CHAPTER 15 Teams and Teamwork
In Chapter 12 we looked at how a leader creates a culture and uses the tools of Behaviour, Systems and Symbols to do so. We have emphasised the need for clarity in working relationships, especially with regard to authority and tasks. Here we look in more depth at another popular topic, teamwork. Teamwork is another term that has broad social usage, with a general agreement as to its meaning but lacking precision. It is simply not sufficient for leaders to exhort people to remember they are a team or to just work as a team unless there is a deeper and shared understanding as to what this means: what is the behaviour required from the leader and the team member?
In order to answer this question we need to return to the proposition that people are essentially social; that we form social groups in order to achieve together what we cannot achieve as individuals. There is, and always will be, the potential for a tension between what is advantageous for a particular individual and what is advantageous for the group. The key to a good organisation is managing the social process so that individuals are encouraged and allowed to use their capability to achieve the overall purpose of the group. The individual gains personal satisfaction and reward for their work whilst achieving the common goal.
There has been, and continues to be, great emphasis placed on teams and teamwork in writing about organisations. It is clearly recognised that effective teams can be highly productive and satisfying to the members. The obvious example of the well-functioning sports team demonstrates the need to blend individual talents into a complementary process.
Recently there has been concern about the excessive use of teams and what is referred to as collaborative overload. Data collected over two decades shows ‘the time spent by managers and employees in collaborative activities has ballooned by 50% or more’ (Cross et. al., 2016). They warn of the imbalance in contributions to teams and the excess demands this places on certain individuals. Their recommendations to improve the situation are similar, though less specific than ours – more clarity of roles, authorities and task assignments as well as appropriate recognition for both individual and team accomplishments.
Other research indicates the importance of social process skills. Woolley (2010:686–688) led a team from MIT and Carnegie Mellon that found one of the key factors in team success was ‘high average social sensitivity.’ ‘They were skilled at intuiting how others felt based on their tone of voice, their expressions and other nonverbal cues’ (Duhigg, 2016b).
Beginning in 2012, Google began Project Aristotle, conducting extensive research to learn why some teams perform very well and others less so. Initially they studied 180 teams, looking at numerous variables and could find no patterns that explained their performance. After looking at the research of Woolley and others, Project Aristotle finally identified ‘psychological safety’ as key to team performance – the existence of a social environment in which people listen to each other and show sensitivity to each other’s feelings and needs (Duhigg, 2016b).
Research also indicates the importance of clear understanding of the purpose of the team and the impact of their work. This chapter suggests ways of achieving effective teams and teamwork.
The False Duality
Underlying much of this discussion about the form and processes of the organisation is an implication, and at times, the statement that there is some sort of basic choice between two types of organisation. One is the traditional hierarchy, and as we discussed in previous chapters, hierarchy, authority and bureaucracy have acquired negative connotations. The arguments put forward assert that these forms of organisation equate to command and control, top-down instruction, rigid structure and highly directive manager–subordinate relationships.
On the other hand we are invited to believe in the organic, empowered, non-hierarchical, creative organisation. People in these forms of organisation, it is asserted, work willingly and unencumbered; teams form and reform, often without leaders. This was the vision (or mirage) of the dot com companies of the 1990s and 2000s. In truth, neither of these options is viable in the medium or long term. It is misleading to present them as a choice. Social organisations need both structure and authority, clearly understood by all of their members, to be effective. At the same time people need to work together in teams if organisational goals are to be achieved. So let us put aside this false duality and look at effective teamwork, what works and what doesn’t.
We all need to balance our need for individual identity with the need to belong to a social group or team. It is both productive and comforting to belong. Just as with systems of differentiation and equalisation, an over-emphasis on one or the other can be detrimental. For example, equalisation does give a sense of belonging but if over-emphasised can blur identity into a homogeneous collective, against which the members react negatively. An example would be a structure where in all people in a particular role are paid the same no matter what their efforts or achievements. Differentiation gives a sense of individual identity reinforcing the self, but on its own can lead to feelings of isolation or extreme competitiveness at the expense of other team members. An example would be basing all pay on apparent individual output, piece rates or bonuses, with no regard to input from other members of the team.
