* "Undiscussables" are collective, unconscious behaviors
*Difficult to uncover
*Aware of isolated problems
*Cannot connect the dots
*Wrong conclusions about team inefficiencies & poor performance
Improving Operations through Observation and Gemba Walks
"Undiscussables" & Leadership
1. SPECIAL
COLLECTION
FROM THE LEADERSHIP ARCHIVE
Learn how to identify the best
individual for each position and the
best methods for working with your
groups.
How
Winning
TeamsWork
2. CONTENTS
SPECIAL
COLLECTION
How WinningTeams Work
1 How Leaders Can OptimizeTeams’ Emotional Landscapes
By Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Christina Bradley, and Lindred Greer
6 It’sTime toTackleYourTeam’s Undiscussables
By Ginka Toegel and Jean-Louis Barsoux
15 WhyTeams Still Need Leaders
Lindred (Lindy) Greer, interviewed by Frieda Klotz
18 A New Approach to Designing Work
By Nelson P
. Repenning, Don Kieffer, and James Repenning
28 Improve the Rhythm ofYour Collaboration
By Ethan Bernstein, Jesse Shore, and David Lazer
36 How to Lead a Self-ManagingTeam
By Vanessa Urch Druskat and Jane V. Wheeler
3. How Leaders Can Optimize
Teams’ Emotional Landscapes
Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks, Christina Bradley, and Lindred Greer
Employees bring a diversity of moods to work each day. Trying to smooth
them out into one shared mood isn’t always the best idea.
Emotions are running high. The disruptive events
characterizing 2020 — a global pandemic, climate-related
disasters, economic uncertainty, and social discontent — are
leading employees to bring a higher level of emotionality to
work than ever before. This is clashing with the culturally
ingrained norm that an appropriate “professional” demeanor
minimizes emotional expression.
At the same time, work on emotional suppression suggests
that there are long-term costs to keeping emotions buried
and that, if stifled, they will erupt in counterproductive ways.
For that reason, leaders can no longer avoid taking an active
role in architecting emotional landscapes — the collective
composition of employee sentiments. Because emotional
landscapes directly influence how employees make sense of
situations, tasks, and what actions to take, they can help or
hinder the pursuit of organizational strategic objectives. By
supporting emotional expression within their teams, leaders
can help their organizations function at their best.
The tools available to leaders for navigating such emotional
landscapes with their teams are largely outdated strategies
such as encouraging general suppression of emotions at
work or offering generic pep talks. Leaders need a playbook
for responding to employees’ emotional states with more
nuance and, critically, in ways that are tailored to the
situation. We offer four plays — to nurture emotions, to
align them, to acknowledge them, and to diversify them —
that allow leaders to manage the loaded emotional settings
they’re working in and help creativity and productivity
thrive.
Limits of the Traditional
Emotions Playbook
Based on our executive leadership development work with
global Fortune 100 companies as well as our ongoing
research in this area, we’ve noticed that leaders tend to overly
rely on two plays from the old, traditional playbook of
emotional management of teams and organizations: giving a
pep talk and sounding the alarm.
Many managers remain enamored with the notion that
rallying a positive, high-energy mood in a team is an
effective strategy for obtaining exceptionally high
performance. Accordingly, many managers adopt this play
when kicking off meetings by pumping up their team to
elevate everyone’s mood. Former Microsoft CEO Steve
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4. Ballmer famously illustrated this approach with the fervor of
a rock singer at a music festival. Though that’s admittedly an
extreme example, we have seen many other leaders deploy
an only slightly down-tempo cover version of Ballmer’s
routine before meetings, by playing uplifting music, asking
everyone to share a piece of good news, or getting everyone
to stand up and move around before diving into the agenda.
Alternatively, other managers rely on the mood-darkening
strategy of sounding an alarm. Many believe that instilling
anxiety by highlighting the cost of failure is an effective way
to focus a team’s attention and effort. One newly promoted
senior executive working in data security shared with us that
he has found no better way to motivate his team than to
openly share his concerns about the consequences of failing
to meet current key performance indicators (KPIs). He
reasoned that this kills employees’ complacency and pushes
them to work harder.
The stark differences between these two approaches hide
an important similarity: Both create emotional alignment.
Both steer teams toward a shared emotional experience —
rather than individualized and diversified ones. Whether a
manager relies on positivity or negativity, the result is a
reduction in the breadth of feelings.
Leaders use these plays because they can work in very
specific situations. Indeed, an abundance of research
supports the notion that increasing emotional alignment
contributes to team performance, specifically when a team
is executing a clear strategy. When a team shares a common
mood, members are better able to converge on a single point
of view and take the actions required to execute a given
strategy.
However, the full story behind the consequences of
emotional alignment is more complex. Because emotional
alignment minimizes important individual differences in
reactions to current events, it can prevent teams from
building an inclusive culture, however counterintuitive that
may seem. More crucially, because convergence in a team’s
mood directly reduces the diversity of perspectives
represented, it shapes how teams operate: When there is
uncertainty about the best path forward, striving for the
same emotional mood actually suppresses views critical for
the creative process, decision-making, and overall
innovation efforts.
Studies coming out of the behavioral sciences have revealed
that more complex and diverse emotional experiences
actually evoke a broader array of ways to think about a
problem.
Heterogeneous emotions beget diverse thoughts because of
the way emotions interact with how knowledge is organized
and retrieved. For example, the mood-congruent memory
effect describes the phenomenon of how we are more likely
to bring to mind knowledge associated with positive
experiences when in a positive mood and with negative
experiences when in a negative mood. The anger acquired
during a grueling commute on the freeway more readily
brings to mind all the pain and suffering in our lives than the
joys and bright spots experienced a mere 24 hours earlier.
Therefore, a collective that is in a similar mood will share
a similarly biased perspective. A group with a more
emotionally diverse landscape will have less bias and greater
breadth in the points of view they bring to the problem at
hand.
Considering Context for
Managing Emotions
Rather than homogenizing the emotional experience at
work, managers would be wise to deploy a much more
tailored approach to emotion management that takes into
account the nature of the task at hand and the ideal
emotional landscape for that task.
From our observations of managers over the years and what
has been discovered about emotional landscapes, we
recommend that leaders start with two initial questions
when aiming to architect the ideal emotional landscape in
their teams:
W
Wh
ha
at i
t is t
s th
he n
e na
at
tur
ure o
e of t
f th
he p
e pr
rim
ima
ar
ry j
y jo
ob t
b to b
o be do
e don
ne a
e at t
t th
he
e
m
mo
om
men
ent?
t? Is the team’s current primary objective to execute
upon a clear strategy that has already been mapped out in
advance? Or, instead, do you need the team to innovate,
to brainstorm, and to develop new solutions to a pressing
problem?
