Agility is Team Sport
Marcus Raitner
Senior Engagement Manager bei Allianz Consulting | Autor des "Manifest für menschliche Führung" | Impulsgeber und Berater | Informatiker (Dr. rer. nat.)
Those who mea-sure indi-vid-ual per-for-mance con-tri-bu-tions and dis-trib-ute vary-ing rewards depend-ing on them, not only receive demon-stra-bly poor-er results for any non-triv-ial task, but also dis-rupt the team struc-ture in par-tic-u-lar. Each team mem-ber is then pri-mar-i-ly con-cerned with his or her own area of respon-si-bil-i-ty. This loose group of mediocre soloists does how-ev-er not make a good orchestra.
Yes, but …
What about “low per-form-ers”? And what about key play-ers? How can the for-mer be pun-ished and the lat-ter reward-ed? The only cor-rect answer to this ques-tion was giv-en a long time ago by Dou-glas McGre-gor: Not at all or at least not for the pur-pose of motivation.
The answer to the ques-tion man-agers so often ask of behav-ioral sci-en-tists ?How do you moti-vate peo-ple?” is, ?You don’t.”
Dou-glas McGre-gor, 1966. Lead-er-ship and moti-va-tion: essays
Of course there will be dif-fer-ences in the team. Alone the skills and incli-na-tions of the mem-bers will dif-fer in an agile team. This inter-dis-ci-pli-nar-i-ty is an essen-tial prin-ci-ple of agili-ty. In a good team, every-one is impor-tant and every-one makes an impor-tant con-tri-bu-tion, but it can-not be com-pared to the con-tri-bu-tions of the others.
Yes, but what if the team does-n’t work so well? Sure: Not all mem-bers will always be able to deliv-er their best per-for-mance. We are all just human beings and have life cir-cum-stances that could inspire or bur-den us. Our day-to-day per-for-mance varies. How-ev-er, if it becomes appar-ent over a longer peri-od of time that peo-ple do not feel com-fort-able in a team and are unable to devel-op their poten-tial, the first thing to do is to find out why. Sim-ply diag-nos-ing and pun-ish-ing “under-per-for-mance” is about as use-ful as shout-ing at the stunt-ed toma-to in the gar-den and cut-ting back on the fertilizer.
Why do you hire dead wood? Or why do you hire live wood and kill it?
Peter Scholtes (1997). The Leader’s Hand-book (S. 331)
Gen-er-al-ly, the prin-ci-ple of self-orga-ni-za-tion of the team also applies in these cas-es. The team rec-og-nizes the inter-fer-ence of the per-for-mance itself best and can address this in an envi-ron-ment of psy-cho-log-i-cal safe-ty, such as in the con-text of a ret-ro-spec-tive and joint-ly search for solu-tions. How-ev-er, to ensure this psy-cho-log-i-cal safe-ty and to enable a con-struc-tive han-dling of the chal-lenge beyond blame, requires an expe-ri-enced Scrum Mas-ter as coach.
As long as you need heroes or cul-prits to explain a sit-u-a-tion con-vinc-ing-ly, you haven’t under-stood it yet.
Ger-hard Wohland
Yes, but the out-stand-ing key play-ers should be reward-ed! In a healthy orga-ni-za-tion, they have hope-ful-ly per-formed well out of joy of achieve-ment and suc-cess of the team and the orga-ni-za-tion. In a healthy cul-ture, they hope-ful-ly received envy-free recog-ni-tion from col-leagues and supe-ri-ors. If, on the oth-er hand, it seems nec-es-sary to reward key play-ers for their per-for-mance, this only masks deep-er-seat-ed prob-lems in the orga-ni-za-tion and its culture.
Yet the Team Is Not Everything
Most orga-ni-za-tions con-sist of more than one team. And the out-put of the orga-ni-za-tion is the result of the suc-cess-ful coop-er-a-tion of the teams. Replac-ing an indi-vid-ual assess-ment with an assess-ment of team per-for-mance alone is there-fore not suf-fi-cient. A team is only a top team if it also takes respon-si-bil-i-ty for the big-ger pic-ture by help-ing oth-er teams and con-tribut-ing to the devel-op-ment of cross-cut-ting con-cerns (e.g. secu-ri-ty, process-es, archi-tec-ture) in com-mu-ni-ties of practice.
Originally published at https://fuehrung-erfahren.de on November 30, 2020.
Streamline Efforts, Achieve Impact! ??
4 年Currently, I am reading the book ‘Punished by Rewards’ written by Alfie Kohn. It is a masterpiece! It is frightening how deeply engrained and wide-spread the command-and-control practices are. Here is one of my favorite parts of the book. Pay attention to the choice of words. “If what you want is to get a child, a student, or a worker to do what you say, then the answer to the question ‘What’s the alternative to rewards?’ is that there probably is no alternative (with the possible exception of punishment). To induce short-term compliance, behavioral manipulation is the best we’ve got. If, however, your goal is to tap your employees’ intrinsic interest in doing quality work, or to encourage your students to become lifelong, self-directed learners, or to help your child grow into a caring, responsible, decent person, then it makes no sense to ask ‘What’s the alternative to rewards?’ because rewards never moved us one millimeter towards?those?objectives. In fact, rewards actively interfere with our attempts to reach them.”
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4 年Great article! This is true
Streamline Efforts, Achieve Impact! ??
4 年Dr. Marcus Raitner, I couldn’t agree more! Currently, I am taking a deep-dive into reward systems and individual performance appraisals (IPAs). I learned that manager-driven promotions drive the desire for IPAs. The entire concept is based on many assumptions, such as: (1) in the command-and-control rooted principles that managers are responsible for the results, targets, and personal learning of their subordinates; (2) measuring knowledge-worker productivity is possible; (3) managers can independently and effectively judge the performance of their subordinates. Often all of this leads to the employees’ belief that promotion is not related to performance, but having the “right” relationships and an ingratiating personality is. Further, Frederic Herzberg described in his HBR article “One More Time: How Do You Motivate Employees?” that getting the salary (only one part of the rewards system) right is simply a hygiene factor. It will decrease employee dissatisfaction, but it will not lead to employee satisfaction. So, I would focus much more on simply getting this hygiene factor right and focus on the real intrinsic motivators. to be continued...
Konstantin Ribel