elf Managed Teams|

"None of us is as
smart as all of us."
-Ken Blanchard

Use of Teams in Organizations

Is a way of life in postmodern organizations
Offers the best opportunity for better organizational performance in the form of
increased productivity and profits
Leads to cooperation and synergy
For many organizations, the use of teams has led to desirable performance
improvements, such as:

Improved
Improved
Improved
Improved

quality
efficiency
employee satisfaction
customer satisfaction

For some organizations, however, the use of teams has resulted in negative
outcomes, such as:

Increased costs
Stress
Lower group cohesion

Self Managed Team

Are relatively autonomous teams whose members share or rotate
leadership responsibilities and hold themselves mutually
responsible for a set of performance goals assigned by higher
management
Are usually crossfunctional in membership makeup
Have wide latitude in decision making
Can manage themselves, plan and schedule work, and take action
on problems
For an illustration: Check the Video

Nature of Self Managed Teams

To understand the nature of SMTs, two key questions need to be
posed and addressed:
What makes them different from conventional teams?
How widespread is their use in organizations?
Characteristics

Self Managed Teams

Conventional Teams

Leadership

Within the team

Outside the team

Team Member Role

Interchangeable

Fixed

Accountability

Team

Individual

Work Effort

Cohesive

Divided

Task Design

Flexible

Fixed

Skills

Multiskilled

Specialized

SMT VS Traditional Structure

Benefits of Self Managed

Teams

Greater improvements in quality, speed, process, and innovation

A sense of belonging and ownership in ones work
Greater employee motivation
Accelerated new product development
Greater employee participation
Reduced operational costs because of reductions in managerial
ranks and greater efficiencies
Greater employee job satisfaction, commitment, and productivity,
and lower turnover and absenteeism rates

How to Improve Effectiveness of

SMT
Ensure that the whole organization has changed its culture,
structure, and climate to support SMTs
Have a champion to support and defend the SMT from opponents
who are threatened by the new concept and what it represents

The selfmanaged team champion is an advocate of the selfmanaged team concept whose
responsibility is to help the team obtain necessary resources, gain political support from top
management and other stakeholders of the organization, and defend it from enemy attacks

Have a wellthoughtout vision of the way in which SMTs will fit into
the scheme of the entire organization
Allow time for team members to bond with one another and form
team skills

How to Improve Effectiveness of

SMT
Provide adequate training so team member skills and experiences match
task requirements
Provide objective goals, incentives, and appropriate infrastructure
Ensure that the organization has the necessary resources to commit to
this kind of change in time, money, and people
Create a sense of empowerment so SMTs take ownership of what they are
doing and how they are going to do it
Pay close attention to team design decisions
Develop teambased measurements and corresponding feedback methods
that address team performance
Recruit and train managers to act as facilitators or coaches
Avoid overreacting at the first sign of crisis

Changing Role of Leadership in

SMT
The concept of a selfmanaged team does not mean without management
Rather, it implies selfresponsibility and selfaccountability
The selfmanaged team must still receive direction and instruction from
higher authority
Many managers find themselves in a conflicting position when called upon to
function as external leaders for self-managed teams
Most receive conflicting signals on how to go about it
Distributed leadership

Multiple leaders take complementary leadership roles in rotation within the same SMT, according to their area
of expertise or interest

Selfmanaged team facilitator

Is the external leader of a selfmanaged team, whose job is to create optimal working conditions so team
members take on responsibilities to work productively and solve complex problems on their own
Must be good at coaching, influencing, and empowering the team

SMT Team Building Activities

Opening forums to resolve interpersonal conflicts
Creating opportunities for social interaction
Increasing mutual acceptance and respect among diverse team
members
Maintaining an open communication policy
Highlighting mutual interest, not differences, of team members
Increasing team identification through the use of ceremonies,
rituals, and symbols
Using teamoriented incentives to foster teamwork

Self Managed Team- Challenges

Many of the drawbacks associated with SMTs stem from the
difficulties of transitioning from a traditional commandandcontrol
work environment to selfmanaged teams

Managers may resist or undermine the transition of power

Team members may experience anxiety about learning new behaviors

Some of the disadvantages of working in teams in generalsuch as

social loafing and groupthinkare also likely to occur in selfmanaged teams
The decision to use selfmanaged teams is not a guaranteed
success, and requires a great deal of commitment, effort, and
support from all members of the organization

Building SMT Not Easy - Process

A century of "bosses" have taught people they are not quite as smart and
motivated as managers. You have to reverse that notion, and it will take time for
people to trust you really are doing it. Here's how:
1) Form a team around anobjective(i.e. 4-12 people)
2) Have them FIRST clearly define the desiredresult,
3) Then theprocess(es)needed to get that result.
4) Then THEY setmetricsfor steps in the process and
5) Forpay based on the resultdesired (quality, quantity, speed, etc.,)
6) FinallyTHEY decidewhat happens if the metrics aren't met and how to move
team members along if they are not contributing appropriately.
7) Leadershipapproves.
8) Run it.

Thank YOU
Teams do not go physically flat, they go mentally stale.
-Some Random Person (Who cares anyway?!)