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TEAM WORK THE KEY TO SUCCESS
MARCH 30, 1997 -
THE STAR
By S. Hadi Abdullah
THROUGHOUT the history of man, leaders such as Genghis !*an,
Atilla the Hun, Akio Morita and Stan Shih knew that good teams
always did better. The team that was aware of its goals and
believed in itself always succeeded while others failed.
Successful companies today inadvertently have successful teams
behind them. Teams with high productivity and enthusiasm are
said to be highly focused, have specific objectives and are
"short-term, high-energy" in nature.
Small teams seem to do better than larger ones, the core group
is made up of eight to 10 people. The smallness makes the team
focused, ensures good communication and participation, thus
resulting in efficient decision-making.
Companies around the world are experimenting with team
dynamics. Fortune magazine estimates that large companies are
indulging in self-managing teams which, it feels, "may be the
productivity breakthrough of the 1990s." While this may be
true, few organisations have truly self-managing teams.
An example of a study done by Robert Waterman, co-author of In
Search of Excellence, is worth looking into.
Waterman says that Procter & Gamble (P&G) has been
experimenting with the concept of self managing teams for over
30 years. The company has been in business for more than 130
years. A leader in consumer products, it has global sales of
more than US$30 billion (RM75 billion).
The company hit on this concept in 1960. The results were so
over whelming that they did not "talk" about it for sometime,
considering it a company secret.
The man who started this was David Swanson. A graduate from
Yale and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Swanson
used his army experience in Korea differently from most
people. He wanted to get away from the "command and control"
type of management.
Surprisingly, what he found when he reported for work at P&G
was that "structures and systems were designed, it seemed,
primarily to constrain people." There were elaborate
procedures in the form of policy manuals, contracts and rule
books.
Some of the prevailing attitudes of the employees were, "we
have to be just here and go home" or "it is a big company and
I can get away with not doing much." The manager was normally
a young 23-year-old college graduate who needed the help
people below.
Swanson had studied McGregor' s Theory X and Theory Y at MIT.
He, too, believed in Theory Y which basically said people by
nature took pride in their work. He saw that the practice at
P&G was Theory X.
So when he was posted to the Augusta plant in Georgia as a
manager, he invited his former teacher and mentor Douglas
McGregor to assist him. They found that there was a Theory X
atmosphere throughout the plant.
Therefore, they took steps to change it, namely to have an
"open system." Conference rooms were designed where people
could meet. People reporting for shift-duty had to come 30
minutes early so that they could properly hand over to the
next shift.
People working in this plant had opportunities to talk of
engines, what happened the day before, the previous shift
current profits, the following year's plans.
From the beginning, Swanson made it a point to let the staff
know the exact situation. Information was given to all
employees. Those who showed improvement in knowledge received
a raise. The way to move up was to acquire mulct tiple skills.
The aim was for people to reach~positions of responsibility.
At Augusta, the company produced detergents. Swanson
organised' his people into teams of 12 people at different
parts of the production process. The important thing was that
they were to manage themselves.
Slowly the teams began to do the work of the managers. The
production schedule was determined by them. They were also
responsible for the hiring of peers and managers, and
interviewed prospective candidates for jobs in their team.
Staff promotion was done differently. Previously, this was the
sole domain of the manager now it was fellow colleagues who
made this decision in the skill-based pay system.
The teams were also involved in the setting up of training
programmes.
There were few managers at Augusta, and they and other
employees called technicians wore the same uniform. Parking
bays had no special arrangement. The benefits packages between
managers and the technicians were similar, with the workers
being paid salaries instead of hourly wages.
Within four years (1965), the Augusta set-up was producing 30
per cent more than any other P&G plant. More than just the
numbers was the fact that this system allowed for a great
amount of flexibility.
The ability to manage change was built into the organisation;
the staff thought broadly and could move quickly into new
developments of their business. Waterman thinks the last
aspect was the greatest benefit in this self-directed team
concept.
The biggest challenge to the "technician system" of
self-directed teams came when P&G tried to convert one of
their old plants. It now faced challenges to convert
century-old attitudes.
Says Swanson: "Initially the system frightened workers who
felt that they were not capable of learning new and broader
skills. The managers were frightened of what would happen to
them if they kept on empowering those below them."
Meanwhile, the union was uneasy about the concept where
workers were to feel they owned the business.
Swanson sent his best manager to this old plant in the
Midwest, giving him two years to work things out or close the
set-up. This plant had bags full of grievances, and fistfights
were the order of the day. Despite the new manager's efforts,
the old attitudes continued.
Finally, the manager shut down the plant for two weeks and had
a meeting with the employees. He spoke to them about the
technician system. The company was in near financial ruin and
they had to change with his help. He talked about their
attitudes, their unhappiness about the present situation. He
gave them a chance.
The plant restarted as a self directed team of technicians. It
took about five years before all issues were ironed out and
productivity rose to the expected 30 per cent above norm.
The parent company made a film about this plant, and soon the
bad boys had become role models for the other older plants.
What P&G did was to surrender its narrow control over people
in order to gain control of results. One of the conclusions
reached from the experiences of the various P&G plants was
that managers were not needed in the traditional sense. Better
educated and skilled workers coupled with high technology made
managers obsolete.
The whole technician system says Waterman, is about more
leaders and not fewer managers. Everybody in the team takes on
the role of manager and leader. The managers in the new
situation are looked up to as support people resource persons,
coaches and the like.
The question of whether it is easier to introduce new concepts
in a new set-up or harder to do so in an old one is often a
point raised. Swanson says: "First, we learned that you need
to articulate a logically-presented, emotionally-compelling
reason for change."
In the case of the Midwest plant, crisis was imminent. Change
to succeed had to be a company process, with everybody
participating. However, in the case of Procter & Gamble, about
five per cent of these people were lost due to their inability
to change.
One of the key reasons that P&G could apply this new system in
older plants was that people had to be assured that the system
would not take away their job. The message given was that by
making the company more competitive and resilient, it ensured
greater security to both employee and company.
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