Preparing to transition to self directed work teams, (SDWTS)

Abstract:
A self directed work team, (SDWT), initiative can effectuate a change within an organization from a traditional management controlled organization, to an environment where management develops leadership skills and act as team advisors to enable employee empowerment. Appropriate change management through training of managers in leadership skills is necessary to successfully implement this initiative. Additionally a credible commitment to the initiative from the CEO must be visible to all employees.

Introduction:
The implementation of a self directed work team, SDWT, can increase an organization’s flexibility by empowering employees and allowing them to make decisions that affect customers, however, an employee empowerment initiative such as this can be fraught with problems from an organizations management. Employee empowerment programs can fail due to managers feeling threatened when it is implemented and can ultimately result in a loss of productivity. It is up to the organization’s chief leadership to ensure that SDWT employee empowerment programs are implemented with appropriate training to ensure that all employees are comfortable with these transitioning responsibilities. If managers and their subordinates feel threatened rather than empowered by these responsibilities then an organization may not realize the productivity gains expected from these programs.
When attempting to empower the workforce, issues of trust can arise within the manager/subordinate relationship. Boggs, Carr, Fletcher, and Clarke state that it is not logical to suggest that supervisors empower employees by relinquishing their own control, they further state that managers would rather promise less empowerment than break promises to their subordinates to avoid encountering mistrust from their employees, (2005). This necessitates that a firm proceed cautiously when implementing an SDWT employee empowerment program in order to remain productive throughout the transition and to achieve the desired end result of increased employee productivity. The resulting employee resentment of the SDWT empowerment initiative can be successfully avoided through careful implementation of the program as well. In additional consideration is that managers may fear that increased employee decision making will reduce the need for management positions, (Peach, 2009). Managers must assured that they are in fact gaining leadership skills, rather than losing supervisory skills in order to thwart this. Managers, as opposed to leaders, will attempt to hold onto control of decision making by attempting to further restrict an employee’s involvement. The resulting implications within the context of an empowerment program can ultimately be destructive on an organization’s productivity by causing employees to distrust management and the organization. Pech elaborates that employees who are tightly controlled by management will feel threatened and will feel increasingly vulnerable. To avoid this scenario the manager must be trained to ultimately become team’s advisor and leader rather than a traditional authoritarian figure. Ceasar Douglas argues that managers must become leaders and must utilize leadership influence tactics to promote team member empowerment when transitioning to an SDWT model to avoid negatively affecting their subordinate’s productivity, (2002). When managers are fearful of losing the control that they have in the workplace, their behavior can result in employees losing their sense of security by feeling forced into making decisions they do not wish to make.
Stainer and Stainer take this concept further by postulating that employee empowerment can increase organizational productivity only if managers demonstrate confidence in their subordinates, (2000). An employee empowerment initiative can be perceived by employees as a device to manipulate them by management into performing increased workloads if they do not wish to participate. Employees can be resistant to empowerment programs for this reason alone and an actual shift in corporate governance must accompany employee empowerment programs for them to be ethical, (Stainer & Stainer, 2000). Such an important shift in corporate governance must necessarily be mandated by the firm’s chief leadership.
It is important to note that during an SDWT implementation period managers are in transition as much as subordinates. Transitioning from traditional management roles to the role of team leader, managers must learn to encourage interdependence among team members through advising and coaching, (Douglas, 2002). Afsaneh Nahavandi maintains that although the role of a leader and the role of a manager are different, effective and competent managers often also act as leaders within an organization. (2007, p. 25). The concept of managers acting as leaders is especially important when implementing an SDWT employee empowerment initiative. Appropriate leadership training is necessary to train the firm’s managers to act as leaders rather than in their traditional supervisory capacity to effect the change to an SDWT employee empowered firm.
SDWT initiatives transform the roles of both managers and employees in the workplace and can take up to 24 months to implement, (Douglas, 2002). This is substantial barrier to employee empowerment in that both subordinates and managers are required to act outside of their traditional roles. Managers may feel cautious about employees having to make difficult quality decisions. Additionally, an appropriate implementation period is needed so that all employees can be trained to access the necessary operational knowledge. Traditionally management controls the flow of information throughout a firm. In order to implement an SDWT empowerment program, management must be trained to freely share pertinent and important information with their team members so that appropriate decisions can be made by their subordinates. Ford and Fottler distinguish between content, or the tasks and procedures of a particular job, and context, or the reason organizations need the work performed; maintaining that content is more easily conferred upon workers than context, (1995). Both content and context indicate levels of shared information that management must be willing to confer upon their employees. Ford and Fotler further postulate that empowerment must be awarded incrementally to employees by leaderships who willingly give up their authority and trust their subordinates enough to empower them. This further demonstrates the need for an appropriate transitional period to accomplish the SDWT transition within the firm.
An additional consideration is that employees may feel during an SDWT transition that they aren’t being compensated to make management-type decisions and if those employees feel that the commitment from leadership isn’t genuine they will feel less empowered. Such employees can become increasingly dependent upon their managers and this can lead to an opposite end result. To realize a successful implementation, the transitioning of a manager’s role to leader is especially important as the team accepts more responsibilities and looks to management for cues on how to proceed, as the team is aware that their work environment is changing (Douglas, 2002). Management must be prepared, through thorough training, to accept and anticipate that they will have less decision making responsibilities and instead be prepared that they will be working to influence the decision making skills of their subordinates through advising and coaching.
One of the most important aspects of instituting an SDWT change is that both management and their subordinates must view the initiative as believable by observing a consonance of behavior throughout the firm, especially emanating from the CEO. Kouzes and Posner maintain that “credibility is the foundation of leadership” and if employees don’t see consistency emanating from leadership they conclude that a leader is at best not serious about the change and at worst hypocritical, (2003, p. 37). Managers and their subordinates within the firm will look for evidence that a real commitment to a forward seeking change such as an SDWT employee empowerment initiative is credible from the CEO. If evidence of credibility is lacking then leadership is found to be duplicitous while if evidence of credibility is found then employees are more willing to trust leadership with their careers.
Conclusion:
Managers attempting to empower their workers in an inconsistent manner, where management is not fully committed to the empowerment process, can cause misgivings and actually result in lost productivity rather than the anticipated gain. In order to fully commit the firm’s management to the process of an SDWT employee empowerment initiative it is contingent upon leadership that ample time and training be devoted to the endeavor, for both managers and their subordinates. Additionally this process should not appear to be forced upon them. It is especially important that the transition to an SDWT environment should be positioned to management as a growth opportunity, one that will enable them to develop real leadership skills. If appropriate change management through training is foregone, managers may feel the transition is forced upon them and the management team may instead feel threatened by the initiative. The managers ensuing reluctance to adopt the initiative will be apparent to their subordinates and the firm’s productivity will be decreased instead of increased. Appropriate leadership training should be provided to management to avoid this and to encourage this effective organizational change.

References:
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Kouzes, J. M. & Pozner, B.Z. (2003). The leadership challenge (3rd ed). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

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