Work Team Development

1
Chapter 13

• Work Team Development

2
Learning Objectives (part 1 of 2)

• Describe major OD quality and productivity
  interventions.
• Diagnose job design problems as part of OD
  program.

3
Learning Objectives (part 2 of 2)

• Identify similarities and differences in job
  design, total quality management, and
  self-managed work teams.
• Experience how an OD practitioner can help an
  organization to make productivity changes.

4
Chugach School District (part 1 of 3)

• Baldrige Award given to U.S. organizations that
  have exemplary achievements in quality.
• Chugach School District (CSD) received award for
  whole child education.
• CSD emphasizes real-life learning situations.

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Chugach School District (part 2 of 3)

• Interested groups produced a core vision, shared
  values, and common performance goals.
• Approach is individualized and student-centered.
• Ten content areas and minimum graduation levels
  of mastery.

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Chugach School District (part 3 of 3)

• Highlights of 10 years of results include
• Student performance exceeds state and national
  norms.
• More students are going on to college.
• Faculty turnover rate went from 55 to 12 percent.

7
Continuous Improvement Processes

• Message for organizations is clear change or
  face elimination.
• Trends in organizations are toward decrease in
  staff positions and decentralization.
• Decision-making authority being pushed down to
  lowest levels of organization.

8
Changes in Job Design

• Design of jobs changing to accommodate demands of
  changing organizations.
• Job design involves changing nature of jobs to
  improve workers satisfaction and productivity.
• Line workers are planning, organizing,
  controlling, and leading.

9
Job Enrichment Theory

• Jobs should be redesigned to improve motivators
  related to a job.
• Permit employees to attain more responsibility
  and achievement.
• Increase achievement, recognition,
  responsibility, advancement, and challenge for an
  employee.

10
Techniques to Improve Motivation Factors of Jobs
(part 1 of 2)

• Arrange job into natural and complete units.
• Add more difficult assignments.
• Grant additional authority.
• Employees become experts in areas.
• Make information directly available.

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Techniques to Improve Motivation Factors of Jobs
(part 2 of 2)

• Remove controls while still holding employee
  accountable.
• Extrinsic rewards are important but in themselves
  not motivators.
• Improve both quality of work and rewards.

12
Job Characteristics Theory

• Theory attempts to develop objective measures of
  job characteristics.
• Purpose is to directly affect employee attitudes
  and work behaviors.

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5 Core Job Dimensions (part 1 of 2)

1. Skill variety - types of skills involved.
2. Task identity - job is identifiable piece of
   work.
3. Task significance - job impacts lives of others.

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5 Core Job Dimensions (part 2 of 2)

• Autonomy - job provides independence in
  scheduling work.
• Job feedback - job obtains direct feedback.
• Jobs that measure high on preceding dimensions
  produce increased outcomes.

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Motivational Potential Based on Formula
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Methods for Improving Jobs(part 1 of 2)

• Take fractionalized tasks and put together.
• Form natural work units.
• Allow employee to have direct contact with people
  using product or service.

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Methods for Improving Jobs(part 2 of 2)

• Allow an employee to decide on work methods,
  budgets, and managing crises.
• Establish feedback channels so employees can
  learn how they are performing.
• Research on job design generally favorable and
  bear out validity of theories.

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Our Changing World When Teams are 14 Time Zones
Apart (part 1 of 3)

• ValiCert is software company confronted with
  rising costs and competition from overseas.
• Answer to problem was to move much of programming
  to India.

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Our Changing World (part 2 of 3)

• ValiCert did not fully analyze their solution.
• Problems included distance, inexperienced
  programmers, and no local manager.
• Indian programmers resigned in frustration.

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Our Changing World (part 3 of 3)

• ValiCert changed operations
• Indian programmers given entire projects.
• Indian employees included in e-mails.
• Position created to coordinate U.S. and Indian
  teams.

21
Total Quality Management (TQM)

• TQM is improving quality of organizations
  product or service.
• Organizational strategy committed to improving
  customer satisfaction.
• Develops techniques to carefully manage output
  quality.

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Characteristics of TQM (part 1 of 2)

• Organization wide.
• Top support.
• TQM in the culture.
• Partnership with customers and suppliers.
• Everyone in organization is customer.

