Leader Values - Part 2

What values would be held by successful leaders in self-directed work systems? While there is no definitive research on this subject, some of the values might include:

• Expectation of excellence: commitment to getting the best results using the best means; pushing back excuses while enabling people to overcome legitimate obstacles; not accepting compromises in core values.
• Respect for the dignity of people as human beings: each person is respected because he or she is human; individuals are not accorded respect solely on the basis of their positions or accomplishments; respect for the community and environment are extensions of this value.
• Consideration of the effect of one's actions on others: the old "golden rule" with a deeper perspective; personal self-interest is not ignored, but is moderated for the benefit of the greater good.
• Seeing human resources as an asset, not a cost: investing in training and education of the entire workforce so they can contribute at their best.
• Inclusiveness: desire to include rather than exclude people in information sharing and decision making.
• Openness and honesty: willingness to provide the information people need without filtering it or hiding it when it is unpleasant; sharing good news quickly.
• Appreciation for the contributions of others: deriving personal pleasure from seeing the capabilities of others grow and recognizing their achievements; recognition that other persons can make important contributions to the organization within the range of their abilities and perspective; this is not unbridled optimism that everyone can be president, but that each person has the potential to offer something of value.
• Trust that people will do the right thing: internal confidence that including people in decision making is not an inherently risky business when those people are properly trained and informed; the absence of unwarranted suspicion.

People with these values are at peace with themselves. They have an inner harmony that serves as a base from which they can securely interact with others. They are not cupcakes or pushovers. They are not perfect. They do have a deep self-assurance in their own values and are tenacious in their pursuit of them.

The leaders of one self-directed organization found their three page charter to be too lengthy for everyday use. They reflected on its intent and distilled it to six core values.

• Achievement: We will be the best, low-cost producer by setting and achieving progressive operating and social goals.
• Improvement: We will always do better by finding and using better ways.
• Ownership: We will have pride in what we do -- seeing it as a reflection of ourselves.
• Involvement: We will seek out and use the talents of others to maximize our collective excellence.
• Respect: We will positively respect, support and care about each other and our company.
• Communications: We will honestly share information with sensitivity for each others' needs, and use data for our decisions.

Generating a list likethis is a team building exercise of the first order. It forces a diverse group of leaders to pool their visions for the future and consense around a concise statement of the culture they wish to create. This list contains the things they value as a group. The work of creating the list is as important as the list itself.

A lack of values congruent with a self-directed environment is probably the most accurate predictor of leader failure in such an environment. Leaders' values must be positive and consistent. When inappropriate behavior has its roots in values, rather than beliefs, it may be easier for all concerned to move the leader to another environment rather than try to attempt a change in the person. Everyone can be successful somewhere. Self-directed organizations are not the best places for everyone.

What are your values as they appear in the workplace? (Consider this question for at least several days.) Please return here and post your personal values, and/or those officially subscribed to by your organization.

Leader Values - Part 1

Values are at the core of our being. They underlie why we do what we do. We must select leaders and team members with the right values for teams to succeed. We cannot expect to hire people with inappropriate values and then expect them to change. The effort is too great and the outcome too uncertain to merit the attempt. When it comes to values it may or may not be true that, "What you see is what you get!" Over time, individuals' values show through in their actions. However, if we do not know the person well (e.g., a new hire), the person can state a set of values that is what we want to hear without it being consistent with his/her practiced ones. We have little way of knowing a person's real values until we observe his/her behaviors over an extended period of time.

If people were onions, as we peeled away our layers, we would find from the outside to the inside:

1. Behaviors (Outermost - observable)
2. Feelings
3. Beliefs / Attitudes
4. Values (Innermost - hidden)

Our external behaviors are the result of the three underlying attributes. For self-directed organizations to have the behaviors they require to succeed, the proper feelings, beliefs, and values must be in place. We can infer values from behavior.

Training and consequences influence beliefs and shape behaviors, but they rarely alter basic values. Beliefs are logical connections shaped by education and experience. Training or other experiences can demonstrate new, more workable connections and thus change beliefs. "I'll believe it when I see it" is a workable formula for learning. Leaders who are skeptical about self-directed work teams can visit a successful self-directed organization and change their beliefs of what is possible as a result. Persuading people to change values is much more difficult.

When individuals find themselves behaving in ways contrary to their values they experience considerable emotional tension. Their behavior is a sham. Under such circumstances, these persons will:

a. Give the behavior lip service and minimal use. (Compliance)
b. Abandon the behavior altogether and resist the environment. (Resistance)
c. Try to change the environment to eliminate the pressure for the behavior. (Opposition)
d. Leave the environment. (Avoidance)

In a few cases, they may readjust their values to be consistent with the demands in the environment. Forced to engage in the behavior, it may reshape individuals' values -- but don't count on it! In any event, they will eventually try to eliminate the internal tension they feel.

