Don’t Let Teamwork Get in the Way of Agility

Don’t Let Teamwork Get in the Way of Agility

by Elaine Pulakos and Robert B. (Rob) Kaiser - May 12, 2020

Effective teamwork has never been more important than it is today, as organizations face an exceedingly volatile economy with significant business threats. Prevailing wisdom would have us use teamwork as much as possible to face these challenges head-on. The theory is that working in teams - especially those with different skillsets and backgrounds - sparks innovation, enables agility, and leads to better outcomes. However, our recent research suggests that maximizing teamwork often fails to yield the results we expect; in fact, in some cases, it undermines them.

The reality is that productive teamwork and collaboration are hard to achieve. Bringing together people with diverse expertise can potentially stall rather than fuel innovation, especially when responding to an urgent need. Not to mention the larger, structural tensions that often leave team members jockeying for positions, making power grabs, and withholding information to protect their turf.

This is not to say we should throw teamwork out the window entirely. Rather, we believe a change in mindset about how to best implement it is needed to achieve the agility and resilience that are vital for surviving through, and thriving beyond, Covid-19.

Instead of maximizing teamwork, our research on what distinguishes agile organizations suggests that we need to rightsize it. This means considering what form and how much teamwork is needed at each stage of a project to get it done efficiently and effectively. Rightsizing teamwork requires judiciously selecting the right people to contribute, at the right time.

While this approach may initially seem in conflict with goals of inclusivity, consideration, and respect - when done right, it can improve those things. Involving others when they are needed, as opposed to by default, is actually more considerate and respectful of the many people who are suffering from project overload and burnout. Rightsizing is not about minimizing inclusion. It’s about changing “teamwork” from a buzzword to an optimized practice that creates seamless companywide connections.

We believe organizations that master rightsizing will have a greater chance of success in this new business environment. The most agile companies do so by using three evidence-based practices:

Define what kind of teamwork needs to take place. 

Different stages of work require different kinds of teamwork. For example, successfully completing tasks in the early production stage of a new initiative involves activities and requirements that differ from those needed in the final stage. There is no one-size-fits-all definition of what “good teamwork” looks like throughout a single project. More is not always better, and sometimes, less or even none is best. It’s helpful to think of teamwork in four broad categories:

1. Sometimes teamwork is nothing more than a hand-off. In this case, each person’s work is mostly independent, but at the right point in time, one person needs to pass information or resources to another in order to complete a task. This type of teamwork relies on clear communication and coordination to help everyone involved understand what is needed and when. A good example is when different business units within a company provide monthly financial results to the corporate finance department, who then consolidates them into a monthly financial report for the executive team and board members.

2. Other projects require synchronized work. This is when two or more separate teams (or individual contributors) perform the same routine but must remain coordinated in their work to reach a successful outcome. An example is a regional sales team. Each member prospects, closes, and manages their own customers using the same process. While each person works independently, the sum of everyone’s work determines the regional team’s success

3. In some cases, a project requires coordinated work. People perform independent roles that impact each other. An example is the heroic critical care teams handling the COVID-19 crisis. These teams consist of different specialists - physicians, pharmacists, dieticians, respiratory therapists, and nurses - each of whom perform their own clearly defined tasks to achieve a team outcome.

4. Lastly, some projects require truly interdependent work, which is the most complex form of teamwork. An example is bringing a new product or innovation to market. People with different skills come together to solve a new problem. The team structure is often flexible and tends to take a more concrete shape as the problem is solved. As such, people are required to adjust their roles and responsibilities on the fly in order to address and communicate through unpredictable situations. One example is a team we spoke to at Scripps Research. Members were charged with evaluating whether their program focused on developing health detection devices could be reengineered to test for Covid-19 cases. Unlike the other teams at Scripps, which use well-defined playbooks and have narrow roles, this new project required putting together a group of people who wear many hats and pitch in as needed.

Sometimes a team’s work easily fits into one category. But more often - especially for teams involved in knowledge work, innovation, and repositioning their business - this is not true. What “good teamwork” means can change from project to project and even within projects as they evolve.

