Team vs. Individual Structure

Below is a simple diagram of the difference between a team based department or organization verses letting the associates drive the structure. I have witness both environments. Team is not a corporate buzzword, it is a key ingredient to successful company growth. Large teams consist of teams within a team.

Team Based	Individual Based
Develop Leaders	Anarchy
Staff Growth	Power Struggles
Member Contributions	High Turnover
Self-sustaining	Stagnant

Why Teams Fail

Lack of Management Support

Wrong member make up

Lack of correct tools to succeed

These elements are tried and true team based analysis and experience. Let me focus on the Team based structure, as the Individual based structure is counter-productive.

Teams can be functional or cross-functional:

• Functional - Specific expertise
• Cross-functional - Project driven areas

The goal of both teams is goal setting, process improvement, trends sharing, and subject matter collaboration. This list is by no means inclusive of all team elements.

The Key Performance Indicator (KPI) is streamlined operations or process efficiencies. Remember the profit equation contains two sides revenue and expenses. Although a department may not be revenue generating, it can add to the bottom line with performance efficiencies by having less overhead costs, i.e. fewer associates required output the current workload, or handling more workload, contributing to the revenue side of the profit equation.

I hope this blog entry will encourage you to recognize the benefits of a team base structure or review your current teams’ structure.

Leadership’s Role in Lateral Conflict

There is always a vertical manager hierarchy in every organization. Some companies this hierarchy is short, others can be quite layered. When it comes to problem solving protocol, there are typically rules to follow. One well known rule is you never leap frog your direct reporting manager. This is proven political and career ending suicide. I want to address a lessor known, or possibly not practiced, management protocol regarding lateral conflict resolution.

When conflict arises between intradepartmental team members, it’s leaderships’ role to resolve it, while retaining the team member’s relationship.

Here are the steps that have worked in my experiences:

1. One or both of the conflicting team members contacts their direct manager and explains the situation
2. The direct manager contacts the non-direct member’s manager
3. The two, or more, managers involved in the situation discuss resolution, independent of the team members (this does not exclude input from the team member)
4. These managers explain the resolution to their direct reports

The benefit from this conflict resolution approach preserves the day-to-day working relationship of the team members.

This protocol can be effective at any level of management. I would hope the higher up the leadership chain the conflict rises, the quicker the solution, based on all the factors contributing to this level’s position. Too often, conflict resolution is restricted to the team member and reporting manager. This eliminates the other parties involved in the conflict and reduces resolution success, at least in the long term.