MICHAEL DEMPSEY - Cranfield University

Teams
So, one would speculate, introducing team working may not have been
straightforward:-
That's beginning to work through but we are in the early stages
of it. We weren't alone with it. I think down in the southwest they
were fairly early into team working. We certainly embraced it -- I
wouldn't say we embraced it -- we imposed it and then tried to
persuade people it was the best way forward. I think it is,
actually, making a difference. (Interviewee K)
Although in one region the problems seem now to be of a different
order, one in which the focus seems to be on improving cross team
working rather than philosophising about the value of teams per se:-
Whilst it has many, many pluses in being in a single office, the
interesting feature of the last three months is there is a degree of
criticism now that we have not maximised the benefits of
working from a single office. And that arose from two team
meetings. We had a management team yesterday when we
were discussing it. And the interesting feature is that whilst we
have all these wonderful teams and they are really working well,
there is still insufficient engagement between the teams even
though they are in the same building now. And they will be,
now, open plan and all the rest of it. Like, next-door to each
other. (Interviewee M)
A particular manifestation that teams in one region were working
together was observed at one regional office, as evidenced by a note
made at the time:-
After the interview, we went on a visit to two of the floors in the
building and saw the fact that several teams had on the walls of
their offices the flip charts from their away days, which were
giving them guidance on how they had agreed they would move
forward as teams. This gave the office space a feeling of team
identity. (Research note September 2002)
At national level, one manager talked about team formation in the
context of merging old union groups of staff together:-
I decided that building a team was more important than
necessarily doing things in the most efficient way straight away.
So as a consequence I talked to everybody and I tried to design
a job around what people wanted to do. Certainly, which meant
they had something for which they were directly responsible and
so it was a combination. But, you know, it certainly wasn't the
most efficient way to organise but it did mean that we started to
build a team right from day one…It was a good experience.
Unison was a good experience. (Interviewee B)
323