For us teamwork is not just about the collective. We reject the slogan ‘There is no i in team’. Teamwork is about people collaborating for mutual benefit, clear about their mutual authority, their work and their relationship with their leader. The word team is used very generally, as are many terms in management. We have chosen a more specific meaning:
Box 15.1 Definition of Team
Team: A team is a group of people, including a leader, with a common purpose who must interact with each other in order to perform their individual tasks and thus achieve their common purpose.
There is nothing greatly contentious in this definition. However, the phrase ‘who must interact’ is crucial. It demonstrates the mutual interdependency of the team members. This distinguishes the work of a team from a network where some members of a network have no real relationship with some others, and there is no requirement for mutuality even if all the network members do have a common purpose. It also distinguishes the team from a group of people, say, passengers on a plane; all have a common purpose but do not need to interact to achieve it. We emphasise the need to interact and the mutuality. This is the difference between, for example, the members of a shift or project team and the group comprising all the employees of an organisation as a whole.
This does not mean, however, that there is a blurring of accountability. The leader of the team needs to hold team members accountable for their work as individuals – including that part of their work that requires establishing constructive and co-operative work relationships with other team members. If an organisation is serious about good teamwork this co-operation must be a part of the work of each role and reflected in review, reward and recognition system results. The leader must do the work of setting the context for such co-operation by creating the appropriate social processes. We outline such a process in this chapter.
In an employment organisation, people are employed as individuals and paid as individuals. A significant part of this employment role is to work constructively with others and the extent to which this is achieved should be recognised. Good teamwork is more likely where there is no role demarcation, that is, where team members are not artificially prohibited from helping each other provided each is properly trained and can work safely. This lack of demarcation does not mean everyone is the same or that there is no leadership.
If people are employed and paid as individuals, then they need to be accountable for their work performance to someone. It only makes sense if they are accountable to the person who assigns and reviews their task performance: the team leader.
Team Tasks, Goals and Rewards
Confusion may be generated by the use of language, socially defined. Can a team have a task? Should a team be rewarded? Can a team be set goals?
In employment roles a team cannot be given a task. A task is given to an individual. If that individual is in a team leadership role, he or she may then say to the team members ‘we’ have to ‘change all the beds on the ward by the end of this shift’; ‘complete all our team’s performance reviews by June 30’; ‘lay all the tables in the restaurant properly before opening time at 6.00pm’; ‘produce X tonnes this shift’ and so on. This is an appropriate way for the leader to define the purpose but he or she may not simply walk away at this point, or even say ‘right, get on with it’. Even sports coaches who end their pre-match exhortations by extolling the whole team to ‘go out there and win’ are only able to summarise in this way if each person knows what they are expected to do in their role and the plan, i.e., the team tactics. If the coach has previously ensured that each individual team member knows what is to be done and has the ability to do it, then ‘right, get on with it’ is in fact the trigger to a set of previously assigned tasks.
The fact that there are team leaders does not mean that the organisation has to be authoritarian (see Chapter 4). Authoritarian behaviour by a supposed leader is an excellent way to destroy constructive team work and may well generate destructive teamwork. An observer may at times find it difficult to spot the leader once an activity is underway, especially if everything is going well. The empowerment of team members is another way of expressing that the team leader is using all the capabilities of the team members. This can be more precisely described as encouraging the use of appropriate discretion, encouraging suggestions for improvement and only intervening to add value by improving the outcome or preventing a problem. If the organisation is working properly, people will be in roles that not only encourage but also require good teamwork and sharing ideas.
Teams are not an alternative to a hierarchy; they are part of an accountability hierarchy. An organisation that reduces discretion, inhibits creativity and does not encourage people to work together is not operating as a typical, authority hierarchy. It is simply an organisation working badly because of poor leadership.
There is quite some debate about team rewards. First, it is important to distinguish these from business bonuses, profit-sharing or gain-sharing. These are systems that apply to everyone and are, in more and more organisations, a variable component of normal income. However, should the team (a shift or project team for example) be rewarded collectively for their work? There is nothing in our principles that prevents a leader from recognising the efforts of all team members equally, for example, giving everyone a dinner, a day off or public statement of achievement and effort. This is not to be confused, however, with salary. The credibility of the leader rests upon his or her ability to recognise relative contributions. For example, the team may have achieved the output despite the poor contribution of one of two members. Giving only equal recognition will merely say that the leader is unaware of relative contributions. It is important that individual feedback is always given. It may be more appropriately reinforced at the time of a performance review and later recognised in salary differentiation.