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5. W
Wh
ha
at i
t is t
s th
he c
e cur
urr
ren
ent em
t emo
ot
tio
ion
na
al l
l la
an
nd
ds
sc
ca
ap
pe o
e of y
f yo
our t
ur te
ea
am?
m?
Focus on what we call the “aperture of your emotional lens”
to take a holistic view of your team — shift attention from
individuals to patterns in the collective. Are the emotions
among members relatively aligned, or are they diverse?
Consider whether an external event (such as a major
international crisis or a recent organizational
announcement) has created a situation where team members
are having similar feelings. Or, instead, has the variety of
experiences in their individual lives (including such
disparate events as the birth of a child, progress on a KPI,
or that same theoretical organizational announcement)
brought about a variety of moods? Focus on the emotional
temperament of the entire group and not just one or two
people.
Your answers to these two questions (execution versus
innovation, and aligned versus diversified) are essential for
determining which of the four emotion management
strategies will be most effective. Choosing the wrong play
could detract from the effectiveness of your team.
Expanding the Emotion
Management Playbook
Once you’ve identified the nature of the task at hand and
the current emotional mood of your team, you’ll be able to
identify a strategy that best fits your current circumstances.
(See “Four Strategies for Your Emotion Management
Playbook.”) Below, we detail why each strategy fits with each
combination of circumstances.
N
Nur
urt
tur
ure em
e emo
ot
tio
ion
ns (w
s (wh
hen t
en th
he t
e ta
as
sk i
k is ex
s exe
ec
cu
ut
tio
ion a
n an
nd t
d th
he
e
c
cur
urr
ren
ent em
t emo
ot
tio
ion
na
al l
l la
an
nd
ds
sc
ca
ap
pe i
e is a
s alig
lign
ne
ed).
d). As noted earlier,
research shows that a team is better able to coordinate on
clear tasks when its members share a common mood. To
benefit from this emotional alignment, leaders need to be
active in encouraging and recognizing those feelings to
lower the likelihood that new emotions will intrude, which
would be counterproductive. Sustaining this cohesive
emotional model can require some planning. If the team
is upbeat, share information that will continue to rally
everyone. If it’s more somber, acknowledge the mood with
empathy.
One leader recently shared with us how she has been
handling the rise in negative emotions of her team due to
the COVID-19 crisis. She told us that at the start of one
meeting, many team members shared their fears about how
the pandemic would affect the company. This leader avoided
the temptation to lighten the mood and instead
acknowledged that times were indeed tough. By validating
the team’s negative feelings and avoiding the urge to
sugarcoat the current emotional state, she avoided
disturbing the camaraderie of shared concern. Her team
maintained a common motivation to continue executing a
plan for pulling through the hard times together.
A
Alig
lign em
n emo
ot
tio
ion
ns (w
s (wh
hen t
en th
he t
e ta
as
sk i
k is ex
s exe
ec
cu
ut
tio
ion a
n an
nd t
d th
he c
e cur
urr
ren
ent
t
em
emo
ot
tio
ion
na
al l
l la
an
nd
ds
sc
ca
ap
pe i
e is di
s div
ver
ers
se).
e). When your team needs to
coordinate toward a common goal and you sense that it’s
experiencing a wide range of emotions, the most effective
way forward is to deploy a strategy that increases emotional
alignment. Here, the “pep talk” or “sounding of the alarm”
approaches described earlier are effective in preparing your
team to execute its task.
In this circumstance, managers need to take immediate and
potent actions to help team members get into a similar
emotional state. Earlier this year we saw one leader of a
large nonprofit enact this strategy shortly after closing all
in-person operations and shifting to remote work. Some
stakeholders were delighted not to go into the office, some
struggled to work while at home with their families, and
others were anxious about the changes. This leader began
to incorporate punctuated moments during virtual meetings
to highlight specific examples of how the organization was
continuing to deliver on aspects of its mission that were
sacred to the employees. This worked to coalesce the
collective mood toward a sense of hope and optimism.
A
Ac
ck
kn
no
ow
wle
ledg
dge em
e emo
ot
tio
ion
ns (w
s (wh
hen t
en th
he t
e ta
as
sk i
k is inn
s inno
ova
vat
tio
ion a
n an
nd
d
t
th
he c
e cur
urr
ren
ent em
t emo
ot
tio
ion
na
al l
l la
an
nd
ds
sc
ca
ap
pe i
e is di
s div
ver
ers
se).
e). When the goal
for your team involves finding novel solutions to a pressing
problem and you recognize that your team is experiencing
a diverse set of emotions, the best way to move forward
is to let those different emotions be heard and validated.
Avoid opening meetings in a way that could substantially
raise or lower — and thus align — the entire group’s mood.
Creating room for emotional validation allows people to
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6. process their affective experiences, which is more productive
than attempting to suppress them or pretending that people
are unemotional robots. The diversity of emotions in the
room will facilitate diversity of thought.
One astute leader uses this approach to begin her Monday
morning design hackathons. Recognizing the value of a
room containing a mix of irritation from treacherous
commutes, elation from weekend adventures, and
everything in between, she begins with an online poll asking
everyone to indicate two different emotions they are feeling.
With this small step, she affirms the diverse emotional
landscape in the room and how it’s a perfect mix to fuel their
innovation task at hand.
Di
Div
ver
ersif
sify em
y emo
ot
tio
ion
ns (w
s (wh
hen t
en th
he t
e ta
as
sk i
k is inn
s inno
ova
vat
tio
ion a
n an
nd t
d th
he
e
c
cur
urr
ren
ent em
t emo
ot
tio
ion
na
al l
l la
an
nd
ds
sc
ca
ap
pe i
e is a
s alig
lign
ne
ed).
d). As we’ve outlined,
the level of innovative thinking you will get from your team
will be suboptimal when there’s too much emotional
conformity. It matters little whether you created this
common mood or if it was the result of an external event.
What a leader needs to do when a team is tasked with a
creative project is to increase the complexity of the
emotional landscape.
One way to do this is powerfully simple: Set the stage for an
ideation session by having team members reflect on specific
meaningful moments from their careers and personal lives,
including when they were excited and when they were angry.
Have them jot down some words that capture how they felt
in those moments. The underlying magic of this process is
that the range of emotions attached to this broad collection
of experiences will help unleash a greater variety of thoughts
and perspectives to use in the innovation challenge.
When we run this exercise in leadership development
workshops, we typically ask just a subset of attendees to
revisit these emotionally diverse memories. Later, we ask for
a show of hands to see whether the number and variety of
solutions are higher in that group, and we find that they
nearly always are. This seemingly trivial intervention really
does squeeze more creative thought from employees.
