Teaching and teams: confessions of a business excellence addict

Citation

Edgeman, R.L. (2002), "Teaching and teams: confessions of a business excellence addict", Measuring Business Excellence, Vol. 6 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/mbe.2002.26706daa.001

Teaching and teams: confessions of a business excellence addict

Teaching and teams: confessions of a business excellence addict

We are all – among many things – "teachers". That is one of our principal responsibilities, though of course we have others. Teaching and associated activities often consume enormous portions of our day. Almost every day. All year. Every year. For many years. Sometimes we think about teaching more than actually doing it and sometimes we do it without thinking about it. We can choose to do it well, or to do it poorly. Sometimes we think too much and do too little, but in the thinking and doing, the strategizing and the proving, we develop a teaching philosophy. What philosophy of teaching do you bring to your profession, your work? One emphasizing teamwork that is steeped in, but not limited to, business excellence follows.

Having concentrated both elementally and holistically on quality and business excellence, it is natural that a philosophy of teaching and deployment thereof should incorporate such principles and practices: as focus on processes; human resource development; customers and markets; leadership; suppliers and alliances; teamwork; and a results orientation.

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  Reality. There is a value-chain involved.

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  Belief. Everyone wants to make a meaningful contribution.

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  Philosophy. Alone I can make a difference, together we can change the world.

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  Approach development. Challenge individuals and teams, facilitate success.

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  Results. Win-win ad infinitum.

Contribution

We must be committed to the creation of an environment conducive to mutual enrichment – one where there emerge more knowledgeable, better equipped, more capable people committed to making meaningful contributions in and to their families, organizations, communities and society and where the time and other resources invested in the experience provide maximum value to all stakeholder segments. It can be argued that our efforts are positive only to the extent that mutual enrichment among primary stakeholders is realized and is acknowledged in the marketplace.

As a social being, he [i.e. man] seeks to gain the recognition and affection of his fellow human beings, to share in their pleasures, to comfort them in their sorrows, and to improve their conditions of life (Albert Einstein, 1950).

Team

Mutual trust and respect among the team of most directly invested stakeholders: customers; principle knowledge providers; and the enterprise (a key provider of tangible and intangible enablers of success) are critical elements of the philosophy. Failure of any among these stakeholders hinders the ability of the others to succeed so that each is best served by commitment to the success of all – a team approach where interdependent stakeholders are capable of devising non-zero sum strategies. This presumes that it is both desirable and possible to jointly optimize disparate but naturally congruent interests. This abundance mentality promotes unity of purpose and embraces healthy competition where each stakeholder inspires the others to enhanced achievements by leveraging the combined resource reservoir and, in so doing, to build both team and individual competencies.

Enlightened trial and error succeeds over the planning of the lone genius (Dave Kelley, CEO, Ideo Design Corporation).

Kyosei

These ideas are well-captured by the Japanese concept of kyosei, one reasonable translation of which is living and working together for mutual prosperity. It demands pervasive dedication to strong stewardship via promotion of mutual-interests in lieu of self-interests to the mutual enrichment of all stakeholders and extends in principle beyond primary stakeholders to such "invisible" or secondary or tertiary ones as the natural environment, society, the community, and the marketplace – ones whose stakes may be less obvious or less tangible. Kyosei values both strong convictions and antagonism-free negotiation of reasonable consensus-building compromises.

Be civil to all; sociable with many; familiar with a few; friend to one; enemy to none (Benjamin Franklin).

Of course, philosophy may yield fertile discourse, but lacking deployment it is relatively void of results so that it must ultimately be implemented, practiced, and assessed.

Team project-based

Consider deployment of this philosophy in one sector – education – specifically the teaching environment. In this sector mutual enrichment can be facilitated via several means, including engagement in challenging, meaningful context and content appropriate applied team projects that range from case studies to product creation or innovation to completion of industry-based projects. These projects should ordinarily demand application of specific knowledge and methodological cores with innovative adaptations or successful introduction of non-core knowledge or methods being both encouraged and rewarded. The thought behind this approach is that no one participant in the process – including the "teacher" – has sufficient mastery of the required elements to successfully "go it alone". Thus team members are forced to rely on one another, leverage one another's abilities, identify and cultivate key external resources, generate and (possibly) implement successful solutions, and effectively communicate all of these elements. The expectation is that faster learning in the face of ambiguity and uncertainty is enabled since each team member must contribute to the project and to other team members that which no other member is likely to possess in the same measure. A primary intent of this emphasis on teams is facilitation of fast learning – perhaps the only truly sustainable competitive advantage.

Static vs dynamic

When quality guru W. Edwards Deming was asked why he continually refined his "system of profound knowledge" he replied: "May I not also learn?".

Charters and contracts

One key component of all team efforts is a charter. Charters provide a mission and vision for the project. Critical elements of the charter include identification of both available and needed resources, a communication plan, specific expectations of each team member, and a code of conduct including a conflict resolution plan. Moreover, key mile posts and an accompanying timeline should be detailed. Apart from serving as a description of how team members will work with and be accountable to one another, the functional role of a charter is that of being a contract among team members and between the team and the "teacher". A primary benefit of charter development and use is that it depersonalizes conflict, instead emphasizing the keeping of commitments.

Summary

The essence of this philosophy is essentially that each of us is one stakeholder, albeit an integral one in an extended value-chain. We are each obliged therein to enable maximum benefit across the chain, including to less invested stakeholders.

In that spirit, what is your "teaching" philosophy? This question is asked because, in any language, we must:

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  Franchise. Saisissez le future ensemble.

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  Deutsch. Ergreifen sie die zusammen zukunft.

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  Italiano. Grippi insieme il futuro.

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  Português. Apreenda o futuro junto.

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  Español. Agarre el futuro junto.

Seize the future together!

Rick L. EdgemanQUEST Teaching Professor and Executive Director, University of Maryland, Maryland, USA.