L-10 Team Work and Empowerment

IMPROVING PERFORMANCE THROUGH EMPOWERMENT, TEAMWORK AND COMMUNICATION

EMPOWERING EMPLOYEES

Top managers at most firms recognize that teamwork and communication are essential for encouraging employees and helping them to improve organizational performance. One of the most effective methods of empowering employees is to keep them informed about the company’s financial performance.

Anderson, an engineering firm that designs roads, water and sewer lines, and water-treatment facilities, posts financial statements, training schedules, policy documents, and other information on the company’s intranet. Any employee can visit the site and look up the company’s cash flow, design standards, and photos of coworkers in other cities, as well as basic measures of financial performance.

Managers empower employees by giving them authority and responsibility to make decisions about their work without traditional managerial approval and control. Empowerment seeks to tap the brain-power of all employees to find improved ways of doing their jobs and executing their ideas. Basically, there are three ways to empower workers; sharing company information, sharing decision-making authority and rewarding them based on company performance.

Sharing information means sharing financial performance with employees, but can also include information on industry trends, competitive performance, suppliers, customers and external opportunities and threats. In addition to sharing information about the company itself, top management can empower employees by communicating information about the business environment. Firms use IT and other tools to update employees about industry trends, competitive performance, suppliers and customers, and external opportunities and threats. One risk of sharing information is that information may reach competitors. 

Companies empower employees when they give them broad authority to make workplace decisions that implement a firm’s vision and its competitive strategy. Trust and freedom can be expressed in different ways. Employees might be responsible for such tasks as purchasing supplies, making hiring decisions, scheduling production or work hours, overseeing the safety program, and granting pay increases.

Companies can also link rewards to company performance, such as pay for performance, pay for knowledge and gain sharing. These give workers a sense of ownership. Also there are employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs). Here, companies buy shares of the company on behalf of the employee as a retirement benefit. ESOPs are expensive to set up and so are more common in larger firms. Another popular way for companies to share ownership with their employees is through the use of stock options, or rights to buy a specified amount of the company stock at a given price within a given time period.

ESOP	Stock Options
Company-sponsored trust fund holds shares	Company gives employees the option to buy shares of its stock
Usually covers all full-time employees	Can be granted to one, a few, or all employees
Employer pays for the shares of stock	Employees pay a set price to exercise the option
Employees receive stock shares (or value of stock) upon retiring or leaving the company	Employees receive shares of stock when (and if) they exercise the option, usually during a set period

 

TEAMWORK

Teamwork is the cooperative effort by a group of workers acting together for a common cause. Teamwork is one of the most frequently discussed topics in employee training programs, where individuals learn team-building skills. A team is a group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common purpose, approach and set of performance goals.

There are many types of teams;

·        work teams,

·        problem-solving teams,

·        management teams,

·        quality circles and

·        virtual teams made up of geographically separated members who interact via computer.

However, the two main team types are work teams and problem-solving teams.

Work teams are relatively permanent groups of employees with complementary skills who perform day-to-day work of the organization. By contrast, problem-solving teams are temporary combination of workers to solve a problem, who then disbands. They differ in important ways from work teams. Work teams are permanent teams designed to handle any business problem that arises, but problem-solving teams pursue specific missions. These missions can be broadly stated, such as finding out why customers are satisfied, or narrowly defined, such as solving the overheating problem in a generator.

When a team is made up of members from different functions, such as production, marketing and finance, it is called a cross-functional team. Most often, cross-functional teams work on specific problems or projects, but they can also serve as permanent work-team arrangements. The value of cross-functional teams comes from their ability to bring many different perspectives to a work effort. One of the most innovative team approaches in business today involves vendor-client partnerships. In this type of arrangement, representatives from the vendor and client companies work together to identify client problems and outline solutions that the vendor can provide.

Other team types are management teams, consisting of managers from various functions like sales and production, and virtual teams. Virtual teams communicate via computers and takes turns as leader. The final team type, in danger of extinction, is quality circles, where workers and supervisors meet to air workplace problems.

TEAM CHARACTERISTICS

Teams can range in size from as small as 2 people to as large as 150 people, but in practice most teams have fewer than 15 members. Effective teams share a number of characteristics. They must be an appropriate size, have an understanding and acceptance of the roles played by members, and benefit from diversity among team members. Teams can range in size greatly but effective teams are less than 7 members, where there are a variety of skills, but small enough for members to communicate easily. Larger teams pose different challenges for team leaders and are slow to make decisions.

