Future of Work
CHANGING WORKPLACES
A mazon and JP growing number of companies that instructed employees to return to the office full-time. This has caused a backlash from staff who work remotely and do not want to lose the improved work-life balance it offers. It has also led to companies with more rigid demands losing talent. Is it really worth executives devoting so much of their time to convincing (or pressuring) employees to work in the office more regularly? Or should they focus on how to organise successfully when employees don’t Morgan began the year by joining the return to the office full-time? The ability of teams to self- organise was a vital factor in the success of remote working during the lockdowns that accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic. IBM, Salesforce, and Spotify all experimented – successfully – with remote work and self- organising teams before the pandemic. However, they often reintroduced some elements of hierarchy. So how can managers combine self-organising teams with hybrid work in the long term? A command-and-control mindset often hampers this type of organisation. Many researchers and managers have adopted the logic that people primarily pursue their own objectives. They assume that
How to lead hybrid teams
1 Build a virtual bargaining team
is that organisations must deploy countermeasures to control, monitor, and incentivise appropriate behaviour, with managers policing teams as overseers. However, this carrot-and-stick method was developed for teams that performed routine tasks in the same place. Our research suggests the shift to hybrid working patterns and AI automation requires a new approach. Conventional management methods are incompatible with the agile collaboration that today’s organisations need. Instead, we need to unleash the full potential of self-organising teams. That is why we have developed a new framework, based on lengthy research and experiments. It is underpinned by a concept we call ‘virtual bargaining’, where individuals think through what their colleagues would do. Our research shows that people already do this in many situations. Self-organising teams operate within a set of informal, unwritten, and unspoken rules. These govern how members are expected to behave during collaborative tasks to meet shared objectives. To work productively, individuals should ask themselves, “What should we agree to do here?” rather than “What should I do here?” Team members then commit to delivering their side of that imaginary bargain, in the belief that other team members will do the same. This approach implies a different role for managers. Their role moves away from monitoring, controlling, and intervening. This removes the paranoia from managing teams in the hybrid age. Instead, they must provide stability and freedom for teams to perform. Senior leaders can promote and optimise virtual bargaining with the following three steps.
However, they should also be aware of the risk of destabilising the team by incorrectly identifying and over-rewarding ‘star’ performers. 3 Nurture a team-level virtual bargaining culture Team-building exercises can reinforce a virtual bargaining approach by focusing on co-ordination and mutually beneficial outcomes, rather than exercises that pit team members against one another. For example, form employees into ad-hoc teams with complementary skills. Give them various items and instruct them to achieve a task within a set timeframe. Managers should be facilitators, role models, and champions of virtual bargaining. This will establish it as a shared norm for teamwork. Only intervene when autonomous teams become highly dysfunctional. Much of virtual bargaining is conducted via team members’ sensitivity to one another’s skills and aims. However, good communication will be useful in reinforcing it as a style of reasoning. Managers may need to facilitate these conversations. In today’s rapidly changing environment, organisations that rely on conventional management methods are likely to lose out to more progressive competitors. Instead, they should explore how virtual bargaining can lay the foundations of a culture where self-organising teams thrive.
Our research suggests the more the knowledge and skills of the team members complement one another, the better virtual bargaining works. Managers can promote this by identifying employees with interrelated skills. They can also facilitate training to cover skills gaps and reduce the dominance of individual team members. Another powerful way to foster this culture is to hire individuals who are instinctive virtual bargainers. Rampant individualists have little place in a self-organising, decentralised team. Companies can adapt existing assessment tools to select for traits such as conscientiousness and reasonableness. These characteristics are likely to correlate highly with virtual bargaining. Involve teams in selecting new members as they are likely to recruit individuals who fit their virtual bargaining ethos. This will allow managers to populate teams with staff who continually imagine how they can work better together. 2 Create an environment for virtual bargaining Identify, reduce, and eliminate psychological or physical barriers that prevent team members from contributing additional effort to the shared objective. For example, many countries have an increasingly ageing workforce. One way to overcome barriers might be to use technology to relieve the physical burden for older workers. To maximise the productivity gains from virtual bargaining, an individual’s contribution to the shared objective
by Hossam Zeitoun & Nick Chater
individuals will try to get away with working less than their colleagues. Or employees with
Discover more research about the Future of Work from Warwick Business School.
specialist knowledge will hold teams to ransom, withholding critical expertise unless they receive greater rewards. The traditional take
Sustainable Development Goals
should be aligned with both financial and non-financial rewards that they value.
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