High-Performance Teams: The Katzenbach-Smith Collection (2 Books) by Jon R. Katzenbach & Douglas K. Smith

Author:Jon R. Katzenbach & Douglas K. Smith [Katzenbach, Jon R.]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781633691834
Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
Published: 2016-09-20T04:00:00+00:00

A Tale of Two Teams

To illustrate the dynamics of stuck teams, we will contrast the progress of two different new-product development efforts at a company we call “Metronome Inc.,” a semiconductor manufacturer in the United States. The company has a strong performance orientation and is led by a chairman who outspokenly advocates new organizational approaches and thinking. By most standards, Metronome has a team-friendly environment.

Metronome routinely uses teams to develop new products, that is, finding new applications for microchips. Of the two teams we describe, one wanted to develop a microchip for computer disk drive technology and the other a chip for fiber optic cable connections. Like all potential teams, these two faced the usual task of getting the team basics in place. In addition, Metronome’s unique culture, organization, and business posed significant obstacles for these teams to deal with:

The culture tolerates failures. Like many other technology companies, product failures are treated as learning opportunities at Metronome. This approach, however, has a double edge. By reducing the fear that failure will have adverse career consequences, the company encourages risk taking. On the other hand, it also potentially sacrifices the healthy fear of failure that can motivate teams to higher levels of performance. Both the disk drive and the fiber optics teams could have fallen in the trap of acting as if their success or failure would have no meaningful consequences, either for themselves as individuals, together as a team, or for Metronome itself.

Metronome depends both on design engineers and product engineers. Design engineers create the designs on which new products depend. Product engineers determine how to convert those designs into products that work. Most design engineers differ in skills, attitude, and ambition from most product engineers. To overstate the distinction, design engineers thrive on coming up with new ideas while product engineers get excited about wrestling with theoretical ideas and making them work within the constraints imposed by production technology and economics. Sometimes design engineers and product engineers treat each other with respect; other times, they show a real lack of appreciation for each other’s problems and skills. Both the disk drive and the fiber optics teams required the contribution of design and product engineers; both could easily have become stuck by a lack of cooperation between them.

Marketplace requirements for microchips are very demanding. It is challenging to create new chips that are both workable enough to meet existing customer needs while advanced enough to meet anticipated customer needs and competitor challenges. Each Metronome team faced the difficult choice between entering the market earlier with less-advanced functionality or postponing market entry in favor of more sophisticated development. Each team depended heavily on the joint contributions of design engineers, product engineers, marketers, and general management to resolve this dilemma.

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