Winning Teams

There was a time when the notion of teams was reserved for uniformed rivals competing on a playing field. But these days an increasing number of teams are appearing in the work place. Unlike their sports-based cousins who thrive on competition and a win-lose outcome, the emphasis of these work teams is to create a win for everyone involved - customers, employees and shareholders.

More than a decade ago, business devotees acknowledged the use of "quality circles" by Japanese firms. The term typically described voluntary teams of front-line employees who found time to consider better ways of performing their work with little or no involvement of their management. At that time we were led to believe the United States would have to embrace a similar concept in order to compete -- it was the way of the future.

One may also remember that many U.S. representatives in management and labor were convinced a team-based approach would not work in this country because our workers and businesses were fundamentally different than their Japanese counterparts.

We've come a long way in the last 20 years. Leaders and managers from all types and sizes of businesses are continually looking for ways to unlock more employee creativity, intellect, know-how and enthusiasm. And increasingly, a high degree of employee involvement is seen as a key part of the success equation. In many cases, the result has been the development of a participation-based team approach to problem solving and decision making.

Some teams are formed to solve problems or to complete a project. Often referred to as Quality Improvement Teams, Corrective Action Teams or Task-force Teams, they are formed for a specific purpose and are typically disbanded once the key objective is achieved. Other teams, including Self-Directed or Self-Managed teams, work together on a daily, ongoing basis and are typically responsible for an operational process in the company.

Team Success

The use of work teams is becoming visibly apparent in most types of businesses. Recently I had my car serviced at Germain Toyota in North Naples. As I pulled in to the drive-through service area, I saw two kiosks with service attendants in each. One was identified as the red team and the other as the blue.

I spoke with the Don Carroll, Germain's service manager, about the team-based approach. "The teams were set up to mimic the small service shop," he said. "Toyota has witnessed smaller service shops achieving higher customer satisfaction than the larger shops as measured by Toyota's Customer Satisfaction Indexes, or CSI's."

Carroll explained that the typical small service shop has a service manager, a service writer who talks with customer and completes the work order, and a few technicians, who are mechanics of the 1990s. "In the smaller shops, everyone is involved in providing value for customers - there is little overhead," he said. "Communication is very good. It's when you grow that the problems typically begin."

Don added, "As service shops grow it is common for additional dispatchers, foremen and other middle-people to be added to accommodate the additional activity. You end up with poor communication, limited accountability and less time spent dealing with customers building relationships."

This is a typical, yet often ineffective practice in many businesses. As they grow and add people, they grow away from -- not closer to -- customers and begin to lose what made them successful in the first place. After a while it becomes apparent that customer satisfaction and retention has dropped, and employees are looked to as the solution -- when in fact it is the work system or structure that is the root of the problem.

In the past year and a half the Germain Toyota shop has grown using the team approach. Germain established two teams, each with an Assistant Service Manager (or ASM -- the person inside the kiosk) and started with three technicians, growing to five in the last year and a half. The shop expects to form three teams, each with four technicians, in the near future.

"We've improved communication, our Customer Satisfaction Index rivals the small service shops, and most importantly we provide consistently high quality service to our customers," Don said. "Perhaps most importantly we have more time and opportunity to build stronger customer relationships with our customers - our ASM's strive for this."

The Germain teams have realized many of the benefits that are common in effective teams. Some of the most notable include:

* Highly motivated and energized staff

* Proactive, effective problem solving

* Flexible, fast response to change

* Common commitment and a complete buy-in to goals

* Improved communication

* Enhanced skill development

* Accountability and pride of ownership

I asked Don how the employees felt about the change to a team environment. "In the beginning our people were skeptical. But we talked about the concept all the time. I scheduled regular team meetings and met with each employee one on one weekly. Once we had established open communication, trust, and everyone knew what challenges and opportunities we could expect, they were much more prepared to move forward."

Germain did a lot of things right to prevent the chances of team failures. In a little over a year, Don states that employee morale is very high and there is a strong sense of pride of workmanship. Don also adds that the team environment facilitates an accelerated learning and training environment and reward systems. Each team is rewarded based on their monthly Customer Satisfaction Index, achievement of sales goals, and customer recall (retention) rate.

So how can a team-based approach go wrong? Research by the Hay Group in 1996 indicates that the reasons teams fail include:

* Unclear goals

* Changing objectives

* Lack of mutual accountability

* Lack of management support

* Lack of role clarity

* Ineffective team leadership

* Low team priority

* Lack of team-based pay

There should be little doubt that a well-planned and implemented team-based approach can generate significant, sustained benefits to businesses. For further proof and first-hand evidence, Southwest Florida's Seventh Annual Quality Team Showcase will highlight a number of teams from local organizations. Each team will discuss how they successfully went about making astounding improvements in areas such as customer satisfaction, profitability, quality and efficiency.

Plan to attend this daylong event in an energized environment of learning and sharing Friday, Sept. 11, at Barbara B. Mann Auditorium in Fort Myers. For more information, contact the Chamber of Southwest Florida at 278-4001.

Rorie Wilson is a state-certified quality examiner with BPM International, a Southwest Florida-based management consulting firm. BPM specializes in the management philosophy of Total Quality Management.