Team members take on certain roles, such as task specialist roles, who devote time and energy to help teams achieve goals. A socio-emotional role is one where a member supports emotional needs of other members. A dual role assumes both task and socio-emotional activities, while a non-participative role makes minimal contribution to task and socio-emotional needs.

Besides playing roles, members bring varied perspectives based on experience, age, social and cultural backgrounds to the team. A cross-functional team establishes one type of diversity by bringing together expertise of members from different functions in the organization. Brainstorming, or gathering ideas spontaneously from group members, is a technique for generating new ideas that works particularly well for teams.

According to Bruce Tuckman, there are five stages of development in teams; forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning. The first stage is forming where members get to know each other and find out acceptable behaviours. Storming is the stage where conflicts and disagreements occur between members and the leader encourages participation. Teams must move beyond this stage to achieve real productivity. During the norming stage, members resolve differences and accept each other, and reach agreement on roles. In the performing stage members solve problems and focus on accomplishing tasks. Here, the team leader should try to involve more the non-participative members. In the final stage, the team disbands after completing the task or solving the problem.

Team productivity increases with cohesiveness. Team cohesiveness is the extent to which team members are attracted to the team and motivated to remain part of it. This increases when interaction increases between members. A norm is an informal standard of conduct shared by members that guide their behaviour. In highly productive teams, norms are consistent with working together constructively.

A team leader’s skills are really tested in the event of team conflict. Conflict is an antagonistic interaction in which one party attempts to thwart the intentions or goals of another. Team members may experience personality clashes with other members or differ in ideas about what the team should accomplish.

No single method can resolve all conflicts. Conflict resolution styles range from assertive to cooperative:

·        The competing style: a decisive, assertive approach that is useful for unpopular decisions or emergencies. Says, “we’ll do this job my way” and ends conflicts that escalates and cannot be solved by other approaches.

·        The avoiding style: neither assertive nor cooperative, is an effective response only in trivial cases or where there is less information available than needed and where an open conflict would cause harm.

·        The compromising style: blends assertiveness and cooperation, works well when conflict arises between two opposing and equally important goals, when combatants are equally powerful or when an immediate decision is required.

·        The accommodating style: marked by active cooperation, this style can maintain team harmony. Because if differing priorities, a group member may back down, if an issue is not so important to that person.

·        The collaborative style: can require lengthy time-consuming negotiations but can achieve win-win situation. Useful when consensus is important from all parties.

THE IMPORTANCE OF EFFECTIVE COMMUNICATION

Communication can be defined as a meaningful exchange of information through messages. The average manager spends 80% of time communicating and 20% working. Communication skills are important throughout an organization – in every department and at all levels.

Every communication follows a step-by-step process that involves interactions among six elements: sender, message, channel, audience, feedback, and context.

The sender can communicate a particular message through many different channels, including written messages, face-to-face conversations, and electronic mail.

The audience consists of the person or persons who receive the message. Feedback from the audience – in response to the sender’s communication – helps the sender to determine whether the audience has correctly interpreted the intended meaning of the message. Every communication takes place in some sort of situational or cultural context. The context can exert a powerful influence on how well the process works.

However, even with the best of intentions, sender and audience can misunderstand each other. People often misinterpret phrases in different ways. For example, if one person says “I’ll get it done my next week”, one listener might decode it to mean by ‘next Monday’ (beginning of the week), while another might think ‘by next Friday’ (end of the week).

Noise during the communication process is some type of interference that influences the transmission of messages and feedback. Noise can result from simple physical factors such as poor reception of a cell-phone message or static that drowns out a radio commercial. Noise can also be caused by different cultures and ethnics.

People communicate in many ways, including oral, written, formal, informal and nonverbal communications. See Table 10.2.

Form	Description	Examples
Oral	Communication by speech	Conversations, speeches, telephone conversations, voice mail
Written	Writing	e-mail, memos, faxes, letters
Formal	Transmitted via chain of command	Internal – memos, reports, oral presentations; External – letters, proposals, news releases, press conferences
Informal	Communication transmitted outside formal channels	Rumours spread informally among employees
Verbal	Messages in words	Meetings, telephone calls, voice mail, video conferences
Nonverbal communication	Actions and behaviours rather than words	Gestures, facial expressions, posture, body language, dress

Managers spend a great deal of their time engaged in oral communication, both in person and on the phone. In any medium, a vital component of oral communication is listening – receiving a message and interpreting its genuine meaning by accurately grasping the facts and feelings conveyed. However, most people can recall only half of a message immediately after receiving it.

