Recently whilst working with a top team at one of our clients we were reminded of an article that had struck a chord with us when it first appeared a few years back. We thought you might be interested in a summary of the article and SKAI's thoughts in response. The article is "The Myth of the Top Management team by Jon R. Katzenbach" and it first appeared in the Harvard Business Review in 1997. If you would like the full text of the article it can be found on the HBR site at www.hbr.com
Article Summary
The article puts forward the hypothesis that there is often a group of people at the very top of an organisation that professes to be a team. But is that really so? The author proposes that a number of critical criteria for the status of a real team are likely to be missing for the group, which in fact makes them very far from being a team of any sort. These criteria are a small number of people; that have complementary skills; who are committed to a clearly defined common purpose; who have performance goals; and have an approach (an organised way of working) for which they hold themselves mutually accountable.
Katzenbach argues that unless this "discipline of team basics" is present, than at best the team is certainly not going to achieve any enhanced results from working together (as opposed to alone), and at worse will find the whole experience deeply frustrating. Too many senior executives and CEO's see few gains in their performance from the attempts to become more team like. It remains true to say however that an effective team is often going to be the best way of delivering optimal performance. He thinks that non-team behaviour can typically prevail at the top - and understandably so. This is because a meaningful purpose for a team at the top is difficult to define; performance goals are hard to articulate; the right mix of skills is often absent (people are members because of their grade or job title not their skill set); most teams require a heavy time investment that senior people don't believe they have available; real teams rely on mutual accountability yet most executives have mastered the discipline that is grounded in individual accountability; and non teams (hierarchical groups with single leaders) fit the power structure better.
Given this Katzenbach proposes that "teaming at the top" is an unnatural act. What he suggests is that wise leaders recognise the inherent values in team vs. non-team behaviours, and understand the fundamentally different disciplines required for strong executive leadership on one hand and for true team performance on the other. They can and do learn to integrate the two according to task and business need rather than replacing one with the other. Not easy as this produces conflicts that are difficult to resolve.
What do we at SKAI think?
Complex problems and complex organisations make team working in today's companies essential. There is a big cost to allowing the guys at the top to opt out of team working - it means that they can't sponsor teams elsewhere in the organisation; they don't understand it at a deep enough level to reinforce and coach others to do it; and they are unable to role model that behaviour. And since EVERY BRIGHT SPARK IN THE ORGANISATION IS WATCHING THEM, the indirect messages they send are powerful!
It's not as hard as Katzenbach says to create common purpose and performance goals - help may be needed, but it can be done. If there isn't a crisis to justify team working at the top (or indeed anywhere else) it might be a good idea to make one. Maybe their everyday interaction doesn't call for team working (most have no idea if this is true or not because they don't have regular defined working methods, so are doomed to failure or dictatorship!) but what valuable task could be adopted on a regular basis that would call for team working? Top team people are often more unusually skilled than they think - it takes effort to find out about this and deploy appropriately and imaginatively.
Why don't you play "TRUTH OR DARE" with SKAI on this one.
TRUTH - ask your own team members how many of the "critical criteria" they believe are present in the team, and which ones are missing.
DARE - ask your boss to give you (the team) a task that would make a difference to the organisation and require you to work as a team to deliver.
We'd love to hear of your results (if you take up the truth or dare) or comments generally about the premises in the article or SKAI's response. |
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