A note on diversifying emotions: When there is big news
that creates a similar emotional response — for example,
your company’s major quarterly announcement — that’s not
a good day for ideation, regardless of whether the news is
a pleasant surprise or a major disappointment. It will be
difficult to diffuse the team’s distraction and common
emotions. Consider scheduling core ideation work for
another time, when the source of emotional alignment has
subsided.
Although all four strategies for managing employee
emotions have their places in different situations, from our
experience, managers miss important opportunities by not
using the acknowledge and diversify strategies. This is
understandable, given that they depart from the
conventional wisdom that aligning a team’s emotions is
always helpful. Again, although a common mood accelerates
execution tasks, it is counterproductive for the generation of
innovative ideas.
For creativity, emotional diversity is key. Managers who
understand this can mindfully cultivate the different
emotional landscapes required for execution versus
innovation. It’s not that this leadership work was not
required all along. Rather, the extremely emotional and
dynamic events of 2020 are finally forcing leaders to do this
difficult work.
About The Authors
Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks is the William Russell Kelly Professor
of Business Administration at the University of Michigan’s
Ross School of Business. Christina Bradley is a doctoral
student in the Management & Organizations department at
the Ross School of Business. Lindred Greer (@lindredg) is an
associate professor of management and organizations at the
Ross School of Business.
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7. Four Strategies for Your Emotion Management Playbook
Paying attention to the emotional landscape of a workplace allows leaders to respond to situations with nuance. Depending on
what kind of job needs to be done and how aligned or diverse emotions are, different strategies can help teams most effectively
pursue strategic objectives.
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8. BENEDETTO CRISTOFANI/THEISPOT.COM
I
n 2008, Theranos engineer Aaron Moore created a mock ad for a prototype of the company’s
blood testing device.Intended as a prank to amuse his colleagues,his ad described the device as
“mostly functional”and included“leeches”among its“blood collection accessories.”1
Now, with hindsight, we can interpret his spoof not just as a joke but as a desperate bid to
raise a taboo subject: The company’s device didn’t work and the leadership team was hiding
that fact. Moore’s actions spoke volumes about the undiscussables at Theranos.
Undiscussables exist because they help people avoid short-term conflicts, threats, and em-
barrassment. But they also short-circuit the inquiries and challenges essential to both
improving performance and promoting team learning. Our consulting work with dozens of
senior management teams has taught us that a team’s ability to discuss what is holding it back is
It’sTimetoTackleYour
Team’sUndiscussables
Subjectsthatareconsciouslyorunwittinglydeemedoutof boundscomein
fourvarietiesandmakeitalmostimpossibleforteamstofunction.
BY GINKA TOEGEL AND JEAN-LOUIS BARSOUX
C O L L A B O R AT I N G W I T H I M PA C T : T E A M D Y N A M I C S
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 6
9. C O L L A B O R AT I N G W I T H I M PA C T : T E A M D Y N A M I C S
what drives its effectiveness. We have observed this
dynamic in a wide variety of settings and have drawn
on this experience to propose a framework, a set of
diagnostic questions, and some targeted solutions to
help teams address their own undiscussables. This
approach enables team leaders to identify the domi-
nantundiscussablesintheirbusinessesandkick-start
the necessary conversations to bring them to light.
At Theranos, CEO Elizabeth Holmes and her
top team were unwilling even to acknowledge con-
cerns that were obvious to many of their engineers.
It was significant that Moore didn’t share his mis-
givings directly with his bosses but expressed them
sarcastically and anonymously.
When Holmes was told about the prank ad, she
launched an investigation to identify the culprit.
Instead of triggering debate, her actions reinforced
the message that problems with the company’s
product were not to be discussed. Within months
of being reprimanded, Moore resigned, frustrated
and disillusioned.
The Theranos case illustrates what can happen
when questioning voices are silenced and topics
placed off-limits. At Theranos, that created a cul-
ture of fear and denial that ultimately led to false
claims made to investors and customers, as well as
decisions that jeopardized patient health. The
once-inspiring Theranos story ended with criminal
fraud charges filed against Holmes and the collapse
of a startup previously valued at $9 billion.
While Theranos represents an extreme case of a
dysfunctional organization,the underlying issue —
team undiscussables — is all too common. And it’s
getting worse as increasingly virtual and globally
distributed teams find it harder to pick up signals
of discomfort and anticipate misunderstandings.
With fewer opportunities to raise undiscussables
face-to-face (casually, over lunch or coffee), it be-
comes even more important to identify and air
concerns before they escalate and team and organi-
zational performance begin to suffer.
A Misunderstood Problem
When the leadership teams we work with struggle
with undiscussables, the symptoms they present
to us range from unresolved conflicts among
team members and uneven participation in meet-
ings to destructive groupthink and employee
disengagement.We have studied group dynamics in
numerous nonbusiness settings, too — including
elite sports teams, orchestras, medical teams, and a
hostage negotiation team — and the pattern holds
across contexts and levels: The more undiscuss-
ables there are, the more difficult it is for the team
to function. If they aren’t discussed collectively,
they can’t be managed intelligently.
Yet team leaders tend to overestimate the risks of
raising undiscussables. They assume incorrectly
that talking about negative subjects will sap team
energy, reveal issues they cannot resolve, and
expose them to blame for the part they played in
creating the problems the group faces.
In reality, we’ve found that discussing undis-
cussables brings relief, boosts energy, and bolsters
team goodwill.
Team leaders also underestimate the conse-
quencesofdoingnothingtoaddressundiscussables.
Ignoring them invariably results in strained work-
ing relationships that produce ineffective meetings
marked by a lack of debate. This leads to bad deci-
sions that are made worse, because without open,
honest discussion, a team cannot learn from its
mistakes or correct course. Left unmanaged, undis-
cussables contaminate the team, choking its
problem-solving abilities and capacity to learn and
adapt to change.
Four Layers of Undiscussability
Executivesoftentalkaboutundiscussablesasthough
they were all the same:views people hold and choose
not to air in public. They are typically described as
theelephantintheroom,the800-poundgorilla,orthe
dead moose. Thinking this way both overlooks their
complexity and makes them more fearsome. We
propose a multifaceted view of undiscussables. The
thinking-saying gap (Theranos engineers knew
their device didn’t work but couldn’t say so) is just
one category. There is also the saying-meaning gap,
the feeling-naming gap, and the doing-knowing
gap. (See“Mind the Gaps.”)
Each type of undiscussable has its own drivers.
