CONTROL PROCESSES

Team Product 8
	
	THEORY INPUT

C
ontrol is never an option; either the team controls its function or others must.  High performing organizations and teams develop control processes that provide a strong sense of purposefulness and direction.  Historically, we have relied on someone designated “manager” or “supervisor” to provide this.  This position was responsible for the work unit task performance and human resource maintenance.  Satisfaction of these two major components requires a balance between the external environment and the organization’s individual need satisfaction processes, social processes, and producing processes.  An effective control process, referred to in literature as managerial and leadership elements, requires the team to develop methods to achieve high levels of task accomplishment and human system satisfaction.

Control processes and systems are what create the balance required between the technical and social systems.  In traditional organizations, this balance is imposed from the outside through others.  In high performance organization teams, control is self imposed by the team.

	OBJECTIVE

The primary objective of this task is to help your team analyze its managerial and leadership processes, and to develop ways to increase its effectiveness.

	DESIRED OUTCOMES

!	Understanding of the control methods your team has been utilizing to maintain focus on team purpose and outputs and the balance between individual need satisfaction processes, social processes, producing processes, and the external environment.

!	A strategy that identifies needed changes to make your team’s control process more effective.

!	Feedback on what you learned as a result of this task, and what working theory for developing effective control systems you now employ.

!	A method to share your key learnings with other workshop teams.

SUGGESTIONS

Prior to beginning work in this area, gain agreement on your objective and the outputs desired.  Once you accomplish this, design your process for achieving these.  The following hints may be helpful.

!	Individually read the materials and then discuss with your team members the different types of control processes. 

!	Brainstorm a list of words or phrases that describe your team’s managerial and leadership (control) processes.

!	Process through the items on the list, reaching agreement on which control processes in the elements of managerial and leadership your team has used.  Identify who on your team has been performing these roles and activities.  Reach agreement on what style was used early in the week and what style is being used now.  Indicate why you have changed.

!	Think through how your team has been setting objectives, planning, organizing, soliciting feedback, and measuring performance.  What level of effectiveness have you attained?

!	Reach consensus on who is controlling your team through its managerial and leadership processes.  What level of effectiveness is being achieved?

!	Develop a plan to implement needed changes in your control processes and which working theory will govern these changes.

!	Analyze your experience and develop your working theory about control processes and high performing systems.

!	Develop a means to share your team’s learning with the other workshop teams.
(Each team will be allotted up to 10 minutes for this purpose at the beginning of the next general session.)

UNDERSTANDING MANAGERIAL AND LEADERSHIP FUNCTIONS

O
rganizations need to have methods for handling external and internal conflicts, integration needs, resource allocation, purpose, accomplishment, coordination, and continuous improvement.

These tasks can be grouped into four main categories—producing, supporting, managing, and leading.  These tasks and categories are highly interrelated and interdependent, forming task subsystems.  

Producing tasks - These tasks directly relate to the production of an organization’s products and services, such as receiving, processing, selling, delivering, operating and repairing equipment, controlling quality and costs, etc.

Supporting tasks - These are the tasks that support the production and services, such as obtaining needed resources (people, materials, information, etc.), helping design and install equipment, building facilities, and handling payroll, benefits, invoices, etc.

Managing tasks - These tasks help coordinate and integrate the activities of the producing and supporting subsystems with each other and congruent with the needs and expectations of the external environment.  They include such things as helping establish standards for overall performance and effectiveness, helping measure and monitor the performance of the various sub-units and initiating action to solve performance deficiencies, helping resolve conflicts between the various teams and between the organization and its environment, and helping prioritize scarce organizational resources.

Leading tasks - Leadership is not easy to explain or readily defined.  Yet a useful way to view it is the process that allows one to influence others to attain what an individual or team desires done.  It is one of the functions historically assigned to the president or chief operating person at a location.  The method of leadership chosen by your team will certainly influence your group’s overall results as well as individual’s growth and development.  Leading tasks generally relate to ensuring clarity, consensus, and commitment regarding organizational visions, purposes, and strategies, developing common values, developing supportive work cultures, looking outward and monitoring the environment to detect needs for organizational renewal and change, and initiating and leading organizational planning, change, and development of activities.

Traditional organization designs have formally assigned the control responsibilities to positions labeled manager/supervisor.  High performing organizations foster processes that internalize these requirements throughout the entire system to make everyone responsible.

Most of us have read or been exposed to the classic functions of management:  planning, organizing, staffing, leading, and controlling.  These functions have been viewed as management’s prerogative because of how organizations are classically designed.  Organizations were designed in layers to isolate control points.  These control points were where these management functions were focused.  The following model represents this.

TYPES OF CONTROL

Organizations and teams develop different influence methods to accomplish these management functions.  In the classical organization, the formal leader may use position power as a means to accomplish the task by using rewards, coercive power or legitimate power.  Outside this, both formal leaders and informal leaders can use personal power through expert and referent power.  Expert power is the ability to control another’s behavior through possession of a special knowledge, skill, or ability that the other person does not have but needs.  Referent power is the ability to control another’s behavior because of their need to identify and be accepted by the power source.

