John Amasi, the director of Production and Engineering at RL Wolfe, implemented self-directed teams (SDTs) at the company’s new plant in the city of Corpus Christi, Texas. The implementation of SDTs the new plant came with expectations regarding reaching a high productivity of up to 95%. However, the plant was able to realize up to 82% and there were several other issues that emerged with the plastic pipe manufacturer (Garvin & Collins, 2009). The aim of the paper is to analyze the implementation of self-directed teams in RL Wolfe at Corpus Christi.
A self-directed team can be defined as a group of people mostly employees within a company that combine different talents and skills without the normal managerial supervision and work towards a common goal and purpose. The key design features for such a team is that it should be made between five and nine members for optimal performance but it can also go up to 25 members. The team should also be designed as a single system where social and technical aspects of the work are designed together. The team should also have a participative design where employees design their job responsibilities (Garvin & Collins, 2009). The specific characteristics required for the success of such a team is that the team should have open systems, and a shared power, rewards, and information. The teams should be autonomous and self-governing.
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Deming’s Context Theory identifies that every organization is made of a system involving interrelated people and processes. A system can thus be defined as a collective effort of processes and people to achieve a particular task or goal (Warm et al., 2019). People can impact systems when creating change and this can impact the basic motivations of people in the system. For instance, self-directed teams focus less on individual recognition and based on Maslow’s Theory of Human Needs, the human need of self-esteem for the individual may not be fulfilled in such a setting. Additionally, McGregor’s Theory Y observes that employees are motivated by work and find autonomy. Changing to a work system where employees are autonomous could result in an improvement in motivation.
The self-directed team in Corpus Christi can be actualized by focusing on the role of the coordinators, facilitating decision-making, and delegation of leadership. The role of the coordinator can be more defined to act as a coach that is a directive leader and assists in decision-making. The team would be provided the ability to make the decisions even when some of the decisions count. A delegating style of leadership would be implemented and the leader should support the team in its decisions even when one disagreed (Dimick, 2019). However, the team should also take responsibility for their decisions.
There are risks associated with having a team-based organization. The risks are lower because it is in the manufacturing industry since the failure of the system would only impact production. There can also be safety risks but this was reduced in the case of Corpus Christi. However, the risks are higher in the healthcare industry as a failure of the team-based organization would impact healthcare services and the quality of care. This could put the health and lives of people in danger.
The SDTs at Corpus Christi could improve by having the management commit to the SDT, training, and continual gathering of feedback. The success of the SDT highly depends on the management and for the given case the management could strive to be more committed through allowing the team to participate in the job design and actual decision-making. The use of feedback from the team members can also be gathered and the necessary improvements made. Feedback will identify what works, what does not work and what requires improvement (Renkema, Bondarouk, & Bos-Nehles, 2018). Training can also be done for the entire team to make them understand the specific advantages and how the SDT can be implemented effectively.
The SDT model provides a sustainable advantage as all employees become knowledgeable about the different processes. The loss of a key manager would not impact the company significantly as another can easily take the role. New ideas are also generated and implemented by the team and in case some processes become outdated, new processes will be generated consistently. Control over the design of the work makes a better work environment as employees become autonomous and accountable and an improvement in the safety of the organization. A flat organization structure can also be beneficial as it improves the level of responsibility in the organization and the decision-making process becomes easier and faster.
References
Dimick, J. B. (2019). Managing Teams Effectively: Leading, Motivating, and Prioritizing Work. In Leadership in Surgery (pp. 81-89). Springer, Cham.
Garvin, D. A., & Collins, E. (2009). RL Wolfe: Implementing Self-Directed Teams. Harvard Business School.
Renkema, M., Bondarouk, T., & Bos-Nehles, A. (2018). Transformation to self-managing teams: lessons learned. Strategic HR Review . Vol. 17 No. 2, pp. 81-84. https://doi.org/10.1108/SHR-10-2017-0072
Warm, E. J., Kinnear, B., Kelleher, M., Sall, D., & Holmboe, E. (2019). Transforming resident assessment: an analysis using Deming’s system of profound knowledge. Academic Medicine , 94 (2), 195-201.
