OWT 224 Teams & Collective Development

OWT 224 Teams & Collective Development

1. Meredith Belbin - Team Role Theory (1970's)

   • Based on 'Jungean archetypes' that endow the individual with a particular set of traits. These enable optimal working in teams. (9)
   • PLANT
     • CREATOR, Imaginitive, Solves difficult problems who sometimes situate themselves far from team members
       • Allowable weaknesses - Ignores incidentals, Too preoccupied to communicate effectively
   • RESOURCE INVESTIGATOR
     • The NETWORKER for the group - being highly driven to make connections with people the Resource Investigator may appear to be inconstant, but their ability to call on their CONNECTIONS is useful to the team.
       • Allowable weaknesses Over-optimistic. Loses interest once initial enthusiasm has passed
   • CO-ORDINATOR
     • Seeks fairness and equity among team members.
       • Allowable weaknesses Can often be seen as manipulative. Offloads personal work
   • SHAPER
     • A dynamic team member who loves a challenge and thrives on pressure. This member possesses the drive and courage required to overcome obstacles.
       • Allowable weaknesses Prone to provocation. Offends peoples feelings.
   • MONITOR EVALUATOR
     • see all options and judge accurately & stops the team committing itself to a misguided task
       • Lacks drive and ability to inspire others
   • TEAM WORKER
     • seeks to ensure that interpersonal relationships in the team are maintained.
       • Allowable weaknesses Indecisive in crunch situations
   • IMPLEMENTER
     • create systems and processes that will produce what the team wants.
       • Allowable weaknesses Somewhat inflexible and slow to respond to new possibilities
   • COMPLETE FLINISHER
     • The detail person within the team & ensures the quality and timeliness of the output of the team
       • Allowable weaknesses Inclined to worry unduly. Reluctant to delegate
   • SPECIALIST
     • Single-minded, self starting and dedicated.  Provides knowledge and skills in rare supply
       • Allowable weaknesses Contributes only on a narrow front. Dwells on technicalities
   • Critique
     • Little evidence that this way of thinking/acting is successful
     • Based on Self - Reporting - Could be a wish List?
     • Excessively Psychological, what about physiological?

2. Communities of Practice (Wenger & Snyder 2000)

   • “a new organizational form … to complement existing structures and radically galvanize knowledge sharing, learning and change … called the community of practice.”
     • Groups of people informally bound together by shared expertise & a passion for joint experience
   • Managerialsm has only just discovered CoP's & they are difficult to manage and often resistant to supervision
     • "A Petri Dish for Innovation & Entrepreneurial insights"
       • CoP's can be found inside a single Business Unit or across divisional boundaries
       • Regardless of the circumstances that give rise to communities of practice, their members inevitably share knowledge in free-flowing, creative ways that foster new approaches to problems.
         • Communities of practice can drive strategy, generate new lines of business, solve problems, promote the spread of best practices, develop people's skills, and help companies recruit and retain talent.
   • Therefore Managers Should:
     • 1) Identify CoP's that will enhance the companys Strategic Objectives
       • e.g. assisting & supporting people who wish to form a community
     • 2) Provide the Infrastructure that will support them
     • 3) Use Non - Traditional methods to assess the value of company CoP's.
       • e.g. stories, newsletters & competitions
   • ‘CoP’s require specific managerial efforts to develop them and to integrate them into the organization so that their full power can be leveraged.’
   • People in companies form them for a variety of reasons--to maintain connections with peers when the company reorganizes; to respond to external changes such as the rise of e-commerce; or to meet new challenges when the company changes strategy.
   • EXAMPLES
     • Hill's Pet Nutrition facility
       • Johns proposal to substitute pneumatic tubes for the conveyor belt that carried the pet food kibbles to the packaging bin
         • community members had encouraged John to continue pushing for change, and John had pressed on, buoyed by the knowledge that experts in his community of practice saw merit in his proposal
           • The community support for John's work ultimately paid off. A year after the meeting, the company installed the new technology. The result? Significant reductions in downtime and wasted pet food related to packaging. In addition to benefiting the company in this way, the community provides important benefits for members: it gives them opportunities to solve nagging problems and hone their ability to run the plant effectively. Improvements in operations can lead to financial rewards in the form of bonuses that are tied to the plant's performance.
     • Hewlett-Packard
       • The community focuses on an HP software product called High Availability, which minimizes computer downtime for customers
         • Participation in the monthly calls is voluntary, but levels of attendance are steady. For one such call, the focus was meant to be on Maureen's experiences with a major customer for which she was installing the product.
           • Maureen hadn't spent a lot of time preparing a formal presentation; she knew that only by talking directly and openly could she spur the give-and-take that would make the call worthwhile for the group. As the call proceeded, community members interrupted her constantly with questions and examples from their own experiences- all of which helped Maureen understand how to work more effectively with her clients.
             • The participants in these communities of practice were learning together by focusing on problems that were directly related to their work. In the short term, this made their work easier or more effective
     • The strength of communities of practice is self-perpetuating. As they generate knowledge, they reinforce and renew themselves. That's why communities of practice give you not only the golden eggs but also the goose that lays them
   • There are three reasons to why CoP's aren't Prevalent. The FIRST is that although communities of practice have been around for a long time the term has just recently entered the business vocabulary. The SECOND is that only several dozen forward-thinking companies have taken the leap of "installing" or nurturing them. The THIRD reason is that it's not particularly easy to build and sustain communities of practice or to integrate them with the rest of an organization.
   • Difference between Teams & CoP's
     • Teams are created by managers to complete specific projects. Managers select team members on the basis of their ability to contribute to the team's goals, and the group disbands once the project has been finished. Communities of practice, on the other hand, are informal- they organize themselves, meaning they set their own agendas and establish their own leadership. And membership in a community of practice is self-selected. In other words, people in such communities tend to know when and if they should join