There are certain types of listening such as cynical, offensive, polite and active listening. Cynical listening is a defensive type of listening that occurs when the receiver of a message feels that the sender is trying to gain some advantage from the communication. Offensive listening happens when the receiver tries to catch the speaker in a mistake or contradiction. In Polite listening, it is a mechanical type of listening, the receiver listens to be polite rather than to communicate. Polite listeners are usually inattentive and spend their time rehearsing what they want to say when the speaker finishes. During Active listening, there requires involvement with the information and empathy with the speaker’s situation. In both business and personal life, active listening is the basis for effective communication.

Channels for written communication include reports, letters, memos, instant messages and e-mail messages. Effective written communication reflects its audience, the channel carrying the message, and the appropriate degree of formality. A lot of planning is involved in writing a business document. Although e-mail can be a very effective communication channel, mass marketing e-mailing is rarely effective.

A formal communication channel carries messages that flow within the chain of command structure defined by an organization. Managers may communicate downward by sending employees e-mail messages, presiding at department meetings, giving employees policy manuals, posting notices on bulletin boards, and reporting news in company newsletters.

Informal communication channels carry messages outside formally authorized channels within an organisation’s hierarchy. For example, the grapevine can quickly transmit information and is reliable 70% of the time.

Nonverbal communication transmits messages through actions and behaviours. Gestures, posture, eye contact, tone of voice and even clothing choices are all nonverbal actions that become communication signals (or cues). Interpreting nonverbal cues can be especially challenging for people with different cultural backgrounds. Concepts of appropriate personal space differ dramatically throughout most of the world. For example, South Americans conduct business discussions in positions that most North Americans would find uncomfortably close.

COMMUNICATION WITHIN THE ORGANIZATION

Internal communication consists of messages sent through channels within an organization. Examples include memos, meetings, speeches, phone conversations, and even a simple chat over lunch.

In smaller organizations, internal communications take the form of face-to-face conversations. Unclear interpretations can be remedied by further conversations. Internal communication becomes increasingly complex as the organization grows and adds employees. Messages, many of them transmitted via e-mail, often pass through several different layers of management in a typical large organization. The sender of a message must continually make certain that it is both clearly communicated orally or in writing and likely to be interpreted correctly.

Communication in teams:

Communication among team members can be divided into two broad categories: centralized and decentralized.

In the centralized communication network, team members exchange messages through a single person to solve problems or make decisions.

By contrast, in a decentralized communication network, members communicate freely with other team members and arrive at decisions together. Research has shown that centralized networks usually solve straightforward problems more quickly. However, for more complex problems, a decentralized network actually works faster and comes up with more accurate answers.

 

COMMUNICATION OUTSIDE THE ORGANIZATION

External communication is a meaningful exchange of information through messages, transmitted between an organization and its major audiences, such as customers, suppliers, other firms, the general public, and government officials.

Businesses use external communication to keep their operations functioning, to maintain their positions in the marketplace, and to build customer relationships by supplying information about topics such as product modifications and price changes. Every communication with customers – including the sales presentations, customer orders, and advertisements – should create goodwill and contribute to customer satisfaction. External communications with other groups, such as investors and the general public, should be designed to put the company in a positive light.

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS COMMUNICATION

Communication can be a special challenge in the international business arena. An international message’s appropriateness depends in part on an accurate translation that conveys the intended nuances of meaning. Businesspeople who want to succeed in the international marketplace must ensure that they send only linguistically and culturally appropriate messages.

English is the primary language of business and is an official language in over 75 nations. However, words can vary in different English speaking countries. For example, in USA soccer is played on a field. In UK, football is played on a pitch.

Anthropologists classify cultures as low context and high context. Communication in low-context cultures tends to rely on explicit written and verbal messages. Low context countries include Austria and Germany.

In contrast, communication in high-context cultures – such as Japan and India – depends not only on the message itself but also on the conditions that surround it, including nonverbal cues, past and present experiences, and personal relationships between the parties.

Workplace differences also influence the process of communication. In general, learning about cultures of the countries in which they operate is essential for managers who want to communicate effectively.