HR Pulse

The dynamics of highly effective transformation

• The future is now unknowable but the future isn’t unthinkable.
  
  
• The koeksisters of the company make up 15% of your workforce: They’re ‘dipped and shiny’, they know how to behave when the boss is around and their big passion in life is to become the boss.
  
  
  
• 15% of your employees have no commitment to the company. For them, their job is just a job.
  
  
• 55% of your employees are average.
  
  
• Only 10% of your employees dream the dream of the organisation. This means that only 10% of your employees are committed to your company’s vision and mission, and furthering this in the workplace.

It was with these five points that Sam Alexander, CEO and director of the Pacific Institute, started off his presentation, The dynamics of effective highly sustainable transformation, at this year’s IPM Convention.

And he said that that it is up to us, as HR practitioners, to increase the number of people who are committed and fully engaged in our organisations.

10 dynamics of highly effective teams

Mark Ferraro, transformation practitioner with Redpoint Technologies, has outlined 10 characteristics which companies with highly effective teams display:

1.    Roles and responsibilities: Highly effective teams have clearly-defined roles and responsibilities. These:

• Focus team members’ attention on company objectives;
  
  
• Allow the team leader to divide up responsibility fairly among the team leaders; and
  
  
• Ensure that the team leader and members understand opportunities and risk better.
  
  

2.    Vision and roadmap: Companies with highly successful teams have a vision and roadmaps. A vision orientates the company and its teams while roadmaps capture a set of decisions on how to achieve that vision.

3.    Priority: Highly effective companies and teams look at risk and opportunities from every angle to see where they could be harmed, or benefit, from these two.


4.     Foster healthier relationships: Effective organisations have strong relationships with, for example, customers, partners, suppliers, physical and intellectual communities outside the organisation.


5.    Appreciation: Effective organisations foster a sense of trust and respect among their teams. Management makes it clear that they appreciate their employees.


6.    Purposefulness: Effective organisations are able to guide their team members towards achieving meaningful results.


7.    Sustainability: Effective organisations are constantly focused on optimisation and eliminating waste.


8.    Communities of practice: Effective organisations leverage and support natural groups that exist within every organisation.


9.    Information is communicated visually: Effective organisations communicate every single bit of information, even the most technical, visually.


10.    Organic perspective: One of the most important characteristics that effective organisations display is what the outlook of the leaders in the organisation is. If the leaders have a mechanised view they will look at the enterprise and see a machine with interchangeable parts – and treat it accordingly.

But how can we do this?

Creating a highly interactive team environment starts with management. And it is up to HR to collaborate with management to create this type of environment:

1.    We need to create the space and time to transform our teams into highly effective and committed units;

2.    We must be clear about the value that we, as HR practitioners, add to the organisation. This will enable us to successfully transform the teams in our company; and

3.    We need to follow a structured process to ensure that the process of creating highly effective teams is done properly.

Author: Lia Marus is the editor of HR Pulse. She has a BA in French, Italian and Linguistics from UCT, an MA in translation from Wits and a Postgraduate Diploma in Management from the Wits Business School. She is currently studying towards her LLB through Unisa. Lia started her career off in corporate communications, where she worked as a sub-editor, researcher and marketing coordinator. She then heeded the call of the publishing world and went into the business-to-business publishing field. She worked as a sub-editor as well as a chief sub-editor. Before joining ITWeb, she managed an HR guidebook at a leading international publishing company.