By John A. Haas
Management Strategies Group
Cross-functional, leaderless, high-performance teams are now the preferred organizational paradigm. With global markets, rapid technological innovation and the Internet, we need access to more specialized and diverse knowledge.
Enter the Knowledge Worker
To remain flexible and fleet afoot, companies must seek continuous operating improvement and exploit niche opportunities. Companies are seeking and relying upon partners who can add value and "just-in-time" knowledge workers. These are high-priced "hired guns" who know they're unique, and expect to have major influence on outcomes. They're hired when and for as long as needed, and then replaced by others possessing different specialized skill sets. Knowledge workers see their careers as a series of temporary assignments, each contributing to both personal growth and financial well being.
Organizational Impact
Simultaneous and sequential efforts by cross-functional teams are formed around projects. They have representatives from different disciplines. Often these teams include temporary knowledge workers.
Serving on these teams means talented people are spending time away from their other "normal" duties, leaving non-team members to fill in the gaps.
Aside from the social upheavals this emerging phenomenon creates for both temporary and relatively permanent staff, it also presents some significant management challenges. E.g. longer service employees may too readily defer to the "experts."
Dilemma: how to determine ideas and input to accept and build upon, and those, which, while technically interesting, will lead to tangential effort or the wrong direction for the company. Experts know what they know; they don't know the company's history, customer base, market, other products, strategic objectives, personalities, culture, etc.
Temporary knowledge workers contribute and then leave. Others will need to live with and support the results temps helped achieve. The CEO and management team must sort out conclusions and recommendations presented to them by project teams.
Management Matters
In creating the teams, top management must carefully and clearly state the team's mission, operating parameters, time frame and available resources. They must also establish and be prepared to apply appropriate decision criteria. They may need to reject proposals developed at considerable expense or risk going down the wrong path, which may prove hard to undo.
January 1999 - Volume 9, Number 1