Some emerge from cognitive barriers, others from
emotional ones.Some are known to everyone on the
team,while others are sensed only by a few or are ut-
terly unknown, existing outside the team’s collective
consciousness. Different types of undiscussables
The authors reviewed
various streams of
research on team effective-
ness and dysfunction,
connecting the dominant
management and social
psychology perspectives
on teams with the often-
neglected psychodynamic
literature on groups.
Along with their
consulting work with
senior management
teams, the authors have
studied group dynamics
in elite sports teams,
orchestras, medical
teams, and a hostage
negotiation team.
Their insights have been
validated and refined by
participants in executive
education programs at IMD
over the past 10 years.
THE
ANALYSIS
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10. need to be surfaced in different ways. Some can be
drawn out through direct questions; others must be
inferred from patterns of behavior and then vali-
dated with the team. (See“Diagnosing the Problem:
A Checklist,” p. 40, for questions leaders can ask to
identify their teams’undiscussables.)
Although the following categories overlap some-
what,differentiatingbetweentypesofundiscussables
can help you tackle them more effectively.
1.You THINK but dare not say. Undiscussables are
most commonly associated with risky questions,
suggestions, and criticisms that are self-censored.
Youmayjokeaboutthem(asMooredidatTheranos)
or discuss them confidentially but never openly.
Forexample,theincomingCEOintheAustralian
subsidiary of a global information company
quickly noted her new team’s wary exchanges in
meetings and team members’ disconcerting
tendency to nod approvingly in public only to
criticize in private. They were unaccustomed to
speaking their minds. Coming in with a tough
change mandate, the CEO needed her team’s hon-
est input and wholehearted buy-in. She had to
address its cautious behavior.
Views are left unspoken mostly when people fear
the consequences of speaking, whether the risk is
real or imagined.The main driver of this fear is often
team leaders with an emotional, erratic manage-
ment style and a reputation for responding harshly
when people disagree with them. That makes team
members feel unsafe.
AsresearchbyHarvardprofessorAmyEdmondson
has shown,a critical barrier to psychological safety is
the weight of hierarchy.2
Power and status differences
tend to discourage team members from bringing up
issues or concerns they think the leader may view as
disruptiveorevennoneof theirbusiness.
Beginning the fix: How can leaders minimize
those power differences and make it safe to speak
up? By explicitly acknowledging they may unwit-
tingly have created a climate of fear or uncertainty,
inviting discussion about sensitive issues, drawing
out concerns, promising immunity to those who
share dissenting views,and lightening the weight of
their authority in the room.
In the Australian subsidiary, the CEO took sev-
eral concrete actions.To model her commitment to
openness and reduce mistrust, she asked the team to
submit anonymous questions in writing about her
style and her intentions.She then asked the HR head
to run an honest dialogue session with the team
(while she was absent) to encourage productive dis-
agreement. The session focused on the difference
between straight talk and fight talk.3
While both
styles of communication are based on candor,
straight talk distinguishes clearly between the indi-
vidual and the issue; fight talk conflates them.
In subsequent meetings, with the CEO present,
whenever the team seemed reluctant to push back
on a proposal, she would say,“I feel there might be
something else. ... Let’s see if it would help for me to
leave the room.And when I come back,I want you as
a team to share your concerns.”This helped free peo-
ple from their inhibitions. Eventually, as the team
realized the CEO really did want constructive push-
back,leavingtheroom becameunnecessary.Shealso
replaced the rectangular meeting table with a round
one to signal a more egalitarian environment and
foster more intimate interactions.
To encourage genuine give-and-take, team
leaders must play a supportive role and be very
conscious of how volubly they express themselves
during discussions. They should avoid stating their
preferences or opinions at the beginning of team
discussions and refrain from immediately judging
the contributions of others. They also can show
MIND THE GAPS
Teams struggle with undiscussables when they…
… THINK but dare not say
… FEEL but can’t name
… SAY but don’t mean
… DO but don’t realize
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11. C O L L A B O R AT I N G W I T H I M PA C T : T E A M D Y N A M I C S
that they are part of the group by sharing their
mistakes and engaging in maintenance behaviors,
including saying “we” rather than “I,” encouraging
team members to voice their concerns, and
acknowledging their contributions.
In short order, the Australian information com-
pany’s team meetings grew more productive as
these new expectations and processes were inter-
nalized and became routine. The CEO was able to
execute her change mandate successfully, and team
development, both individual and collective, accel-
erated. Team members took the functioning of
their team more seriously and carried the same
principles into meetings with other teams.
2. You SAY but don’t mean. Alongside unspoken
truths, there are spoken untruths. These undiscuss-
ables reflect discrepancies between what the team
saysitbelievesorfindsimportantandhowitbehaves
(what academics have described as gaps between es-
poused theory and theory-in-use).4
Teams often proclaim but fail to follow certain
values, objectives, or practices that are supposed to
guide and inspire them and create a sense of to-
getherness. The disconnect between what’s said
and what’s done is visible to all,but no one points it
out for fear of endangering the team’s cohesion,
even if that cohesion is based on a shared illusion.
Here’sanexample:ThetopteamofaScandinavian
paper giant struggled with plunging demand for
paper caused by digitalization.In response,the tight-
knit leadership team declared its commitment to
“reinvent the company.”In reality,all the team talked
about in meetings and retreats was efficiencies and
cost cutting.
The chief concern in such teams is protecting the
group, as opposed to protecting the individual in the
think-but-dare-not-say category of undiscussables.
Silence is not based on fear as much as on an unques-
tioned and distorted sense of loyalty to the team, its
leader, or the organization. Drawing attention to the
disconnect between intentions and actions would feel
likelettingdowncolleaguesandkillingteamspirit.This
falsepositivity,whichpeopleexpressbysimplymouth-
ing accepted values, practices, and objectives — the
espoused theory — hides any concerns that the team
mightbeincapableof makingthenecessarychangesto
the organization and that people might lose their jobs
as a result. This protective impulse may appear inno-
cent, but in the long run, it undermines learning and
leads to disillusionment as people stop trusting the
valueof oneanother’swordsandcommitments.
DIAGNOSING THE PROBLEM: A CHECKLIST
Here are some signs that your team may be struggling with one or more of the four types of undiscussables.
1. DO TEAM MEMBERS THINK THINGS THEY DARE NOT SAY?
Do they agree publicly during meetings but disagree (and vent) privately?
Do they often use sarcasm, silence, or nonverbal gestures to signal disagreement?
Do they focus on managing up in meetings?
2. DO THEY SAY THEY SHARE CERTAIN VALUES BUT FAIL TO PRACTICE THEM?
Are team meetings too undemanding and unrealistically upbeat?
Do people cling to an image of cohesiveness, frowning on any criticism of the team as a sign of disloyalty?
