HR ASSIGNMENT

MANAGERIAL EXERCISE

AKSHAYA V S

09AA02
 SELF MANAGEMENT TEAM

HOW TO MAKE IT HAPPEN:

Some of the rules to convince or make anyone accept of anything are as follows

 Doing homework: Making sure that we understand our own viewpoint. If we are going to try to
convince somebody that the Eiffel Tower is taller than the Statue of Liberty, we should find out
the facts first, we should not make assumptions. Similarly we should find the organizations that
has successfully implemented Self Managing Team and has obtained beneficiary results.
 Learn the field. For certain areas we will need to know more than just the facts, as some subjects
are subjective. For example, if we wanted to convince somebody that the Statue of Liberty was
prettier than the Eiffel Tower we will need to know enough about architecture and aesthetics to
argue about that subject, as well as the facts, like how tall they are. Similarly we need know about
the different type of teams, its advantages and disadvantages, reason for choosing Self Managing
Team.
 Engage the management personnel politely by maintaining eye contact, establishing mutual
respect, gaining trust, listening carefully to what senior officials has to say, responding
thoughtfully to their point of view, backing up what we say with real facts whenever possible,
practicing active listening, making sure we understand the other person's objections and respond
to them in an intelligent manner, rephrasing our beliefs in a way that the other person is better
able to understand and following up by asking questions to make sure the other person
understands the new views completely.

We should first know the reasons that generally make people oppose ideas:

 Belief Conflict: The belief of management that the old system works well and there is no need to
introduce new ideas. So in order to introduce a change, we must shake the existing belief of the
person by providing suitable facts and data from literature review.
 Knowledge: The greater a person’s knowledge about something, the harder will it be to convince
him of something different.
 Skeptics: Skeptics are people who doubt almost everything and everyone. They just never accept
anything unless they are truly sure of it. Contrary to common belief, skeptics can be made to
believe in something new provided we have clear evidence to prove our idea.
STRUCTURE OF THE PRESENTATION:

 The Traditional Work Design

 Literature review
 Advantages of self-management team
 Concept of self-management team
 SMT are best suited to
 SMT responsibilities
 Selecting the team members
 Characteristics of self-management team members
 How to implement SMT
 Managing the transition to self-managed team
 Leadership role in self-management team
 SMT measurement

CONTENT OF THE PRESENTATION:

To build a competitive advantage, a firm must provide buyers with superior value. While
companies can secure competitive advantages through investment in capital or technology, such avenues
provide only short-term benefits as competitors imitate the successful. However, firms can sustain human
resource-based competitive advantages that others cannot readily imitate because this type of advantage is
not easily visible. Organizations can achieve success by viewing the work force as a competitive
advantage, rather than as a cost to decrease or avoid.

The traditional centralized, top-down management structure used by most successful American
firms was itself considered an advantage. Adherence to this preferred style ignored innovative techniques.
Several global industries use high-involvement approaches to employee management as a method to
lower costs, increase productivity, and improve quality. Failing to adapt or waiting too long, crippled or
bankrupted companies. The U.S. steel industry serves as a prime example of what can happen to such
reactive firms. Today, managers have the responsibility of finding new ways to achieve continuous
improvement. One of those ways is through Self-Managed Work Teams. However, to understand and
appreciate the features of these teams, it is helpful to review traditional work designs in more detail.
The Traditional Work Design

In the traditional top-down work design, firms divide tasks into small production or service
processes. They standardize, simplify, and automate work as much as possible. The individuals doing the
work are given little information or power; decision making occurs only at the top of the chain of
command. Typically, managers monitor employees closely and prevent any deviation from the work
assigned unless approved by a superior. As a result, workers often believe that their ideas do not matter
and not easily motivated to do a good job.

There are at least four major problems with the traditional top-down approach.

 Inflexibility: This problem is especially acute when production rates change, or when employers
introduce new products or services. Since employees perform specialized tasks, they cannot
perform other jobs when needed.
 Inefficiency: The lack of motivation in the traditional approach to work can create inefficiencies
that offset gains from specialization. This is true even if work is simple or repetitive.
 Absenteeism and Turnover: The traditional approach views employees as human machines.
Often, motivation is low because workers do not find their jobs satisfying. In this situation,
employees are more likely to be absent or quit more readily.
 Coordination and Accountability: Problems in employee coordination and accountability often
lead to higher costs and poorer quality with the traditional approach. Since each person is
responsible for a small part of the work, no one is accountable for the entire product.