Values have an important impact upon the vision for the organization. Leader's with strong and appropriate values instill them in their organizations. Whenever the propriety of a decision is in question, referring to values is the how we determine whether it is ethical for us as individuals.
　
There is no other more basic requirement for effective leadership than a productive set of core values.
　
Values lie behind the question of how organizations exercise control. Organizations whose leaders value personal power and prestige will place control high up in the hierarchy. Control of decisions is power. Organizations whose leaders value personal growth and a sense of achievement for everyone will embrace self-direction.

Douglas McGregor set the stage for examining the values that underlie leader behavior. He described two sets of assumptions about human behavior that he labelled "Theory X" and "Theory Y." McGregor's words in 1960 still contain some of the most fundamental truths for the establishment of self-directed work systems. Here's McGregor's list from his book, The Human Side of Enterprise (McGraw Hill, 1960).

Theory X Assumptions*

• The average human being has an inherent dislike of work and will avoid it if he can.
• Because of this human characteristic of dislike of work, most people must be coerced, controlled, directed, threatened with punishment to get them to put forth adequate effort toward the achievement of organizational objectives.
• The average human being prefers to be directed, wishes to avoid responsibility, has relatively little ambition, wants security above all.

Theory Y Assumptions

• The expenditure of physical and mental effort in work is as natural as play or rest.
• External control and the threat of punishment are not the only means for bringing about effort toward organizational objectives. Man will exercise self-direction and self-control in the service of objectives to which he is committed.
• Commitment to objectives is a function of the rewards associated with their achievement.
  The average human being learns, under proper conditions, not only to accept but to seek responsibility.
• The capacity to exercise a relatively high degree of imagination, ingenuity, and creativity in the solution of organizational problems is widely, not narrowly, distributed in the population.
• Under the conditions of modern industrial life, the intellectual potentialities of the average human being are only partially utilized.

The impact of these two different sets of assumptions on how organizations are built is unmistakable. However, some people still believe and act on Theory X assumptions. Why?

There are people who behave in the ways Theory X describes. Fortunately they are not the majority. Organizations have also created conditions that promote Theory X behaviors -- a self-fulfilling prophecy. Treat people as though they are untrustworthy and lazy and they will tend to act that way. Change the assumptions and create conditions for excellence and the Theory Y in people will emerge. When that happens, the hard core Theory X believers and actors will need to find another place to work.

The STAR Concept of Team Leadership

STAR CONCEPT
　
Imagine a five pointed star. Each point on the star represents a particular function the team needs to perform. 　For example:

• Managing
• Operations
• Planning
• Human Resources
• Site

The STAR concept makes different team members responsible for a single function or STAR point in addition to their normal team duties. This is different from having all the functions performed by a single leader. In the STAR approach, leadership is diffused across the team members. This has the advantage of not overburdening one person with leadership. It also draws upon the best abilities of different members to support the team. It does require a broad level of competence across the team to have enough members capable of handling the points. Members can volunteer and be elected by the team to fill a STAR point. They typically serve in a STAR point position for a set period of time (6 mos. - 1 yr.) and then the role opens to other members. A member can be reappointed to the same STAR point for another term.

Here are some details of what a member in a factory might do in each of the five responsibility areas listed above.

Managing

• Overall direction.
• Gather data from outside the team and act as an information resource.
• Link & coordinate with other depts.
• Set performance challenges.
  

Operations

• Coordinate activities with other teams.
• Monitor performance.
• Plan, schedule overtime.
• Assign work within the team.
• Solve production problems.
• Improve work processes.
• Communicate with outside resources.
• Plan and schedule materials flow.
• Quality testing.
• Process checking and SPC analysis.
• Computer networking.

Planning

• Prepare budget input.
• Compare expenditures to budget and determine cause of variances.
• Report variances, causes, and corrective actions.
• Establish team objectives.
  

Human Resources

• Establish training needs.
• Plan and schedule training.
• Conduct new member orientation.
• Explain decisions to team members.
• Manage assignments to broaden team members' skill mix and flexibility.
• Structure work and document skill requirements.
• Do staffing planning.
• Screen and interview candidates.
• Deal with performance issues.
• Manage time cards and attendance.
• Schedule vacations and overtime.
• Assign, borrow, and lend team members.

Site

• Carry out safety inspections.
• Train team members in safe practices.
• Write incident reports.
• Carry out basic and preventive maintenance.
• Assist maintenance in equipment repair.
• Document downtime performance.
• Manage downtime schedules.
• Assist with new equipment installation.
• Improve operations layout.

There is nothing fixed about the categories or the list of duties above. Teams might use "Quality," "Safety," "Improvement," or other categories as their STAR points with their own unique tasks.