Do they always seem to adopt similar perspectives on problems?
3. DO THEY HAVE NEGATIVE FEELINGS THEY CAN’T NAME?
Do meetings feel antagonistic (tempers fray; disagreements become personal)?
Are people reluctant to comment on issues outside their direct responsibilities?
Do team members organize themselves into rigid factions?
4. ARE THEY UNWITTINGLY ENGAGING IN UNPRODUCTIVE BEHAVIORS?
Does the team have trouble identifying root causes for its ineffectiveness?
Does it spin its wheels on minor issues?
Do important items often get postponed or fall between the cracks?
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 9
12. C O L L A B O R AT I N G W I T H I M PA C T : T E A M D Y N A M I C S
Beginning the fix: Team leaders must first ex-
pose the hypocrisy of saying but not meaning and
acknowledge their part in the charade, collecting
anonymous examples of empty proclamations and
challenging the overprotective mindset that inhib-
its the airing of criticism. They can initiate the
process by asking the team to complete this sen-
tence:“We say we want to …, but in fact, we….”
As the paper company prepared for yet another
round of downsizing, it was becoming increasingly
difficult to pretend that the team was reinventing
the business. The cognitive dissonance between the
mantra and the reality became too great for the
CEO to accept.“In one of these endless group exec-
utive meetings,”he told us,“I listened to myself and
all my good, hard-working colleagues, and then I
lost my temper and I said,‘What are we doing here?
We’re telling the same story time and again: How
tough life is. How the government doesn’t under-
stand us.The customers are tough; the competition
is unfair. We’re talking, talking, talking about what
the world is doing to us.’”
The CEO acknowledged that the team was not,
in fact, doing what it said it was doing nor what the
company needed: reinventing its business model
and processes. In this way, he demonstrated the
level of candor and self-criticism needed to break
the team out of its slump, closing the gap between
meaning and saying.
His frankness also freed the team to reflect on
other delusions that were keeping it idling. It soon
concluded that its capacity for reinvention was
constrained by the group’s homogeneity.
So the team decided to assign the reinvention
challenge to a more diverse group of 12 people who
included more women, people with experience
outside the paper industry, and non-Nordics. This
team would function as internal consultants.
Handpicked from 160 internal applicants, the
group was eclectic and far better equipped to imag-
ine out-of-the-box solutions. Eight years on, the
organization has transformed itself into a company
specializing in renewable materials. According to
the former CEO, the dynamics within the team also
changed dramatically.“I think we have a very open
dialogue now. We don’t argue anymore about ‘Is
the world changing or not?’ It’s already changed.
Now, it’s all about,‘Can we get ahead of the curve?
Can we change the world for the better?’”
Team leaders play a key role in initiating the
soul-searching, ensuring that the organization’s
stated goal is the real goal, stressing a collective re-
sponsibility to keep one another honest, listening
to alternative viewpoints, and breaking down the
unproductive and misconceived connection be-
tween criticism and disloyalty.
3. You FEEL but can’t name. Some undiscussables
are rooted in negative feelings — such as annoyance,
mistrust, and frustration — that are difficult for
team members to label or express constructively.But
manifesting one’s anger or resentment is not the
same thing as discussing it.
For example, the top team of a German-based
high-tech company was thrown into turmoil by
unspoken tensions between two colleagues: one a
fast-rising CTO, the other a recently hired COO.
Following a series of clashes,they had stopped talk-
ing. Each felt the other was behaving unreasonably.
The behavior or comments of colleagues with
divergent perspectives can trigger allergic reac-
tions, often based on misunderstandings. Research
shows that healthy disagreements over what to do
or how to do it can morph quickly into interper-
sonal conflicts.5
Too easily blamed on a vague“lack
of chemistry,” these feelings can infect the whole
team, especially when the pressure is on. Just one
touchy relationship is enough to generate a malaise
Team leaders must first expose the hypocrisy of saying
but not meaning and acknowledge their part in the
charade, challenging the overprotective mindset that
inhibits the airing of criticism.
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 10
13. Healthy disagreements can morph quickly into interper-
sonal conflicts. Just one touchy relationship is enough
to generate a malaise that hinders team deliberations
through emotional and social contagion.
that hinders team deliberations through emotional
and social contagion.6
Faulty perceptions mostly go uncorrected be-
cause the antagonists don’t test their inferences.
Based on their own worldviews and self-protective
instincts, they presume they know why the other
party is acting in a particular way and let that drive
their behavior. This leads to escalating tensions.
Beginning the fix: The feuding parties need
help to investigate the differences — in personality,
experience, and identity — that sustain and fuel
their apparent incompatibilities, their so-called
lack of chemistry. The team leader’s role is to
ensure that individuals feel equally welcome and
accepted within the team and promote diversity
as a source of insight, not friction. One strategy is
to ask team members to complete the sentence
“I feel …” to literally put a name to the feeling to
surface whatever is bothering them.
A neutral coach can help team members open up
by asking essential follow-on questions and probing
for clarification when needed. This process can be
augmented with a formal assessment tool that cap-
tures individual team members’personality profiles
and a common framework that helps people under-
stand the roots of their colleagues’behaviors.
In the case of the German high-tech company’s
CTO and COO, a striking contrast in their profiles
offered insight into some of the difficulties they
were having. On one dimension of the personality
assessment, the COO favored big picture thinking
and gravitated toward new ideas, while the CTO
was extremely detail-oriented and practical, lean-
ing toward the tried-and-true. This insight helped
explain why the CTO constantly raised objections
to the COO’s sweeping solutions to problems.
In the process of discussing how their personal-
ity scores tallied with their self-images, another
factor emerged: The COO saw himself as a problem
SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU
solver, while the CTO defined himself as a self-
starter, relying on his own independent judgment.
These differences in self-image helped explain
why the valuable experience of the COO was re-
sisted by the CTO, who resented interference and
dreaded becoming “dependent.”At the same time,
the COO felt frustrated that he was being prevented
from solving the problem. The CTO appeared to
the COO as a know-it-all; the COO saw the CTO as
someone who could not and would not take advice.
Unwittingly, each behaved in a way that refuted the
other’s core work identity. Inevitably, they drove
each other crazy.
To diminish such tensions,you must try to disen-
tangleintentfromimpact.Evenif feedbackandadvice
are well intentioned,they may challenge another per-
son’s self-image as competent, honest, or likable,
triggeringastrong,negativeemotionalresponse.
Once you understand where colleagues are
coming from, it becomes easier to value and lever-
age their input without taking their comments or
behavioral quirks as attempts to show off, frustrate,
or take advantage. But self-knowledge is equally
valuable: When you can see and describe your own
tendencies accurately, your colleagues are less likely
to take your quirks personally.
