John Edwards
Katzenbach and Smith
HBR
The Authors
Jon R. Katzenbach is a founder and senior partner of Katzenbach Partners, a strategic and organizational consulting firm, and a former director of McKinsey & Company. His most recent book is Why Pride Matters More Than Money: The Power of the World’s Greatest Motivational Force (Crown Business, 2003). Douglas K. Smith is an organizational consultant and a former partner at McKinsey & Company. His most recent book is On Value and Values: Thinking Differently About We in an Age of Me (Financial Times Prentice Hall, 2004).
In 1994 Katzenbach and Smith published The Wisdom of Teams, Based on studies of team work across several companies and case studies of business environments and work challenges. Their findings expose the factors that stimulate high performance in teams.
The book states that a team needs the right mix of skills in three areas:
1. Technical or functional expertise;
2. Problem solving and decision-making skills;
3. Interpersonal skills.
All three are required to work effectively as a team but different members can have different skills.
The authors’ major point is the importance of the team’s commitment to the joint aspect of the common purpose and the performance goals which set the tone and aspiration for the team. The performance goals must be specific and grow out of the statement of purpose. Finally to become a team there must be agreement on a common approach which defines how they will work together to accomplish their purpose together with the concept of mutual accountability. The work group of individuals does not have this concept of mutual accountability.
In growing from a work group of individuals to an integrated team most groups follow a fairly standard team performance curve in the following steps:
1. Working group - collection of individuals doing own work.
2. Pseudo-team - there is a need for integrated performance but they are not trying to do it.
3. Potential team - there is a need for joint performance and they are trying to improve.
4. Real team - there is a common purpose, goals, approach and accountability.
5. High performance team- team members are committed to each others personal growth.
There is a risk in attempting but not achieving a real team process.
The authors list five characteristics that define teams as follows:
1. A set of themes that convey meaning about the basic purpose and identity of the team.
2. Enthusiasm and energy level.
3. Event driven histories. (galvanizing events or stories that propel performance)
4. Personal commitment.
5. Performance results. (outstanding results)
There are a variety of common approaches for building team performance up the curve from working group to high performance team as follows:
1. Establish urgency and direction.
2. Select team members based on skills, not personalities.
3. Pay particular attention to first meetings and actions.
4. Set up some clear rules of behavior.
5. Set and seize upon a few immediate performance-oriented tasks and goals.
6. Challenge the group regularly with fresh facts and information.
7. Spend lots of time together.
8. Exploit the power of positive feedback, recognition and reward.
Chapter seven deals with the role of the team leader, an important area for Project Managers. The requirements for leadership of a team are much different than that required for leading a group of individuals in a work group. “Team leaders act to clarify purpose and goals, build commitment and self confidence, strengthen the team’s collective skills and approach, remove externally imposed obstacles, and create opportunities for others.” There is a critical balance between doing things themselves and letting others do them. There is also a balance between directing and coordinating behavior on the part of the team leader.
The following are roles of the team leader:
1. Keep the purpose, goals and approach relevant and meaningful.
2. Build commitment and confidence.
3. Strengthen the mix and level of skills.
4. Manage relationships with outsiders, including removing obstacles.
5. Create opportunities for others.
6. Do real work.
The authors go on with chapters on overcoming obstacles and the role of top management. The paperback version ends with a very useful Appendix titled, The Teams Question and Answer Guide. This was prepared after the hard back publication based on questions the authors received from readers of the first edition. There are 24 pages of useful questions and answers. The book contains the stories of a number of teams to illustrate the points made in the text and to describe the field research which led to the book. The title, The Wisdom of Teams, reflects their view that each team develops a wisdom of its own.
issue devoted to high performance teams. While Peter Drucker may have been the first to point out that a team-based
organization can be highly effective, Katzenbach and Smith’s work made it possible for companies to implement
the idea. While Peter Drucker may have been the first to point out that a team-based
organization can be highly effective, Katzenbach and Smith’s work made it possible for companies to implement
the idea.
The wisdom of teams: creating the high
” Teams are flexible and responsive to changing events and demands.”
“Real teamd do not develop until the people in them work hard to overcome barriers that s tand in the way of collective performane. By surmounting obstacles together\, people in teams build trust and ocnfidence in each others’ capabilities.
Groups become teamsm by overcoming bariers to erformance.
Teams have greagter flexibility and willingness to enlarge their solution space. Not threatened by change – unlike group members left to fend for themselves. They have a collect
In this groundbreaking 1993 article, the authors say that if managers want to make better decisions about teams,
they must be clear about what a team is. They define a team as “a small number of people with complementary
skills who are committed to a common purpose, set of performance goals, and approach for which they hold
themselves mutually accountable.”
Katzenbach and Smith discuss the four elements—common commitment and purpose, performance goals,
complementary skills, and mutual accountability—that make teams function. They also classify teams into three
varieties—teams that recommend things, teams that make or do things, and teams that run things—and describe
how each type faces different challenges.
Not All Groups Are Teams
Groups don’t become teams just because that is what someone calls them. Nor do teamwork values alone ensure
team performance. So what is a team? How can managers know when the team option makes sense, and what
can they do to ensure team success? In this groundbreaking 1993 article, authors Jon Katzenbach and Douglas
Smith answer these questions and outline the discipline that defines a real team.
The essence of a team is shared commitment. Without it, groups perform as individuals; with it, they become a
powerful unit of collective performance. The best teams invest a tremendous amount of time shaping a purpose
that they can own. They also translate their purpose into specific performance goals. And members of successful
teams pitch in and become accountable with and to their teammates.