It is not divisive to recognise individual performance unless it does not reflect actual contribution. The team members know better than anyone else who contributed what and whose contribution was lacking. As such, poor leadership is extremely divisive especially if the leader insists on treating everyone the same whatever the circumstances or, attempts to abdicate, from the leadership role.
It is quite consistent with our principles, especially with regard to improved quality and measurement, to have run charts and output figures that reflect the combined output of the team. However, it must be clear what these are measuring. They may not necessarily be a measure of team performance. They could refer to one of several processes, including some indicator of the social processes of the team. As such, figures and charts may serve to enhance that process but only if there is complementary evidence that the leader knows in more detail what or who contributed to the result.
Team Decisions
A rich area of confusion concerns the approach to decision making reflected in phrases like the ‘team decided’, or ‘the team was against it’. These are examples of poor or muddled leadership. Individuals are paid to make decisions: it is at the core of our understanding of work. In Chapter 5 we distinguished between an executive structure and a democracy. Of course, good leaders are concerned and listen to ideas and suggestions. A good leader will know whether members are comfortable with or even understand a proposed course of action and will not ride roughshod over team members. If the leader does lead poorly an alternative leader will emerge over time or members will simply find ways to subvert the original leader. Good leadership and teamwork in a meritocracy is not, however, based on a formal system of consensus or majority voting. A leadership role is far more than simply reflecting or representing members’ views. Members must be free to voice concerns without feeling that this is a vote against a course of action. It is important to know what authority is operating, and not to muddle democracy, consensus or seniority with effective team leadership and teamwork.
Team Processes
So far we have discussed team leadership and team membership in general terms. The team leader must also create and maintain the appropriate social processes for its members and its purpose. Team members need to establish constructive and co-operative work relationships with other team members. In our work with a diverse range of organisations around the world, we have developed some specific and practical steps to guide how this can be done. In particular we have developed a training course, Working Together, which helps people learn how to improve their understanding and practice of effective team processes. This experiential course uses exercises, which are filmed to help people see their behaviour so they may to better recognise their own strengths and weaknesses, and to observe and learn what behaviour makes a good team and what behaviour detracts from this. In 1992 Ian Macdonald articulated this into a complementary process outlining the steps and traps that team leaders and members can use (and avoid) to improve their contribution and effectiveness. The following is an account of this process, which has been used and referenced by many organisations worldwide. It had its origins in work with CRA (the corporation that owned all the companies like Comalco where the modelling was largely developed) and is used in slightly different forms by organisations not only in the private sector but also in the public sector, including schools, indigenous organisations and even religious organisations.
LEADING A TEAM
There is a wealth of material on leadership and teamwork; theories and examples emphasise a range of qualities. There are debates about born leaders versus learning to lead. While there are many concepts, we have found it useful simply to describe what good leaders do, and consequently what is expected of someone in a leadership role. In our experience it is at best pointless, and at worst dangerous to ask people to change their personalities, but you can ask someone to explain tasks clearly. The latter can be observed, recognised and improved.
We have observed good leaders in practice in a range of organisations over many years and analysed good practice in the experiential courses (Working Together). Leaders in employment roles do work in the context of an organisation; if the structure, role, authorities and work requirements are unclear, good leadership is virtually impossible. Power replaces authority. Leaders’ apparent effectiveness will be more determined by strength of personality, physical strength and the ability to influence personally or even coerce. The context required for effective leadership can be improved in terms of structure, systems, capability, authority and clear tasks, using the models in this book. The following set of steps and frequently observed traps are set out in order but are not a rigid, linear process. It may be necessary to return to earlier steps to review and reassess a plan or a particular step.
Box 15.2 Authority and Teams
The Team Leader and Member Steps described below should be seen as authorities. Many organisations that have adopted this model require these steps from both leaders and members. They are part of work reviews and performance assessments. This demonstrates that, even in an executive hierarchy, authority does not simply flow downwards. Team members have the authority to require the leader to be clear about context, purpose, tasks, etc., and can demand a review. This is a clear and proper flow of authority upwards. Also team members have authority with regard to each other requiring collaboration, information and feedback. This approach confounds the simplistic assertion that hierarchy is, by its nature, ‘authoritarian’.
