Contemporary Issues in Managing Teams

Teams and Quality Management

One of the central characteristics of quality management (QM) is the use of teams.

But why are teams an essential part of QM?

The essence of QM is process improvement, and employee involvement is the linchpin of process improvement.

In other words, QM requires management to give employees the encouragement to share ideas and act on what they suggest. Teams provide the natural vehicle for employees to share ideas and to implement improvements.

As stated by Gil Mosard, a QM specialist at Boeing: “when your measurement systems tells you your process is out of control, you need team work for structured problem solving.

Not everyone needs to know how to do all kinds of fancy control charts for performance tracking, but everybody does’need to know where their process stands so they can judge if it is improving”.

Examples from Ford Motor Co. and Amana Refrigeration, Inc. illustrate how teams are being used in QM programs.Ford began its QM efforts in the early 1980s with teams as the primary organizing mechanism.

“Because this business is so complex, you can’t make an impact on it without a team approach”. In designing its quality problem-solving teams, Ford’s management identified five goals.

The teams should;

(i) be small enough to be efficient and effective,

(ii) be properly trained in the skills their members will need,

(iii) be allocated enough time to work on the problems they plan to address,

(iv) be given the authority to resolve the problems and implement creative action; and

(v) each have a designated “champion” whose job it is to help the team get around roadblocks that arise.

Teams and Workforce Diversity

Managing diversity on teams is a balancing act.

Diversity typically provides fresh perspectives on issues but it makes it more difficult to unify the team and reach agreements. The strongest case for diversity on work teams is when these teams are engaged in problem-solving and decision-making tasks (jackon & stone, 1993).

Heterogeneous teams bring multiple perspectives to the discussion, thus increasing the likelihood that the team will identify creative or unique solutions.

In addition, the lack of a common perspective usually means diverse teams spend more time discussing issues, which decreases the chances that a weak alternative will be chosen.

However, keep in mind that positive contribution that diversity makes to decision-making teams undoubtedly declines over time.

Studies tell us that members of cohesive teams have greater satisfaction, lower absenteeism, and lower attrition from the group. Yet cohesiveness is likely to

be lower on diverse teams (McGrath, 1984). So here is a potential negative of diversity: it is detrimental to group cohesiveness.

Reinvigorating Mature Teams

Just because a team is performing well at a given point in time is no assurance that it will continue to do so (Kaeter, 1994). Effective teams can become stagnant. Initial enthusiasm can give way to apathy. Time can diminish the positive value from diverse perspective as cohesiveness increases.

In terms of five-stage group development model, teams don’t automatically stay at the “performing stage”. Familiarity breeds apathy. Success cot lead to complacency. And maturity brings less openness to novel ideas and innovation. Mature teams are particularly prone to suffer frm group think.

Members begin to believe they can read everyone’s mind so they assume they know what everyone is thinking. As a result, team members become reluctant to express their thoughts and less likely to challenge each other.

Another source of problem for mature teams is that their early successes are often due to having taken on easy tasks. It’s normal for new teams to begin by taking on issues and problems that they can handle most easily. But as time passes, the easy problems become solved and the team has typically developed entrenched processes and routines, and members are reluctant to change the “perfect” system they've already worked out.

The results can often be disastrous. Internal team processes no longer work smoothly. Communication bogs down.

Conflicts increase because problems are less likely to have obvious solutions. And team performance can drop dramatically. What can be done to reinvigorate mature teams?

We offer four suggestions:

• Prepare members to deal with the problem of maturity.

• Offer refresher training.

• Offer advanced training.

• Encourage teams to treat their development as a consultant learning experience

Like quality management, teams should approach their own development as part of a search for continuous improvement.

Teams should look for ways to improve, to confront member fears and frustrations, and to use conflict as a learning opportunity.