One of the rising managerial topics today is how to improve global competitiveness using Self-
Managed Work Teams. These ideas of self-managed teams were borrowed by the Agile movement when
in 2001 they formulated a ‘new’ way of working, based on Agile principles. These groups are not ad-hoc
problem solving teams that form quickly and disband once their work is done. Rather, they signify a basic
change in the entire process by which corporations produce and deliver products and services. As the
world moves closer to a global marketplace, work teams are proving to be a valuable managerial tool for
improving productivity, costs management, quality, and cycle time. Though difficult to carry out, the
rewards from creating such work teams are often significant.

Self-Managed Work Teams are a progression of two earlier phases of the work design evolution: job
enrichment and employee empowerment. Job enrichment refers to the expansion of an employee's bundle
of responsibilities. This expansion can be horizontal or vertical in nature or even both.
 Horizontal expansion gives employee additional steps in a product or service activity chain that
replaces task division among specialists. Vertical expansion gives employees the responsibility for
controlling and planning activities that require decision making such as scheduling work or determining
work methods. Usually companies pursue both horizontal and vertical expansion to have the greatest
positive effect on employee motivation and satisfaction. Employers must then link job enrichment to
employee empowerment, the act of sharing information and decentralizing decision making. This requires
the removal of barriers to two-way communication. Information must travel freely across departments
and vertically through an organization's hierarchy. Employee empowerment and job enrichment both
serve to push decision making and responsibility down to the lowest levels of the organization. Once an
organization establishes a work culture that promotes and supports job enrichment and employee
empowerment, it is ready to move to the next level: Self-Managed Work Teams.

SELF MANAGED AND SELF DIRECTED WORK TEAM:

SELF MANAGED TEAM SELF DIRECTED TEAM

A group of people working together in their own A group of people working together in their own
ways toward a common goal which is defined ways toward a common goal which the team
outside the team defines

SELF MANAGED TEAM:

A Self-Managed Work Team is a self-determining, permanent, cross-functional group of

employees (usually six to ten) that shares the responsibility for a particular product or service an
organization produces. The team usually trains its members in all of the skill areas to complete the
necessary tasks. It has the authority to plan, implement, and control all work processes and is responsible
for its own scheduling, quality, and costs.

LITERATURE REVIEW:

Research in the area of self-management team has been around since Trist’s study of self-
regulated coal miners in the 1950s. According to an article written by Moshen Attaran and Tai T Nguyen
and published in Industrial Management successfully re-engineering a complex business operation using
self-managed teams of employees should not be viewed as a quick fix for any organization. Creating self-
managed teams requires a great deal of effort commitment and support from the organization and from
management
 In an article named “Are self-managing teams worthwhile? A tale of two companies” written by
S. Jay Liebowitz , Kevin T. Holden. In this article, study is conducted on two world-class corporations,
Corning and Motorola, different in many respects, similar in others. Among their important differences is
that Corning is unionized, while Motorola, domestically, is not. These companies show that either of
these paths can lead to greatness. The secret lies in how effectively each manages its human resources.
One interesting similarity is that both organizations are implementing self-managing work teams with
apparent success. They have wrestled with the problem of what happens to the traditional foremen and
supervisors and have found solutions that work. They have analyzed the financial costs and benefits of
self-managing teams and seem pleased with the results.

“The downside of self-management: A longitudinal study of the effects of conflict on trust,

autonomy, and task interdependence in self-managing teams” an case study published by Claus W.
Langfred of George Mason University in Academy of Management Journal 2007, Vol. 50, No. 4, 885–
900. The very flexibility and adaptability that make self-managing teams effective can also be limiting
and dysfunctional. The author propose that self-managing teams may unintentionally restructure
themselves inefficiently in response to conflict. Although detrimental consequences of conflict are
normally considered as process-related, author explore possible structure-related effects. Specifically, he
suggest that increased team conflict is associated with lower intrateam trust, which in turn may influence
team structure by reducing individual autonomy and loosening task interdependencies in teams. This
combination makes for a less than ideal team design. Longitudinal data from 35 self-managing teams
support these expectations.