TEAM LEADER AND TEAM MEMBER STEPS
The following is a practical guide to good leadership and perhaps even more importantly good team membership.
Explain the context and purpose
In setting the context for a task the leader needs to explain the situation: an order may be overdue, production may be behind. There may be environmental issues; there may be a concern with the market or even the weather. Safety may be a particular concern.
It is surprising how many team members are unsure why they have been brought into a team and what they are meant to achieve. It is not sufficient for the leader to assume they know. The leader must spell out a clear and overall purpose in a single statement without an ‘and’. If leaders can’t do this, they probably don’t understand that purpose clearly themselves.
A significant part of the context will be the constraints within which the team is working. These are known limits and may include safety, reputation, budget, time limits, fixed resources, geographical boundaries, company policy or the law. It is important at this stage to understand and communicate clearly what these explicit boundaries are.
Identify and address the critical issues/problems
It is important to identify, prior to action, the significant problems that will need to be overcome for the task to be completed successfully. This is not a case of listing everything that might go wrong (an infinite task) but selecting, in your judgement, what the key threats are likely to be and seeking proposals to overcome them if they do arise. As such this is similar to a risk analysis, often done for safety reasons, but we apply it generally.
A critical issue is something that threatens the purpose. People have described them as showstoppers. We describe them as what-ifs and we address them with ‘how-tos’. For example, what if a key team member phones in sick? How do we clean the trucks well enough to service them if they have been in mud and the weather looks bad? How to cover all the classes in the school while we train some teachers in the new exam marking system? The point here is not only to identify the critical issues, but also to work out a proposal of what to do if they occur. This is often called contingency planning.
In our experience there are usually only three or four critical issues, no matter what the task. They are the sorts of events that are revealed in enquiries after disasters, as issues that have, prior to the event, been mentioned or recognised but not acted upon. A classic, and tragic, example is the case of failed O rings on the Challenger space shuttle where the fault had been identified but not acted upon.
The social process of critical issue identification and solution planning must be managed by the leader. Team members are thinking through their plan for completing the task within the limits and context they have been given, identifying critical issues and thinking of ways to overcome them. They are asked to articulate critical issues as they think of them as well as their thoughts on a solution if they have one.
Critical issues can be usefully categorised in terms of the Social, Technical and Commercial domains (see Chapter 3). It is recommended that each domain be considered as to whether there are critical issues associated with it.
Not all team members will identify the same critical issues, nor will they think of the same solutions, even if they did. Some solutions will result in more critical issues. Out of this intellectual cacophony the leader has to do the work of comparing and contrasting concepts, integrating proposals, answering and asking questions, correcting misunderstandings, providing due recognition, sequencing input, and finally, producing a plan of action to achieve the purpose. Clearly this is more readily achievable if the social process of doing so is ordered and disciplined.
For the process to operate well, it is also important to distinguish between Critical Issues and Constraints. Constraints are known limitations. They would include the resources, laws, policies, time to completion, quality requirements. One participant on a course in California explained it well by saying: ‘So constraints are what you know, critical issues are what you have to work out.’
Also, as mentioned, critical issues may be related to the three domains referred to in Chapter 3 (Social, Technical and Commercial). We need to identify critical issues associated with each domain.
Encourage contributions
Most leaders need help in order to identify critical issues and contributions to their solution. Even if you, as the leader, don’t think you need help, there is always a risk in going it alone. Not listening to others and therefore implying they have no contribution to make is almost always a mistake. The solution to the entire problem may come from another team member, but most often it is the solution to specific critical issues that come from different team members, and these need to be integrated into the solution for the whole problem. This is the work of the leader. Not being able to generate the complete solution personally is not a failure – the leader is being paid for his or her judgement.
Some ways of encouraging contributions:
a. After explaining the purpose, give the team members time to think.
b. Ensure that each person really has an opportunity to offer the result of the think time. A member must feel comfortable even if they do not have earth-shattering ideas. In this phase the leader must be accessible. The positioning of people is important. If the group is standing the leader must see and be seen by everyone, as shown in Figure 15.1.
c. Be careful not to talk only to those next to you or to the most vocal. If you are sitting, the same principles apply. Long tables are a disadvantage. Do not be afraid to sit at the head: you are the leader. Non-verbal clues are critical at this time. People will give clues if they are bored; obvious ones are yawning, wandering off or sitting/standing back. They give clues if they wish to contribute (leaning forward, increased body movement, hand gestures, raised eyebrows). The leader must be sensitive to these actions. Ignoring them leads to a feeling of not being listened to, even if words were actually spoken.
d. People may also work remotely and therefore not be in physical contact. It is even more important to be aware of the steps and traps described here when working electronically. It is so easy to ignore others or over communicate or simply see the issue through your own eyes.