The breakthrough, in the case of the high-tech
company’s CTO and COO, was a role-play exercise,
asking each to put himself in the other’s shoes. They
proved so adept at describing how the other felt that
they ended up laughing.There was no lack of empa-
thy — just very different approaches and priorities.
Realizing that their respective behaviors were not
malevolent or personal,they were able to start work-
ing together more effectively, recognizing the
contributionseachcouldmaketotheotherandtheir
organization. They also were able to get feedback
from other team members to help them maintain
the behavioral changes to which they had agreed.
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 11
14. C O L L A B O R AT I N G W I T H I M PA C T : T E A M D Y N A M I C S
4. You DO but don’t realize. The deepest undis-
cussablesarecollectivelyheldunconsciousbehaviors.
These undiscussables are the most difficult to un-
cover.Members of the team may be aware of isolated
problems in their dynamic, but they cannot connect
the dots and infer root causes, so they jump to the
wrong conclusions about what is behind team ineffi-
ciencies and poor performance.
Consider this example: The CEO of a French
travel company complained about the dearth of de-
bate and lack of engagement within his team.We sat
in on one meeting, and he was right. The trouble
was,hewastheproblem.Hewasdisengagedandeas-
ily distracted, and team members unconsciously got
the message that they were not important to him.
This is what psychologists call projection,
wherein we ascribe our own thoughts and feelings
to someone else. The CEO was disengaged, so he
thought the team was. Of course, the team quickly
replicated his behavior,becoming disengaged itself,
and the CEO had no idea he inspired it.
Teams instinctively develop defensive routines to
cope with anxiety, such as that generated by feeling
ignored or undervalued. This allows them to avoid
thinking about or even naming the underlying is-
sues.But it also blocks learning,preventing the team
from responding and adapting effectively to emerg-
ingchallenges.Teammembersatthetravelcompany
were unwittingly mimicking their leader; that was
their coping mechanism. If they were checked out,
they wouldn’t be bothered by the fact that he was.
As described by British psychotherapist Wilfred
Bion,unconscious and unacknowledged undiscuss-
ables manifest in seemingly unrelated team
dynamics — hence the difficulty connecting the
dots. At the travel company, there were hub-and-
spokeexchangeswiththeteamleaderthatprevented
team members from interacting, conversations
dominated by the same two people, and a distract-
ing preoccupation with a fake foe. All these
interactions impeded critical self-review.7
And they
disguised the true source of dysfunction.
Behavior patterns that emerge from anxiety
begin on an unconscious level and then become
part of “the way we do things.” Team members fall
into rigid roles, sit in the same chairs, and follow
rituals that impair their ability to question assump-
tions and get their jobs done.
Beginning the fix: Though unnoticed by the
team, warped interaction patterns may be readily
discernible to outsiders. The team leader can invite
a trusted adviser from another part of the organiza-
tion or an external facilitator to observe the team
and give feedback on communication habits, in-
cluding body language, who talks and how often,
whom people look at when they talk, who inter-
rupts whom, who or what is blamed when things
go wrong, what is not spoken about, who stays si-
lent, and whose comments are ignored.
A trained observer can then engage in what MIT
Sloan School of Management’s pioneering organiza-
tionalpsychologistEdgarScheincallshumbleinquiry,
in which the aim is to elicit information and feelings
important to the team’s mission. The questioner’s
outsider status allows for naive, unthreatening ques-
tioning of the unconscious processes at play.8
The
Five Whys technique (asking “Why?” at least five
times), made famous in Six Sigma methodology,
can help the outsider drill down to deeper levels and
surface what the team is avoiding.
Priortobeginningourworkatthetravelcompany,
weaskedtofilmoneof thetopteam’smeetings(thisis
part of our usual process).We saw that there were lots
of side conversations. People slouched and fiddled
with their phones during presentations. The impres-
sionwasof agroupgoingthroughthemotions.
Then, we showed the team a series of clips focus-
ing on all the occasions the CEO was distracted
by his phone. Initial amusement turned to embar-
rassment as the sequence ran on and on, but we
The good news is that destructive and unconscious
dynamics lose their power when they become visible
and a topic for discussion.
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 12
15. interrupted it after three minutes and told the team,
“Tell us what you see.”
The CEO was shocked.“Had you told me I was
doing it, I wouldn’t have believed you,”he said. The
team members were also surprised, but once the
evidence was visible to them, they had little diffi-
culty decoding the message the CEO was sending: a
lack of respect and appreciation for other people
and their work. Of course, that discouraged open
debate. The CEO’s behavior also authorized the
team to act in similar fashion, producing the very
outcomes — disengagement and unproductive
meetings — that he complained about.
The good news is that these destructive and un-
conscious dynamics lose their power when they
become visible and a topic for discussion. But, to
help reset their behavior in meetings and inculcate
new habits, the team members also took two con-
crete measures: They agreed to a one-month ban
on devices in their meetings (with fines donated to
charity for violations), and they drew up a team
charter clarifying new behavioral expectations that
included listening to each other, asking more ques-
tions, delaying assumptions, and summarizing
conclusions and follow-up actions.
As is often the case,the content of the charter was
not particularly original, but it empowered every
team member to enforce the new ground rules in the
moment by pointing to the prominently displayed
document they had all signed. Six months later, the
CEO told us that the team’s meetings were shorter,
more focused,and generating richer debate.
Team Detox
Most teams have — and suffer from — undiscuss-
ables in all four categories. But instead of trying to
fix all of them at once, we advise team leaders to
take a sequential approach, starting with the two
more conscious categories they can have an imme-
diate impact on: knowing but not daring to say and
saying but not meaning it.
Firstthingsfirst. The best point of entry is mak-
ing sure “we do what we say.” This is low-hanging
fruit, as the consequences of “not doing what we
say” are visible to all and reflect a collective failing
rather than an individual one. Also, when the top
team is involved, a misalignment between words
and actions can have a profoundly corrosive impact
on the entire organization, leading to cynicism, dis-
engagement,and conflicts at all levels.
As team leader, you are well placed to start the
conversation about how to improve team processes
and address dysfunctional communication pat-
terns.Youcanengageinsomepreparatoryreflection
by asking yourself,“Is this a problem I have helped
create?”Acknowledging your own responsibility is a
powerful way of unblocking the discussion and set-
ting an expectation of candor.
Easy wins can help team members realize that
what they gain will outweigh the pain — generating
momentum to move from above-the-surface un-
discussables to deeper undiscussables that usually
require facilitation or external intervention.