In the Journal article “Team Self-Management, Organizational Structure and Judgments of Team
Effectiveness” by Jasmine Tata, Sameer Prasad; Journal of Managerial Issues, Vol. 16, 2004. Self-
managed work teams are popular in today's business environment; they have been referred to as the
productivity breakthrough of the 1990s (Attaran and Nguyen, 2000). Many organizations, such as Ford,
General Motors, Proctor & Gamble, Federal Express, Levi Strauss, and Westinghouse, have implemented
self-managed teams. Other firms are planning to use such teams in the near future (Dumaine, 1994;
Lawler et al., 1995). Part of the popularity of such teams is based on reports from organizations that
suggest that self-managed teams can increase performance, improve the quality of products, and increase
levels of innovation (Hammer and Stanton, 1995; Harris, 1992). At the same time, researchers have also
become interested in self-managed teams because of the inferred connection between serf-management
and organizational competitiveness (Hackman, 1986; Walton, 1985). Some researchers (e.g., Campion et
al., 1993, 1996; DeDreu and West, 2001) have empirically identified relationships between self-
management and increased team effectiveness.
 One factor that could potentially influence the effectiveness of self-managed teams is
organizational structure. Work teams change the way people interact and work in organizations. The
implementation of teams is context-dependent, the success of which can depend on the alignment
between team-level and organizational-level structural factors.

The team members of self-managed teams are responsible for managing and monitoring their
own processes, and for executing the tasks. Managers at General Foods contend that it is not gifted
individuals who make peak performance possible. It is the dynamics of belief, collaboration, and support
of committed team members (Bassin, 1988). Kimberly-Clark, a paper manufacturer, recognizing that its
employees are the backbone of the company, avoided the takeaway, negative bargaining approach
adopted by others in the industry. Chief Executive Darwin Smith said, "If I want to increase productivity,
I'm not going to do that by taking things away" (Jacobson, 1989). At the troubled General Motors plant in
Van Nuys, California, the new plant manager saw the team concept as necessary for survival. He fought
to banish symbols of management prerogative and build trust with his work force. He rid the plant floor
of neckties, allowed coffeepots near work sites, and eliminated separate dining and parking for mangers
(Gabor and Seamonds, 1987).

Self-managed team and its behaviors are essential for organizational success (Banker, Field,
Schroeder, and Sinha, 1996). Research evidence suggests that teams typically outperform individuals
when the tasks being done require multiple skills, judgment and experience. Self-managed team is thus
seen as a way of delivering more creative solutions for better decision making (Pfeffer, 1998). According
to Funk (1992), teams are important as the products and processes are growing in complexity as it
requires a wide range of knowledge, and knowledge sharing should be implemented to overcome the
complexity- Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 4(12): 6281-6291, 2010 ISSN 1991-8178
© 2010, INSInet Publication

In a case study “Overcoming barriers to self-management in software teams” by Nils Brede Moe,
Torgeir Dingsøyr, and Tore Dybå published in IEEE 2000, 43(1): 33-66. This longitudinal case study
reports upon the experiences from three small and medium-sized software product companies
implementing Scrum – an agile process. Self-management emerged as the key topic that was challenging
throughout all projects. When transforming from traditional command-and-control management to
collaborative self-managing team, the main challenges were found to be the absence of redundancy and
the conflict between team level and individual level autonomy. Our findings are primarily based on
qualitative analysis of interviews and observations with developers and product managers. Our findings
may give important advice to other product companies considering introducing self-managing teams and
agile development practices. Self-managed teams improved sales by 9.4% and quality of customer service
by 6.3%.

In fact, comprehensive surveys report that 79% of companies in the Fortune 1,000 currently
deploy such "empowered," "self-directed" or "autonomous" teams. Because of their widespread use,
much research has been devoted to understanding how best to set up self-managing teams to maximize
their effectiveness.

There are exciting examples of organizations that use Self-Managed Work Teams. All 25 of
Industry Week's 1993 Best Plants finalists used work teams to some extent. Median workforce
participation in teams at these plants was 75%, up from 42% for the 1992 finalists. The 199,3 group
averaged 64.5% productivity gains over the preceding five years, while reducing manufacturing costs by
30.4%. All but two reported increased domestic market share since 1985, and 15 plants had products
ranked #1 in the US market.

The winners of Industry Week's 1994 Awards boasted equally impressive results. The
achievements of three plants warrant mentioning. Using self-regulated teams, General Tire's Mt. Vernon,
Illinois, plant reached a 99.4% first-pass quality inspection rate and perfect attendance by 780 of their
1,950 employees. It reduced scrap/rework costs to just 0.85 % of sales, and hazardous waste from
112,000 pounds in 1989 to zero in 1992.

Using Self-management work teams, Gilbarco of Greensboro, North Carolina, raised productivity
per employee by 69.2% and increased its employees-to-supervisor ratio from 18:1 to 47:1 between 1989
and 1994. With these improvements, Gilbarco can now turn around orders with remarkable speed.
Workers can build and ship emergency orders in as little as two hours, compared to a previous range of
between seven and ten days.

