enough to function on its own. This

situation today is perhaps best described by the term self-managed teams.

Self managed teams are closely associated with the concept of employee empowerment

which entails the employee to have the requisite authority and resources required by him to

carry out his responsibilities. A self managed team differs from a normal work team or group

in one essential way that the processes or the means to achieve the team goal are designed

and decided by the team itself. Given the stiff competition at the global level, all

organizations have been forced to focus on developing their human capital.

Thus self managed teams can be described as groups of employees who have the

responsibility and authority to manage the work they do .


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Key features of a self managed team:

Knowledge sharing and extensive communication between members is central to the

working of any self managed team

Multi-skilling is a typical characteristic of self managed teams.

Self managed teams are not managed by an external supervisor but rather facilitated

by a team leader from within the team.

Roles and responsibilities of a self managed team

Self managed are believed to have certain broad areas of responsibility or roles. These rolesprovide a common context within which all work groups in an organization can operate on a

daily basis. The specific responsibilities housed inside each role do change.

1. Uphold Organizational and Personal Values and Principlesa. Exhibiting behaviors that are consistent with organizational and personal values

and principles;

b. Making decisions grounded in organizational and personal values and principles;c. Communicating organizational values and principles to customers and suppliers;d. Communicating personal values and principles to team members; ande. Addressing conflicts between personal and organizational values and principles

with team members.

2. Accomplish the Team's Worka. Identifying what work the team needs to do;b. Prioritizing the work so it can be accomplished within agreed-upon timelines;c. Deciding who does the work;d. Scheduling the work;e. Obtaining the necessary resources to do the work;f. Doing the work within agreed-upon timelines while meeting identified customers'

requirements.

3. Organize the Team's Work Environmenta. Sorting the necessary from the unnecessary within the work environment;b. Simplifying access to ensure there is a place for everything and everything is in its

proper place;

c. Sweeping both visually and physically to ensure safety, order, cleanliness, androutine maintenance has occurred;

d. Standardizing the organization of the work areae. Self discipline in the ongoing study and reorganization of the work environment.


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4. Manage the Team's Work Processesa. Identifying the work processes that are the responsibility of the team;b. Creating a standard method for carrying out each work process, based on

customers' requirements, that includes a plan for monitoring process performance

over time;c. Continually improving how the work is done;d. Addressing problems that arise;e. Identifying opportunities for innovation;f. Sharing work process information with others throughout the organization; andg. Training team members on the team's work processes and related topics.

5. Participate in Organization-Wide Systemsa. Following organizational policies (note: these policies should be linked to the

team's work processes);

b. Recommending policy changes;

c. Participating in organization-wide training; andd. Assisting in organizational assessments, and quality systems and certificationaudits.

Why have a self managed team?

When employees are completely in-charge of their job it is likely to create a greater interest

and attachment to job. This also means that the managers can devote their time in

innovation and process improvement rather than monitoring the employees. Also, since theemployees are the front-liners, their tacit knowledge of even the most miniscule aspect of

the job is utilized when they are given the responsibility of the quality and end result. As self

managed teams require constant exchange of information, it leads to breaking of

communication barriers between groups of employees. Other reported benefits of self-

managed teams include: reduced absenteeism, increased productivity and increased

employee satisfaction.


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Advantages of self-directed teams

Why is this concept of self-directed teams growing? A recent survey of more than 500

organizations offers several reasons why senior line managers chose to revolutionize theirapproach to work. Self-directed work teams have resulted in:

* Improved quality, productivity and service.

* Greater flexibility.

* Reduced operating costs.

* Faster response to technological change.

* Fewer, simpler job classifications.

* Better response to workers' values.

* Increased employee commitment to the organization.

* Ability to attract and retain the best people.

Challenges in developing self-direction

The major challenges organizations face in changing from a traditional environment to a high-

involvement environment include developing the teams and fostering a culture of

management support. Teams go through several stages of increasing involvement on their way

to self-management. This journey can take between two and five years, and is never-ending

from a learning and renewal perspective.