Team time. Surfacing and removing undiscuss-
ables is never a one-off exercise. To prevent the
buildup of new undiscussables, you have to make
timeforinward-focusedteamtalk,notjustoutward-
focused work talk.
We once studied a Swiss negotiating team spe-
cializing in kidnappings and hostage situations.
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SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 13
17. [INTERVIEW]
WhyTeamsStill NeedLeaders
Whenpeoplecollaborateremotely,hierarchykeepsthemmovinginthesame
direction—butleaderscanflextopromoteautonomyandcreativity.
LINDRED (LINDY) GREER, INTERVIEWED BY FRIEDA KLOTZ
I
n recent years, agile and flat working structures have gained favor at many companies
and struck a responsive chord with employees who are put off by stifling hierarchies.
But doing away with hierarchy can cause confusion, spark complaints from employees,
and hasten departures, says Lindred (Lindy) Greer, associate professor of management
and organizations at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and faculty
director at its Sanger Leadership Center. While agreeing that rigid forms of hierarchy
can impede innovation, she has found that it can provide many important benefits
when managed well.
Greer first became inter-
ested in team structures more
than a decade ago while inves-
tigating diversity, hoping to
understand how gender and
race play out in social interac-
tions. She found that team
members tended to be less
focused on their colleagues’
gender and ethnicity than on
the power they wielded. She
then decided to explore how
hierarchies work in organiza-
tions and what happens when
they go wrong. She has written
a number of groundbreaking
articles on hierarchy, status,
and the social dynamics of teams, including, most recently,“Why and When Hierarchy
Impacts Team Effectiveness”in the Journal of Applied Psychology.1
MIT Sloan Management Review correspondent Frieda Klotz spoke to Greer as she was
about to travel to Seattle to coteach a course on leadership development with an orchestra
conductor at a business incubator.What follows is an edited version of their conversation.
MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW: A few
years ago, many management experts and
business leaders were saying that hierarchy
had had its day and that the future belonged
to flat organizations. What’s happening? Is
the pendulum swinging back?
GREER: Hierarchy is probably the most
common form of organizing the workplace.
There aren’t a lot of good alternatives to it,
and companies need some say in manag-
ing workers, particularly as they scale.
However, there are also a lot of downsides
to hierarchy, and over the last decade my
collaborators and I have documented the
many ways in which it can go wrong. Team
members squabble over resources, engage
in power struggles, and battle over rank.
All of this harms performance. One of
the burning questions in management
research right now is, what are the best
alternatives to hierarchy? But it’s a com-
plex picture — hierarchy isn’t always bad
or harmful, and its effectiveness may de-
pend on where and how it’s implemented,
and how the person at the top manages
the hierarchy. For example, there is grow-
ing interest in remote work and virtual
teams, and in that context hierarchy works
quite well.
Why is hierarchy a good way to structure
virtual teams?
GREER: Hierarchy makes it easier to coor-
dinate how people work together. So for
teams that most need structure — those
operating under uncertain conditions or
when the task is unclear, as often happens
in virtual or remote teams — hierarchy is
highly effective. It still has downsides, but
the need for it is so great that it trumps
whatever internal politics and bureau-
cracy come with it.You simply need that
structure to keep people moving together.
Often when people work remotely, there is
an assumption that they have more auton-
omy and freedom than office workers. But is
it wrong to think so?
GREER: Hierarchy does not have to mean
less autonomy. For example, when I talk
to the CEOs of companies doing really
well with a remote-work model — I’m
thinking about Automattic, which owns
WordPress,or 10up,a successful web-design
company — they emphasize the need for
MICHAEL AUSTIN/THEISPOT.COM
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 15
18. structure. In practice, this means that they
put much more effort into coordinating
how people work together than other
companies. They formalize role descrip-
tions and onboarding better, and they’re
more intentional and specific in their re-
cruiting and hiring. For example, they’ll
do interviews through Slack to test inde-
pendence and communication virtually.
They say this makes them better at navi-
gating the people side of business largely
because the remote workforce is utterly
intentional about the way interactions are
structured.
Buteventhoughtheworkersareaccount-
able to someone, they can still retain
decision control in their areas of expertise
because the company has clear values that
guide how to make decisions. That’s the
thing: Hierarchy can go hand in hand
with autonomy. It doesn’t have to be one
or the other.
What does your recent research say about
how hierarchy works or doesn’t work in an
office environment?
GREER: Research has generally historically
focused on the benefits of hierarchy. The
core assumption, drawn from animal be-
havior, was that hierarchy was a natural
way to organize people, that if one person
was dominant, others would be more sub-
missive. The research assumes that people
find hierarchy comfortable and seek it out
in times of crisis. My research challenges
the view that hierarchy is always good by
showing that it can lead to inequities and
conflicts within teams. One of the prob-
lems is that the structure it provides isn’t
always the right one, in both the form of
structure and the context in which it is
applied. For example, people aren’t always
happy about how they’re ranked, and
there can be power struggles and turmoil
around roles. In some contexts, like cre-
ative brainstorming, hierarchy just gets
in the way and fosters competition rather
than collaboration.
How does that kind of conflict affect team
performance?
GREER: In the 2018 paper in the Journal of
Applied Psychology, my coauthors and I
showed that on average, hierarchy causes
power struggles and personal conflicts and
can thereby undermine team performance.
In other research, we found that 70% of the
time peer disputes turned into personal
conflicts and power struggles.2
This was
really bad for the teams’productivity as
well as for the employees’happiness.
Given the potential problems, what can
companies do?
GREER: Managers need to be smarter about
how they use hierarchy. Good leaders know
how to flex — to use hierarchy to get things
done but also to flatten the organization
when they want workers to be creative. The
Navy SEALs have an excellent approach:
When they’re on the ground, there’s a clear
chain of command. If their commander
says,“Get out now,”there’s no playing
devil’s advocate — no one argues.You
listen and you fall into rank.
But once they go back to the base to
debrief, Navy SEALs literally take their
stripes off at the door.When they sit down,
everybody’s equal and has a voice.This is
important because one person on the team
might have noticed something really critical
that nobody else saw,which could inform
their plans for the next assignment.So they
flatten out; they share ideas. Then they go
back outside, put on their stripes and uni-
forms, and literally fall into rank again.
I spent the last half year or so studying
startups to see if there were companies that
had effective ways of flexing as well. These
were early-stage tech companies, represent-
ing both B2B and B2C business models.
Many of them just accepted hierarchy,
while others were resigned to being flat and
chaotic. But some of the best-managed
companies were able to flex the hierarchy
fluidly. Day to day and meeting to meeting,
I saw managers who could make the team
hierarchical but also flatten it when they
needed to. I think realizing how to manage
that duality — and allow for autonomy —
is at the heart of this.At the end of the day
there needs to be a leader, but it doesn’t
mean every interaction is hierarchical.