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Characteristics of TQM (part 2 of 2)

• Reduced cycle time.
• Techniques range in scope.
• Do it right the first time.
• Organization values and respects everyone.
• Designed to fit organization.

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Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award

• U.S. government response to encourage
  organizations to improve quality.
• Award given annually from 2 to 5 organizations.
• Criteria for award includes leadership, strategic
  planning, customer focus, human resource focus,
  and business results.

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TQM and OD Have Similar Values

• TQM may not be part of OD program.
• TQM as stand-alone program assumes problems and
  solutions relate to quality.
• OD practitioner guards against being quality
  expert.
• OD program may include TQM as one of techniques.

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Self-Managed Work Teams

• Autonomous group whose members decide how to
  handle their task.
• Composed of people from different parts of
  organization with different skills.
• May be permanent or temporary.

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Characteristics of Self-Managed Work Teams (part
1 of 2)

• Structure has few management levels.
• Lack of status symbols.
• Functional boundaries that member can identify.
• Number of team members usually 5 to 15.
• Team orders material and equipment.

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Characteristics of Self-Managed Work Teams (part
2 of 2)

• Team has sense of vision.
• Partnership among members and management.
• Diversity in members viewpoints.
• Information openly shared.
• Members knowledgeable in their areas.

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Design of Jobs

• 5 core job dimensions help in evaluating extent
  team is self-managed.
• Organization structure modified to accommodate
  teams.
• Team provides their own management.
• Fewer support staff because team performs these
  jobs.

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OD in Practice W. L. Gores Lattice System
(part 1 of 3)

• Gore depends on continual innovation.
• Gore uses the flat lattice system.
• No chains of command.
• Associates work on projects they believe most
  worthy of their time.

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OD in Practice (part 2 of 3)

• Leaders emerge rather than being appointed.
• Team does interviewing and hiring.
• New associate assigned a sponsor.
• Team successful because members are successful.

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OD in Practice (part 3 of 3)

• Seniority and education do not count.
• Compensation based on associates contribution to
  firm.
• All associates offered stock option plan and
  profit sharing.

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Teams Usually Have Three Levels of Management

1. Internal leader - Makes sure equipment and
   supplies are available.
2. Coordinator or external leader - Teacher and
   facilitator. Helps team obtain resources.
3. Upper management or support team - Does general
   planning, makes broad goals, and deals with
   outside parties.

34
Reward Systems

• Based on team performance.
• Rewards may be given to team and then team
  decides how to distribute them.
• Teams small enough for individuals performance
  to be reflected in paycheck and paycheck of
  everyone else on team.

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Cautions in Using Self-Managed Teams

• May not be appropriate to task, people, and
  context.
• Managers and leaders may be vague about roles.
• Lack of training can cause teams to fail.

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Key Words and Concepts

• Autonomy - degree to which job provides
  independence to the individual.
• Baldridge Award - given to U.S. organizations
  that have achievements in quality.
• Coordinator - energizer and serves as teacher and
  facilitator for team.

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• Gain sharing - incentive system sometimes used in
  self-managed work teams.
• Internal team leader - leader of team usually
  selected by members.
• Job characteristics model - objective measures of
  job characteristics that can affect employee
  attitudes and work behaviors.

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• Job design - the way a job is structured.
• Job enrichment theory - method that builds in
  satisfaction to a job.
• Job feedback - individual obtaining direct and
  clear information about performance.

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• Motivating potential score (MPS) - measurement of
  jobs ability to produce increased personal and
  work outcomes.
• Self-managed work teams - autonomous group whose
  members decide how to handle their task.

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• Skill variety - degree job requires variety of
  activities that involve different skills and
  talents.
• Support team - responsible for general planning,
  making broad goals, and dealing with outside
  parties.

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• Task identity - requires completion of whole and
  identifiable piece of work.
• Task significance - degree to which job has
  impact on lives of other people
• Total Quality Management (TQM) - organization
  strategy to improve customer satisfaction by
  managing output quality.

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Preparations for Next Chapter

• Read Chapter 14.
• Complete Step 1 of OD Skills Simulation 14.1.
• Read and analyze Case Tucker Knox Corporation.