ADVANTAGES OF SELF MANAGEMENT TEAM:

Self-managing work teams are like the basic cells of the company. The teams are empowered. They do
their own hiring. They do their own scheduling. The Self-Managed Work Team approach provides many
advantages over the traditional work design discussed earlier. Among them are

 Increased Job Satisfaction: With more variety in job functions, employee satisfaction and
motivation improve. Task complexity is reduced as well. There is less absenteeism and turnover.
This is particularly true when there is an incentive program tied to the performance of the team.
 Using a team approach, New United Motor Manufacturing experienced a reduction in
absenteeism from 20% to 25% to between 3% and 4%.
 Improved Communications and Shorter Decision Time: Self-Managed Work Teams consist of
people from several departments, or functions. The result is a shorter chain of command in the
decision making process. Most often decision making occurs within the team itself without going
outside for approval. This is particularly true when teams have control over their own budgets,
inventory levels, suppliers, and hiring and firing. Autonomy accelerates team decision making.
 Improved Employee Self-Esteem: This comes from being the member of a team that is
responsible for its own well-being and survival. No longer is any employee simply a button
pusher, or a stacker, or identified with the performance of menial tasks. Rather, workers assume a
broad role in furthering the overall success of the firm.

Organization can secure several competitive advantages through the successful introduction of Self-
Managed Work Teams.

 Cost Control: Companies using this approach often require fewer managers and supervisors.
Scrap rates typically decline and productivity increases. Also due to decline in absenteeism and
turn-over rates. Eliminate 90 percent of the first level manager's work in the nonprofessional
departments and about 80 percent in the professional departments
 Speed: With quicker decision making, corporations can respond faster to changing environment.
 Flexibility and Innovation: Self-Managed Work Teams are more capable of responding to
changing product lines and serving the special needs of their customers. They are quicker to
adopt to change and more likely to incorporate innovative practices.
 Quality: When a team becomes the only identifiable group responsible for a product or service,
the quality of that product or service almost always increases. This demonstrates pride of
ownership.
 Being proactive in adapting to change
 The model suggests that greater emphasis on the levels of HRM practices lead to higher levels of
knowledge management.
 Source : Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences., 4(12): 6281-6291, 2010

The advantage for employees is as follows:

 More- Enthusiasm, involvement, learning from peers, comfort knowing help is there,
camaraderie; focus on the organization, shared responsibility, responsibility for the team and
intrinsic motivation by giving people autonomy and the means to control their work, which will
include feedback information.
 Less -Individual opinion about what’s important, reliance on individual abilities, panic when
workload peaks, backbiting, protecting information, stress on the "supervisor", feeling
unaccomplished.
 In many cases this may mean that two second level managers will be required to manage an area
of 100 to 140 employees, instead of just one second level manager. This provides a promotional
opportunity for one of the surplus first line managers.
 Employee gains new skills, and
 Improved employee moral

Earlier examples of this approach include Volvo and Lockheed's legendary "Skunk Works." At Volvo the
Self-Managed Work Team approach helped in the adoption of new technologies. In the 1970's, the
effectiveness of Volvo's work teams depended on the success of innovative production technology--car
carriers--which in turn depended on the success of the new work teams. Lockheed's Skunk Works
demonstrated the multiple advantages of small, flexible autonomous business units inside a massive
corporate shell. As more firms adopt the Self-Managed Work Team approach, its reputation for driving
down costs, improving productivity and quality, and increasing customer satisfaction, continues to grow.

Zawacki and Norman (1994) suggest that successful selfmanaged teams evolve through five stages. These
are:

 Stage 1: The typical hierarchical structure where the leader provides one-on-one supervision;
 Stage 2: The leader evolves into a group manager whose role is making the transition into team
coordinator/coach;
 Stage 3: The group manager becomes the team coordinator and provides a structure for self-
managed team members to receive the necessary training to take on more leadership tasks;
 Stage 4: The team assumes most of the duties previously reserved for the group manager who
now becomes a boundary interface; and
 Stage 5: The group manager (i.e., the team coordinator) is a resource for the team.

CONCEPT OF SELF MANAGEMENT TEAM:

Self-managing team incorporates the concepts of Hackman & Oldham's job characteristics model.
The job characteristics model, designed by Hackman and Oldham, is based on the idea that the task itself
is key to employee motivation. Specifically, a boring and monotonous job stifles motivation to perform
well, whereas a challenging job enhances motivation. Variety, autonomy and decision authority are three
ways of adding challenge to a job. Job enrichment and job rotation are the two ways of adding variety and
challenge.

