Networks of teams: a new buzzword? No, the most likely organizational future
“No matter how much work you can do, no matter how engaging your personality may be, you will not advance far in business if you cannot work through others” John Craig
John Craig, a Scottish mathematician, theologian, and Newton’s friend (yes, the British scientist who discovered universal gravity through the fall of an apple from a tree) is right. You could be the hardest working or the most intelligent person in the room, but “you will not advance far in business if you cannot work through others”.
History books as much as business magazines have always idolized the endeavors of Generals, Strategists, and Founders of companies. Although their contribution and vision were pivotal to the achievement of political and business objectives, they could not have obtained the same results without the support of groups of teams that worked in tandem to the pursuit of common goals.
Yes, teamwork has always existed and it has always supported leaders to achieve their ambitious goals. But…what is the difference between yesterday and today’s teamwork?
Teamwork over the years
Yesterday’s teams represent the older model of organizations — top-down decisions filtered down to siloed departments with very little autonomy or decisional power at the team level. For nearly a century, scientific management principles dominated managerial design, with a focus on standardization of work processes, detailed supervision, and incentive pay. Today’s teamwork, on the other hand, as highlighted by Deloitte Insights, is a far more democratic and autonomous process because the rapid pace of change and global competition is forcing organizations to rethink how to stay resilient and agile.
Moreover, as we all know, no manager or CEO is capable of digesting and processing the high amount of information available and needed today to make quick and informed decisions. Thus, democratic and autonomous teams have replaced detailed supervision and hierarchical decisions in order to reduce the asymmetry of information, and improve an organization’s speed and agility.
As Steve Jobs once said, “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and tell them what to do; we hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.” Indeed, employee voice, high levels of trust, and a bottom-up approach is a necessity when solving complex problems and coming up with disruptive ideas.
Insights from the industry: GE Appliance was one of the first manufacturing companies to have revolutionized its time to market approach through the so-called “Fast Works” program, which takes the Lean Startup mindset, and tailors it for a company with GE’s size and resources. They believed that a more lean and cross-functional approach would help the company be more customer-oriented and aligned with new business needs. To make the program work, GE Appliance had to change existing working practices. For instance, teams under the program gained more decisional autonomy, and time for approval was greatly reduced.
The changes were a big success: since adopting “FastWorks” GE Appliance has cut program costs in half and was able to double its normal sales rate.
Companies are also re-designing how they do work to be aligned with the expectations of the new working generations: in about 10 years almost half the workforce will be made up of Millennials, the generation most likely to switch jobs according to Gallup. Due to the high cost of turnover (about $30.5 billion annually in the US) companies are investing a lot in targeted practices to improve the working experiences among Millennials. Work-life balance, for example, is a top priority for Millenials, and more and more companies have re-thought working hours and spaces to adapt. American Express, for example, launched the flexible workplace strategy “BlueWork program” as an employee perk. Besides the economic advantages stemming from the new flexible working approach, the level of collaboration and interaction between individuals, teams, and business units exceed the expected outcomes.
Bye organization charts. Hello networks of teams
Like the dino-killing asteroid that irreversibly changed life on Earth more than 160 million years ago, networks of teams are about to disrupt current organizational modus operandi.
Who would have ever imagined that?
Just to provide you with a little bit of context, the first organization chart was coined by the Scottish-American engineer Daniel McCallum around 1854. The most common type of organization charts — the hierarchical one — has been crucial for businesses to define reporting mechanisms and responsibilities among divisions and functions. Today, about 164 years later, the vast majority of companies strongly believe that redesigning the organization is the number one priority in their agenda. The top-down, hierarchical organization structures are about to be replaced by other types of organizational designs, and networks of teams are in pole position.
The proliferation of collaboration and project management tools such as Slack, G Suite, and Trello, is pivotal to the establishment of team-centric practices as they enable individuals to take part in multiple teams and be involved in multiple projects at the same time. Slack boasts 8 million of daily users for this reason..cool, right?
Nevertheless, just buying or using collaboration and project management tools doesn’t mean you will have great teamwork; just like putting together smart people doesn’t mean you will have a great team. Companies must learn how to build, sustain, and motivate high performing teams to adapt to ongoing business changes.
Are you ready for it?
Here are three questions to ask yourself when aligning your company to new organizational and business needs:
1) How are you using data to drive decision making? Although intuition is part of human nature, it is also famous to be one of the drivers of biased conclusions. Have you ever heard psychologists talking about heuristics in judgment and decision making? In order to avoid these mental shortcuts, companies should leverage data critically and add a human touch to data-driven decisions.
2) Are you getting ongoing, regular feedback from all employees? Listen to your employees to understand their experience at work and adjust current HR strategies accordingly. Top-down solutions don’t drive high performing teams anymore.
3) How are you investing in your company’s culture? Organizational redesign is not the only ingredient to create a competitive company — P&G’s restructuring program since 1945 can teach us that. The development of a culture by design, rather than ending up with a culture by default is pivotal to create the best environment for teams to thrive.
Leading companies such as Google through Project Aristotle and GE through Fast Works have begun rethinking and reshaping how teamwork is managed. Are you ready to do the same?
The future comes today
Cally is marrying team science with new streams of data to help teams create their greatest work. As organizations are shifting work structures to network of teams, Cally is there to support and catalyze networks of teams to work together efficiently and productively.
We would love to continue this conversation. Please follow our blog to find out more insights on how to build a team-oriented organization, then please feel free to share your opinion below or reach out teams@cally.ai. Your perspective is very important to us! If you are ready to get on board subscribe here, it is free for small teams!
