The secret sauce of self organizing teams

"Tell me how you will measure me and I will tell you how I will behave." - Eliyahu Goldratt author of The Goal.

In my coaching journey across the various levels in the corporates, I ask a question.. Come up with a definition of a team

After asking the questions to a few thousands now.. I see a pattern in the answers

1)     A set of people with a common goal/objective

2)     A set of people working for a common goal/objective

3)     A group of people with different skills and working closely to meet an objective

I think all of these were right, but in the current context I respectfully say that the definitions are incomplete.. I define a team as, A set of folks who believe in themselves that can achieve in any goal and also care of each other’s fate..

In today’s context caring for each other helps achieving the goals and achieving their own sub goals will not take us into the next level. Understanding and dealing with members at a emotional level as a team/unit helps them to go to next level. This shared understanding comes with how we measure “success” in teams and for individuals.

Let me explain this with an example. Who is declared as a winner of a soccer match?. “Team that scores one more goal than the opponent is declared winner within a time box.” Irrespective of the final goal whether it is 1-0 or 100-99, the team with one goal, more than the opponent is the winner. However no matter what ever happens, even if the team wins the soccer world cup half the team is not happy. This unhappiness creates the failure and prevents from self organizing.

The teams are divided into two sections forward and defenders. The defenders’ success is measured by the numbers of goals they prevent from opponent scoring on their own side. The forwards’ success is measured by measuring the number of goals you score on the opponent’s side. Somehow there is a feeling that the folks play the role they are supposed to play and if they meet their own sub-goals the team wins the game. No this is not true.. the team fails as they do not have a common goal. How about setting a common goal to the team “Irrespective of the number of goals the opponent hits, hit one more than the opponent”, Now this is a different objective. The entire team has one goal and when they have such goals, they start to care for each other’s success and cover the inefficiencies. This takes the team to a next level of success.

On the other hand, if there are sub system goals, see what happens… If the team wins with 1-0; the defenders are extremely happy as they did not let go even a single goal, the forward is unhappy that they scored only one goal in all the 90 mins of the game. If the teams wins with 100-99, the forward is happy that they scored 100 goals, but the defenders are unhappy.. Even if you win the world cup half the team will be unhappy.

So how do we keep the team happy.. Create a team objective that has an systemic alignment

Can we apply this logic in our scrum teams? We create scrum teams and then divide as developers and testers.. The developers success is defined as how much of bug free code they write and the testers are measured on how much of bugs they find. This measurement model creates the tension and friction in the team that prevents from self organizing

Howe about creating a goal ’Irrespective of how many bugs/defects we find, let us ensure that our customers will not find any defects.’ I bet this will create a self organizing team.

Let me know your thoughts…