It states that there are five core job characteristics (skill variety, task identity, task significance,
autonomy, and feedback) which impact three critical psychological states (experienced meaningfulness,
experienced responsibility for outcomes, and knowledge of the actual results), in turn influencing work
outcomes (job satisfaction, absenteeism, work motivation, etc.).

Hackman and Oldham’s job characteristics theory proposes that high motivation is related to experiencing
three psychological states whilst working:

 Meaningfulness of work: That labor has meaning to you, something that you can relate to, and
does not occur just as a set of movements to be repeated. This is fundamental to intrinsic
motivation, i.e. that work is motivating in and of itself (as opposed to motivating only as a means
to an end).
  Responsibility: That you have been given the opportunity to be a success or failure at your job
because sufficient freedom of action has given you. This would include the ability to make
changes and incorporate the learning you gain whilst doing the job.
 Knowledge of outcomes: This is important for two reasons. Firstly to provide the person
knowledge on how successful their work has been which in turn enables them to learn from
mistakes. The second is to connect them emotionally to the customer of their outputs, thus giving
further purpose to the work (e.g. I may only work on a production line, but I know that the food
rations I produce are used to help people in disaster areas, saving many lives).

SMT ARE BEST SUITED TO:

Self-Managed Work Teams are best suited for situations where the work requires the cooperation
of several people working interdependently on complex tasks. In order to foster innovation that might be
constrained if employees are not allowed autonomy, group members are free to re-define situations and
solutions as they see fit. This approach is best suited for dynamic, complex work environments with
teams staffed with individuals having high cognitive complexity.

SMT RESPONSIBILITIES:

Participate
in org wide
strategy

Accomplish Participate
the team in org wide
work system
Manage
team
processes

Manage
Organize
the team
team work's
works environment
process

Accomplish the Team's Work: Identifying what work the team needs to do, prioritizing the work so it
can be accomplished within agreed-upon timelines, deciding who does the work, scheduling the work,
obtaining the necessary resources to do the work, doing the work within agreed-upon timelines while
meeting identified customers' requirements, collecting data about the work, interpreting data about the
work and taking appropriate action based on that data.

Organize the Team's Work Environment: Sorting the necessary from the unnecessary within the work
environment, Simplifying access to ensure there is a place for everything and everything is in its proper
Place, Sweeping both visually and physically to ensure safety, order, cleanliness, and routine maintenance
has occurred, Standardizing the organization of the work area within and across groups to make it easier
to visually sweep and recognize where everything is and Self-discipline in the ongoing study and
reorganization of the work environment, as well as following through on all 5 S agreements.

Manage the Team's Work Processes: Identifying the work processes that are the responsibility of the
team, creating a standard method for carrying out each work process, based on customers' requirements,
that includes a plan for monitoring process performance over time, continually improving how the work
is done, addressing problems that arise, identifying opportunities for innovation, sharing work process
information with others throughout the organization and training team members on the team's work
processes and related topics.

Participate in Organization-Wide Systems: Following the standardized organization-wide work process

(e.g., purchasing of materials, changing employee benefit or tax information, etc.), participating on teams
to study organization-wide processes, collecting data on organization-wide work processes, providing
data on organization-wide work process effectiveness to appropriate parties; Following organizational
policies (note: these policies should be linked to the team's work processes), recommending policy
changes, participating in organization-wide training and assisting in organizational assessments, and
quality systems and certification audits.

Participate in Organization-Wide Strategies: Collecting information on the external environment,

providing data on process capability as a part of an internal capability assessment, participating in the
generation of breakthrough strategies for the organization, generating annual business plan activities
based on the organization's breakthrough strategies, executing annual business plan activities and
participating in ongoing reviews of annual business plan activities.

Manage Team Processes: Incorporating team theory into the team's work on an ongoing basis,
identifying the team's reason for existence (i.e., its purpose within the organization), defining the
membership of the team, defining roles and responsibilities relative to working together as a team and
meeting management (note: roles and responsibilities within work processes are established in the role,
"manage the team's work processes"), establishing the team's ground rules and decision making approach,
working within the team's purpose, roles and responsibilities, ground rules, and decision making
approach, involving all team members in the team's work, creating an environment that promotes trust;
and evaluating the effectiveness of the team on an ongoing basis and making necessary adaptations.