3. Jean Lave (1991) CoP's

   • In CoP's learning is about Participation
     • In order to facilitate learning, a community needs to allow novices access to 'LEGITIMATE PERIPHERAL PARTICIPATION'
     • Suggests that learning cannot be achieved alone.
       • Learning isn't something achieved at a distance. Which is what contemporary Management is based on: Control at a Distance

4. Teamwork as Disciplining Work (G. Sewell 2005)

   • Teamwork is popular - Teamwork is productive - Teamwork is natural - Teamwork is morally and ethically superior
   • Informal Organisation
     • Seeking recognition, security and belonging, workers will gravitate to informal groups regardless of their ‘fit’ with the organisation
     • Informal groups exercise social control over habits and attitudes of individuals
     • Management needs to be aware of this to ensure a good ‘fit’ between informal groups and formal work structures
     • Similarities with CoP’s today
   • Analysis of Teamwork - Via the ‘technologies of modernity’
     • Teamwork is produced as a morally superior Form of Work Organisation
       • Within Modernity this moral stance is transcendental & Absolute
         • Allows for effective Learning

5. Knowledge Work & Organisations (Frank Blackler 1995)

   • Knowledge is analysed as an active process that is mediated, situated & pragmatic. Attention should be focused on the systems through which people achieve their Knowing, on the changes in these systems & on the process through which new Knowledge is generated.
   • Because of technological Changes, team organisation is becoming of crucial importance & employees generally should be managed as 'Knowledge Workers' (Zuboff 1988)
   • Activity Theory
     • Marxist idea that it is not the consciousness of humans that determines their social being, but social experiences which shape their consciousness
     • All forms of Activity Theory attempt to develop a unified account of knowing & doing, and all emphasize the collective, situated & tentative nature nature of knowing.
     • The new approach explores the circumstance in which communities may enact new conceptions of their activites
     • Orr (1990) Analysis of Xerox maintenance technicians is in the Brown/Lave tradition of Activity Theory
       • Stories shared by maintenance personell about complex technical problems is an essential part of their activities
         • Stories have educational & informative function, can help participants problems. Stories also help establish an identity in the community of technicians by adding their wisdom to the group. - links To CoP's.

6. Organizational Learning and Communities-of-Practice - John Brown (1991)

   • By reassessing WORK, LEARNING & INNOVATION in the context of actual communities and actual practices, we suggest that the connections between these three become apparent. With a unified view of working, learning, and innovating, it should be possible to reconceive of and redesign organizations to improve all three
   • Tushman and Anderson (1988), for example, argue justifiably that the typical, large organization is unlikely to produce discontinuous innovation
     • If their internal communities have a reasonable degree of autonomy and independence from the dominant world view, large organizations might actually accelerate innovation