What is teamwork – beyond individuals. Under-utilized people is the hidden waste of nowadays business. While teamwork is often highlighted as a key value of successful organization, at the same time there is clear tendency of talent discovery initiatives, with the aim to increase the value of a team. But is this direction effective?
What is Teamwork and Its Challenges
“United we stand, divided we fall” The famous phrase, attributed to the ancient Greek storyteller Aesop, is the manifesto of teamwork. The biggest value of leveraging on teamwork is the famous holistic effect, where the sum of the whole system is bigger than the sum of the parts. The reality is that organizations are not working like that. We can observe a series of actions that are actually going in the opposite direction:
- Individual target
- Talent programs
- Top-down Improvements workshop
- Lack of Trust
Respect and Trust: Foundations of Engagement
All the above initiatives are perfectly understandable, but none of them are really addressing the respect for humanity and for people that was so important in Lean Culture. The respect for people, and the consequential trust has a massive impact in engagement. As you can find in some Toyota statements, “respect for people is the attitude that regards people’s ability to think most”. This statement, in his own simplicity, is powerful as it opens the door for deeper reflections.
- How good is our organization in coaching and developing people?
- How we are building the Trust inside our teams?
- Are we using Collective Intelligence as a key point for improvements?
The Role of Collective Intelligence in Organizational Growth
All points above are connected each other. There can be no improvements without trust and without using at 100% the personal competences; there will be no personal development without coaching, and there will be again no improvements without personal growth. The respect means in the end the ability to collect and maximize individual. Collective intelligence is a key factor to maximize our personal strength points; it makes people going beyond their personal limits, as the power of the team and the trust will watch their back. On top, collective strength will trigger engagement, experiments, constructive discussion and frictions sometimes.. but friction is what makes things moving.
Creating a Safe Environment for Innovation
In particular, there is an important link between continuous improvement and collective work: the importance of having a “safe environment” to test new ideas. When we have an idea or a proposal, we face many negative feelings that comes from our education and from the surrounding environment and culture:
- Fear of mistakes / being wrong (read “failure” in our culture)
- Fear of judgment
- Lack of understanding from the others about our intentions
What is Teamwork – Rethinking Organizational Strategy
We could take the example about how collective intelligence is working in nature, with bees or ants, and how it can be a powerful growth factor for our organizations and for the community. When we as managers, and our teams will be really working in a respectful and dave environment, it will naturally trigger the will to experiment and to try solutions, to solve problems, and to improve. This approach is somehow counter-intuitive, because today’s companies are built to work in rational, logic and controlled way. To bet on collective intelligence means to bet on capability of people, on creativity and on empowerment, factors that are usually not kept under control (and hard to control as well). We should re-think about these concept when we need to shape the strategy of our companies.
Challenging Talent Retention and Individual Recognition
What is teamwork – beyond individuals. Talent-retention programs, individual recognitions, talent discovery initiatives, within the purpose of good intentions, can easily lead to lower trust, self protection and individual strategies that will hinder team work. At the same time, the idea that finding the talent that will push others for incredible results or that will solve all problems because of her/his behaviours/incredible mind is a dangerous bias. Such a person simply doesn’t exist. If an organization thinks to hire a genius, a single person can solve an issue, or make the difference, or have the “best idea”, failure is behind the corner. Now it is your turn: are you ready to bet on your team?
Andrea Manti is CBDO at Lean Community. He has over 15 years of experience in Lean Management. He is an expert in Lean and Quality Management and has held positions working as a Process Engineer, Customer Quality representative, Quality System Manager (IATF standard), and Continuous Improvement Senior Manager. During his career, Andrea has led the implementation of several Lean/6Sigma projects, TPM workshops, and TWI activities. He is also an expert in the World Class Manufacturing (WCM) program
