Purpose driven teams become high performing in the digital era

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IN VOLVO CARS MANUFACTURING & LOGISTICS IS ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE

A three papers series by Anna-Karin Arvidsson, Senior Director Manufacturing & Logistics Digital at Volvo Cars and Marika Arvidsson, Student MSc in Engineering and MSc in Management at Lund University

 How to enable highly efficient teams in a constantly changing environment? The traditional models on team development are often linear, meaning team development stages must be passed in a certain order and manning needs to be kept stable for a longer period of time to enable highly efficient teams to emerge. The team development process is described as something that takes time and starts all over again whenever someone enters or leaves the team. If these models are true, modern teams will never reach the stage of high performance! We believe that organisations that succeed in the digital transformation will be the ones focusing on higher purpose, for teams and for individuals.

Having a team development model designed for stable environments when we live in constant change makes us focus on the wrong things at work

There are more than one model for team development and in this paper we bounce off from two of them. The problem with these models is that they are designed for stable environments while we live and work in constant change. 

The FIRO model by Shultz describes three phases of team development: phase of belonging, phase of control, and phase of openness. Only when reaching the third phase the team is said to have the full capacity to perform the task at hand. In the same manner, Tuckman presents four general stages of team development: Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. The fourth stage is where the energy in the team is focused on the task and the team have reached the high performing stage. However, these team journeys could take a year and if team setup changes you need to start all over again. In a fast changing world, where both information and competence are in constant move, this is problematic. If the models are true, modern teams will never reach the stage of high performance!

The purpose should be commonly shared and invite to gut-level buy-in by being bold, yet logical

When the workforce is mobile and complex tasks require best possible competence, people need to become high-performing in teams much faster than before. Therefore, we believe, people within the organisation need to have a sense of belonging just because of the vision and culture, rather than based on stable interpersonal relations with current co-workers. The vision and culture, or in other words the commonly shared purpose, is the glue that ties people together. 

To strive in fast changing teams, curiosity and directness is key. Curiosity enables fast learning by team members actively looking for new knowledge. Curiosity is also a driver to take on new challenges, getting to know new people and a willingness to understand different perspectives. Moreover, directness facilitates the feedback process, making team members learn faster from each other. When tasks are evolving and members in the team are changing, individuals need to adapt to new circumstances and learn new things constantly. Thus to be able to fuse performance in the digital era, individuals in teams are encouraged to be curious and direct and act in an environment of constant coaching and feedback between people. The same method is also highly applicable on agile teams planning next sprint and making sure features gets available in production. This is how we put humans first in the digital transformation, both in human-human relations and in human-technology relations.

At Volvo Cars Manufacturing & Logistics humans are put first

The higher purpose must mean something, for the stomach, for the heart, for the head. No-one killed or seriously injured in a new Volvo Car by 2020 means something to everyone and creates the foundation for breakdown of objectives and deliveries. By being purpose driven, the team work of today is facilitated and high performance is reached fast enough. Here, we create a culture for the digital transformation by being curios and direct. We have a strong purpose of being human-centred in all types of digital transformation we put through. Thus we can strive in the modern and fast moving digital world, making sure we benefit from it together.