1. Lack of alignment with company vision and mission.
Leadership must understand that if employees do not understand how theypersonally fit into the vision, this statement is not worth the paper on which it wasprinted. 2. Team charter is unclear. A charter is a document prepared by leadership that answers:* What is the reason this team exists?* What are the steps to be followed by this team?* What quantitative results are expected for this team to be successful?* Who are the team members, team leaders and team liaison?* Who will support the team if needed?* How much time should be spent in meetings and outside of meetings?* What authority does the team have? What things cannot be changed?* What items are outside the scope of the team?* What budget does the team have?* What are the outputs from the team? When are they expected to becomplete? To whom should they be given?3. A cookbook approach was used instead of a custom-tailored approach. Although my company has advocated a specific process in implementing teams,the simple truth is that the process has never been followed.
The process is anexcellent baseline, but each organization has a unique culture; a unique history;a unique group of leaders, managers and people and a unique team-basedbackground that must be taken into consideration when designing and refining aspecific organization’s team-based process. 4. Middle management/supervisors’ roles are not changed. Middle managers and supervisors typically have all the responsibility forperformance, but little authority to achieve performance.
When asked todescribe their fob, middle managers and supervisors use words like fire fighter,policeman, power broker, paper pusher, stock chaser, baby sitter, disciplinarian,problem fixer and priority settler. In the future, there will be fewer middle managers and no supervisors. This doesnot mean these people will be fired. On the contrary, these are some of the bestpeople in our companies and they will be moved into much more satisfying,relevant, value-added work in which their talents may be more fully utilized.