Make a decision about the planned action
As we have said, in an executive structure leadership is not a matter of democracy or consensus. If you are in a leadership role, it is likely that you are getting paid more than the team members. Your position in the role is based upon your perceived capability to make decisions and your role is accorded the authority to do so. It is important to end the discussion stage in a timely fashion to avoid paralysis by analysis. The leader has work to do to make sure all the critical issues and contributions have been considered carefully and integrated into the construction of the plan. When he or she has decided on the plan, the leader needs to articulate the plan to the team. If some team members’ suggestions have not been used, they will need to know why. The leader should clearly indicate to the group what the intended actions are and what the critical issues are, including how they will be dealt with.
The leader should consider where he or she is in relation to the team members (see Figure 15.1).
Assign tasks
The decision or plan should be broken up into a number of tasks. These will be assigned to team members based on the leader’s judgement of capability. Team members must know what they are required to do. Using the task assignment model (CPQ/QRT) that is Context, Purpose, Quantity, Quality, Resources and Time, team members must know:
a. what their tasks are – and what to do next;
b. if and how their tasks complement other people’s tasks and
c. how their tasks will help to achieve the purpose and overcome problems – why they are doing these tasks.
If team members cannot answer the questions above, the leader has failed and the team members will not know how and when to use their initiative when the situation changes (as it inevitably will!).
Monitor progress
The leader needs to do the work of monitoring progress of the team. If the leader does this, then team members are free to get on with their work. Progress is monitored along several dimensions (at once):
a. Technical (the most obvious): Are the solutions working? Do they need to be modified? Will the methodology/plan actually solve the problem?
b. Social: Is the team cohesive? Are people involved, using initiative, interacting or are they forming sub-groups, fragmenting, only doing ‘what is necessary’? Do they look interested? Engaged?
c. Temporal: Is there a programme, a timetable/schedule? Is it being achieved?
d. Environmental: The leader does the work of monitoring the environment, allowing team members to concentrate on the task at hand. What is happening around the team and what intervention is required to help overcome problems?
Finally if any or all of the above are going wrong, what contingency plan does the leader have? Can he or she answer this before a problem arises, even if only in outline? Here the leader may have to revisit critical issues, stop the process and re-evaluate.
Coaching
As team members work they may need help to complete their tasks or improve their methods. Leaders are helpers. This is a very sensitive area because the way in which a leader coaches will affect whether people will accept help. First, a leader must make it clear to the team member whether he or she is:
a. Giving an instruction – telling someone to do something differently and expecting him or her to do it.
b. Giving advice – suggesting a person think about using your ideas but leaving it up to them.
c. Teaching – showing/telling someone how to do something because they recognise that they don’t know how. This area is critical to a leader as few people like being told how to do something while they are in the middle of work unless they think they are having problems. Consequently do not be afraid to ask.
d. Asking – gain information from members: for example Why do you do that? Do you want any help?
Although an important part of the leader’s work is coaching, do not forget the leader may well learn from the team.
Review
At the end of the activity, whether the purpose has been achieved or not, the leader needs to review the process. This is the opportunity, when everything associated with the task is still fresh in people’s minds, to give recognition to team members and to comment on the leader’s perception of his or her leadership behaviour, in particular, those things that were not done as well as they might have been. There is an adage, ‘teams win; leaders lose,’ that carries a considerable truth.
Box 15.3 Individual Perspectives
The leader must be able to see the world from each team member’s viewpoint.
It is very important for a leader to draw out the views of team members, a process that will usually be easier if the team has been successful than it will be if the outcome was poor. It needs to be done, however, if all of the team is to learn from the experience. The leader has work to do to prevent the development of mythologies that will be disruptive of team cohesion. The objective of this work is to deny a team member who has performed poorly the refuge of believing such poor performance was really caused by the behaviour of other team members. The social process of these reviews will determine, to a large extent, how successful they are at engendering improved work performance. It is vitally important to recognise people’s work and to encourage individuals and the team to learn from what they have done – what they can build on and what they need to change. We all benefit from knowing if we have achieved our purpose (see Box 15.3).
