My Kingdom for a
Team
Of all the innovations and movements in the world of
quality and organizational change, nothing has been so
durable as our interest in developing effective teams.
The durability of our interest in teams is actually quite
amazing. In fact, when I began consulting in 1966 (I was
seven years old), organizational development was about
two activities; individual training and building teams.
The first talk I ever gave at a conference was about team
building. And here we are, decades later, still engaged
in building teams, understanding teams, agonizing over
the lack of teamwork, and teaching about creating
teams.
What
is it about teams that is so engaging and so beguiling?
You would think that by now, working in teams would be
second nature and part of the bloodstream of
institutional life. After all, no one argues against
teams. We use teams in sports as metaphors for how work
should get done. What's the problem?
Partly the challenge of building teams is made
difficult by the highly individualistic nature of our
culture. We still think that excellent work is performed
and accomplished by individuals. In school we still
believe that student competition is important for
motivation and still call cooperation cheating. We think
we need to identify the best and the brightest to decide
who is worthy of more societal investment at the higher
levels of education.
I
also think there are political reasons why we are
reluctant to put all our eggs in the team basket. There
was a time in seafaring days that if workers met among
themselves and discussed improved working conditions, it
was called mutiny. Mutiny, in a way, was an early form of
self-management.
Who is in Charge?
There is truth in the belief that when strong teams form,
they are harder to control. We have a deep institutional
fear that when subordinates come together their cohesion
might take on rebellious forms. The union movement is an
example where organized workers successfully put
restraints on the freedoms of management. The restraints
in most cases were warranted and set limits on management
abuses, but Americans do like their freedom.
What
teams stand for is the power of the small group. I
believe, as Margaret Mead is famous for saying, that all
social change begins with the action of a small group.
Strong individual leaders may speak for a new world, and
they may catalyze energy for change, but no amount of
individual effort or greatness gains any power without a
committed group behind it. This is one of the reasons why
training individuals has little impact on changing
organizations. People can develop new skills and be
determined to live out a new vision. But on their own,
without the support of those around them, the skills and
determination decay.
My
own observations of companies where real change has
occurred is that what drove the change was a committed
group of middle and upper middle managers who were so fed
up with the old way of operating, that they pushed a
shift in culture. This was almost independent of what
their top management wanted. When the efforts of the
small group of managers began to be successful, top
management got interested and got behind the change. But
the change was given life and sustained by a small group.
I have seen this happen at Ford, Harley, Texas
Instruments, Goodyear, the IRS, and many others; at least
this is what was happening when there were successful
change efforts at these places. The fact that we tend to
credit great leadership for changing organizations is
more an expression of our bias toward individual heroism
than an observation of how change takes place.
What
this means is that when we continue to train and reward
individuals, we are choosing to maintain the existing
culture of an organization, even though we are claiming
to try to change it. Granted there are places where teams
are recognized and rewarded, but even in these places,
team recognition pales in comparison to the individual
pay systems, individual training investments, and the
power vested in individual leaders.
The Power of the Small Group
If our desire is to change organizations, then our
primary effort should be to focus on small groups. Small
groups are the unit of social change. This is why it
makes sense to break people into small groups when we
bring people together to create a new future for an
organization. I used to be apologetic about the fact that
I was always breaking people into small groups. Not
anymore.
It is
in the small group where people overcome their isolation.
People discover they are not alone in their view of the
existing culture and in their wish for an alternative
future. A small group is where interdependence can be
fully acknowledged, where fear is reduced and courage is
born. Small groups are the basis of social activism,
which is what is required for systems to change. We can
usefully think in terms of large system change, but it is
the actions of small systems joining forces that cause
large systems to change.
Investing in teams may seem slow, expensive, and
counter to the individualistic instinct of the culture,
but what authentic change effort is not slow, expensive,
and counter-cultural? The desire to change systems
quickly with the efficient stroke of a change in
structure, a new top-driven mission, and training new
roles and behaviors results most often in keeping the
existing system in place. It is a recipe for cosmetic
change because it is not based on collective action, it
is based on the hope of a collection of individual
actions.
Leader as Convenor
The challenge in more deeply investing in teams is that
they will care only about themselves and not act in the
interest of the larger organization. This is a real
concern, especially since the early life of a small group
can be very inwardly focused. (Us against the world.) We
have to invest in team to team work. We need cross
functional team to teams. Small groups need to be linked
together toward a larger purpose and this is where
leadership is essential. Leaders become convenors of
teams, bringing them together in a big room to talk to
each other, plan with each other, and create a future
with each other. This is the power of large group
methodologies.
If we
can acknowledge the critical building block role of the
small group, then social change becomes possible. This is
especially needed in a culture where electronic dialogue,
shifting jobs, and part-time workers make any kind of
intimate, enduring relationship more difficult. Viewing
change as a form of community organizing puts
organizational development in the business of social
activism and political reform inside our institutions.
This kind of frame is completely dependent on peer
relationships. I know these kinds of terms make us a
little uneasy, but this is what change most often
requires.
What
a deeper commitment to teams requires is the faith that
when people come together in powerful ways, even though
mutiny may seem a possibility, people in the end will
choose for the well-being of the institution. They will
choose to build the larger system because they have the
support of those around them, and with that have the
strength to claim the institution as their
own.
Peter Block is author of the best-selling
books, The Empowered Manager, Flawless Consulting,
Stewardship, and The Flawless Consulting Fieldbook
and Companion. Block can be reached at pbi@att.net .
January 2002 News for a Change
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