Tag Archives: collaboration

CLASSIC POSTS REVISITED (new twists on old themes)

Teamwork is best – or IS IT?

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An earlier version of this was first posted on 2nd April 2013

Group working is one of those topics that is awkwardly both straightforward and complex depending upon how you look at it. Conventional wisdom sets us to assume that ‘more heads are better than one’ and this maxim is often a justification for working in teams. But is it always a helpful perspective?

Teams may be created to simply fulfill a structural need; to fill an office space or to organise a number of individuals under the supervision of a particular manager. These are not necessarily good reasons for organising group working.

Tug of war
Clones with the same job is not a recipe for a successful team

What do we really know about team performance? And, if we are honest with ourselves, do groups always work better than individuals?

The answer, surely, is no. Have you ever sat on a committee and wondered ‘why are we all here?’?

Let’s take a sporting analogy. Put five excellent runners into a relay team. How well do they perform? In many cases, really well. In some cases they are good sometimes and poor another (the British men’s sprint relay team, in four of the last five Olympics and with largely the same personnel have been disqualified – 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012 – but won gold in 2004. Why is there such a wide difference between good and poor performances? It is easy to blame a mistake; incompetence or lack of attention, but the truth lies deeper.

The Ringelmann effect suggests that something different can happen in teams. If people’s personal roles are similar they can be disinclined to put everything into their work (this is a subconscious effect causing ‘free-riding’ rather than deliberate loafing). This effect has been shown in cases where a single worker has been put in a team with ‘non workers’ (i.e. people deliberately faking effort, but not actually doing real work). Even in these instances, the ‘real’ worker is often measured as putting in LESS effort than if they were doing the task on their own. In the classic experiment, assuming that men pulling a rope individually perform at 100% of their ability, apparently two-man groups perform at 93% of the average member’s pull, three-man groups at 85%, with eight-man groups pulling with only 49% of the average individual member’s ability.

So what is the solution? Never work in teams? No this would be a bit foolish, there are better questions…

1. Does the team have a clear sense of purpose?

2. Have we designed team work carefully – goals, roles, work ?

3. Have reasonable and relevant measures of performance been set?

4. Do we agree how to work together?

5. Are people ready to seek improvements as part of their role?

6.  Do we encourage trust and mutual respect in the team?

7. Are our relationships based on an understanding of 1-5  above?

So, reverting to my previous blog on teamwork, we must focus on our purpose, our goals, understand our differing roles, agree how we work together at a practical level and look to build positive working relationships based on mutuality and trust.

Like anything in life, if we have a team of people, we need to regularly re-consider the purpose of the team. Do we have a team because it adds to achieving the purpose, or is it just because we have always had a team?

Next time you are in a turgid committee meeting, or your project team has ground to a halt, have a think about how the group could work better…

Further reading:

Beckhard, R. (1972) Optimizing Team Building Effort, J. Contemporary Business.  1:3,  pp.23-32

Ingham, A.G., Levinger, G., Graves, J., & Peckham, V. (1974). The Ringelmann effect: Studies of group size and group performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 10, 371–384.

MacDonald, J. (1998) Calling a Halt to Mindless Change, Amacom, UK

Integrity, Professionalism, Trust

High Flyers & Team Players winning at any cost ?

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It is possible to get the best results by cheating the system.  However there is more to success than just the result. People are judged on other things, their values, their previous decisions, their credibility. Integrity is an often used word. What does it mean?

Stephen Covey picks out integrity as an essential element of character. For him, integrity is defined as ‘the value we place on ourselves‘. Clearly, however, if we value one aspect of ourselves (e.g. personal success) above everything else we could get a skewed understanding of personal integrity. As John Donne said in the 1600s, ‘No man is an island‘. We have to value ourselves in a rounded way. A person who achieves success by deceit needs to understand that when discovered the deceit erodes other’s perception of the success – and that being the case, the very deceit in the first place should erode that person’s own perception (so should discourage them from short-cutting or cheats).

Extreme examples are easy to pick out. Cyclist Lance Armstrong famously held his entire team in the thrall of his doping cheats (and, at the rawest level, you could argue that the whole team benefitted from his success). Armstrong appears still to be in self-denial about his deception, others less so. Jutin Gatlin, the Olympic sprinter, was banned twice for drugs offences, yet continued his career (within the international rules of short term competition bans). However return-to-competition rules aside, his achievements since returning and his credibility as anathelete are questioned by many in the sport.

In the world of work it is rare for performance enhancing drugs to be the ‘cheat’ of choice. But can we tolerate other short-cuts or attempts to climb the slippery pole? Withholding information, lack of collaboration, criticism behind people’s backs – all to help ‘self’ at a cost to others in our team? This is a win-lose mentality, reflected in win-lose behaviours.

