Business Management: Self-Managing & Directed Teams

Service industry is getting more attention in B-World. It has never been so easy to establish a company, I should say, listed company as it is now being in service industry rapidly. Production and operation enabled companies have seen so many business management fundamentals for quality control and best team management including quality circles.

If I were to point, I would talk about Baldrige Award Framework that promotes quality awareness in organization. It is based on a weighted score of seven categories of performance criteria. Consultancy firms, IT or Hospitality services and so other services in this industry want more influential, organizer and innovator talents.

Take an example of a small IT company of 10-50 talents serving best functional and operational solutions to giants. Do you want to categorize such company in levels? E.g. One HR, One Director, One Software Engineer, One Writer, One Quality Tester, One Functional Analyst, One Support Engineer, One System Administrator, One Hardware Engineer, One Designer etc. I agree to hire masters but I am against individual operations capability. I favor multiple skills specialist or in other words "All Rounder".

This article is to describe the team needed in today’s service industry so called as ‘Self Managing Teams".

Emery suggested, "In designing a social system to efficiently operate a modern capital-intensive plant the key problem is that of creating self-managing groups to man the interface with the technical system."

The basis of the autonomous work group approach to job design is socio-technical system theory that suggest that the best results are obtained if grouping is such that workers are primarily related to each other by way of task performance and task interdependence.

Charles Peguy described, "A man is not determined by what he does and still less by what he says. But in the deepest part of himself a being is determined solely by what he is." Self-management team is made of such persons who are motivated by self.

Defining Self - Managing Team

A self-managing team or autonomous work group is allocated an overall task and given discretion over how the work is done. It provides for intrinsic motivation by giving people autonomy and the means to control their work, which will include feedback information.

Self-Directed (or Self-Managing) Teams are teams that have been structured to manage and coordinate their own activities and make many of the day-to-day decisions that would have traditionally been made by a supervisor or manager. They usually have responsibility for a complete piece of work (such as engine assembly) and they work quite closely and interdependently.

A self-management team is a permanent group of employees who together are responsible for the total process where products or services are made and delivered to internal or external clients.

According to one research, the TQM and mass production organized groups did not improve customer service quality or sales volume. While self-managed teams improved sales by 9.4% and quality of customer service by 6.3%.

In fact, comprehensive surveys report that 79% of companies in the Fortune 1,000 currently deploy such "empowered," "self-directed" or "autonomous" teams. Because of their widespread use, much research has been devoted to understanding how best to set up self-managing teams to maximize their effectiveness.

Understanding Multi-skilled Team Better

Self-managing team incorporates the concepts of Hackman & Oldham's job characteristics model.

Autonomy
Skill variety
Task significance
Task identity
Positive Feedback

- The team enlarges individual jobs to include a wider range of operative skills. It is multi-skilled team operations.

- It decides on methods of work and the planning, scheduling and controlling of work.

- It distributes tasks itself among its members. The team plans and guards the process on its own, solves daily problems, without always having to consult the manager or supporting services.

- It takes account of the social or group factors and the technology as well as the individual motivators.

- The team maintains independently contacts with others teams and staff.

- The team improves working methods on its own, and has all the relevant information available on the basis of which they evaluate their results.

- The team-members posses both qualifications on both the care they deliver as well as certain organizational qualities.

Self-Management Team Development

According to Vanessa Urch Druskat and Jane V. Wheeler "Leading Self-Management teams in organization is the process that requires specific behaviors that can be grouped into four basic functions.

__First moving back and forth between the team and the broader organization to build relationships,
__Second scouting necessary information,
__Third persuading the team and outside constituents to support one another, and
__Forth empowering team members."

Self-Managing Team & Corporate

"Whole Foods is very committed to the team structure and self-managing work teams; they're like the basic cells of the company. The teams are empowered. They do their own hiring. They do their own scheduling. To become a team member at Whole Foods, you have to get voted on by your team after a trial period. If you don't get a two-thirds vote, you don't get on the team", said John Mackey, founder of Whole Foods on Self –managing work team.

Hewlett Packard trusts and respects for individuals, focusing on high level achievement and contribution, conducting business with integrity, achieving objectives through teamwork, and encouraging flexibility and innovation.

Let it be either small or big, no doubts most of the companies are applying to have self-management teams in organization.

Books on Self-Managing Team

Dawn Burstall, T. Michael Vallis and Geoffrey K. Turnbull, "I.B.S. Relief: A Doctor, a Dietitian, and a Psychologist Provide a Team Approach to Managing Irritable Bowel Syndrome".

Ronald E. Purser and Steven Cabana, "The Self-Managing Organization: How Leading Companies Are Transforming the Work of Teams for Real Impact".