Are you setting your teams up for success?
Teams are the primary vehicle for getting things done in business today. We use various types of teams, from natural or collateral teams reporting to a common manager to agile self-organizing teams that come together for specific tasks and then disband. The fact that teams exist within a large organization creates conditions that must be considered in setting them up for team success.
Accountability and team success
A key point to remember is that in an employment system (business, government etc.) someone is accountable for the output of every individual and every team from intact collateral teams to self-forming agile teams, even if the organization believes their teams are self-managed. We emphasize this point because we often hear from managers who have fully delegated accountability and authority to their teams to allow this self-management. Their intention is to empower team members and rely on their expertise, but by being nested within a large organization self-management is not actually possible. Below is a summary of a conversation about a “self-managed” team.
The Senior Vice President of Systems Development was given the task of developing innovative mobile Apps for this national retailer’s customer base. He built a strong development team with the necessary skills and knowledge to undertake this critical task. One day we had the opportunity to discuss accountability and decision authority with him and he took pride in the fact that he trusted his team to make all decisions in developing the new capabilities. “In fact, the team is accountable for the App’s development and will get full credit for the App’s success once it is launched,” he proudly proclaimed.
“Great,” we said as we explored the idea further by asking him “If the App fails whether it does not do what it’s supposed to do or wastes the company buckets of money, and someone is to be fired who would it be you or the team?” After some thought and squirming in his seat, he acknowledged that if someone were to be fired it would be him. He also admitted that if he felt the team’s judgement was wrong, or the App was not meeting his expectations then he would intervene to get the project back on track. He in fact was retaining accountability for the team’s decisions and actions.
The point is that when teams that must deliver results are formed in a business the buck stops somewhere and someone is always accountable for the outputs of that team. There are principles that apply to every employment system, whether fully understood or not, to help explain why this is the case and how they relate to establishing and supporting all types of effective teams.
Organizational structure is the distribution of accountability and authority into roles to get work done. Accountability cascades from the most senior role (President & CEO) right down to the front-line roles. Ideally, accountability for team output is positioned as low as possible in the organization while still ensuring the team gets the value adding support it requires to be successful.
Managers are accountable for providing value-adding support to their employees as they are accountable for the output of direct reports and provide direct reports with resources and tools to do their work. Intact teams reporting to a common manager have a good likelihood of success because these managerial accountabilities ensure that the manager can be accountable for the outputs of the team.
When a team is a cross-boundary “project” team made up of individuals from 2 or more departments then “project” accountability for project outcomes and for providing value-adding support must be assigned to a specific accountable manager. This is usually a role that will ultimately be accountable for the output of the project team and this person must work with the team members and their managers to ensure that they have the skills, knowledge, and time to participate in the team to fulfill its mandate.
If an accountable manager is not designated then accountability is pushed to the cross-over manager, which is often not the right role for the task. The cross-over manager is the lowest role holder in an organization who has all the accountability and authority sufficient to be held fully accountable for a particular element of work. From a team basis looking up in the organization, the cross-over manager is the first role in the hierarchy with direct accountability oversight of all the roles that make up the “project” team. So, if team members all come from the Marketing department, then the crossover manager would be within the Marketing organization, but no higher than the Head of Marketing. If the team is made up of employees from Finance, IT, Marketing and Sales, then the cross-over manager would be near the top of the business and likely be the President. In most cases having the President be accountable for project team or operational team outputs is neither workable nor desirable. But if no manager lower in the organization is accountable for the team’s outputs, then issues can drift up to the President to resolve, or the team won’t deliver on its mandate.
When we have seen the President role as the cross-over manager for a project that is not going well executives will not let an issue reach the President’s desk but resolve it amongst themselves. This usually involves several meetings to understand and resolve the issues or kill the project if the issue is too problematic. Problems that get to this level indicate the project was poorly launched in the first place.
When it is not practical for the cross-over manager to be the accountable leader for the output of a team then a role holder lower in the organization needs to be accountable for the team and granted the authority to carry out this work. This individual would be accountable for working with the managers of the “project” and the team members to outline team membership requirements, such as knowledge and skills requirements, and time commitments away from their day jobs so that managers could assign team members to the project.
Establishing an accountable manager for the project team can easily be accomplished by identifying which role has the most at stake for the outcomes of the projects, as well as the skills and knowledge to provide effective oversight and support to the team.
Finally, in the case of self-forming agile teams, each employee has an obligation to gain their manager’s support to participate in the team, inform them of time requirements and keep their manager informed of their progress. Their manager is still accountable for how they use their time and must be satisfied that the ongoing work of the department can still be accomplished while the employee participates in the agile team.
Conditions for Team Success
In summary, setting teams up for success requires planning and forethought. Team success depends upon understanding that when teams operate within a large business or organization there are realities that exist by the nature of the organization or hierarchy that impact a team’s success and must be managed:
- There is always a role accountable for the output of the team, outside the team itself.
- It is important to establish a team with the right membership and proper oversight and support.
- Managers ultimately have an accountability to determine employee work assignments including involvement on teams.
- Every employee has an obligation to keep their manager apprised of their work.
This blog is part of our ongoing series Organizations that Work. To see all of the blogs in the series that have been posted so far, click here.
Every Tuesday over the next few months, we will be posting blogs that take you from the pain of poor organization design, to identifying the root causes, to the benefits of undertaking strategic organization review. We will discuss the steps needed to effectively align your structure and work with your strategy, and we’ll discuss the processes that take out the guess work and help you to get it done. Through it all we will discuss how to lead the change from start to finish.
If you’d like to speak with us about how we can help you on your journey to an organization that works, please follow us on LinkedIn or book a call directly with one of our partners.
Our approach draws on several bodies of work including Stratified Systems Theory, the work of Dr. Elliott Jaques. For more on Dr. Jaques and his work visit the Requisite Organization International Institute at ROII Requisite – ROII Requisite.