Scaling teams is an exciting concept, however Australian businesses aren’t yet capitalising on the opportunity

Few things can deliver a more immediate and cost effective impact on productivity and performance than scaling the capability for high performance teamwork across the whole organisation, writes Graham Winter

While researching for the revised edition of the book Think One Team, a compelling theme arose time and again when senior executives were asked what was needed to ensure success in the complex and disruptive business world.

That theme was ‘teamwork’ but not the old idea of departmental and project teams that have been the mainstay of business for the past century. Instead, many used a word you hear more often from entrepreneurs.

That word was scaled’ and to quote Ron Steiner, group executive customer and public relations at Maxxia: “We’re leveraging the good teamwork practices within our departmental teams and scaling that capability, so we respond to customers and market changes as one nimble team.”

Silo mentality
Scaling teams is an exciting concept, however Australian businesses aren’t yet capitalising on the opportunity and that shows in four all-too-common examples of under-performance:

  1. Overruns on change initiatives. New information systems which blow out budgets and timelines
  2. Turf fights or standoffs between divisions or sites. Which generate poor customer experiences and employee frustration
  3. Delays in getting new products/services to market quickly. Impacts directly revenue opportunities
  4. Breakdowns in alliances, partnerships and mergers/acquisitions. Fail to achieve promised returns

These issues are a sure sign that a ‘silo mentality’ still prevails in many of our nation’s enterprises, and perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised, particularly when team leaders’ goals, priorities and KPIs are so often in conflict.

The five shares
Studies of successful and unsuccessful attempts at scaling teamwork across enterprises consistently reveal a set of five practices that distinguish the silo-afflicted from those that genuinely connect their teams.

When cross boundary business initiatives fail, the five practices most frequently adopted by the business unit teams are:

  1. Pursue separate agendas – no shared bigger picture between business units and disconnect from the customer
  2. Avoid and deny – open and constructive conversations are avoided and feedback is poorly directed (if at all)
  3. Stifle communication – lack of diversity and barriers to communication reinforce an ‘experts in silos’ mentality
  4. Protect turf – planning and prioritisation happens in isolation, and business unit-centric approaches prevail
  5. Play we win, you lose – people look to blame as soon as things go wrong, and there is little or no debriefing and learning across traditional boundaries

However, when cross boundary business initiatives succeed, the practices are starkly different:

  1. Share the big picture. Everyone is connected to what’s really important and decisions are made based on what’s best for the whole business.
  2. Share the reality. Issues are put on the table and addressed constructively, while feedback is a natural part of day-to-day behaviour.
  3. Share the air. Ideas are invited from outside the technical silos, and the lines of communication are open.
  4. Share the load. Teams prioritise and plan together, and accountability for delivering outcomes and engaging colleagues is clear.
  5. Share the wins and losses. Regular action debriefing means that people learn and adapt together.

Those five practices or ‘five shares’ form the framework for the Think One Team Method, and provide a model (shown in the diagram) that is very useful for team leaders to guide their teams to collaborate across the boundaries.

Think Silos Think One Team
Pursue own agendas Share the big picture
Avoid and deny Share the reality
Stifle communication Share the air
Protect your own turf Share the load
Play I win you lose Share the wins and losses

 

Five actions to scale teamwork in your company
Enterprises ranging from universities to banks and mining companies are using this method and model to successfully create a powerful teamwork culture.

Here are five lessons that have worked for them:

  1. Don’t blame the structure. Most organisations have tried some form of ‘destroy the silos’ initiative but the more you try to dismantle the silos, the greater the likelihood of ‘status wars’, unclear roles and resistance to change. The core lesson is clear and repeatable:  this is about the five shares, not structure, so get rid of the excuses and build the commitment and capability to bring the behaviours to life.
  1. Make ‘one team’ a core value. Nothing makes the statement more clearly that one team is important than making it a core value. Companies including Westpac, BP and NBN all define ‘one team’ as a core value and are building their current and future culture around this. Be mindful of course that values need to be well defined in behaviours and then reinforced by leaders in their decisions and actions.
  1. Create a shared framework, language and toolkit. Shifting from ‘silo thinking’ to ‘one team thinking’ requires more than just a rallying call. A powerful place to start is to give all team leaders a common and practical methodology that combines skills, toolkit and accountability to drive teamwork (using the five shares as a guide). This should include common tools for alignment, problem solving, conflict resolution and performance debriefing.As Carlos Ruiz, international head of organisation development for Carl Zeiss Vision global operations noted: “This practical approach enabled us to invest in people while getting a business result at the same time”.
  1. Connect everyone to the customer experience. Tension between business functions is more a sign of life than ill-health. For example, a mid-sized Bank recently recognised the imperative to build better teamwork between the Sales and Credit functions.Recognising the natural tension between the two functions, the respective team leaders led an initiative that focused on aligning both teams to the customer experience. After defining a shared goal, the teams worked together to create improvements in processing and service that not only delivered a business result, but also strengthened what had previously been a poor relationship.
  1. Replace SLAs with partnering relationships. Nothing reinforces the division between teams more than Service Level Agreements (SLAs). These quasi-legal, status-based documents are a recipe for mediocrity and compliance at best. Most nimble and adaptive businesses have already replaced them with a framework that encourages teams to regularly do the three things that high performing teams do: align expectations, collaborate on problems and opportunities, and debrief and adapt. When teams align-collaborate-learn together they are set-up to work as partners, not in some sort of contractual servitude.

Scale to succeed
Few things can deliver a more immediate and cost effective impact on productivity and performance than scaling the capability for high performance teamwork across the whole organisation.

The five shares described by the Think One Team method offer an accessible and effective framework to get the experts out of their silos and into playing a more integrated and effective game.

Image source: iStock

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