Responsibilities of Self-Directed Teams

WHAT DOES THE SELF-DIRECTED WORK TEAM DO?
　
The self-directed work team has primary responsibility for operating, maintaining, and constantly improving the work process. This includes not only the processing of materials and the delivery of services, but also the exchange of information. This work creates output.

Among the typical responsibilities of the self-directed team are:

1. Processing forms, reports, documents, etc.
2. Operating equipment and quality checking.
3. Maintaining and debugging equipment and systems.
4. Troubleshooting inefficiencies and quality problems by using specialized resource help such as maintenance, engineering, or information services professionals.
5. Improving existing processes, equipment, systems, and products (e.g., lean).
6. Consulting with other functional areas for support and information.
7. Preventing variances through statistical process control (SPC) and other techniques.
8. Dealing with day-to-day internal or external customer needs and problems.
9. Addressing individual performance and behavioral issues within the team.

The specific nature of what a teams does varies with the work itself. Manufacturing teams and customer service teams live in two very different environments and do vastly different tasks. The overall set of responsibilities, however, should resemble those listed above.

Leading Teams

FIRST LEVEL LEADERSHIP -- A CLOSER LOOK

The first level leader role gets special attention in self-directed work systems. It occupies a position of critical importance to the success of the organization. It is often filled by persons whose jobs will see the greatest amount of change and who may have been least prepared for it. First-level leaders can make or break a team, particularly break it. Dominant leader personalities will often suppress team contributions and apathy develops because members have little influence.

First level leadership is handled in a variety of ways.

1. Maintain an exempt* "supervisor" position and simply change the title to a more participative sounding one like "team leader." The person does virtually the same things he/she did before. Some firms stop at this point and accept this guise as self-direction. It is not. Others change the duties of the role. (*Exempt personnel do not receive overtime.)

2. Create a "team coordinator" position within the team itself. In an hourly team, this person would be "non-exempt" -- the individual in the role gets paid overtime.* A single team member becomes the leader and stays in the role permanently. This position carries somewhat less weight than the exempt leader who is outside the team. (*In a professional team, all the members would be exempt from overtime.)

3. Create a team coordinator position within the team and then encourage team members to rotate through it. The length of residency in the position is directly related to how long it takes to train the leader. This is a function of both social skill requirements and the complexity of the technology used by the team. The higher these are, the longer the leader should stay in the position in order to recover the investment in his/her development. A flexible time period can be established, e.g., 1-2 yrs. in a simple system, 4-5 yrs. in a complex one. Other team members will want this opportunity at the earlier point in the range so the pressure to rotate out the existing leader comes then.

4. Split the duties of a team coordinator into approximately five main responsibilities and have separate team members carry out each responsibility. This is referred to as the "STAR" concept. More on it later.

Tips for Forming Teams

THE DESIGN OF SELF-DIRECTED WORK TEAMS
　
Because the idea of "teamwork" is inherently appealing to most persons, the desire to create work teams has gained considerable popularity.
　　
Teams and teamwork are not the same thing.
　
Teamwork is cooperative behavior. Teams are a social structure. Teamwork can exist independent of teams. Leaders should not confuse wanting good cooperation and collaboration with the creation of teams. Organizations can have high levels of teamwork and no teams. Similarly, organizations can be filled with teams that exhibit few of the behaviors considered to be teamwork. Teams can become possessive, exclusive of outsiders, resistant to influence and information, and fractured by cliques.

A well designed team will promote teamwork among its members. A well designed organization will promote teamwork among its teams. Let's see what contributes to building strong teams.

Teams are established around seven key criteria.
　
Team members in a strongly linked team will:
1. Work together during the same time period.
2. Work together in the same physical area.
3. Retain the same membership for an extended length of time.
4. Operate/maintain/use the same technology.
5. Be jointly accountable for achieving common goals.
6. Act interdependently to achieve success.
7. Receive common consequences for achievement or failure.
　
It is not always possible for every team to possess all of these characteristics. To the extent that a team does not have these characteristics it is weakened. A team whose members are spread across three shifts may find it difficult to address a performance issue with a fellow team member who does not work with three-fourths of the team. Likewise, a team whose members are given individual performance rewards may maintain a "look out for myself" approach despite exhortations to practice teamwork. Teams with high levels of turnover never really gel.

If it is not possible to create teams following these guidelines, then teams are probably not a suitable organizational structure. Some organizations have tried to create teams of people with the same job description. The "secretarial team" is a good illustration. All the members work independently for separate leaders, are rewarded based on individual effort, have their own dedicated office equipment and may be dispersed in separate areas. While it is desirable to promote teamwork among the secretaries and to have them collaborate on common issues (e.g., phone coverage), calling them a team is a misnomer.