There are many ways to exert influence and control.  The most common are:

	Reason.  Using facts and data to support a logical argument.
	Friendliness.  Using flattery, goodwill, and favorable impressions.
	Coalition.  Using relationships with other people.
	Bargaining.  Using the exchange of benefits as a basis for negotiation.
	Assertiveness.  Using a direct and forceful personal approach.
	Higher authority.  Gaining higher level support for one’s requests.
	Sanctions.  Using organizationally derived rewards and punishments.

Source:  Schermerhorn, Hunt, Osborn, Managing Organizational Behavior, Third   Edition, p. 456.

CONTROL MODELS

Moving from Traditional to Shared Control

TRADITIONAL SUPERVISORY MODEL

		

ACCOUNTABILITY:	!	Supervisor is accountable for workers output
!	Supervisor sets schedules, orders material, reports performance
	!	Supervisor directs and controls workers
	!	Supervisor is responsible for quality and quantity of output

COMMUNICATION:	!	Supervisor talks to individual workers, one on one
	!	Minimal interaction between workers
	!	One-way feedback, supervisor to worker

TECHNICAL SKILLS:	!	Supervisor possesses technical knowledge
	!	Supervisor solves technical problems
	!	Supervisor makes decisions
	!	Supervisor trains
	!	Supervisor sometimes works

SOCIAL SKILLS:	!	Supervisor is responsible for morale and motivation
	!	Behavior outside a tight tolerance is punished

ROLE OF WORK GROUP:	!	Follow the Supervisor’s direction
	!	Comply with specific rules
	!	Operate within a specific job description
	!	Minimize variances
	!	Stay busy or look busy

TEAM LEADER MODEL

		

ACCOUNTABILITY:	!	Leader is accountable for performance, but does delegate some responsibility to key members
	!	Leader is responsible for quantity and quality of output
	!	Leader makes most decisions

COMMUNICATION:	!	Some interaction between members
	!	Leader shares information about the business with the team
	!	Leader manages dynamics of member relationships
	!	Leader solicits team members’ ideas

TECHNICAL SKILLS:	!	Technical skills are shared between leader and members
	!	Members become skilled in more than one area
	!	Members provide input into technical decisions

SOCIAL SKILLS:	!	Leader facilitates information sharing & discussions
	!	Group norms emerge
	!	Some diversity of ideas is encouraged

ROLE OF WORK GROUP:	!	Comply to group standards
	!	Help in solving material, maintenance and production problems
	!	Members can influence work environment

TEAM COORDINATOR MODEL

ACCOUNTABILITY:	!	Team owns their piece of the business and monitors performance
	!	Coordinator reviews results of the team
	!	Team is fully accountable for mutually developed goals
	!	Leadership is shared and situational

COMMUNICATION:	!	Highly interactive
	!	Coordinator is occasionally used to manage group dynamics
	!	Two-way feedback is valued

TECHNICAL SKILLS:	!	Members are developed to manage training, safety, maintenance
	!	Members exercise considerable judgment and discretion
	!	Members manage specialists when needed

SOCIAL SKILLS:	!	Members help each other become better contributors
	!	Members appropriately challenge each other
	!	Diversity is valued
	!	Coordinator coaches to increase team development

ROLE OF WORK GROUP:	!	Enroll in the culture of the organization
	!	Contribute to the success of the plant
	!	Continually solve variances
	!	Coordinator manages boundaries
	!	Coordinator focuses on long range

SELF-MANAGING MODEL

ACCOUNTABILITY:	!	Team manages and improves value-added
	!	Team resource is a consultant to more than one team as needed and provides specific expertise when requested
	!	Resource provides feedback from the external environment
	!	Team allocates resources to new business opportunities
	!	Team manages all seven core processes

COMMUNICATION:	!	Members highly interact with external environment (vendors, customers, corporate, consumers)
	!	Two-way feedback is actively and frequently solicited
	!	Continuous improvement is a way of life

TECHNICAL SKILLS:	!	Members stay abreast of technical trends
	!	Team possesses all the resources to maintain and improve value-added
	!	Team monitors what future skills they may need

SOCIAL SKILLS:	!	Team owns the social system and regulates its own behavior
	!	Members value each other’s unique contributions
	!	Diversity of ideas is encouraged

ROLE OF WORK GROUP:	!	Improve the work system continuously
	!	Members are empowered to create their future
	!	Members transcend individual needs to the success of the business
	!	Team focuses on what’s right for the whole
LEARNING JOURNAL
CONTROL PROCESSES

Teaming Skills and Learning Checklist

(Check the areas in which you excelled)
(Circle the areas you wish to improve in next session)

	Growth Values

Empathy

Authenticity

Spontaneity

Courage

Open-Mindedness

Intuition

Teaming Skills

Meeting Effectiveness

Brainstorming

Problem Solving

Planning/Organizing

Decision Making

Assessing Results

Conflict Resolution

Giving Feedback

Receiving Feedback

Decisiveness

1.		What did I learn most around Growth Values and Teaming Skills:

2.		We have learned to address and resolve conflicts by:

3.		Our control process should:

4.	I personally gained the following insights about my ability to work control issues within a team:

5.	The things I learned that I most want to be able to use back home are: