Creating Team Innovation - Chapter Two - Examples of Effective Teams

In Creating Team Innovation – Chapter One, the characteristics of a high performance team that led to consistent Team Innovation was presented. Before I jump into how to create high performance teams, I would like to provide quick illustrations of three such teams.

Chapter Two – Examples of Effective Teams provides best practices of effective teams in various organizations, looks under the hood on what made these teams effective, and exposes areas in which these teams could have done better.

What are some examples of effective teams in an organization of which you have either been a member or a leader?

What made it an effective team? What could the team have done better?

Example One

Team:
12 Department heads and 175 employees in a Golf & Spa Resort.

Team Goal:
Business turnaround.

Team Achievement:
The team managed to turnaround a resort that was losing significant money to a hotel that actually began producing profits.

What made it an effective team?
1. One of the major factors that turned the hotel around financially was that the management focused on having the right people in the right jobs.
2. The hotel management focused on selecting (both management and hourly staffed) the right talent, setting the expectations, and defining the right outcomes.
3. Over time, the hotel ended up with a group that embodied the term “team work”.

What could have been done better?
Give everyone a fair opportunity to prove themselves (after giving the tools and training necessary to be successful). However, once you have determined that it is not going to work out, you cannot wait too long to deal with poor performers. Not dealing with those issues will create frustration amongst those that are performing well.

Example Two

Team:
Kitchen crew at a restaurant.

Team Goal:
Product Innovation.

Team Achievement:
It was the most highly creative and fun group, that created great camaraderie and spirit in the kitchen that led to new innovations in food and service.

What made it an effective team?
1. A spirit of creative freedom was fostered by everyone, from the top down. Even though it was a very busy kitchen, there was always time to work on a pet project or to create a new dish or daily special.
2. For the most part, people were able to put aside their egos. It was very common to work on a dish, and to have someone come over and give his input, and then another person would come over and contribute his two cents. After awhile, a great new dish would emerge, which usually had little resemblance to the original thought - but was a collaboration of creative effort. Everyone would look at it with pride.
3. People were publicly praised and recognized for a job well done
4. There was a common passion and enthusiasm for what we were doing. The owners seemed to be very good at attracting and recruiting this type of employees.
5. The standards and expectations were always being raised. There was no room for complacency.

What could have been done better?

Many individuals eventually left and opened their own restaurants in the area.
Ownership was at times unreasonable, did not tolerate or forget mistakes.
The kitchen atmosphere took on an "us against them" mentality, which ironically brought the kitchen crew members together.

Example Three

Team:
Process Quality team consisting of over ten managers from sales, service, product and infrastructure organizations.

Team Goal:
Process Innovation.
The goal of this team was to surface any quality issues that the sales or service team experiences with the currently released or soon to be released products. If the issues required follow-up, the product and infrastructure managers provided a detailed follow-up analysis. If the quality issues required immediate resolution, the product and infrastructure managers will escalate these issues to executive management until they are resolved.

Team Achievement:
The team was effective in generating timely feedback and follow-up on quality issues.
A detailed log of quality issues was generated after each meeting, and the product or infrastructure managers were required to follow up on these issues via email and before the next meeting. A new meeting will go over any outstanding issues, and then dive into the new issues.

What made it an effective team?
1. The team goals were clearly defined.
2. The team deeply cared about product and service quality, and customer satisfaction.
3. There was active participation, frequent communication and collaboration among the team members and management.
4. The product and infrastructure managers followed through on the quality issues, and resolved them in a timely manner.
5. The team took pride and enjoyed the moments when the quality issues were resolved.

What could have been done better?
When there was a change in senior management (a new VP took over products), his position on the activity and escalation of issues by this team changed. Thus, when issues were escalated, they were not resolved, ignored, or even challenged. Ultimately, the sales and service team who were giving their pro-active feedback began realizing the lack of follow-through from the product and infrastructure teams (owing to the change in guard). Hence, the team was eventually dissolved. Later on, the new VP realized this mistake, and created a new team to handle this.

Lessons learned:
What are the incentives for a new manager to re-invent existing processes?
Cost saving, the recognition from upper management, the recognition from clients, make an impact on existing processes by making them more efficient, cheaper or faster, to show that the experience they bring can take the company to the next level, better align processes to the company goals & objectives.

These are just a few examples from various segments of the industry on how effective teams deliver and execute, and innovate with creativity.

Creating Team Innovation - Chapter Three will examine forming such a well-functioning high performance team.

If you enjoyed reading this Innovation best practice, I recommend the complete list of Creativity Innovation Best Practices.

References:

eCornell