Dirk-Kuyt-12x8-unsigned-photo-Liverpool
Dirk Kuyt – a picture of commitment

Fortunately, there is another more positive side to things. Some team members are valued for bringing a work ethic, a collaborative spirit or set of values which enhance the team. In sport Dirk Kuyt, the Netherlands footballer would be a good example. His international career has seen him play as a centre forward, a midfielder and, at the Brazil World cup, as a defensive player. His work rate in all positions was unquestionably high. He was prepared to take on whichever role was required for the sake of the team. It is no suprise that, despite Kuyt leaving my son’s favourite football club in 2012, the player still remains one of his favourite and most inspiring sportsmen. Few professional footballers maintain that type of loyalty with young teenagers!

When people think of us at work in a few years time, what will they be thinking. Will we be seen as a Dirk Kuyt or a Lance Armstrong? And which do we think would be better?

Reading:

Covey, S. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Shuster, New York, NY.

 

Excellence, Integrity, Partnerships

Why bother with partnerships?

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‘Partnerships’ might become the new buzzword of the year. But what is this really all about? Why ‘partner-up’ in a collaboration when we used to just do it without using the ‘P’ word? The danger is that partnerships means everything to everyone but in the end does not mean anything in itself.

The Oxford dictionary defines a partner as someone “who takes part in an undertaking with another or others… with shared risks and profits“.  If we are serious about partnership it actually means something which carries very specific and, potentially, radical expectations:

1. there is a shared vision of what you want to achieve

2. work expectations are mutual and shared (but NOT contractual)

3. work is conducted through a RELATIONSHIP which builds over time, based on integrity

4. clarity: in desired results, working principles, resources, accountability and consequences

5. the association is long term – the work might change but the relationship continues

6. the association is win/win – partners have to actively seek mutual benefits

7. work output is a sum of the whole partnership, NOT just ‘we do our bit’ and ‘you do yours’

8. there is trust and openness, including when problems or difficulties occur

9. therefore, partners work together to solve problems and make improvements

Critics would argue that this list sounds fine in theory but is it of practical value? Let’s face it we have to have contracts and sometimes people let us down – we also need to prioritise our needs above others or we will not optimise our outputs, surely?

Actually we really need to consider these assumptions more seriously. When we perform at the highest level alongside collaborators or work colleagues, what are the things that really give sense to the work that we do? Is it contracts, standards, specifications, or something else?

I would argue that it is something else – we need relationships which allow us to navigate the flow of work, to be able to ask the right questions, to seek advice and resources, get goods delivered or receive the information on time. We need people who care about the work, who are bothered about the end user (and don’t just do the bare minimum to reduce their own costs). We need people who will raise problems before they incur cost or who will be honest with highlighting difficulties or practicalities before they become a real problem. This is a true work partnership.

Covey, S. (1989) 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Simon & Shuster, New York, NY.

Kouzes J.M. and Posner B.Z. (2007) The Leadership Challenge, 4th Edition. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass John Wiley and Sons.

Change Principles

‘Design team work carefully’ – but how?

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By Cindy Vallance @cdvallance

Simon Black’s latest blog highlighted key principles for how groups might work better. His first principle – ‘design team work carefully’ will provide a strong foundation for success in maintaining and improving team effectiveness. But how? There are a range of techniques that can be used to assist in designing team work.

A useful starting point is role analysis. Role analysis? Isn’t this the job of Human Resources? Yes, often job descriptions are created as part of a central HR function. But work, and especially work with others, is never as simple as following a printed job description that more often than not is created at a single point of time and then simply filed away.

It is all too often the case that mutual demands, expectations and obligations of interdependent team members are never openly discussed. Each individual may wonder why others do not seem to be doing what they are ‘supposed’ to be doing even though all individuals are performing as they think they should.

The technique of role analysis can be effectively used to help teams and groups work together. How does it work? Individuals first each analyse their own role in the group. A few questions to ask:

What is the rationale for the role – why does it exist?
What is the role there to achieve?
What are the specific duties of the role?
What are the expected behaviours of the role?
How does the role contribute to the achievement of the group’s goals?
How is the role related to other roles in the group?

The next step is for individuals to explain their understanding of their role within the group. Other group members can then share their expectations of the role. Expectations and obligations can be modified and agreed through discussion so that all reach a common understanding.

At the conclusion of this process, the individual holding the role assumes responsibility for preparing a brief written summary (a role profile) consisting of the activities of the role, the obligations of the role to the other roles and the expectations of the role from the other roles. Sharing this summary back with the group is the final step.

