True or false: teams that follow a structured process provide better solutions. Consider the results of research carried out by John C. Redding, whose research includes studies of two sets of teams.
Team A was involved in a high-profile initiative in which the team was asked to accelerate the schedule requested by a customer. The team meeting took place in elegant surroundings with highly skilled middle managers from leading graduate business schools, and with a well-developed agenda. The team was challenged to make quick decisions and use systematic risk analysis. The team meeting was well planned and executed. The team decided to decline to accelerate the schedule requested by customer.
Team B was formed to recommend whether the company should introduce a low-cost, off-the-shelf product line. The team includes production supervisors and machine operators from manufacturing, only a few had college degrees, and no formal team training. The meeting was held in a crammed lunchroom with no formal agenda and no plan. The team was entrenched in two camps, emotions were high, people interrupted each other in mid-sentence, and name-calling was frequent. One of the vocal advocates for a particular position became very angry and left the room with a threat to quit the organization. The group was stunned. In an attempt to deal with the situation the team started talking about starting a company from scratch for this low-end market. They explored ways to streamline production and identified ways to standardize the product line. The discussion became more and more serious as the discussion continued. There was excitement. They discussed the possibilities of a stand-alone company. They met again two weeks later, and within six months the new company was launched.
What happened here? Team A was a highly skilled group of managers who lived up to the status quo; no exploration of alternative and no innovation. Team B, although undisciplined and at times unruly, transformed the company. Redding raises the question: Did the messiness of Team B with its frequent impasses and tension stimulate an innovative business solution and a commitment to make it happen?
Redding’s questions were answered and were reinforced from research by Laurel Jeris in 1997. Jeris formed eighty, five-person teams, and divided them into two sets. One set was structured as Team A and the other set, without any guidance or help, was similar to Team B. The results: teams trained to follow prescribed teamwork practices (like Team A) were less apt to create innovative solutions if left to their own devices. The teams left on their own (like Team B) were twice as likely to develop innovative solutions. Jeris then set up a third group of teams with a set of guidelines that asked them to separate facts from assumptions and not blindly accept the problem as presented. These teams rephrased their problems three times as often as those using traditional team problem-solving methods. The results suggest the possibility of a new model for teamwork designed to increase the reexamination of how problems are framed.
What conclusions can we draw from this research? Team A went through the process with competent people that accepted the problem as it was given. There were no dissident voices. There really was no dialogue. No one raised doubts about the problem statement. This was a typical session by knowledgeable though not necessarily competent or proactive managers. The tough questions were not asked. Team B was a freewheeling team meeting that to the casual observer would seem chaotic. There was no defined process for reaching a conclusion. Do we thus conclude that a process is not required? No. Following a process wasn’t what prevented Team A from finding a way of meeting the customer’s request. The problem was the manner in which they approached the problem. The session really didn’t consider alternatives to resolving the problem. No creativity. No innovation. Do it the same way as we always have done it.
Do we then conclude that the chaotic approach used by Team B is the right way? Probably not. It will take time to repair the destructive effects on personal relationships. But Team B came up with an innovative solution in spite of its chaotic meeting. I suggest that process is important but the process must make allowances for reaching the appropriate solution. Every process involves going through a series of steps to reach some conclusion. But it also includes going through that process considering alternatives. It involves validating the definition of the problem and developing the evidence to confirm that the real problem is under consideration. The problem must be framed. Framing is defined by Schön as:
The process by which we define the decision to be made, the ends to be achieved, the means which may be chosen. In real-world practice, problems do not present themselves to the practitioner as givens. They must be constructed from materials of problematic situations which are puzzling, troubling, and uncertain. In order to convert a problematic situation to a problem a practitioner must do a certain kind of work. He must make sense of an uncertain situation that initially makes no sense.
Jeris’s third group, who reframed their problem many times, provides a better model than either Team A or Team B followed.