Given this, leaders across an organization can use the above categories to help develop a shared understanding of what type of teamwork needs to get done and when, including exactly who needs to collaborate, in what configuration, and why. This practice forces those handing out assignments to think of teamwork as something beyond “working together.” Instead, it asks them to contextualize what good teamwork means in a given situation.

Simplify and then simplify some more.

Rightsizing teamwork is an exercise in simplicity. To solve problems and overcome business challenges, leaders need to strike a balance between engaging those whose contribution is vital and boldly cutting out the people and processes that bog work down. This requires distinguishing what should be taken on as individual work versus what requires a team effort. For some, this might mean sunsetting that update meeting in lieu of an email or assigning the problem to two people who can solve it as opposed to dividing it among all six members of a team.

A simplification strategy we’ve seen work well is for leaders to ask one individual to get as far as they can collecting information and creating plans or draft materials at the start of a project. The rationale for this approach is based on the idea that it is more efficient for one person to create a draft that others can review than for multiple people to try and create a draft together. As the project evolves, the leader and assigned team member decide if others’ input is needed and when, carefully planning what to ask and how to handle the feedback they receive.

However, just like there is no one way to define “good teamwork,” there is no one-size-fits-all strategy for simplifying it. The strategy we offer above works when one person can in fact produce an initial plan alone, as is often the case with a handoff or synchronized work. This strategy works less well when different types of expertise are needed from the start, as in the case of interdependent work.

The key to defining the best strategy for a given team involves taking a few structured steps:

• Analyze work requirements in terms of the four categories above to determine what type of teamwork is needed or if none is needed.
• Decide what needs to be done by whom prior to convening your team. Your guiding principle is to make sure people’s time is not wasted. Ask yourself: Who should be involved, why, and when?
• Review your process regularly. If something doesn’t add value, eliminate it. For example, if three people are working on a task that one or two can achieve as easily, reduce the number of team members involved. If a meeting is scheduled for an hour but everything is covered in 30 minutes, end the meeting. If you have the authority to make a decision, get input from the necessary stakeholders, rather than waiting for the entire group to weigh in.

Give people permission to say “no.”

Today, we are experiencing so much rapid change that leaders cannot personally ensure every instance of teamwork is rightsized. This is why employees must similarly understand how to apply the approach. Igniting a needed behavioral shift among team members may require clear, simple, and even shocking communications to grab people’s attention and provoke rethinking.

How can leaders start?

• Jumpstart the process by giving team members explicit permission to say “no” to teamwork when they feel it is adding unnecessary complexity, confusion, or inefficiency.
• Leaders should continually challenge themselves and their teams to carefully consider how much and what type of teamwork is needed for effective performance of the task at hand and how this may change at different stages of the work. Remember that every single person on a team should be performing a clear, valuable, and needed role. If there is room on a team for people to be lazy and not contribute, then there are too any people on the team and the number should be reduced.
• Reinforce and solidify the importance of rightsizing by calling out and discussing real examples of how saying “no” to teamwork has helped the team achieve more agile and effective performance. This will help team members develop a more mindful and judicious understanding of teamwork and how it can be applied.

At a time when we already face significant challenges, adding on even more requirements for change may seem poorly timed and ill-advised. But achieving the agility and resilience your company needs to bounce back relies on avoiding the dysfunction and inefficiencies teamwork frequently brings. Knowing how to rightsize teamwork and starting to teach it now is imperative to your success and your ability to prepare for whatever comes next.

Elaine Pulakos is CEO of PDRI and an expert in building organizational and team capabilities that translate into business growth. She is well-known for her research and writing on agility and resilience and has extensive global experience helping companies build these capabilities to increase their competitive advantage and performance.

Robert B. (Rob) Kaiser is President of Kaiser Leadership Solutions and an advisor, author, and expert on the subject of leadership. He has extensive global experience in executive development, executive assessment, and people analytics and as a strategic talent management advisor to CEOs and HR leaders.