SELECTING THE TEAM MEMBERS

Emery suggested, "In designing a social system to efficiently operate a modern capital-intensive
plant the key problem is that of creating self-managing groups to man the interface with the technical
system." Forming an effective team is more complex than simply throwing a group of people together,
assigning them a task, and hoping for the best. Potential team members need to be interviewed and their
skills and knowledge should be assessed. Issues to consider in selecting team members include: the
individual's motivation with respect to both the team and the task at hand; the attitudes and goals of
potential team members; potential problems with intragroup relationships; and potential problems with
relationships with external groups.

It is important to remember that effective teams are generally made up of a variety of

personalities. The selection process needs to be structured so that it is not biased toward one personality
type. An effective team needs both the thoughtful, detail-oriented individuals, as well as the outgoing,
insightful individuals. Charles Peguy described, "A man is not determined by what he does and still less
by what he says. But in the deepest part of him a being is determined solely by what he is." Self-
management team is made of such persons who are motivated by self.

CHARACTERISTICS OF SELF MANAGEMENT TEAM MEMBERS:

For successful self-management team, the team members must have the following characters:

Active Listening, listen well while others are speaking, ask questions rather than make
statements, summarize well their understanding of what has been said, not interrupt when others are
speaking, check others feelings on important matters, engender a good two-way discussion of issues,
communication, contribute regularly to discussions at team meetings, communicate persuasively when
speaking, keep others well informed, be effective at written communication, facilitate group discussions
well, vary their communication style to match the needs of others, team Relationships, make sure team
members understand how their roles and responsibilities affect one another, ensure that team members
value one another’s contributions, positively address conflict issues that may arise among team members,
develop high levels of trust with team members, encourage the development of mutual respect, promote
loyalty and pride among team members, problem-Solving and Counseling, be readily available to discuss
problems, deliver on their commitments, be responsive to others’ problems, gather and assesses
information before making judgments, help team members to improve performance, ensure everyone
feels able to share their concerns, participative Decision Making, share key problems and opportunities
with other team members, encourage differing points of view to be put forward and discussed, encourage
people to express their opinions and participate in discussions, involve the team in the development of
solutions to major problems and opportunities, organize effective meetings so that team members can
contribute to problem solving, ask for input from members of the team about matters that affect them,
interface Management, coordinate and integrate the work of other team members, ensure that team
members regularly get together to review how well the team is working, communicate what is needed
from other groups/teams in order to achieve team goals, effectively handle disagreements between their
team and others, encourage team members to cooperate with other groups which impact the team,
represent the team well in discussions with senior management

HOW TO IMPLEMENT SMT:

Self-Managed Work Teams are not simple or put into place quickly. The successful introduction of Self-
Managed Work Teams is highly dependent on training and having personnel who are team oriented. It
also requires a management team capable of shifting its emphasis from control to coach. The task of
implementing work teams requires ample planning and steadfastness. One approach is to allow the team
itself to oversee the process of implementing the self-managed work team approach. Jeanie Daniel Duck
refers to this as the Transition Management Team which reports to the CEO and commits all of its time to
managing the change process.

Lawler maintains that the successful formation of Self-Managed Work Teams depends on four elements

 Information
 Knowledge
 Power
 Rewards

First, information must flow freely through the organization for groups to function productively. To help
manage the complexity effectively, Self-Managed Work Teams often use computers to aid team members
as task management tools. E-mail quickens and adds flexibility to intra-team communication. This use of
computer technology to enhance communication enabled Boeing to cut years of development time and
reduce the number of its systematic integration problems. Second, groups must have knowledge of the
work and the system in which they function. Third, power to act and make decisions empowers workers.
Fourth, individual and group rewards maintain high performance and direct team efforts to benefit the
company. The absence of just one of these implementing tools can thwart the effectiveness of Self-
Managed Work Teams. For self-managed work teams, probably one week management training is a
minimum requirement to start with. Then about 40 hours per year is required in most organizations. This
training should be accompanied with the upgrading of the employee's job description as well as an
increase in salary for the increased job responsibility.

MANAGING THE TRANSITION TO SELF MANAGED TEAM:

The transition to self-managed teams can be a subtle and demanding process. Mike Bell examines
models for managing the transition and applies the notion of emotional intelligence to teamwork. This
paper considers transition and its management, and is based on experience with associates working with
multinational organizations implementing self-managing teams. It also draws on published data which
sheds revealing light on this very complex area.

Given these difficulties, two descriptions follow for how organizations have created pictures of the future
state in ways that involve people and help them understand what will be involved.