TRAPS
There are some common traps that we have seen leaders fall into. In our experience these are the most common:
Not seeing the problem from the member’s viewpoint
This involves the leader making assumptions that team members know and see what he or she knows and sees. Given that in most instances the leader will be better informed and better able to generate order from complexity (a higher MPA), such assumptions are open to question. It does take a conscious effort at times, but a leader should be able, mentally, to step into someone else’s shoes. What does the problem look like from their point of view? How anxious or confident are they?
Getting over-involved in the action
There is a temptation, especially if there are problems, for the leader to dive in and take over. This not only interferes with team members’ work and may well show that the leader has assigned tasks badly, but becoming over-involved in the action also prevents the monitoring work and good coaching. At times of great personal risk, it may be correct for a leader to demonstrate leading from the front. In most instances, however, it shows a lack of capability or confidence or both, and can result in dependency and/or resentment.
Feeling you have to have the answer
It is the leader’s work to make sure the best solution is implemented. The solution to the entire problem may come from another team member, but most often it is the solution to specific critical issues that come from different team members, and these need to be integrated into the solution for the whole problem. This is the work of the leader. Not being able to generate the complete solution personally is not a failure – the leader is being paid for his or her judgement.
Often a leader fails to take note of an excellent suggestion because he or she is anxious because an answer has not come to mind or is too busy trying to make the present solution work.
Being the technical expert
Like the trap above, this one arises because the leader behaves as though he or she has to know more than anyone else in the team. This is a particular risk if the problem or a critical issue has to do with a technical issue about which the leader does have some knowledge. Superior technical knowledge and expertise is often mistaken for leadership by those who seek to demonstrate it, and by many observers, when in fact it masks poor social process and, at times, questionable capability. We argue that the leader does not have to be the best at any or all sub-tasks. The leader must, however, be able to understand and question the logic of technical proposals. ‘Explain to me, in simple language, how that is going to resolve the critical issue’. The ability to give such an explanation is a real test of the depth of technical knowledge.
Ignoring social and programming issues
Part of the culture that emphasises technical knowledge also downgrades the importance of or difficulty in the other areas of social process and programming. In most cases the technical solutions can be found within the team. It is critical, however, that people have the opportunity to put forward their ideas and that there are time lines, controlled strictly by the leader, applied to the planning process and then to the performance of the task. Programming is not simply recording or telling the time but checking progress against plan. At the same time, the team leader should be monitoring how the team members are relating to each other.
Issue fixation
Often one problem area will gain enormous attention. It may be a critical issue but it gets blown up, out of proportion. This may occur during the planning phase or during implementation. All resources are then directed toward the resolution of this issue, resulting in a failure to see how this affects other areas and what impact a new solution has on the rest of the problem. This also leads to a blindness to outside issues; there’s not much point if, while changing a tyre, you get run over by a truck.
Not willing to stand out in a crowd
This is one of the most common and damaging traps – when a leader is reluctant to appear to be a leader. It is often perceived as against the grain to stand out, especially in a superior position. Consequently there is an over-dependence on consensus, an attempt to achieve a collective accountability, leadership behaviour directed toward a merging with the group. The result is a rudderless slow approach, conservative because it lacks direction and clear programming. Be reassured that groups/teams do like the leader to be decisive. Consult, certainly, but team members may become very frustrated with a leader who will not be decisive when a decision is required.
TEAM MEMBERSHIP
Everyone is a team member but not everyone is a leader. However very few people have a clear or shared idea about what behaviours make for good team membership. The emphasis on team leadership overshadows the critical work of the team member. We hope to provide some clarity about what this means.
If there is a library of material on leadership, there is scarcely a small bookshelf on team membership. This section describes some of the constructive behaviours that all team members can demonstrate in order to achieve their common purpose.
The point about teams described here is that, from the viewpoint of each team member, in order to contribute effectively as a team member he or she is dependent upon others with whom the establishment and maintenance of direct working contact is essential, perhaps not all at once but in the process of achieving the purpose.
