Self Directed or Managed Teams - Analysis

Introduction: With increased competition in international market due to globalization, the concept of "Self directed or managed teams" (SDTs) became a hot topic during the eighties and nineties. Companies adopted this with the intention of maximizing resources, increasing efficiency, decreasing delays and thereby increasing production and quality. The intention was to achieve this in conjunction with increasing satisfaction, sense of ownership and motivation among employees. Along with the advantages, the study and analysis of this experimentation brought about some challenges to be addressed. If these issues are addressed successfully, the goal of using SDTs for organizational success can be achieved.

Background: The implementation SDTs at a RL Wolfe plant in Corpus Christi, TX was a brain child John Amasi, a director with the support of Jay Winslow, the plant manager. After about 3 years into the process, from the data available, it is evident that the investment in the SDTs started paying off by having productivity (about 82%) more than 2 other RL Wolfe plants. The employees were also more satisfied, (5% turn over rate) were being innovative and adhering to safety standards better. However, it is also evident that this is still in transition and there are issues to be addressed to reach the full potential of having SDTs. The active participation percentage of 60% needs to be addressed along with absenteeism and a few other aspects.

Problems: The top level management seems very eager and proactive in addressing problems, but most of the issues that came up such as setting boundaries of team responsibilities and ownership, team size were a result of the experimentation process. The lack of existing processes for identifying individual performances and efforts was another reason that was causing dissatisfaction among employees, absenteeism and also decrease in morale. The other problem seems to be miscommunication of expectations and the current situation of the company.

Opportunities: The fact that even with 60% employee participation, and all the existing issues a productivity of 82% was achieved implies that with a higher employee participation rate and smoothening out some basic issues, the goal of 95% can be achieved even though it is high. There is an exciting opportunity to not just refine and polish the entire implementation of SDTs at Corpus Christi but also to use this as a launching pad to successfully use these learnings at the Cincinnati and Austin plants. These learnings and statistics can be presented to the unions there to convince them to buy in and participate in the process.

Recommendations: To start with, existing data needs to be used to refine processes and update training material. These include better job interviews, clearunderstanding of roles and responsibilities and team scopes. Team centric culture need to be advocated and embraced as well as making sure teams are well equipped. Coordinators should eventually be part of the team thereby getting the pulse and being able to identify exceptional individual