Almost every job I have worked at has tried to influence their staff into believing they are a team. It was the top buzzword at every training or group meeting. Supervisors would address the “team” to avoid singling people out and create “team goals” to communicate when the staff was supposed to accomplish. The K9 Resort (yes, doggie daycare) I worked for was particularly adamant about this sentiment, creating “teams” for every job title you could earn. However, I would argue this particular job never embraced a culture that promoted establishing a true team.
As described in the YouTube video by Solution Tree (2009), a team is a collection of people who are interdependent on each other to achieve their shared goal. Sadly, the critical element of interdependence was severely lacking in my job at the K9 Resort. I worked in multiple different roles during my time there. In each role, I felt like a cog in a machine that could easily be replaced by another cog. In fact, when it was time for a break, another person would switch with me with little to no communication about what I was doing. Whether I was washing dogs or watching a yard, my role was a prescribed set of actions that needed little explaining. My individual contribution was as distinct as a Skittle; you may say a green skittle is different than a blue one, but it’s all the same flavor. Would you even know if I was missing? This is how I felt when our manager or owners would come in to give the “team” pep talks.
The main reason I feel true teams are never developed in most work situations is that the real leaders don’t include themselves in the team. As I described, each role, or job title, you could gain put you into a “team”, but the true authority at this job was the manager. The manager provided critique during “team” meetings and gave objectives to be accomplished each day, but this person was not a part of the work these “teams” were meant to accomplish. Instead of having a shared or distributed leadership where team members felt comfortable contributing input (Northouse, 2016, p. 365), the true leader was held above the influence of everyone else. In this way, our “teams” were actually just groups of people working to achieve the goals of their superior.
A contributing factor for this divide between management and staff can come from the organizational culture. As Northouse (2016, p. 371) describes, external support and recognition are critical components of team effectiveness. This includes providing the time and resources for individual team members to develop interpersonal relationships and for leaders to gain an understanding of the unique needs of their team members. Unfortunately, the K9 Resort’s culture did not allow for interpersonal relationships to develop effectively between new and old staff members. Lunches were staggered and short (30 minutes), which meant you had little time to interact between getting your food and racing to clock back in. While group activities outside of work were planned, they were often informal and communicated through text from management down through staff. Unless you held some type of management position, it was very unlikely you would hear about these events beforehand, deepening the divide between the leaders and followers. These factors, plus the monotonous nature of the job, create a situation where individuality wasn’t embraced. Workers weren’t supported in crafting a role within the organization that they could excel at. Instead, the “team” identity was the organization’s identity. In this way, the sense of unity and collaborative effort that distinguishes true teams was never fostered (Northouse, 2016, p. 370).
This story is all too common in entry-level roles such as those I occupied at the K9 Resort. While it is easy to blame businesses for not fostering the right type of culture, I argue the issue is rooted deeper than any one organization. In this week’s discussion forum, Debra and I had similar stories about classes that assigned “teams” but didn’t allow us to grow beyond the confines of the assignment. I am sure each of us can think of numerous examples of this occurring throughout our childhoods. As a society, we make it a regular practice to call any group a team under the guise of promoting inclusivity. In the long run, however, this may be preventing us from developing those interpersonal skills that would allow us to become truly effective teams, which in turn prevents businesses from embracing a culture supported by teams. Moving forward, I feel it is important to remember that, in any sector, task performance (attaining goal objectives) constitutes only half of the equation (Northouse, 2016, p. 368). To be an effective team, organizations should recognize the impact of individuals on teams and the importance of group identity to have sustainable teams in more than just name.
Reference
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.
[Solution Tree]. (2009, Oct 9). Solution Tree: Rick DuFour on Groups vs. Teams [Video File]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=2&v=0hV65KIItlE
Alison M says
You had me a Skittle.
You also brought up a lot of good points in different situations. I some times wonder if having to respond like a “team” is necessary in every situation. Should leaders go over the top to promote “teams” if they are not critical to the success of the organization or the goal to be achieved. Employees can certainly see through the act as you did. Sure, we should all know our job and work to get it done, but if we truly don’t “need” a team to be effective. Maybe that’s okay. You brought up a good point that your job could have been done by someone else without much communication as to what was going on. That doesn’t exactly sound like “team members that must work collectively to achieve goals” (Northouse, 2016, p 363). If you each were responsible for one dog from beginning to end, are the actions of other members really critical? Probably not.
I wonder how would the K-9 Resort organization have improved if you all had felt like the team the leaders wanted you to be? Northhouse states “team-based structure is an important way for organizations to remain competitive by responding quickly and adapting to constant, rapid changes” (Northhouse, 2016, p. 364). How much change is there when caring for pups? If the managers did include themselves in the “team”, would it really have made the team more effective?
Maybe those managers should have promoted “team” less and used other ways to incentivize
employees to do their best and still got the job done. Possibly thinking about path-goal theory and using the “leadership style that best meets the followers needs” (Northouse, 2016, p. 115). Clearly you would have thrived under different leadership. By providing different rewards or using leadership behaviors such as achievement-oriented leadership or participative leadership in a way that would complement what was missing in the work setting employees may not felt like they got a team experience but they felt rewarded at the end of the day (Northhouse, 2016, p. 115).
References:
Northouse, P.G. (2016). Leadership: Theory and Practice. Los Angeles: Sage Publications
kah5714 says
I have noticed that over my time with the few companies I have worked for that many people refer to themselves as leaders but that I usually see the same thing as you; people not actually leading. You have a point maybe it is the fact that the leaders you have had in the past we’re not true ly involved. From my view though the company that I work for right now has great team leadership. The leader of our team is actively involved and really pushing us to make sure that we are informed and have the tools to do the very best that we can to compete in a competitive environment.