Katzenbach, Jon R. and Douglas K. Smith. The
Wisdom of Teams, Creating the
High-Performance Organization. New York,
NY: HarperBusiness Essentials, 1994.
Summary and
Discussion
This
clearly reworked and marketed Harvard research project begins by defining real
teams and expounding upon how they are most effectively developed. In later chapters, the authors discuss the
importance of teams, the effectiveness of teams, and practical ways executives
can best utilize a team’s strength to become a better organization. The more than thorough analysis done on close
to fifty different businesses is documented to present the lessons learned from
actual success and failures with regard to team building and effectiveness.
Utilizing twelve chapters organized into
three distinct parts, these researchers use the first section of this book to
make sure their audience has a full understanding of the various types of
teams. There are teams that make
recommendations, teams that create or produce, and teams that manage or
oversee. Each kind of team, with its
unique characteristics, can contribute to a high-performance organization,
whether it is through the shareholders who provide opportunities, workers who
produce a good, or customers who generate revenue. As defined on page 45, a real team is “a
small number of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common
purpose, performance goals, and approach for which they hold themselves
mutually accountable."
Using
this definition, the authors expound on each characteristic to give the reader
a full understanding of what real teams look like. Among other things they point out that the
size of the team should not exceed twenty or twenty-five, because larger
numbers of people are less likely to be able to develop common goals, purpose,
and mutual accountability essential to becoming a real team.
Further,
technical and functional expertise, problem solving and decision-making ability,
and interpersonal relationships are expounded upon at length as a mix of skills
needed to effectively do the team’s job.
Additionally, the team must develop a common purpose and performance
goals, creatively noted by the acronym SMART (specific, measurable, acceptable,
realistic and timed). Then, the team is
able to work together to accomplish those common goals, something the authors
refer to as the common approach. This, in turn, leads to a foundation for
which a team can have mutual
accountability for the fulfillment of those common purposes, goals, and the
agreed upon approach.
The
second part of this book focuses upon the process by which a team is developed,
if indeed a team is what is called for.
The team approach, which is a collective contribution, shared
leadership, with a specific end product, is contrasted with a work group
approach. The later approach utilizes a
centralized leader, individual contributions and no real work or product being
produced. This approach may produce
decisions, make delegations, and have influence, but will not produce
high-performance organizations, according to these authors.
This
“high-performance” goal requires the potential teams to take certain risks and
operate under some since of urgency.
Though expectations may be defined, supervisors should allow the team to
develop their own common purpose, goals, and the overall approach. A Team
Performance Curve is introduced in chapter five as a chart that measures a
team’s effectiveness against its performance impact. This showed a teams development from a
working group, to a pseudo-team, to a potential team, to a real team, and
finally to the ultimate goal of the high-performance team.
Next,
the authors give insight on the appropriate role of a good team leader. While giving the team room to work, the team
leader should strive to develop the confidence and commitment of each team
member. The leader acts as an ambassador
for the team, running interference, and removing obstacles. The team leader’s job is to listen carefully
to the needs of the group and do whatever is necessary to allow them to do
their jobs effectively. Like a referee
at a ball game, the team leader’s goal is provide needed boundaries and
oversight, but to go unnoticed as much as possible so that the game can go
on.
Instead
of approaching obstacles as a negative aspect for teams, Smith and Katzenbach
teach that difficulties can make a team stronger by encouraging team spirit,
confidence, and unity. Indeed, it is the
readiness of the team, not the size of obstacle that will determine the outcome
of such adversities. If the team becomes
demoralized, forgetting its identity and original purpose, it is time for the
leader (or in some cases a new facilitator) to refocus on the basics of what
makes a real team. It is time to
readdress the purpose, remind the members of the working approach and the
specific goals. Look for the small wins
and highlight any achievements of the team in reaching specific goals. In more sever cases the team members or even
the leader may need to be reassigned.
In
part three, the potential of an effective team is fully developed. For example, when an organization faces a
major change the team approach can be very effective even at the top of the
organization. This can only work,
according to the authors, if executives find a way to work together to tackle
specific issues. To develop teams in
this environment they must be willing to determine team membership based on an
individual’s skills, not position. They
must be willing to break down the hierarchical approach and require all members
to contribute as equals. If they set
rules of behavior similar to teams in the workplace they have a chance to
develop an effective team to guide their organization to greater success. Because teams can be more effective than
individuals, executives should consider a team based approach as a risk worth
taking.
Critique
This
book did make a good case for a team based organization. The principles presented can easily be
applied in a ministry setting, though the stated ultimate goal being
“high-performance” would need to be reworked to match a more biblical
approach. Also, the practical
questionnaires are useful, if appropriately adapted, to analyze a ministry
organizations readiness for a team environment.
On
the more critical side, this book did seem cumbersome at times due to its
redundancy and length. Though some of
the case studies were interesting to read, the numerous examples seemed to be
an over-kill. Where one short sample
would sufficiently illustrate the point, the authors too often cluttered the
flow of the book with unneeded tedious case studies.
Overall,
however, the book brought many sound principles for team development and
effectiveness to the forefront. For
instance, it reminded us to encourage individual responsibility and mutual
accountability for the work that is produced.
If someone is given the responsibility to accomplish a task, they must
be given the ability and authority from the top. The authors instructed us to make the purpose
of the team crystal clear and the role of each member in accomplishing that
purpose well defined and agreed upon by everyone involved. Leaders were taught to seek consensus,
instead of collusion, to encourage discourse, instead of dictation, and to
share the role of leadership, instead of leading alone.
Utilizing
this book in our ministry will push us to advance beyond simply calling a group
of people a “team,” then waiting to see if that will inspire them toward
success. More specifically, this helped
me, as team leader, to work through my understanding of team dynamics as it
relates to moving beyond a “work group” approach. This challenged me to strive for a “real
team” model, rather than settle at some lesser stage in the development
process.
For
example, in my current ministry team, we have not focused on our purpose, goals,
and approach, as we should. Our purpose
is often swamped in the details of event planning. Our approach has been so developed over the
years that we may have lost some connection to the reason why we do what we
do. This could cause disunity and
discouragement among the team members when difficulty arises.
We
are now taking deliberate steps to keep our purpose and specific goals in the
forefront. We discussed this at our
meeting three weeks ago and I followed up this past week with personal note of
encouragement reminding each team member of their value in achieving our goals
and fulfilling our God-given purpose.
Though this is just the beginning, I am very encouraged by the team’s
initial response.
