Improving Productivity Through Leaderless Teams

chillibreeze writer — Indumathi

Be it leadership or team building, the focus is always on training. Most of the time managers have to be trained in leadership and team building skills. At the same time, team members have to be trained in communication and teamwork. Somewhere in the process we fail to create an environment that can actually bridge the gap. Offsite team building meetings end up more fun at company expense rather than addressing the differences.

The contempt with which teams hold their managers is well known, the latter being the butt of several jokes. There are so many instances where managers are at the mercy of their teams. The iron hand rule does not work anymore, particularly in the knowledge industry. Today employee loyalty is history. People are more open and looking out for better jobs and opportunities.

In fact, even the contribution of the manager towards team success is debatable at times. Sometimes, it is even counter-productive. No wonder managers have earned a dubious nickname as ‘Damagers’. Under these circumstances, is it still prudent to have managers around? Do we require them to provide psychological perks? Do we really need a hierarchy?

Rather than imposing a created hierarchy, it is best to let it evolve. Let there be an acceptance of a person as a colleague than as a member of the hierarchy. It is this mutual acceptance which enables teams to deliver. External influences will be at a bare minimum. Individuals will have to willingly accept each other.

So what is being proposed is a convention breaker - leaderless teams. At the outset it might look like inviting trouble. There could be total chaos. There is chaos even now with the leaders around. Usually team dynamics talk of an undercurrent, which only the team understands and keeps it simmering. There could be a breakthrough in this as any such problem stands a better chance to be addressed due to the mutual acceptance of the team members.

The Team Phase - Every team goes through four phases; form, storm, norm and perform. And it is strongly contended that these stages are facilitated by the leader. The challenge is to strengthen the team dynamics irrespective of the presence or absence of the leader. It might take a bit longer than usual for the process to set in. So the role of a team lead is becoming redundant.

A team usually works towards a common objective and common result, albeit with a new perspective. When there is a leader, the organizational objective is seen as the leader’s objective. The task completion is the goal of the leader, whereas a team member’s role is usually only a part of the goal. That is why team members often get disenchanted and disassociated from the objective.

Imagine a team without a designated leader, but with a given task. In this case, if completed well, everyone wins. And if the team fails, everyone loses. It is like an adventure thriller, where a group of strangers are thrown together into a hostile environment with only each other to depend on or to get out alive. This forces them to set aside their personal differences and work together for the common objective of staying alive.

Well, this can be simulated in a corporate setting. It would be a perfect opportunity for management to demonstrate the amount of trust they have in their staff. People may want to monitor their progress and yes, they should. A team may not be in a position to resolve certain internal or external issues without the intervention of the top management, who can put an MIS and tracking mechanism to ensure that alarms are raised appropriately.

A strong support system can make it more effective. Whenever a project is allocated to a team, two things are defined. A routine reward, like a low salary, and additional substantial rewards, for every milestone reached successfully, should be defined. For example, say the average salary of the 5-member team is Rs.10, 000/- per month. We are proposing a six months project with a profit of 5 lacs;

Monthly salary of Rs.5000/- for the duration
Project divided into 5 milestones
At every successfully completed milestone, members get an additional 10,000/-
If a milestone is missed, that reward is lost
When the whole project is completed on time and within budget, the members will get a bonus of Rs.10,000/-
So here we are incurring an additional cost of Rs. 150,000/-, but it will do wonders to the team performance.

First of all, the team is under pressure. Not many would like to do this kind of job. But those who stay will be either the best or pure gamblers. The gamblers will leave after the first project. But those who stay will be the best as only the best can take on such challenges. In fact this will remove the complacency from the team and make them really focused.

Most importantly, they will realize that as a team they will succeed or fail together. This in fact will ensure that the team bonds fast. Also, any low performers will be the responsibility of the team. It will also ensure that such low performers are trained and coached well by the team to perform or be thrown out by them.

If thrown out, one should not hesitate to get feedback from the team to understand weak areas. To begin with, ample scope should be given for improvement with proper inputs and assistance. In case of difficulties, put the team member on a sample or small project to ensure that he has improved and then only bring him back into the allocation pool.

The team members will also ensure that everyone is doing their fair share of the work. The willingness to assist and help each other to complete their tasks is no longer by choice, but the only way to succeed since there are no leaders in the picture. The best part is we only need a support system to ensure that performance management is done appropriately.

This concept will have the following advantages;

Excellent teams will form
High cohesion of team members
Internal coaching of weak team members
More realistic, effective and balanced work loads
A sense of collective achievement
No one will feel less important
Most importantly, real leaders emerge
These leaders can be trained and promoted into strategic planning functions
Hierarchy and promotions don’t mean much as teams can make more money
Focus is on performance management
Reduced focus on balancing the salaries and related dissatisfaction
Team members will know their weaknesses from their peers and not managers
All hiring mistakes will get cleaned up
High performers
The compensation plan is like the one designed for sales people, low basic and high incentives
Absenteeism will reduce
Leave management is no longer a nightmare

The following disadvantages are also envisaged

Heavy attrition in the beginning
Lot of counseling time spent by senior management
Heavy storms in team meetings
Average performers may get discouraged
A missed milestone will effect the morale
Induction of new team members into existing teams may prove difficult

Looking at the pros and cons, if well deployed and assisted, the leaderless teams are destined to succeed. This will also facilitate a more challenging work environment. This will also remove the culture of promotions for better compensation. Most importantly, peer to peer training and facilitation will become the most important success criteria. Anyway the present scenario has more serious lacunae. Maybe this concept is worth trying.

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Indumathi writes for chillibreeze.

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