Team Building - Developing Performing Teams

Moving from Command and Control to Teamwork

Exhibit 1.1
Cross Functional Teams at Kodak

Kodak has always recognized the importance of teams and effective teamwork in its organization. It believes that teams help an organization gain customer focus, improve work efficiency, achieve successful restructuring and reengineering of work processes, and foster a spirit of cooperation and collaboration within the organization.

Forming cross-functional teams was just another effort on the part of Kodak’s management to improve the overall efficiency of the organization. In Kodak’s cross-functional teams, people from departments across the organization pooled their ideas to improve the various work processes and operational flows in the organizational structure. By forming such teams, Kodak brought together the skills and ideas of employees working in different departments of the organization. This enhanced the ability of the organization to solve problems and led to better decision-making.

The cross functional teams established at Kodak were successful:

• In building a shared vision, and developing shared values and principles
• In creating a focus on customers
• In restructuring and re-engineering work practices
• In identifying the best ways of operating
• In reducing operational costs
• In assessing business risks and opportunities
• In dealing with issues in accounting and administration and
• In solving problems in Information Systems and Logistics.

This team-oriented approach has helped Kodak to enhance organizational productivity, and encourage collaboration and participation among people belonging to different departments in the organization. With the introduction of cross-functional teams, Kodak has been able to empower its people and the whole organization.

Adapted from “Kodak’s Picture is Changing,” Management Decision, 34, 5 (1996): 2-3 .

Any group of people working together does not form a team. Thus, committees, councils, and taskforces are not always teams. There is a clear difference between teams and work groups. The performance of a work group is a function of its members’ performance as individuals. The performance of a team is a function of both individual results and “collective work-products”. Activities like interviews, surveys, and experiments generally need involvement of more than one person.

Such activities can be considered as “collective work-products.” Working groups are common and more useful in large organizations where individual accountability is important.

They are formed to share information, insights, and perspectives. The members of work groups come together to help each other perform better. The meeting of these groups also reinforces individual performance standards. The focus of work groups is on individual performance and accountability. There is no mutual responsibility for each other’s performance as in teams. There is no question of incremental performance-contribution that results from two or more people working together in groups. The emphasis of work groups is always on individual goals and responsibilities. For better understanding of differences between working groups and teams refer to table 1.1.

Next Pages

Principles of Great Teams

Team Size and Skills

Leadership Approaches That Foster Team Performance