The Paradox of Teamwork
15 May 2008
Read by 1491 persons
Admitting you're not a team player is almost suicidal. Yet, very few organizations lead by example.
Even if everyone agrees that teamwork is the best way to achieve an organization's goals, putting it into practice is not easy.
Team goals are not always understood or accepted by its members, who are more often focused on their individual goals. The larger the organization or group, the more complex it becomes. Remember, even at school, it was difficult to agree on the distribution of tasks for teamwork. Collaboration between the one who was always late in their research, the "slacker", the top student anxious about the final grade... and yourself sometimes led to heated end-of-session work. It was always the same people who took care of producing the final document. In a company, the scenario is similar, except that the objectives and deadlines are imposed by your employer, who pays you for it. To become a better team player, it is important to know the major paradoxes of teamwork in our organizations.
Work organization in silos
Teams are grouped by function and skills, and have little interaction, except when required. Even matrix structures designed to force units to collaborate do not succeed. Take the HR function. It serves multiple internal clients, but it is mainly composed of specialists who, even among HR professionals, sometimes have difficulty collaborating. For example, the compensation function is often caught between its internal salary scales and the external market. Result: compensation experts are often in conflict with their recruiting colleagues when it comes to hiring external candidates. In addition, a finance vice-president recently confided to me that his budget process was like a civil war. The sales teams flatly refused to cooperate with his teams and did not accept their methods of calculating operating costs. Result? It was almost impossible for him to account for certain expenses, and the process was dramatically lengthened.
Evaluation and compensation systems
Although companies want to encourage teamwork, they mainly reward individual performance. Even if a portion of the year-end bonus is based on achieving company objectives, it is often difficult for employees to understand the distribution rules. The individual bonus is linked to the individual's performance, the achievement of whose objectives is assessed during the annual performance review. It is based on this evaluation that the employee may or may not be promoted, advance their career internally, obtain training and a raise. These mechanisms do not encourage mutual assistance or collaboration.
The divergence between collective objectives and individual objectives
On the one hand, companies must react quickly, innovate constantly, and face an increasingly complex environment; on the other hand, employees are looking for a better work-life balance and feel less and less committed to the organization. The gap is therefore widening between companies' expectations of their employees and what the latter seek at work. This is how we end up with heterogeneous teams where perfectionists, workaholics, 9-to-5 employees, and those who practice presenteeism coexist. Not all employees feel equally concerned by the company's growth and the achievement of its objectives
Team composition
You rarely choose your colleagues. When was the last time you were asked your opinion about your office neighbor? You will have to put up with it, however: it may be the only common point you share with him. No doubt, when it comes to teamwork, there is a form of hypocrisy manifested by creative mobilization seminars, collective motivation gurus, paintball games and other collective stress-relief activities.
Posted on May 15, 2008
latoiledesrecruteurs.com
Even if everyone agrees that teamwork is the best way to achieve an organization's goals, putting it into practice is not easy.
Team goals are not always understood or accepted by its members, who are more often focused on their individual goals. The larger the organization or group, the more complex it becomes. Remember, even at school, it was difficult to agree on the distribution of tasks for teamwork. Collaboration between the one who was always late in their research, the "slacker", the top student anxious about the final grade... and yourself sometimes led to heated end-of-session work. It was always the same people who took care of producing the final document. In a company, the scenario is similar, except that the objectives and deadlines are imposed by your employer, who pays you for it. To become a better team player, it is important to know the major paradoxes of teamwork in our organizations.
Work organization in silos
Teams are grouped by function and skills, and have little interaction, except when required. Even matrix structures designed to force units to collaborate do not succeed. Take the HR function. It serves multiple internal clients, but it is mainly composed of specialists who, even among HR professionals, sometimes have difficulty collaborating. For example, the compensation function is often caught between its internal salary scales and the external market. Result: compensation experts are often in conflict with their recruiting colleagues when it comes to hiring external candidates. In addition, a finance vice-president recently confided to me that his budget process was like a civil war. The sales teams flatly refused to cooperate with his teams and did not accept their methods of calculating operating costs. Result? It was almost impossible for him to account for certain expenses, and the process was dramatically lengthened.
Evaluation and compensation systems
Although companies want to encourage teamwork, they mainly reward individual performance. Even if a portion of the year-end bonus is based on achieving company objectives, it is often difficult for employees to understand the distribution rules. The individual bonus is linked to the individual's performance, the achievement of whose objectives is assessed during the annual performance review. It is based on this evaluation that the employee may or may not be promoted, advance their career internally, obtain training and a raise. These mechanisms do not encourage mutual assistance or collaboration.
The divergence between collective objectives and individual objectives
On the one hand, companies must react quickly, innovate constantly, and face an increasingly complex environment; on the other hand, employees are looking for a better work-life balance and feel less and less committed to the organization. The gap is therefore widening between companies' expectations of their employees and what the latter seek at work. This is how we end up with heterogeneous teams where perfectionists, workaholics, 9-to-5 employees, and those who practice presenteeism coexist. Not all employees feel equally concerned by the company's growth and the achievement of its objectives
Team composition
You rarely choose your colleagues. When was the last time you were asked your opinion about your office neighbor? You will have to put up with it, however: it may be the only common point you share with him. No doubt, when it comes to teamwork, there is a form of hypocrisy manifested by creative mobilization seminars, collective motivation gurus, paintball games and other collective stress-relief activities.
Posted on May 15, 2008
latoiledesrecruteurs.com
