Five Rules for Self-Organizing Teams
by Barbara Reinhold
In far too many workplaces, the people assembled there behave like it's a family reunion with an indeterminate ending. The dysfunction is knee deep with people acting out all their old unresolved issues. In situations where you're seeing the same people every day, there's always somebody who reminds you of the grandmother who loved your brother more than you, the cousin whose good grades drove you nuts, or your inaccessible and disapproving father.
One potential breath of fresh air in those organizations brave enough to loosen things up a little is self-organizing teams. These are groups of people who come together for the purpose of achieving a goal or bringing a project along to completion. The rules are not laid out from above but are worked out as the group comes together and proceeds toward the desired goal.
Some groups work like a charm. Others replicate all the evils of structured, hierarchical units. Still, it's really worth trying to do self-organized teams right if you want to engender more creativity, greater efficiency and improved morale. Here are five basic rules to discuss before you begin. The acronym is GRASP.
1. First, forget grudges. If there's somebody on the team with whom you've worked unsuccessfully before, and if you can't let go of your old negative feelings about that person, then say no to this team and wait for the next one to come along. Bad blood almost always tarnishes a team's results and makes you miserable in the process.
2. Reconfigure your teams frequently. Don't put the same old people to work together again and again. When you've worked on a team together too many times, you tend to bring your perceptions from the last project into the beginning of the next one, and, hence, you get less original results.
3. Attend, or pay attention, to what people are saying, even if you've brought along your own preconceived notions to the group. The most creative thing you'll ever do is listen carefully to all the ideas and find ways to blend them.
4. Share leadership. Don't put the person highest on the totem pole, or the one who chaired a group previously, in charge of the endeavor. Be sure everybody gets to manage the group sooner or later. Again, it keeps things fresh.
5. Avoid power plays. Is there anything more common in organizational life than posturing and grabbing power? Just once, don't do it. Rather, attend to the problem in need of solving for which this team has been brought together, and go for the most original and effective solution you can find without regard for the ideas' owners.
Self-organizing teams may save us from ourselves, and our toxic habits of discounting people, kowtowing to power and choosing safety over innovation. Try these five rules the next time someone gives you a chance to work on one of these teams.