Each individual then ends up with a better understanding of what their own role is, what the perceptions and expectations of others are, and how all roles fit together. Role profiles are not static but can be modified as needs change over time.

Effective use of the technique of role analysis can reduce role ambiguity (am I supposed to be doing that or is it your job?), role conflicts and misunderstandings. The technique can also help ensure commitment to the individual roles that have been collectively and collaboratively defined.

Next time, another technique for group working…

Change Principles, Updates

Leadership in Action

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By Cindy Vallance

@cdvallance

I was very pleased to be asked to present our University of Kent leadership and management programme participation certificates at the annual Learning and Development Awards Ceremony in late January.

However, before I presented the certificates I was given the opportunity to share a few thoughts with the 120 staff members in attendance. A few people asked me afterwards for my references so I thought it might be useful to repeat the words I shared with that group again here:

 

Everyone in this room today that is receiving an award has demonstrated leadership. This type of leadership is self-leadership and is the foundation for all other types of leadership. An American professor by the name of Charles Manz provides an explanation of the concept of self-leadership in relation to self-management. He stated that while self-management is largely concerned with a set of behavioural and cognitive strategies that reflect a rational view of what people ought to be doing…self-leadership goes beyond this to place significant emphasis on the intrinsic value of tasks.” (Manz, Charles C. “Self-Leadership: Toward an Expanded Theory of Self-Influence Processes in Organizations,” Academy of Management Review, Volume 11, No. 3, 1986, 585-600.)

The individual who exercises self-leadership does not simply respond to a leader’s vision; the individual helps to create the vision. Your achievements reflect your individual part in helping to embody a wider organisational vision for the University of Kent.

I have also noticed a number of common themes recurring increasingly in discussions across our leadership and management programmes – behaviours that appear to resonate to participants, managers, and sponsors alike – qualities that I am happy to see not just being spoken about but also demonstrated.

These themes include: collaboration, community, respect, fostering diversity, transparency, trust, breaking down silos, appreciation, balancing creativity with consistency and focusing on a purpose that is larger than ourselves to inspire and motivate others.

Everyone can help to demonstrate their self-leadership and belief in the themes that are resonating across the University by practicing six keys to leading positive change. These keys were coined by one of my favourite thinkers, Professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter and are really very simple:

“Show up, speak up, look up, team up, don’t give up, and lift others up.”

 

Change Principles

Is it possible to demonstrate too much enthusiasm?

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by Cindy Vallance @cdvallance

I read a recent blog in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) series that struck a chord with me.  Entitled “Are You Hurting Your Own Cause?” Dorie Clark provides five reasons on how we can do more harm than good when we are working to communicate or embed an initiative or concept that we are passionate about.

What does this have to do with Social Sciences Change Academy? I had a conversation with colleagues involved in the initiative which is about encouraging a stronger community of learning through collaboration between students, academic staff and professional services staff.  We all believe in the importance of this purpose but we realised as we talked how we can also fail in our purpose in exactly the ways that are mentioned in this HBR blog.

Let’s consider just one example.

Painting a black and white scenario – Firstly, getting all three of the groups we are encouraging to collaborate to do so is not always possible or even desirable. There are many occasions where focused attention on one group or another is much more useful and effective.

We can, for instance, consider induction. There are many types and purposes – central events for all staff, events that focus on the particular needs of incoming students, events that are tailored for specific staff groups, Faculties, Schools, or Departments. There is certainly no one right way of ‘doing’ induction or just one purpose for holding an induction event. Determining the ‘why’ is key. For instance, what is the desired outcome from an induction event (transfer of information, building a community or network between staff members or between staff and students, soliciting ideas from those who are new to the organisation to help plan for the future, etc.)? Once the event organisers determine the ‘why,’ the event can be designed accordingly.

Dorie Clark discusses a few other areas where we can end up not helping ourselves to further our vision. These include:

– Offering our opinion when it hasn’t been requested

– Assuming we already know the other person’s viewpoint

– Making it ad hominem (‘against the person’ /viewing differences as personal and related to the individual rather than based on ideas)

– Launching into a description of our passion before we are asked

We can all think through these pitfalls and ask ourselves with each one how we are managing the fine balance between sharing our passions and enthusiasm for a goal and taking it just a bit too far, with the very real danger of turning people in the exact opposite direction.

In the end, the Social Sciences Change Academy vision is to build momentum in working towards its purpose for the sake of more than a single group of people or a single faculty. The challenge is to do this with a sense of collaboration, not competition, with colleagues across the University.