It’s old news that the shrinking labor pool, caused by the looming retirement of Baby Boomers, will present significant challenges for businesses in the near future. One could even say businesses are on the verge of experiencing a seismic tremor. Some have taken precautions by adding automation capability, others have begun documenting the entire “tribal knowledge” that resides in the minds of those soon to retire, and still others are embracing solutions leveraging the global labor now possible through the Internet. Can high-performance teams play a role in helping solve this dilemma?
Imagine a new world that embraces a paradigm in which you, as a business leader, can institute new processes and mindsets that improve your operational capability and increase your capacity.
The automotive assembly line model is highly adaptable and has served business well for a long time. Revolutionary at its beginning, this sequential flow manifests itself not only in manufacturing, but also in other support functions such as accounting, project management, and training development. In this model, each person adds value to a product or transaction as it passes his or her workstation in a predetermined linear sequence.
At some time or another, most businesses have experienced a crisis generally manifested by a time-commitment constraint or last-minute, client-directed change. These crises often require a team of people to come together to “resolve issues.” These intense periods of time are disruptive to the planned workday as well as family and social schedules. Employees rise to the challenge and overcome these events time and time again, but at what cost?
That new world I hinted at earlier can help overcome these challenges and build extra capacity, but doing so requires a different operating model and mindset.
Consider the differences between building an automobile and an airplane.
With an automobile assembly line, each workstation along the line adds some kind of value (for example, installing the front seats – 8 bolts) before proceeding to the next workstation where more value (for example, adding the front doors = 12 bolts) will be added. This process repeats until a car is driven off the assembly line.
Now let’s look at how an airplane is built. The airplane is stationary for major parts of its assembly. When the cockpit is added, multiple teams of electricians and mechanics are involved to connect the controls to the hydraulics, avionics, and electric systems throughout the cabin. When the landing gear is added, again hardware needs to be attached to the mainframe, the hydraulics systems need to be connected, electronics need to be attached to operate the hydraulics, etc. The point is that teams with a specific role (specialists) are working in the same location at the same time. This requires communication, cooperation, and coordination.
Now let’s take a quick trip backwards to consider applying this kind of approach to solving specific business problem, before we move forward. During WWII “Tiger Teams,” ad hoc teams, were created to address specific business problems (crises). Each team member was carefully selected based on a particular skill he or she possessed. These teams were sanctioned at the highest levels of the organization and were chartered with necessary authority to accomplish their mission. This is an early example of a high-performance team leveraged to solve a specific business problem. However, because these were ad hoc teams, they were dismantled when the problem was resolved. This high-performance team concept was not cemented into the organizational structure.
Now moving forward, consider the possibilities of inculcating this type of approach directly into your organizational structure as a normal way of doing business. The “problems” you solve are defined as the normal work projects and services. In this world, individuals are assigned specific responsibilities that bring one perspective to the problem that needs three to five perspectives to adequately solve the problem at a given milestone. All perspectives are brought together at critical “build” moments to exercise. This access to a larger brain trust enhances quality, resolves challenges, and cross-pollinates ideas. This approach embraces the notion that “good ideas” and “solutions” come faster and better, and can drive greater consistency across the organization with a synergy that comes from a high-performance team environment where individual perspectives and insights are valued. This is a key concept because it requires a change—in mindset for many organizations.
Can you describe examples where you have experienced or observed the benefits of high-performance teams in action? Was this an ad hoc team or was it instituted in the organizational structure?