Like the leadership section, this section draws on general observation of people in organisations and of specific behaviours by team members in activities in their normal work and on training courses. One preliminary point before discussing behaviour: team members in employment roles clearly do not work in isolation. They operate within the organisation. If the structure, roles, authorities and the tasks and the accountability relationship are unclear, then team members will have difficulty working with each other and the leader. Teams may then be run on power, the power of personality or vocal, even physical strength. This is not the context that will create an organisation that will continue to be productive over time. We have described in earlier sections the need for clear authority and for accountability so that teams can work more effectively. However, even in this context there are ways of helping the process.
So how should team members behave and what are the traps? This section describes practical behaviour for all team members. It is described, as for team leadership, as a series of steps:
CONTEXT AND PURPOSE
If you are a team member (and the great majority of people in employment are), are you clear why you are here? If you are not, then ask. If you are not clear what the purpose is, the chances are that others will also be unclear. How many times have you failed to ask a stupid question and found afterwards that other people were equally in the dark? If you don’t ask, the leader will probably assume that you do understand.
CONTRIBUTE TO THE ‘HOW’
If you think of problems and ways of solving them, then you have work to do to put these ideas forward. You may identify a trivial point that is crucial. It is for the leader to decide in the end what is relevant. It is not only the leader who pays attention to the social process. Timing is critical if you want to be heard. Be available and accessible within the leader’s sight. Don’t give up if not heard initially. However, do not continue to press a point if it has been recognised.
LISTEN TO OTHERS
It is important to make a contribution, but equally important to listen to other points of view. It is difficult for the leader if all members are switched to send and none to receive. You may find this difficult especially if you think others are making apparently silly or trivial suggestions or ideas you had already thought of and dismissed. Listening is really hard work. It is not a passive process.
ACCEPT DECISIONS
In many types of organisations there are rarely appropriate times for voting. If you have had a fair go, you must commit to the chosen path even if your worst enemy has had his/her suggestions accepted. You are there to achieve the common purpose not simply to prove that you are right. The ready and constructive acceptance of the ideas of others is much more likely if the team’s social process prior to any decision has been handled well.
CLARIFY YOUR TASKS
Are you sure:
a. What you are meant to be doing (CPQQRT)?
b. What you are meant to do next?
c. How your effort contributes to the purpose (why)?
d. How it fits with what others are doing?
If not, ask. Being a team member is an active process not a matter of blind faith. People working in parallel are not a team. You must be in a position to use your initiative especially if (or when!) something goes wrong (that is not to plan). In short, can you think into your leader’s head? If in doubt, ask.
CONCENTRATE ON YOUR TASKS AND CO-OPERATE
Try to complete your tasks while ensuring that you help and co-operate with others. Be prepared to give information and feedback on your progress and give encouragement to fellow team members. Do not hide information or use it to exercise power.
ACCEPT SOME COACHING
No one is perfect and you can learn from others. It may be uncomfortable at times but try to listen to other people’s ideas as to how you might improve your work.
DEMAND REVIEW
At the end of, and at times during, the process it is important to check and review your performance. You must ask the leader what he or she thought and give your own view. It is also your work to suggest how it might be done better (next time). This does not mean proving your idea was right all along (see Box 15.4).
Box 15.4 Teamwork
You are part of the whole. It is only by active co-operation, however, that the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts.
TRAPS
These are some of the most common traps for team members based upon what we have observed over time.
Keeping quiet
This is where the team member does not ask questions or put forward ideas, behaving in a way that suggests that passive acceptance and blind obedience is what is required. It is not sufficient for a team member to assume that he or she will find things out from other team members after the briefing.
Not listening
Allowing other people to speak does not equal listening. There is a difference between waiting for some idiot to finish and actively listening. It is remarkable how often we have seen people in meetings and on training courses repeat almost exactly the same point someone else has just made thereby showing clearly they had not been listening. Women often note that when they put forward an idea, it is ignored; it is then repeated by a man in the team and everyone reacts by saying it is a great idea. Women do not appreciate this, nor do minorities who often confront the same issue.
Getting on with my job
This involves ignoring the situation and the needs of others, with blinkers on, and continuing to do your own work whatever the circumstances. This is a situation where a person isolates him- or herself and has nothing to do with the rest of the team: ‘it’s not my problem’. This behaviour may not be habitual practice but may stem from such close attention to the issue at hand that external issues that should be noted are not.
