What is team design in organization
Hierarchical organizational models aren’t just being turned upside down—they’re being deconstructed from the inside out. Businesses are reinventing themselves to operate as networks of teams to keep pace with the challenges of a fluid, unpredictable world. Show View the complete Global Human Capital Trends 2016 report Fast-moving global markets and digital disruption have forced companies to innovate rapidly, adapt their products and services, and stay closer than ever to local customers. This has prompted a resurgence of interest in business organization. Our findings in this area are startling: 92 percent of companies believe that redesigning the organization is very important or important, making it No. 1 in ranked importance among this year’s respondents. Companies are decentralizing authority, moving toward product- and customer-centric organizations, and forming dynamic networks of highly empowered teams that communicate and coordinate activities in unique and powerful ways.
In his book Team of Teams, General Stanley McChrystal describes how the US military’s hierarchical command and control structure hindered operational success during the early stages of the Iraq war.1 After watching Al-Qaeda disrupt his army and win battles, McChrystal’s solution was dramatic: Decentralize authority to highly trained and empowered teams and develop a real-time information and operations group to centralize information and provide all teams with real-time, accurate data about war activities everywhere. This new mode of organization—a “network of teams” with a high degree of empowerment, strong communication, and rapid information flow—is now sweeping businesses and governments around the world. McChrystal did not change the formal structure of the military. Rather, he created a new structure that allowed for dynamism and flexibility within the overall organizational structure. This new structure enabled officers to quickly move from their administrative positions to mission-oriented projects for a set purpose, knowing that they would once again have a home to return to within the larger organizational structure after the mission was completed. This new mode of organization—a “network of teams” with a high degree of empowerment, strong communication, and rapid information flow—is now sweeping businesses and governments around the world. It is built on several fundamental principles:
Smaller organizational units tap into the human strengths of communication: People simply know each other better. Academic research supports this strategy. Sociologist Robert Dunbar proved that the optimum number of people any individual can know well and communicate with is around 150, a phenomenon known as the Dunbar Effect.7 Smaller organizational units tap into the human strengths of communication: People simply know each other better. As Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, puts it, “If I see more than two pizzas for lunch, the team is too big.”8 To prevent silos from impeding effectiveness and to improve collective thinking, digital information centers help teams share common knowledge and see the relationships between elements. In the Iraq war, McChrystal set up an information center to monitor seemingly random attacks by Al-Qaeda so he could help teams see the patterns. Each team had a “liaison officer” responsible for communicating with other teams when information was needed quickly. The same principle applies in business. At Nestlé, a digital information center brings together social network, TV, and news information about all of Nestlé’s food brands around the world to help product businesses see where a brand is succeeding or failing to gain traction. Corporate headquarters in Switzerland serves as a clearinghouse and strategic planning center, distributing information everywhere and empowering the businesses to grow.9 A team-based organization structure can itself enable rapid business disruption. For example, in each new city into which it expands, Uber relies on a three-pronged leadership model consisting of a city general manager, a community manager, and a driver operations manager. The rest of the organization is built out based on the unique needs of the city.10 As organizations shift to this new model, so must vendors and consultants who serve them. One major health product and pharmaceutical company is completely reorganizing its sales force to sell integrated solutions to meet the needs of its health care clients’ outcome-based organizations.11 A major IT provider that sells computers and servers is going through the same transition to meet the integrated needs of IT departments that are also now organized by team rather than technology.12 Team-based operating practices are part of a larger trend toward new models of management. Hierarchically structured organizations were designed around traditional management thinking in which leaders “tell people what to do, set goals, and create standards.”13 In contrast, in many new management models, goals are set at the bottom, leaders are evaluated by performance and not span of control, and performance management occurs continuously rather than once per year.14 (More than two-thirds of the companies polled in our survey this year are redesigning their performance management practices.) Middle management is continuing to thin out. Research shows that US companies today have an average span of control—the number of people reporting to a supervisor—of 9.7, rising as high as 11.4 at large companies.15 Despite the massive changes underway, in this new world, formal and flexible structures will continue to coexist. Perhaps ironically, it still takes formal structure to ensure that a structure of teams works effectively. Putting this insight into practice, the ability to quickly build, deploy, disband, and reform teams is a critical skill for today’s organizations. Functional organizations, then, are not going away, but they are being supplemented by “service centers” and “centers of excellence” to provide scale and consolidate administrative tasks. To enable this kind of operating model, functions like IT, HR, and finance must all be reorganized to support such teams locally. What does the “new organization” look like in practice? We envision a management model that draws clear distinctions between two necessary roles and types of management: the administrative or talent manager (reflecting the traditional, formal structure) and the mission or project manager (representing the new, team-based structure) (see figure 2).
