The Third Eye: Growing importance of team work

New Delhi: In the business world, there is a paradigm shift in the idea of the individual being the centre of output to a more contemporary concept that the team is pivotal to all productivity. This has happened because of the demands of the Age of Knowledge, changing interpretation of ‘work force’ and the evolution of management.

Knowledge-based decision making is the new norm at all levels, substituting for notions of blind compliance by those below. At the same time there is a new realisation that a gap between ‘decision’ and ‘action’ might fail a project because ‘time ‘has become a new resource in today’s highly competitive environment.

Also, plans are subject to mid-course correction in the fast-changing business climate, and teams provided better feedback for that compared to what the earlier ‘assembly line worker’ could do. As regards the changing concept of workforce, it is accepted that workers carry tacit knowledge that could be better garnered in a team.

The importance of leveraging individual strengths when constituting a team was always acknowledged. A team surely offers a more equitable framework of credit sharing within the organisation. Finally, ‘participative’ management is acquiring a newfound importance as organisations were becoming flatter and hierarchies are becoming less cumbersome. An easier vertical interaction is a means of creating a grid for maximising production. Importance of communications is highlighted in the process- there is greater awareness of the fact that a flawed communication could cause serious failures.

Today a delivering organisation is essentially an aggregation of teams and its chief executive officer has the primary responsibility of assembling the right teams to pitch at the desired level of productivity. No two persons are equal in every respect, the skill of the leadership is in leveraging individual strengths for the benefit of the team as already mentioned and it is said that a multi-cultural team could prove to be ‘a powerhouse of creativity’ and not a troubled play ground of conflicts.

The leader had an uncanny sense of how to eliminate ‘time stealers’ in any situation of work and how to make use of ‘tacit’ knowledge that members carried with them. Being seemingly busy is not the same thing as being productive. Also, the team leader must understand that ‘brilliance’ was not a substitute of ‘hard work’.

The power of relationship works for a team-it means there was a willingness to give and seek legitimate help, amongst team members. Normally, there would be an equal sharing of credits for good performance by a team, for the success of the mission or task assigned to it.

Handling of interactions is in fact, crucial to success in any public organisation. All business is human activity- the leadership there must have a basic understanding of human nature and adequate ‘Emotional Intelligence’. A senior can ‘fault’ the performance without attacking the persona of the subordinate, and he or she should also explain the logical reason for the criticism. It is good to distinguish the failure of ‘result’ from the failure of ‘effort’.

It is the business of organisational leadership to establish the right work environment that acted as a stress buster and allowed for ‘concentration’ on the job to yield enhanced productivity. The senior should have a minimal idea of the life of the subordinate at home so that any ‘distraction’ betrayed by the latter at work place was not grossly misinterpreted. Remember, all leaders are required to manage their people but all managers are not ‘leadership material’ necessarily. Leaders today are tested for their ‘power of authenticity’, their communications ability and the trait of being ‘information savvy’. This mix is not easy to find as it defines ‘perfection’.

A leader derives his or her power of authenticity from being well-informed, being in integration with an ethical value system, being known for impartiality in giving credits, having the image of an individual who developed trustworthiness by not allowing a gap between words and deeds and who acted only on reliable information- a credulous person never looks powerful.

A leader practices ‘effectiveness of differentiation’- he or she knows the difference between ‘macro and micro’, between ‘short term and long range’ and between a ‘major’ problem and ‘minor irritants’. The leader grasped the essence of Pareto’s Law that said ‘there are a significant few amongst insignificant many’. He or she knows when the accumulated information was enough for decision-making and ensures that there was no unwarranted gap between the ‘decision’ and its ‘implementation’.

For leadership, the ability to communicate well is the key to success. A good communication has clarity, brevity and logical sequencing. Clarity means what was said cannot be misinterpreted. Brevity should not be at the cost of clarity. Logical sequencing makes the communication more impactful as it unfolds itself to define the task ahead.

Being information savvy is the new requirement today for leaders, executives and workers of the organisation. It is important to have information that makes a difference between a decision and a guess. Information-savvy people do not shun reading, tend to ‘categorise’ information as they go through it and prefer an authoritative opinion to gossip. They have an insatiable curiosity and the discipline of a logical progression of thought, going through the What? Why? and Where? of any issue.

The ever-increasing speed with which business is conducted and decisions have to be taken because globalisation set a new bar for competitiveness and the necessity of monitoring competitors and watching the competitive conditions-all demanded an ability to swiftly handle information.

The word ‘knowledge worker’ is now in vogue to describe what was earlier termed just as a ‘pair of hands’. Well-informed people are aware that knowledge comes in ‘integral packages’ and hence a certain ‘completeness’ of information became important. An employer of a large work force of men and women today had to know about the legal responsibility of providing ‘work place safety’ to women employees. A teacher of children had to have some knowledge of ‘children psychology’-beyond the curriculum.

The ‘peak performers’ are expected to have matching organisational ethics, adequacy of supply chains and efficiency of their work force. They would have comparable degree of knowledge of whatever was happening around their businesses in the present because most information was shared publicly the moment it was produced. What can give a competitive advantage to one of them over the others, however, is an early insight into what ‘lay ahead’. This reliable, relevant and futuristic information comes under the definition of ‘Business Intelligence’ and corporates were willing to significantly invest on creating a competent ‘study and analysis’ unit within to focus on producing it.

Artificial Intelligence(AI) is revolutionising corporate working by helping to generate predictive readings through Data Analytics and ‘Machine Learning’.

All this translates into the need to have teams with ‘ intelligence orientation’ who realised that ‘all intelligence was information but all information was not intelligence’. The Age of Information was gradually transiting to Age of Intelligence, and smarter players in business were steadily keeping pace with this transformation.

(The writer is a former Director of the Intelligence Bureau)

--IANS

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