Current state analysis

Current state analysis should involve an honest appraisal of an organization's readiness for changing to
self-managing teams. Ray and Bronstein (1995) identify several positive and negative indicators:

Positive- A recent history of positive and improving labour relations, management flexibility and
willingness to implement empowerment processes, management ability to stick with a process, a strong
management team at local levels, an already functioning pay for performance or skill-based compensation
system.

Negative - A continuing history of management-labour strife, recent downsizing, top management

inability to stay focused on a change process to see the results, local top managers known by the
workforce to be unsupportive of employee involvement, strong objections by corporate headquarters to
allocating full estimated resources, weak or non-supportive human resource or labour relations
departments.

Once the desired future state and the current state have been identified, the transition becomes
simpler, but not necessarily easier, because content and priorities of the transition plan will be specific to
each organization. The implementation of self-managing teams is likely to be more successful when this
interconnectedness is acknowledged and is taken into account during initial planning stages.
EQ:

This definition has much in common with work conducted on a model to develop managers and team
members for high performance work systems like self-management team used in Procter & Gamble and
other organizations. Called a Continuum of Management Power and Influence, it has five elements:

 Discovering and managing self: including managing energy, thoughts, feelings, learning, career,
commitment and motivation.
 Managing interactions with others: including self-observation, assertiveness, and responsiveness,
giving and receiving feedback, handling conflict, process observation and behavior observation.
 Managing others and teams: including coaching, peer ranking, risk-taking, problem-solving,
process interventions, managing process against vision, using models and concepts.
 Managing and leading an organization: including working from principles and values, managing
processes and context, developing culture, inspiring vision, managing resources and regeneration.
 Assessing and redesigning organizations: including assessing the organization, strategies, culture
and performance whilst redesigning the organization to maintain a leading edge.

LEADERSHIP ROLE IN SELF MANAGEMENT TEAM:

The self-managed team leader fulfills a skilled team role similar to that of captain in a team sport,
but this role does not carry with it special status. Status is not at issue because the leader maintains or
accepts equal status with the other members of the group. The leader is not in a position to give orders, to
define or prescribe certain levels of individual or team performance. The leader holds equal
responsibility and accountability for the group’s performance with each other team member. Ideas,
options and collective decisions on how best to accomplish the purpose and goals of the team are
encouraged and supported by the team leader.

Self-managed team leaders lead without positional authority. Traditional leaders function outside
of their subordinate work group and use positional authority to provide instruction, conduct
communication, develop action plans and give orders on what is to be accomplished. Relationships
between supervisor and subordinates are maintained at arm's length to ensure objectivity in making
assignments and reviewing performance. Two-way communications and positive response to a leader’s
direction is desirable, but not required.

Self-managed team leadership is moving inside one’s subordinate work group to lead. In the self-
managed team leader's role, the leader decides to permanently or temporarily set aside positional authority
and to move inside the work group to provide direction, communication, group process facilitation,
coordination and support. When a leader has not been delegated positional authority from higher-level
management and is a member of the work group, none of the traditional issues related to positional
authority are present. However, sometimes the process breaks down because the noncommissioned
leader thinks the proper and most effective way to lead is by following the traditional leadership model.

To move inside the work group, the traditional leader announces to subordinate staff members
that they are being delegated the authority to manage a defined area of responsibility or to make a
decision. The team has the responsibility and authority for reaching consensus decisions that everyone
can support. The leader makes it clear he or she will act as the team's facilitator to coordinate the work,
but will not make any independent decisions related to the delegated responsibility area. He or she notes
that the team will be held accountable for the outcome of its decisions and actions.

Everyone in the group is encouraged to contribute by communicating and promoting their ideas,
by “hitch hiking” on the ideas of others and by exercising judgment to narrow down ideas or options.
Everyone recognizes that since the group makes decisions and develops action plans, the group will also
be held accountable for the outcomes of their management actions.

The most important single factor in becoming a successful self-managed team leader is a servant
attitude. To have such an attitude, one must have or develop a sincere desire to assist the work group to
accomplish its responsibility by bringing out the best qualities and contribution of each team member.
The leader's mission is to free up team members to act collectively to use their intellect, creativity,
diversity, talents and skills to manage defined areas of team responsibility and to develop and carry out
action plans that capture the commitment and enthusiasm of everyone.