Getting on with other people’s jobs
Some team members interfere with other people’s tasks because they think they know better. This is sometimes because they do not know what they are supposed to be doing or because they are not capable of doing the work they were assigned. Such behaviour can also be an attempt to exercise power, disguised as co-operation, but is very different from co-operating.
Wandering off
We have seen team members wander off either mentally or physically and often both, exploring possibilities without reporting back and in doing so missing vital information. Often it is with good intention, or due to boredom. However, it causes distraction.
Fragmenting the team
This is a variation of wandering off, and involves setting up ad hoc sub-groups to re-work the problems, changing the tasks and redefining the purpose, again without feedback. This is an exercise of power – setting up internal factions that polarise the team and undermine the leader.
‘I knew I was right’
Going along with a bad plan, while actually undermining it in order to prove it was bad and having the dubious satisfaction of seeing it fall apart. This behaviour is especially common when the team member is convinced he or she had had a better solution that was not adopted. This behaviour is also an exercise of power directed at destabilising the existing leadership and may be driven by an inflated ego.
Ignoring coaching
Being overly sensitive to questions from others (especially the leader) as to why you are doing something in a certain way. This may mean that you miss ways to improve. The statement, ‘we have always done it like that’ is usually an indicator that coaching will be ignored unless the leader or another team member forces the issue through the exercise of authority. It is also, unfortunately, an issue when safe work practice is being discussed, ‘no one’s been hurt before’.
Fear of taking over
Holding back because you worry you might take over the leadership inhibits your potential and the team’s resources. There are mechanisms some subtle, some not so subtle, that fellow team members will use, apart from any intervention from the leader, that will tell you if you step out of line too much. While it is good not to dominate discussion, it is unlikely that the leader will be undermined if you are constructive in your behaviour.
PROCESS
It is important to emphasise that although we describe these as ‘steps’ they are not necessarily a linear process. Depending upon the result of consideration, we may go and revisit one or more steps. The critical issues may require a re-evaluation of purpose, coaching may result in changing tasks and performance monitoring. The important aspect is that all of the steps are covered. They are linear in that one cannot logically start anywhere. It is not helpful to assign tasks before clarifying the purpose!
Conclusion
In this chapter we have taken a very practical approach to understanding team processes. We have stressed that hierarchy and teamwork are not alternatives. We do not believe there is such an entity as a leaderless team. In all teams, leaders emerge. It is a question of whether they do so by authority or power. One of our most successful clients commented on his competitors, ‘I do hope they adopt leaderless teams. It will give us a great competitive advantage.’
Teamwork is an overworked and often vague term. We have been specific in terms of both definition and process. Good teamwork is an essential component of an effective organisation. It is at the heart of an organisation’s social process. Without good teamwork and co-operative membership an organisation will fail even if it has excellent technical and commercial processes.
Table 15.1 Complementary Roles of Leaders and Team Members
| Leader | Member |
| Explain context and purpose | Clarify context and purpose |
| Identify critical issues | Contribute to the ‘how’ |
| Encourage contributions | Listen |
| Make a decision about the plan | Accept decisions concerning which plan |
| Assign tasks | Clarify tasks |
| Monitor progress | Co-operate |
| Coach | Accept coaching |
| Review | Demand review |
| Avoid traps | Avoid traps |
Our unique approach has been and is used to explain how the leadership role and membership role complement each other. This is a major reason why our model has been used so widely. The complementarity of the team leader and member steps can be seen clearly in Table 15.1.
AUTHORITY
We have argued that these steps in the process do not merely form some helpful practical advice. We recommend that they be actually confirmed as authorities of roles throughout the organisation. That is, team leaders should be held accountable for working through this process and team members held accountable for their part. Thus, it is not a luxury to review a task but a requirement. It is not just important or helpful for team members to ask questions and clarify but an essential part of their work. In organisations that have used this model as a set of authorised tasks assigned with an inset trigger, the improvement in the team process after the training has been significant. As such it is an extension of the understanding of authority. It demonstrates that authorities are not just ‘top-down’. The team member should be authorised to call the leader to account for following this process and to call other team members to account for their work in implementing this process. As with all behaviour, the way this is done, the social process, will determine the effectiveness of the teamwork.