Comprehensive training is also critical to developing effective self-directed work teams. The

training for these teams must be more comprehensive than for other types of teams. Not only

must employees learn to work effectively in teams and develop skills in problem solving and

decision making, they also must learn basic management skills so they can manage their own

processes. Additionally, people must be cross-trained in every team member's job. Therefore,

it is not uncommon for self-directed work teams to spend 20 percent of their time in ongoing

training.


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Traditional groups v/s Self managed teams

The following table highlights the contrast between traditional work groups and self-

directed teams and gives examples of self-managed team results:

Traditional Work Groups Self-Directed Teams

Take directions Take initiative

Seek individual reward Focus on team contributions

Focus on blame Concentrate on solutions

Compete Cooperate

Stop at present goals Continually improve and innovate

Demand for more resources Work with what they have

React at emergencies Prevent emergencies

Spend money to improve quality Save money by improving quality

Organization Result

Proctor and Gamble 30-50% lower manufacturing costs

Federal Express Cut service problems by 13 % in one year

AT&T Credit Corporation Applications processed per day doubled

General Electric Productivity increased by 250%

Xerox Teams at least 30% more productive

Volvo Production costs decrease by 255

Honeywell Output increased by 280%

It is no wonder with behaviors and results like those listed above that many organizations are

taking the transition towards self-managing teams serious. It has become a very attractive

prospect in the midst of an unpredictable and changing marketplace. A word of caution can

be given at this stage of the process. This may appear as a very compelling argument however

there are certain situations that are more appropriate to self-managing teams than others and

there are other options to be considered.


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Conditions Facilitating Psychological Empowerment of Self managed

teams

Condition Unfavorable FavorableOrganization structure High centralization and

formalizationVery decentralized, lowformalization

Competitive strategy Low cost standard product orservice

Customized, highlydifferentiatedproduct/service

Task design and technology Simple, repetitive task andreliable technology

Complex, non-routine task,unreliable technology

Duration of relation withcustomers/clients

Brief transactions during ashort time interval

Repeated interaction in acontinuing relationship

Dominant culture values inthe organization

Reliable, efficient operationswithout any mistakes

Flexibility, learning, andparticipation

Employee traits Low achievementmotivation, external locus ofcontrol, and emotionalinstability

High need for achievement,internal locus of control, andemotional stability

Employee ability Unskilled, inexperienced Highly skilled professional

Employee tenure Temporary employee Regular, continuing employee

Employee ownership andrewards for success

None or very little Employees are shareholdersor co-owners

Employee involvementprograms

None Extensive programs stronglysupported by topmanagement

Mutual Trust Low High


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HRM challenges in self managed teams

Traditional work groups

In traditional work groups and teams, management usually assumes the primary

responsibility for defining needed positions, recruiting the right candidates, establishingcriteria for evaluating the candidates, selecting the new worker, and orienting him or herto the job. Further, once the employee is on the job, management then monitors andevaluates the employee's performance and takes corrective action if required to improveperformance.

Self managed teams

The self managed teams, however, assumes full responsibility for managing itshuman resources.

Following guidelines established by the HR department, the self managed team

usually performs all of the functions that result in a new hire.

It also assumes responsibility for resolving individual performance problems thatoccur when individual members don't meet team expectations.

As a result, team members must learn to master such HR skills as recruiting andselecting new hires, monitoring individual performance, and then taking action tocorrect performance problems.


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While it might be true that self managed teams will approach performanceproblem solving quite differently than traditional management approaches (e.g.,looking for cause not blame), the team must be capable of dealing with the teammember who fails to work effectively with the team. This may even include thedifficult task of disciplining or even terminating a team member.

Although managing its human resources may be the hardest skill for the team tomaster, it is probably the most critical to the team's long-term success.

The greatest challenge may lie in setting and enforcing new behavioralexpectations, made necessary by the absence of a traditional supervisor and thepresence of new employee rights and responsibilities. How will team meetings bekept orderly? How will members with attendance or conduct problems bedisciplined? How will inappropriate safety and performance behaviors becorrected? Sooner or later, these and other important matters will require groupconsensus and enforcement.