Managing two different types of functions in an organization can be challenging, but a few principles illustrate the shift in mind-set necessary to make this work. Companies should view employees fundamentally as resources of the organization rather than as resources of the manager. This is why the military developed the parallel ideas of administrative control and operational control. Administrative control refers to the employee’s home structure and to how an employee is developed and supported, the home to which an employee returns when a team-based project is finished. Operational control, by contrast, refers to the process of ensuring that the mission to which an employee is assigned is accomplished successfully. By its nature, it includes performance management for the employee during that period. Companies’ definitions of the line between administrative and operational control will vary, but the fundamental concept will not. In every organization, an important key to the success of this model is that each employee has a “home” to which he or she can return. Fear that one will not have such a home can weaken strong teaming and lead to perverse incentives for employees—an obstacle to success in a network of teams. For HR, the implications of such changes to organizational design can be profound. Job titles and descriptions, to cite an example, are becoming more flexible and broad to account for an individual’s potential to be deployed to a variety of teams. HR organizations will need to adapt to address the concept of administrative and operational control as companies switch from highly functional and hierarchical models to project-based organizations in which employees are constantly embedded in teams and ecosystems that form teams. Performance management in an organization designed around empowered teams also looks significantly different. Traditionally, managers rate employees with little input from others, but this is not a sufficient test of performance under a team-centric approach. The critical question now, with all team members invited to weigh in, is: “Would we want this person on our team again?” It is not, “Did you make your manager happy?” In such an environment, engagement can improve as well, because employees generally feel more connected to their “team” than their “organization.”16 Lessons from the front linesCisco, one of the world’s most successful and enduring technology companies, sees a team-based organizational model as fundamental to its strategy. According to John Chambers, executive chairman and former CEO, speed and time to market are central to the company’s success: “We compete against market transitions, not competitors. Product transitions used to take five to seven years; now they take one to two.”17 To address this continued disruption and the highly competitive nature of its business, Cisco has set up a new talent organization, Leadership and Team Intelligence, focused entirely on leadership and team development, team leader selection, performance management, and intelligence-gathering for Cisco teams and their leaders around the world. Ashley Goodall, the senior vice president who runs this group, is leading a wide-ranging redesign of Cisco’s talent practices and technologies to focus on the optimization of team performance, team leaders, succession management, and talent mobility between teams. He plans to use real-time performance conversations, ongoing pulse surveys, and text analytics to monitor and benchmark team performance. The intent is to build information about how the best teams work together and how they drive results, and then embed these insights into the company with a direct focus on employee engagement, strengths, and empowerment.18 Where companies can start
Bottom lineThe days of the top-down hierarchical organization are slowly coming to an end, but changing the organization chart is only a small part of the transition to a network of teams. The larger, more important, and more urgent part is to change how an organization actually works. Now, more than ever, is the time to challenge traditional organizational structures, empower teams, hold people accountable, and focus on building a culture of shared information, shared vision, and shared direction. Deloitte’s Human Capital professionals leverage research, analytics, and industry insights to help design and execute the HR, talent, leadership, organization, and change programs that enable business performance through people performance. Visit the “Human Capital” area of www.deloitte.com to learn more. What is team design in organization and management?This is generally how formal groups begin. The manager must then do what is necessary to make certain the group reaches the ability to function as a team. This involves many different considerations about the group and the individuals making it up. This is known as team design.
What are the team design elements?For each type of team, research findings are discussed for relationships between team effectiveness and seven categories: task design, group composition design, organizational context design, environmental factors, internal group processes, external group processes, and group psychosocial traits.
Why is designing a team important?The benefits of team building include increased communication, planning skills, employee motivation, and employee collaboration. Fun activities that help people see each other in a different light allow them to connect in a different setting.
What are the 4 different team styles?4 Different Types of Teams. #1: Functional Teams. Functional teams are permanent and include members of the same department with different responsibilities. ... . #2: Cross-Functional Teams. Cross-functional teams are made up of individuals from various departments. ... . #3: Self-Managed Teams. ... . #4: Virtual Teams.. |