Team Design in 2020: Mastering Restructuring Yields New Opportunities

In construction as in other industries, when an organization takes the time to align the values and strengths of its employees, it can establish a culture that cultivates talent, improves productivity and benefits the bottom line. While restructuring teams is not an overnight process, the benefits of undertaking the task—with the right strategic frameworks—can be substantial.

According to Gallup’s latest State of the American Workplace study, 67% of employees are either not engaged or actively disengaged. Employees who fall into these categories are not only less productive, they negatively impact coworkers and are more expensive to retain.

The opportunity is significant and the impact is tremendous. So how does an organization restructure effectively?

The first step in restructuring is to establish objectives for each team that directly buttress the strategic pillars of the business. Once codified, the organization needs to articulate the mechanisms that will enable each team to meet their objectives most effectively and efficiently. And it’s not just skills.

Alignment of individual values—which drives one’s internal operating system—to a team’s objectives is a critical factor. This alignment helps teams operate together coherently.

This is challenging. Values are often difficult to articulate by—and to—team members and leaders. The techniques that enable one to elucidate their own individual values and the frameworks for characterizing these values aren’t widely known or practiced. Values characterization requires a much deeper treatment than what can be conveyed here.

Only after organizations have done these three key things,

• align team objectives to corporate strategy;
• identify the mix of individual values needed to meet the team objectives; and
• assess the individual values of resources,

can the organization start to shift resources as part of the restructuring. By leveraging a values-based framework, it’s possible to put the right people in the right teams to do the right type of work.

When organizations get it right, they enjoy enormous competitive advantages. A values-based framework can inform candidate selection to ensure someone can operative effectively on a team. It can improve employee engagement, which according the Gallup study can boost productivity by up to 21%.

Other studies have shown that individuals who have values closely aligned with their team are more ethical decision makers and are less expensive to retain. The improvement to the bottom line this can have is incredible.

While restructuring teams may be viewed as a business decision—indeed it will impact the business—it’s first and foremost a cultural one. Restructuring teams will change how teams operate and how individuals interact. This, in turn, affects the norms—some codified, some unspoken—that underpin how things get done. It’s these norms that transform culture. It’s why corporate culture is often described as “what people do when no one is looking.”

Organizations—construction included—have been challenged in recent years to change quickly in response to changing markets, customer needs and technology. Responding to these changes is critical. According to a Harvard Business Review article, corporate mortality rates are increasing. Change or die.

To respond even faster to these changes and to perform optimally, organizations will need to restructure teams more frequently. Those who can reshape their teams to quickly re-engage in new work with new focus will see significant competitive advantages.

The question is no longer if an organization can change. Embracing change is required. The question now is how quickly change can happen.