Human Resources (HR) managers can help teams by providing technical assistancein rewriting policies and procedures that fit team practices in areas like hiring,

peer-based performance evaluations and disciplining employees. Additionally, HR can help the company to establish new behavioral expectations.

Lynn Hurst, director of the center for employee services at Pharmacia, a St. Louis-based developer and manufacturer of pharmaceuticals, says her company has fivebest managed behaviors for employees and teams: shared accountability andtransparency, ongoing listening and learning, coaching colleagues, participatorymanagement, and competitive benchmarking and continuous improvement.

In such an undertaking, however, HR needs to practice what it preaches. HRcant just assume control of the process. You need to work with the teams, allowthe ideas to come from them, point out boundaries and facilitate the effort. Thiscan be time-consuming, but it beats having to retrace your steps later.


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Cases from real life- Business without bosses

1. W.L Gore & AssociatesOne company who has been pioneering an

empowered environment like this is W.L. Gore &

Associates. In this company teams do exist but they

are not formally designated. They form in a style

that is now being referred to as swarming. This is

when the people form themselves in functional and

cross functional teams as needed. In this case the

entire company is an empowered team where

everyone is self-managing. This context leverages

the strengths of personal self-management and

self-managing teams together. There is no

hierarchy, but instead everyone is an Associate that relates directly with one another. It is an

organization without bosses and hinges on self-initiated teamwork.

W.L. Gore & Associates functions by having some simple rules that allow the system to self-regulate and develop around the passion and interest of Associates. These guiding principlesare: Try to be fair Use your freedom to grow Make your own commitments and keep them

Consult with other Associates prior to any action that may adversely affect the reputationor financial stability of the company

Their strategy is to get big by staying small and they regulate one another throughsponsorship instead of supervision. Bill Gore developed what he called the lattice organizationstructure that allows the company to remain unmanaged and unstructured.

The principle characteristics of the structure are: Lines of communication are direct person to person with no intermediary There are sponsors not bosses Natural leadership is defined by followership Objectives are set by those who must make them happen

Tasks and functions are organized through commitments There is no fixed or assigned authority

At first glance this system would seem impossible to manage and would appear to be out ofcontrol. It is exactly that. It has grown and developed without an authoritarian pattern andhas a focus on respecting peoples life and inherent value. It appears to be an environmentwhere the community of Associates carefully considers the world they are creating andeveryone takes the opportunity to choose what they will contribute to the company and thecustomer.


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But in an environment where everyone is expected to lead each other without a formal chainof command, it would be easy to assume the work structure might break down, leading to ahigh staff turnover. For Gore, this is not the case.

Of the 426 people employed in Scotland, 311 have been with the firm for more than 10 years,and associate turnover has hovered around 5 per cent for much of the same period.

Maintaining these impressive statistics is not without its challenges, and is in no small partdown to Gore's HR team, represented by Ann Gillies, Lynn Pearson and Vikky England

"We are not an organization where an individual has to earn trust. When we recruit, peopleneed to have faith that they will work co-operatively with others so they can develop intoresponsible associates. Gore is not an employer for nine-to-fivers," says Gillies

Gillies is at pains to point out the importance ofequality and fairness in the workplace - slip theword 'employee' or 'management' into theconversation and she raises an eyebrow. Thisterminology represents everything Gillies andher HR team have worked hard to remove fromthe vocabulary and conscience of people whoenter the double doors of Gore's HQ.

A key part of the HR team is to maintain thisstatus quo of equality and encourage associatesto 'contribute' independently and collectively inteams loosely based around a work area. In theconventional sense, whether the associate is asecretary, a canteen worker or a test engineer,

each and every person has no 'position' within the company. They are expected to commit toprojects to match their skills, and quickly earn their credibility to define and driveprojects. Multi-tasking is based more on associates having the freedom to suggest ideas toanother work area rather than contributing hands-on skills.

In this way, Gore welcomes overlaps in different work areas. For example, a designer's jobfunction could overlap with a test engineer, or a marketing role may overlap with accounts.

