High Performance Teams
In his discussion on High Performance Teams, Denning (2011) provides
a compare contrast look between high-performance teams and communities concluding
that high performance teams do resemble communities but the opposite is not
true. Communities rarely meet the
criteria of a team.
High performance teams meet the criteria of a team: (Denning, 2011)
- Clear, specific objective
-
Appropriate leadership and membership
-
Necessary resources
High performance teams adhere to community elements: (Denning,
2011)
-
They produce things
- Adapt quickly to change by adjusting their
performance in real time
- Steadily grow stronger with time. Start working as one synergistic entity
-
individual growth based on mutual concerns for
each other
-
work committed
-
If one fail’s ,we all fail mentality
High-performance teams take on an identity, personality and
existence of their own. The members develop
an extremely high level of mutual trust, and become unconditionally committed
to the team. Members attend to each
other’s development and training needs and ultimately establish an environment
of innovation and continuous improvement (Whetten & Cameron, 2016).
I have not been a member of a high performance team. Reading about the characteristics of these
teams and what they morph into sounds almost unbelievable to me. I have served on many teams through the years. Most of them were very effective, a few not
as much. In the end the job was
completed. The closest to a high
performance team would have been the teams that deployed to Saudi Arabia in the
mid 1980’s. We had a constant presence with
24-hour coverage surveilling Iran/Iraq disagreements. Maintenance personnel rotated in and out every
30 – 45 days. The team members were selected
so that all of the aircraft systems had qualified technicians. The team, once assembled, totaled 30
maintainers.
The team had a clear goal to continue the mission without
incident. Maintenance leadership comes in
the form of a production superintendent.
The Pro Super is a senior maintainer normally with extensive airframe
experience. The pro Super choreographs all maintenance activities. For the first few days everyone was figuring
things out. Generally speaking if you did not have work, you did not go out to
the flight line. Everyone got along but
it was awkward. After that week everyone
was comfortable with the routine and each other and the team did start behaving
differently. Looking back on it, it did
have some of the high performance characteristics. Whenever we launched or
recovered an aircraft, everyone was on the flight line. We helped where we could and did whatever was
necessary to get the job done. The
flight line was either full of maintainers or shut down. The same was true of the breakroom. We absolutely trusted each other and never
let each other down. We gained a sense of
pride in our work. We strove for
flawless launches and the fastest time getting an aircraft ready to fly the
next mission. Towards the end of our
deployment, the team was like a well-oiled machine. We were efficient and very effective even
under the pressure of a system failure By
the end of our time, we were inseparable, but ready to go home. Maybe I have been part of a high performance
team. It did not contain all of the
traits, but we definitely evolved into something different and better than we
were when we arrived.
In the Air Force you are issued the appropriate values for
working on aircraft. Just to mention a
few, we followed procedures, reported anomalies, did the work we said we did, documented
our actions properly, and never put our self, a coworker, an aircraft, or
flight crew in an unsafe condition. Each
and every one of us shared those values and we did not compromise. The fact that we all came from different
backgrounds and had differing values off the flight line simply did not affect
work on the flight line. However, if our
issued values faltered or were disregarded, it would have been met with serious
consequences and immediate action to correct the situation. This would include ceasing all flying activities
pending investigation. It would have
been a serious offence because lives are at stake. Having those shared values is what makes
collaboration possible in aircraft maintenance.
Work groups, teams, communities, and networks are the primary means
in which people work together. Work
groups are how most organizations are structured. For example, I was assigned
to the Radar shop with every other Radar technician. We all did the same job, had the same boss,
and the same career path.
Teams are assembled by an organization to attend to a specific
objective, members are selected by the organization and bring specific skills to
the team, members share the specific objective and also share the responsibility
to get the work done. When the work is accomplished
and the objective is met the team is disbanded (Denning, 2011).
Communities in the organization is a new term for me. The concept, however, is not new. A community is a group of people who share
the same interests, practices, and values.
They share information with each other to advance their knowledge on a
subject. They are like-minded people
that share knowledge and values. Networks
are similar to communities, but they are different. The primary differences are a perceived benefit
in network membership and in networks there is no commitment to shared values. (Denning,
2011).
I have always preferred to work alone. I think clearer and more logically. At least that is what I thought. I was assigned to a team...again. It seemed like I had been selected for every
detail that came up. All I wanted was to
work on airplanes. This particular team
was to assess and make recommendations for what was kept on bench stock (consumable
items). I did not want to do it and I
had an attitude. What I learned is
attitudes are contagious. I complained daily.
I put more importance in finishing the job than I did doing the job
right. As a result, I did not do my best
work. Neither did the rest of the team. They simply followed my lead. The other team members were released and I got
new team mates. The second time I got it
right. I checked my attitude before work.
Many years later, I was selected to lead the team that would plan a formal Ball which would be the Keesler AFB celebration of the U.S. Air Force 49th Birthday. I had done events like this in the past that
did not go well. So I was not very
excited. We held the first meeting and
it went well. Turnout was good and we
accomplished assigning people to all of the different committees. I asked everyone to give it some thought
before volunteering for any of the committees.
I also asked them not to take on the responsibility if they knew of
anything coming up that might prevent them from giving the committee their best
effort. Everyone kept their committee. From that point meetings were well attended,
each committee provided updates, asked questions, and sought opinions from
other team members. The banquet went off
without a major issue and was fantastic.
The guests were thrilled. I am
not sure why this event was so different.
The only thing I did differently was ask that everyone personally commit
themselves and their time to this important event. Is that what made the difference? I do not know to be certain, but I am glad the
ball was such a success. The next day we
all met for lunch. Then we cleaned up
the ballroom.
~Pete
References:
Denning, S.
(2011). The Leader's
Guide to Storytelling: Mastering the Art and Discipline of Business Narrative.
San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Whetten,
D. A., Cameron, K. S. (2016), Developing management skills (Ninth edition).
Pearson Education, Inc. ISBN: 978-0-13-312747-8. (student edition)
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