5.6.1 Cost of poor team participation
Ideally, teams should be composed of members who can contribute a cross-section of ideas and views on the designated process. Working together, team members focus their own skills. The collective outcome of this cooperation should then extend beyond the sum of the contribution of each individual to form into a higher 'team performance capacity'.
Both technical productive expertise and inter-personal competencies are desirable.
People with low competence in one or more areas should not necessarily be denied membership on the team. Team involvement often serves to raise the awareness and competence of individual workers. Team-building skills such as conflict resolution, reporting procedures and protocol, group dynamics and evaluation can be trained for and/or acquired at a basic level of competence through involvement.
The cost of poor teamwork can be measured in three ways; the loss of customers, staff dissatisfaction, and internal operational costs. The overall cost of poor teamwork to the organisation can typically include:
- Loss of market position;
- Inability to respond to changing customer needs;
- Failure to identify new market opportunities;
- Lack of focus in corporate training or cross functional decision making;
- Increased time required for management intervention on issues related to process and staff performance, not outcomes; and
- Poor responsiveness and time inefficiencies.
The cost to customers impacted by poor teamwork will be affected by the:
- Poor service offered to customers;
- Company image;
- Limited diversity of products and services offered;
- Limited customer access to skilled service staff;
- Frequency of customer use;
- Climate and culture of the organisation;
- Existing competence (knowledge, skills and attitudes) of staff and management; and finally
- Ability for staff to respond to customers with special or changing needs.
Staff dissatisfaction will translate into costs where it causes:
- High staff turnover and/ or absenteeism;
- Lack of stability in personal and work relationships;
- Conflict in a team or the workplace;
- An inability to identify the customer or 'own' outcomes produced by the team;
- Lack of consistency in work standards; and
- Lack of personal development.
The success of a team usually revolves around the ability to succeed in four key areas:
Outcomes - Customer satisfaction and company growth/ success.
Outputs - Completion of immediate tasks on time, to agreed cost and quality targets.
Inputs - Staff levels, staff skills, quality of supplies, availability of key resources.
Actions - Skills, knowledge, attitude, motivation, and common values
- Common reasons why teams "fail" include:
- Failure to add any value to the company's performance or success.
- Inadequate conceptual and technical knowledge to complete assigned duties and tasks.
- No regard for company owner's needs.
- Differences in people
- i. staff
- ii. management
- iii. customers.
- Failure to respect customer needs.
- Concern for the minor while ignoring major problems.
- Lack of responsiveness to change.
- Settling for the easy to achieve when success demands effort.
- Failure to cooperate and include staff suggestions on ways to improve work.
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