According to the Britain's Best Company to Work For survey, 87 per cent of associates saidthey would miss working for Gore if they left, while 86 per cent believe they can make adifference to the company.

The annual sales of 26m and a five per cent staff turnover confirms that the staff is happy towork at Gore.


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2. AT&T Credit Corporation

AT&T Credit Corporation (ATTCC) was established in 1985 to provide

finance and leasing services to AT&T's customers and others acquiring

telecommunications products. The company was organized into two

divisions - the General Markets Division (GMD) which handled high-volume,

small ticket business, and the Business Markets Division (BMD) which took

care of small volume, middle to large ticket items. Both divisions were

organized according to traditional work design principles, emphasizing top-

down hierarchical control, function separation, and a high degree of task

specialization. Credit approval, funding and collection functions for the GMD

were subcontracted to an outside vendor.

It soon became apparent that smaller customers were not receiving thepersonal service and flexible financing alternatives they wanted from theGMD. ATTCC didn't "own" their customers' accounts because the

subcontractor's leasing processes were not traceable by AT&T staff. ATTCC's management felt thesubcontractor's operation was inefficiently run and, as a result, unnecessarily costly. Customers lacked asingle point of contact for leasing and customer service. Employees had no sense of how their effortscontributed to satisfying customers since work was divided into small, separated tasks and processinggroups were organized functionally.

In 1986, Paul Gustavson, a San Jose, California-based organizational design consultant who had advisedAT&T during the Transtech reorganization was called in to assist, and has helped ATTCC ever since.

ATTCC started taking back the high volume GMD business, hiring their own employees and operating itthemselves. They set out to give their employees "ownership and accountability" for costs and customersthroughout the entire leasing process. While BMD continued to operate traditionally, the GMD was set upto operate in eleven self-managing teams, each accountable for a specific geographic assignment. AreaSales Managers were also assigned to corresponding regions. Sales agents and teams worked togetherto establish a personal relationship with their customers. Each team took care of all four aspects of thebusiness; credit evaluations, funding, customer service and collection. These had previously beenmanaged separately. The new arrangements eliminated the shuffling of calls between differentdepartments. Team members now took responsibility for solving any and all of their customer's problems.Thus, a culture developed that "whoever gets the call, owns the problem."

1989, it was clear that the new GMD organization was a success. Teams were processing 800applications a day, up from 400 when they started. Instead of taking several days to approve credit, theteams did it in one. Teams scheduled their own time off, reassigned work when people were absent, andinterviewed prospective new employees. As a result, ATTCC was growing at a 50% compounded annualrate.

Team members today can easily relate their own success and their team's success with ATTCC's

success. Employees who previously had individual, parochial goals have shifted their thinking towardsupporting broader team goals. Sales representatives are no longer just interested in 'doing deals'. Theynow have a greater incentive to write 'good deals', which will fully satisfy the requirements of the teammembers who make credit approvals. Better deals result in lower delinquency rates and fewer write off.


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Findings and Conclusion

The numbers of companies and mangers that employ self managed teams haveincreased drastically. This indicates that we no more live in a conservativeindustry and that innovative work culture is fast developing.

Companies that have employed team system have benefitted from low costs,increased productivity and other advantages

Self managed teams bear a sharp contrast from traditional work groups andprovide several benefits however they need a certain kind of environment tofunction successfully.

The Human resource department plays a major role in the proper functioning ofa self managed team. Although the HR of such a team is challenging and differsfrom ordinary HRM, however human skills are imperative and assume utmostimportance in a self managed team.

Successful re-engineering of an organization with self-managing teams is not aquick fix. It requires a great deal of effort, commitment, and support from all

members of the organization.


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Bibliography

General HR Management Self Directed work teams- qualitydigest.com The Disciplines of Self-Managed Work Teams- Russel consulting inc. Industry Week. Self-Directed Teams: A Study of Current Practice. 1990. Shonk, J. H. Team-Based Organizations: Developing a Successful Team

Environment. IL: Business One Irwin, 1992. The Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell Organization planning and design- AT&T Corporation Creationstep. Inc

defining self managed teams

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