Some of the characteristics of effective self-management team leaders are as follows:

 The team leader is a fellow worker and friend, not a supervisor;

 leads by example, not by giving directions;
 is a servant, not a master;
 is a peacemaker, not a warrior;
 is a coordinator, not an order giver;
 is a facilitator, not an individual decision-maker; and
 is a communications link, not a communications owner.
 lead, coach, assistant, expeditor, facilitator, sponsor and cheerleader
SMT MEASUREMENT

Identifying the team’s S.W.O.T. (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats). To increase the
probability of success, these areas should be identified at the start and progress monitored, measured, and
discussed openly. The findings may be used to aid in decisions as whether or not to alter the direction of
the self-directed team concept.

Following are the benefits of a Management Team Assessment:

 Areas of potential stress and conflict in the team building process and team growth and
development opportunities are identified.
 Provides mentoring and coaching suggestions for management team members.
 Building a high performing self-managed team.
 Assessing an individual's fit to an existing team.
 Coaching and developing a high performing self-managed team.

POSSIBLE OPPOSITIONS AND DEFENDING POINTS:

OPPOSITIONS DEFENDING POINTS

Greatly reduce growth path for employees Employees can be assigned to various SMT s, so
that their knowledge on various field increases and
can be given horizontal promotions
Present first level managers are often assigned to If assigned to a lower level job, the individual's pay
lower level jobs should not be cut, but often increases are slow to
come until the individual's pay is in line with the
job assignment.
A great deal of expenditure is required to train the But once if trained, they prove to be a valuable
employees asset and competitive advantage for the
organization. A pilot program is used to define the
potential return on investment.
Problems with the extent of autonomy given- This is based upon how much of the manager's
employees may sometime misuse the autonomy activities are delegated to the self-managed work
and may take major decisions team and how effectively each member of the team
is trained to accept these additional requirements.
The responsibilities and areas within which the
team should operate must be stated clearly to the

Managers may be an obstacle sometime because of
his loss of power in the new approach
Challenging to obtain a suitable balance between
individual and team autonomy
Organizational control will be a barrier that
indicates that the teams did not have adequate team
autonomy.
team members
For success or eventual effectiveness, managers
must be a positive force for change, letting go of
their traditional sources of power - getting the
information first, deciding who has access, making
decisions, controlling, knowing best, applying rules
and procedures, etc., - and developing higher level
sources of power. These will include coaching,
training, delegating, managing processes, managing
boundaries, working from principles, and values.
Redundancy must be fostered both at team and
organizational level to have impact on this barriers
Adequate team autonomy is crucial to reduce
problems associated with this barrier.

Other oppositions may be:

 Describing the desired future for self-managing teams is complex because it typically goes
beyond prevailing management or work paradigms and requires the creation and sharing of some
kind of vision for how the organization will operate.
 Systematic Thinking - Most managers today are reactive. They don't adopt a systematic approach
to identifying and improving processes and their components. They normally wait for problems
to occur, and then direct a process improvement team to fix it.
 Impatience or unwillingness to make personal management changes required to make work teams
work.
 Team need to be given some guidance, often being very directive on how to put together a
schedule estimate. Once they have a technique that works and they know why it works then we
need not too worried about the schedule they produce.
 Substantiating the defending points with literature review.

DEFENDING POINTS:
  Start slowly by having the employees first schedules their own workload and work assignments.
This results in about a 10 percent decrease in management workload. To offset this decrease in
workload, increase the first line manager's span of control by 10 to 15 percent.
 The process often requires up to six, one-week, highly experiential workshops over a 12-24
month period which enable managers to become aware of how their existing beliefs and values
empower or disempower themselves or others
 Many times an individual manager will require six to twelve months of professional training
often at a University before they can be reassigned.
 Too much central control destroys agility, inhibits creativity and resists change.
 Organize cross training: This is costly but the alternative can be even more expensive. With little
or no redundancy the company becomes very vulnerable to changes. Pair programming and job
rotation are ways of addressing this vulnerability by increasing the team’s flexibility.
 Build trust and commitment: To build trust in the whole organization, management should avoid
any control that would impair creativity and spontaneity. The need for collecting data should be
motivated by the teams’ need for continuous learning, not the need of control by the company.
 Assign people to one project at a time:If possible, let team-members focus on one project at a
time. Resources need to be coordinated, and management, not the team-members, must decide
when other projects or support requests should get resources.

Not all of these improvements occurred solely from the formation of a Self-Managed Work Team.
However, many of today's top industry performers use teams. The approach is quickly gaining a
reputation for driving down costs, improving productivity and quality, and increasing customer
satisfaction. Evidence of the acceptance of this method is reflected by its international scope, as it has
been adopted by leading European firms.