Reference no: EM133297439

Case Study: "There is no I in team." Coaches and team leaders often use this phrase to establish a sense of camaraderie and to emphasize the importance of working together to achieve a common goal. In essence, they are communicating that the team cannot be successful without the collective expertise and efforts of everyone. A considerable amount of research has proven that teams working together are better than individuals working alone in a variety of complex and straightforward tasks.* While this sentiment may resonate with many on the team, others might retort that while "there is no I in team," definitely there is a ME. For teams to be effective, they have to satisfy the needs of the individual members as well as the collective goal or task for which the team has been brought together.

Whether you like being on a team, the fact remains that teams are a dominant means by which organizations accomplish operational, strategic, and creative tasks. By tapping into the collective experiences and perspectives of many individuals, organizations often compete more effectively and better adapt to changing contextual situations. The diverse skills and perspectives that individuals bring to teams enable the collective output to be much stronger than the sum of individual efforts. Teams also provide one of the first opportunities for individuals to exert leadership skills such as persuasion, negotiation, consensus building, and process management. Your ability to be an effective team member could play a significant role in your relationship with your peers as well as influence your future career prospects.

Working in teams can be crucial for organizations and the individuals in them, but at the same time, most people find such work to be difficult. Some of the frustrations experienced in teams include personal conflicts, individual agendas, lack of trust, poor information exchange, and ineffective leadership. And so, working in teams is at once crucial but also potentially frustrating.

Two companies that have been successful in achieving this balance of team member satisfaction and organizational performance are Whole Foods and Kyocera.

Teamwork at Whole Foods and Amoeba Management at Kyocera
Whole Foods operates 340 stores and generates over $11 billion per year in sales.* When measured by profit per square foot, it is America's most profitable food retailer. Whole Foods's success has been predicated on its ability to satisfy the needs of health-conscious consumers, who have made natural and organic foods the fastest-growing segment of the grocery industry in the United States.* One way in which Whole Foods has been able to service these consumers is by attracting and nurturing effective teams in individual stores.*

At each Whole Foods location, roughly eight teams oversee departments ranging from seafood to produce to baked goods. Each team is responsible for making decisions related to pricing, ordering, staffing, and in-store promotions. Each team is measured on its labor productivity, and the company calculates the profit per labor hour for every team in the store. Teams that exceed a preset productivity goal receive a bonus in their next paycheck. Teams also compete against their own historic productivity benchmarks, against other teams in their store, and against similar teams across the company.* In Whole Foods, team success is a key determinant of future career opportunities.

Rebecca Cook/Reuters/Landov
Similarly, Japan-based Kyocera, a provider of sophisticated electronic components for cell phones, televisions, and other high-technology products, adopted a team-focused process that it calls "amoeba management" in its manufacturing operation. Kazuo Inamori, the founder of Kyocera, believed that the manufacturing process should be divided into small groups of 5 to 50 employees that operate with a self-supporting accounting system and that are responsible for a particular work process and a specific component of profitability. Teams are often subdivided into smaller subteams so that the company can develop an even more accurate perspective of profitability. As the company grows, the process of subdivision continues until it no longer makes sense, just as an amoeba changes form and divides itself. The amoeba management process has enabled Kyocera to galvanize productivity while retaining an entrepreneurial spirit, even as the company has expanded to more than 71,000 employees. Like Whole Foods, team members are rewarded for improved performance and their ability to work well with each other and other teams in the manufacturing process.*

Companies such as Whole Foods and Kyocera operate under the notion that working in teams is more efficient and productive than working as independent individuals. Both companies employ teams that exhibit the three primary components of team effectiveness: producing results that are meaningful and tangible; building the capacity of team members to learn, adapt to change, and work together constructively in the future; and creating an opportunity for personal growth and development.*

These organizations believe that leveraging the combined knowledge and technical skills of multiple team members to complete work tasks can result in more innovative and productive work solutions as well as better bottom line results. Despite the successful efforts of companies such as Whole Foods and Kyocera to leverage teamwork, as we highlighted above, teams are not always effective and appropriate.

Knowing when to use teams and how to structure them is an important role for managers. Some tasks are better accomplished by individuals working alone, such as answering telephones and creating schedules. In these situations, individuals are responsible for their own job; there is no sense of mutual accountability.* Other tasks are complex enough that they require two or more employees working together to achieve the best outcome. This is particularly true in complex areas requiring multiple inputs such as new product development initiatives. New product development teams generally include individuals with an understanding of the customer (marketing and sales), an understanding of the production process (manufacturing), and an understanding of new technologies or applications (research and development). Tasks like these, which require the interdependent perspectives of many individuals, are better suited for teams.

This chapter will present a model for team effectiveness as well as an overview of team structures, characteristics, developmental stages, norms, and processes. We begin by describing the characteristics of teams and explaining how they exist in organizations. We then describe team development and team processes, the dynamic elements that are constantly changing, and to which leaders must understand and adapt. Finally, we describe how managers can get the most out of teams. We will showcase some of the special uses for teams and explore the factors that support and inhibit team effectiveness, including issues of diversity, participation patterns, and conflict management. Whether you serve as a team member or a team leader, you will share in the responsibility for creating acceptable outcomes from team efforts, growing your team in its capabilities, and promoting a positive learning experience for all team members. To do so, it is important to understand the vital role that teams play in organizational life.

Question 1: How are teams empowered at Whole Foods?
Question 2: At Whole Foods, why do you think management measures the performance of teams?
Question 3: What is "amoeba management" at Kyocera?
Question 4: How do you think "amoeba management" influences the performance of teams at Kyocera?