Intelligent Manufacturing € January € 1997 € Vol. 3 € No. 1

The 15 Keys to a Successful Team

Increased quality. Greater productivity. Higher morale. Better customer service. All of these have been dangled like carrots in front of manufacturers as the likely benefits of their implementing teams at their organizations. The sad reality, though, is that most manufacturers fail to even come close to realizing these benefits. What's more, they often won't even admit their failure, even to themselves.

Manufacturers must understand that a methodical, structured process for teams is an absolute requirement, urged Rob Haynes, practice general manager, organizational excellence with Tompkins Associates Inc. (Raleigh, N.C.). Those organizations that understand a teaming process must be continuously improved will see better results from teams.

According to Haynes, the 15 key requirements of success for a teaming process to benchmark what must be continuously improved are:

1) Types of teams. It is important to understand and differentiate the variety of teams and their levels. However, it is critical that companies evolve the correct teams for their stage of the process.

2) Team chartering process. When starting new teams, it is imperative that a clear understanding of expectations exists between the team and leadership.

3) Team priorities. A company's leadership should develop a time-phased action plan of opportunities for improvement for teams to address. If this does not occur, a lack of commitment from employees will surface because real issues are not addressed and significant results are not realized.

4) Company direction. A clear direction must be defined by leadership and communicated throughout the organization.

5) Communication. It is critical that all employees understand the model of success and the status and results of teams for a teaming process to succeed.

6) Team leader effectiveness. Team leaders should be defined by leadership with a very specific role to play. A common mistake is to empower the leader to the point of creating another level of management.

7) Team meeting effectiveness. Truly successful teams will have focused team meeting rules and agendas that lead to quality meetings.

8) Overall employee involvement. While it is important to involve employees on teams, it can be detrimental to have so many employees involved that productivity suffers. Guidelines should limit the number of teams an organization can create and how many teams in which individuals can participate.

9) Middle management involvement. A majority of companies implementing teams will spend a significant effort helping floor personnel and upper management understand their roles and the future. However, very little effort is spent in middle management and supervision, which does nothing more than perpetuate the fear factor that usually exists.

10) Executive involvement. If employees believe upper management is not involved or does not support the teaming process, there is little reason for employee commitment.

11) Supplier/customer involvement. Significant benefits can be achieved by involving suppliers and customers on teams. This is generally a good first step in the development of partnerships.

12) Team results documentation. Documenting the results of team activities (other than dollars) is often overlooked in a company's team process. It is very important for a company to understand the impact teams have on the organization.

13) Rewards and recognition. Individuals and teams should participate in designing rewards and recognition systems that are closely related to performance and results. This can be done either poorly or very well, but it is critical to the long-term success of a teaming process.

14) Training. A philosophy of uncover-discover-recover needs to be applied to the training outreach for teams. Also, excessive up-front training will typically be unsuccessful, and more of a JIT training program must be pursued.

15) Overall process structure. A structure and a plan must be developed in order to ensure the process evolves and grows, and it does not become another fad program that eventually fades away.

"To truly achieve peak performance, organizations must accept that teaming processes must be continuously improved like any other process," Haynes emphasized. "The organizations that are chasing magic fads and become dynamically inconsistent will not survive. The organizations that choose to seek improvement and dynamic consistency will achieve organizational excellence."