Three Process Improvement Schemes

In our text on Adult Leadership, Beer (2013) describes the Strategic Fitness Process, designed to help overcome what he calls the Six Silent Barriers to Team Performance. Curtis (2013) also describes a framework called the Process Maturity Framework in his essay How Organizational Process Maturity Improved Performance. 

While Beer (2013) describes a specific set of barriers; (a) unclear strategy and values, (b) ineffective senior team, (c) laissez-faire leadership, (d) poor coordination and communication, (e) poor leadership development, and (f) inadequate vertical communication both up and down. He calls these the silent killers of team performance that he claims "represent an unhealthy organizational and management context for teams" (Beer, 2013, p. 29).  

Beer's (2013) prescription for dealing with these barriers is the SFP, which "enables the organization and its leaders to gain the benefits of open feedback while eliminating the negative consequences of speaking up for the lower-level people" (Beer, 2013, p. 40). Curtis (2013) also identifies that software teams have suffered from barriers. Curtis (2013) also sees communication as a potential challenge. Curtis (2013) states, "breakdowns in communication and coordination frequently represent team process issues that were often caused by managers or customers external to the team" (p. 50). Curtis (2013) also writes that leaders for software teams were commonly not well trained and developed, but rather that the teams were placed under the direction of a "team lead, who usually had no training in management or team leadership" (p. 56). This lack of proper leadership and leadership development are the same challenges that Beer identifies as his third and fifth barriers. 

There are aspects of both Beer's barriers and SFP and Curtis' Process Maturity Framework in other business and leadership writing. For example, Beer mentions that laissez-faire leadership has a negative influence on teams and is something that should be avoided. Similarly, writing in The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni (2002) writes that one of the parts of the dysfunction pyramid is an avoidance of accountability that leads to low standards. Lencioni (2002) elaborates on accountability that leaders "hate to do it, especially when it comes to a peer's behavior because they want to avoid interpersonal discomfort" (p. 98). Earlier in the fable, Lencioni (2002) lists the absence of trust as the base of the dysfunction pyramid. Beer writes about aspects of trust that barrier 6: poor vertical communication was brought on by a leadership team that was ". . . either not motivated to and/or did not know how to create a safe, honest, and collective conversation . . . " (p. 35). Therefore, it would lead to better communication and coordination. Lencioni (2002) also writes about factors that are a part of Curtis' Process Maturity Framework when he writes about status and ego leading to inattention to results. Lencioni (2002) writes "the key is to make the collective ego greater than the individual ones" (p. 72). Similarly, Curtis (2013) discusses the benefits of "egoless teams" (p. 56). 

Whether in the Process Maturity Framework, the SFP, and even the pyramid outlining the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, each author sees the benefits of applying a process and framework to the problem of team disunity and confusion. This tends to fall in line with other essays in Salas et al. (2013) discussing the fact that leaders are not as important as we might tend to think. Haskin’s, writing in Salas et al. (2013) even states that other than in the case of morale, performance will for the most part not change for the team regardless of the leader. This connotes that leadership alone cannot change how people work and relate to one another in work groups, but rather frameworks like the SFP, the Process Maturity Framework, and the pyramid of dysfunction; these are the measures that can influence change, create positive relationships among the team members, and develop a product that is more effectively produced. 

References

Beer, M. (2013). Silent killers of team performance: How honest, collective, and public conversation can overcome them. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and guidelines (pp. 27–47). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Curtis, B. (2013). How organizational process maturity improved software team performance. In E. Salas, G. Latham, D. J. Cohen, & S. I. Tannenbaum (Eds.), Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based best practices and Guidelines (pp. 48–84). essay, Jossey-Bass.

Lencioni, P. M. (2002). The five dysfunctions of a team: A leadership fable. Jossey-Bass.

Salas, E., Tannenbaum, S.J., Cohen, D., & Latham, G.(Eds.).  (2013). Developing and enhancing teamwork in organizations: Evidence-based practices and recommendations. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.