tech-company, idea, team, project-managementI have a small team of 3 different skills sets. I am inclined towards putting group performance over individual performance. I see that doing this will have following effect:
However, before I implement this, I want to be aware of the downside.
You have tried similar thing in your org? What has been your experience? What problems did you face?
Thank you.
How good is your Emotional Intelligence?
Your solution could increase co-operation among team members. Or it could permanently splinter the group and ensure you can never regain what you once had. Which way it goes is all up to you.
If you have 3 individuals, and put them together, life will be fine as long as they feel working together rewards them more than being independent. However, the instant something goes wrong (such as a bad quarter with no bonuses), you will wake up to 3 individuals who don’t actually have anything holding them together.
In order for group performance to work the way you want, you need to be the kind of leader that causes their subordinates to truly believe in their shared cause, and have a passion for making it succeed. You don’t get that connection by creating group performance awards. You first build it, and then group performance awards can be a tool you use to foster that communal vision.
Even in these communal environments, you will want to be absolutely positive that everyone feels that you are treating them as an individual, rather than a cog in the machine.
In my experience, most of the group-performance based efforts I have worked on failed spectacularly with rampant infighting. The few times I have had it succeed are in the cases where the leader is one of those truly strong leaders who makes everyone feel special and naturally makes one want to work with them just by walking by their cubicle. In those cases, it was not the group performance that made the success. It was the quality leader.
There is some what the assumption that all people are actually team players who want to gain more money by working together, this is not true in my experience.
Some people are just fine having their regular salary without putting any more effort into the team, and this can actually cause huge problems, also the said individual might even start working with the team and then realize that he can get the same bonus without having to put any added efforts, this creates infighting between the members of the team and can possibly end up causing delays in the project etc..
I believe that the best results for a group come from a system where each individual tries to do what’s best for themselves.
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