Friday 29 Mar 2024
By
main news image

This article first appeared in Forum, The Edge Malaysia Weekly on April 2, 2018 - April 8, 2018

In teamwork, silence isn’t golden, it’s deadly. — Mark Sanborn, author, professional speaker and entrepreneur

 

 

I recently conducted a session for senior managers of a large corporation that is seeking to inject a performance culture into what is essentially a delivery organisation. You know this type of company, or perhaps department. It works to a cost budget and at the end of the year, if it needs more money, it is made available.

One of the frameworks we discussed was Bruce Tuckman’s “Developmental Sequence in Small Groups”. Tuckman described the four phases of group development — forming, storming, norming and performing — in this 1965 paper, which was based on a study of 26 groups.

Forming is easy when an organisation is new, like a start-up, where the founding team starts out as a close-knit group and, over time, adds new hires, all of whom absorb the prevailing culture. In companies, however, teams or departments are already in existence and managers are dropped in with the mandate to build a high-performance culture. Easier said than done!

Tuckman described the storming phase as a period of intragroup conflict. It is here that individuals seek clarification of their role, performance expectations are set and the manner of feedback or reporting is established. The question I was asked was simple — can you skip the storming phase?

My answer was a definite, “No, you can’t”. Let me explain why storming is critical in building high-performance teams. In Tuckman’s research, groups were small and actually, half did not go through the storming phase. He was explaining the evolution of groups in general. If you want to build a high-performance culture, then I do feel that storming is absolutely necessary.

It is only natural that motivated members of a team (or leaders) will set high targets and these expectations will not be shared by all on the team. Without regular and honest feedback or appraisals, members of the team would be left guessing where they stand, both individually and as a group.

The way family ties evolve is quite similar and many (including myself) will have experienced family disputes. If the desire to honestly discuss and resolve issues is commonly held, the family is able to stay together; otherwise, the family bond gets eroded. Perhaps it is the families that successfully negotiate the storm that gave rise to the expression “blood is thicker than water”.

In Asian societies, where confrontation is avoided, tenure is more important than competence and you never really get to storm! Compounding the problem is the need to “save face”, so people would rather hold their thoughts, suggestions and feedback in order not to cause embarrassment. Without honest feedback, an understanding of the realities of the situation and clear goals, you will not have a solid enough foundation to create a high-performance culture.

This is one reason I strongly advocate the adoption of entrepreneurial management. In a start-up, emotions always run high. For most of these companies, their very survival depends on pushing each other to perform, being honest and open with criticism. Just as the founders do not worry about the rules of management, they also do not worry about the rules of etiquette. You only have to read how Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Ellison, Steve Ballmer and so on conduct meetings to know that feedback is immediate, direct and relevant. This sets the culture of the organisation as it grows.

That is why, with Asian teams, managers need to be armed with the skill to address issues without the emotional and personal tags. Managers need to learn the skill to be constructive and teams need to be conditioned to receive feedback in an open manner. One caveat though. In order to impose this level of honesty on large organisations, it needs to start with the senior leadership team. This is critical but once you are committed to open, honest conversations, you can take these steps:

1. Understand how and why your company operates. What is the purpose of your organisation? Develop a clear and powerful story that will engage not just your employees but also your customers.

2. Teach managers the skills of asking tough questions and holding people accountable. Conduct regular feedback sessions and keep them independent of the annual performance reviews.

3. Be transparent about remuneration, incentives and bonus schemes. Recognise that in your team, you will have performers and others. It is simply not possible to cut out the non-performers. You need to weed out the truly destructive people, but for the average performers, assure them a place in the organisation but also make it clear that they cannot expect the same rewards as the performers.

4. Use technology. A lot of problems in organisations happen because of the paucity of information. This is an easy fix.

Of the nine entrepreneurisms that successful entrepreneurs practise, five are particularly relevant to high-performing teams. These are passion, learning, realism, persuasion and execution. Get these hard-coded into your organisation and you will have the foundation on which to build high-performing teams.


Anwar Jumabhoy is an author and executive coach with a keen interest in entrepreneurship at all levels

Save by subscribing to us for your print and/or digital copy.

P/S: The Edge is also available on Apple's AppStore and Androids' Google Play.

      Print
      Text Size
      Share