The fundamental distinction between teams and other forms of working groups turns on performance. A working
group relies on the individual contributions of its members for collective performance. But a team strives for
something greater than its members could achieve individually: An effective team is always worth more than the
sum of its parts.
The authors identify three kinds of teams: those that recommend things—task forces or project groups; those that
make or do things—manufacturing, operations, or marketing groups; and those that run things—groups that
oversee some significant functional activity. For managers, the key is knowing where in the organization these
teams should be encouraged. Managers who can foster team development in the right place at the right time
prime their organizations for top performance.
Committees, councils, and task forces are not necessarily teams.
Groups do not become teams simply because that is what someone calls them. The entire workforce of any large
and complex organization is never a teamCommittees, councils, and task forces are not necessarily teams.
Groups do not become teams simply because that is what someone calls them. The entire workforce of any large
and complex organization is never a team
To understand how teams deliver extra performance, we must distinguish between teams and other forms of
working groups. That distinction turns on performance results. A working group’s performance is a function of
what its members do as individuals. A team’s performance includes both individual results and what we call
“collective work products.” A collective work product is what two or more members must work on together, such
as interviews, sur-veys, or experiments. Whatever it is, a collective work product reflects the joint, real contribution
of team members.
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Relevance.
Goal: Inform about the authoors and seek relevance eto our coure of sutudies.
Assmt: Inspire a team model- by definition and functionors, artculate goals (above) and and apply to course of studenitees
Measure: Reader can describe auth
1. Bios
2. Their philosophy ?anlogy Tony Robins difference between perfection is a few cm
3. Breakthrough
4. Leasons an applications
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What makes the difference between a team that performs and one that doesn’t?
by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith
In defining the qualities of high performance teams, Katzenbach and Smith
‘High performance teams typically reflect strong extensions of the basic characteristics of teams’.
According to their bookThe Wisdom of Teams, these strong extensions grow out of an intense commitment to the team’s mutual purpose. The qualities that distinguish a high performance team from other ordinary teams can be summed up as follows:
High performance teams have:
· A deeper sense of purpose.
· Relatively more ambitious performance goals compared to the average teams.
· Better work approaches or complete approaches as the authors term it.
· Mutual accountability; acknowledgement of their joint accountability towards a common purpose in addition to individual obligations to their specific roles.
· Complementary skill set, and at times interchangeable skills.
The above points capture the qualities found in high performance teams and these qualities are indeed stronger extensions of the factors that are usually necessary and ideal for team work, some of which follow:
· All teams need a clear cut mission, measurable performance goals for each team member to pursue, work approaches, procedures and processes to ensure that they accomplish a task efficiently and effectively, .
· All teams have to support the common mission and take their individual responsibility seriously to do their part in accomplishing a task.
· All teams need a mix of skills, experience and expertise, in order to meet the challenges of the team task.
In a high performance team, there seems to be a more advanced and full blown application of all the qualities that teams need to have in a general sense. But, the unique quality in a high performance team is that the team members have an inbuilt need and ambition to go after bigger challenges and they bring with them a work attitude and work ethic that creates a deeper commitment to the collective mission.
Let’s study the qualities in high performance teams in greater detail. In the context of‘a deeper sense of purpose’and‘relatively more ambitious performance goals’as mentioned above, an analogy can explain better the difference between a high performance team and an average team:
It is akin to the difference between a top seeded tennis player like Roger Federer and another player still striving to find his feet on the tennis circuit. The top seed has fine-tuned his game technique, is determined to play a winning game and is ready for any challenge. Another player who is yet to make a mark probably lacks the same intensity and certainly and has a thing or two to learn about both technique as well as perseverance.
Work approaches are another determinant in team performance. Work approaches comprise a whole host of team work processes such as:
· Decision making norms within the team.
· Approach to creativity in problem solving.
· Work standards that conform to accepted industry norms and practices.
· Methods for using team meetings effectively.
· The team process for completing a task from start to finish, and so on.
When a team is able to crack this aspect of team work and successfully integrate various aspects of its functioning, it paves the way for a far better team performance than a team where they struggle to find mutually acceptable methods to move the team work forward. For example, better work approaches can ensure better planning and scheduling of activities, quicker decisions, rapid response to customers, meeting deadlines, etc.
Mutual accountability is the collective responsibility of the team towards generating results and achieving success. Mutual accountability implies an implicit acknowledgement of the joint accountability of all team members towards a common purpose, in addition to the individual obligations in their specific roles. This creates a supportive environment within the team and the performance of the team improves in the presence of this type of mutual support and cohesion.
Complementary skills are a necessity in most teams. Most team tasks require multiple skills and the when the team members have complementary skills that are well balanced and congruent to the task, it is bound to raise the team performance. Interchangeable skills can be asset in some businesses, since the team members can depend on one another to jointly accomplish a task.
Besides these qualities, ‘Shared leadership’ is another factor highlighted by Katzenbach and Smith. It is a fairly recent concept that is gaining ground and is seen as important to facilitate high performance in teams. It calls for a great deal of personal initiative from individual team members. Read this related article to understand this concept better:
Shared leadership sustains high performance in teams
To sum up, the qualities that seem to foster high team performance are primarily acut abovethat of an average team. It is certainly not easy to create a high performance team with all these qualities, but an organisation can provide the building blocks with a few necessary measures such as the following-