Are there special skills managers need to
learn?
GREER: Companies are realizing that to do
hierarchy well, they really need to invest in
leadership development. Even startups re-
alize that leadership is a set of behavioral
tools that can be learned.
A lot of the companies are also experi-
menting with different types of structures,
whereprojectteamsareflatterbutreportreg-
ularlytoapanelof internalcompanyadvisers
(as opposed to leaders).The trouble is that a
lot of these experiments are not data driven.
They don’t collect large-scale data to see
whether the infrastructure actually works.
One experiment that has received a fair
amount of exposure is known as holacracy.
Why Teams Still Need Leaders (Continued from page 15)
“
The Navy SEALs have
an excellent approach:
On the ground,
there’s a clear chain
of command. … But
when they sit down
to debrief, everybody’s
equal and has a voice.”
— LINDY GREER
F R O N T I E R S
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 16
20. YOU CAN HARDLY pick up a business publication without reading about the ever-increasing
pace of change in technologies and markets and the consequent need for more adaptable organiza-
tions. Given the imperative of adaptability, it is not surprising that few words have received more
attention in recent conversations about management and leadership than “agile.”1
Organizations
ranging from large corporations like General Electric Co. to tiny startups are trying to be both flex-
ible and fast in the ways that they react to new technology and changing market conditions.2
The word“agile”appears to have been first applied to thinking about software by 17 developers in
2001.3
Having experimented with more iterative,less process-laden approaches to developing new ap-
plications for several decades, the group
codified its experience in an agile mani-
festo. “We are uncovering better ways
of developing software by doing it and
helping others do it,” they wrote. In soft-
ware development, agile now has a variety
of manifestations, including scrum, ex-
treme programming, and feature-driven
development.4
The results have been sig-
nificant. A variety of studies show that
agile software development methods can
generate a significant improvement over
their more traditional predecessors.5
Butwhatdoesthismeanoutsideof soft-
ware? Can agile methods be successfully
applied to other types of work? Many pro-
ponents (a number of whom started in the
software industry) argue that the answer is
yes, and a growing collection of books, pa-
pers, and blog posts suggests how it might
be done.6
The evidence, however, remains
limited to date, and a recent article by two
ANewApproachto
DesigningWork
R E D E S I G N I N G WO R K : O P E R AT I O N S
Foryears,managementthinkersassumedthattherewere
inevitabletrade-offsbetweenefficiencyandflexibility—
andthattherightorganizationaldesignforeachwasdifferent.
Butit’spossibletodesignanorganization’sworkinwaysthat
simultaneouslyofferagilityandefficiency—if youknowhow.
BY NELSON P. REPENNING, DON KIEFFER, AND JAMES REPENNING
THE LEADING
QUESTION
How can
companies
achieve both
agility and
efficiency in
their work?
FINDINGS
Make a distinction
between well-
defined and
ambiguous tasks.
Break processes into
smaller units of
work that are more
frequently checked.
Identify points at
which collaboration
is needed.
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 18
21. R E D E S I G N I N G WO R K : O P E R AT I O N S
of agile’s founders cautions against applying agile
indiscriminately.7
The blogosphere is also replete
with discussions of an ongoing agile backlash.
To provide some practical advice to business lead-
ers trying to understand what agile might mean for
their organizations,we take a different approach.Our
research suggests that in applying agile methods from
the software industry to other domains, managers
often confuse practices and principles. When agile
methodswork,theydosobecausetheassociatedprac-
tices manifest key behavioral principles in the context
of softwaredevelopment.But,successfulasthoseprac-
tices can be when developing software, there is no
guarantee that they will work in other contexts. The
key to transferring a set of practices from one domain
to another is to first understand why they work and
then to modify them in ways that both match the
new context and preserve the underlying principles.
The goal of this article is to help you understand
several key work design principles that undergird not
onlyagilepracticesinsoftwarebutalsoToyota Motor
Corp.’s well-known production system in manufac-
turing. Once you understand these underlying work
design principles — through a framework we call dy-
namic work design — you can create work processes
in your own organization that are both more flexible
and more efficient.(See“About the Research.”)
Stability Vs. Uncertainty
Academics and managers alike long believed that or-
ganizationshadtomaketrade-offsbetweenflexibility
and efficiency.A central notion in the academic the-
ory on organizational design is contingency, the idea
that organizations and their associated processes
need to be designed to match the nature of the work
they do. One of the most common variables in con-
tingency theory is the degree of uncertainty in the
surroundingenvironment(oftenalsoconceptualized
as the need for innovation).When both the competi-
tive environment and the associated work are stable
and well understood, contingency theory suggests
thatorganizationswilldobestwithhighlystructured,
mechanistic designs. In contrast, when facing highly
uncertainsituationsthatrequireongoingadaptation,
the theory suggests that organizations will do better
with more flexible,organic designs.8
An early advocate of the mechanistic approach
to work design was Frederick Winslow Taylor,
author of the 1911 book The Principles of Scientific
Management.9
Taylor’s essential insight was simply
that if work is regularly repeated, it can also be
studied and improved. In stable, well-understood
environments, it is thus often best to organize work
in ways that leverage the efficiency that comes with
repetition. For example, in a modern factory, well-
defined tasks are specified, and the work proceeds
serially,moving from one carefully constructed and
defined set of activities to the next. There is little
need for collaboration in these settings, and the or-
ganizational structure that surrounds stable and
repeatable work tends to be hierarchical to ensure
that everybody follows the prescribed work design.
The cost of such efficiency is adaptability. Due to
the high degree of routinization and formalization,
mechanistic process designs are difficult to change
in response to new requirements. Though efficient,
a mechanistic design is not agile.
When, however, the environment is unstable and
uncertain, discrete tasks are harder to define, and
therefore organizations cannot rely on a sequence of
clearly defined steps. For example, product develop-
ment teams often face challenges for which there is
little precedent. Contingency theory holds that in
unpredictable environments like new product devel-
opment, organizations rely more on things like
training and collaboration and less on routinization
and careful specification.Developing a breakthrough
product or service usually can’t be organized like a
factory assembly line.Marketing experts may develop
a set of initial requirements,which are then passed on
to designers and engineers, but the requirements
often evolve through multiple iterations as designers
and engineers determine what is technically feasible.
Consequently, effective development processes often
require ongoing real-time collaboration, rather than
roteadherencetoasetof sequentiallyorganizedsteps.
Though the contingency theory was first devel-
oped more than 50 years ago, its basic insights
reappear frequently in contemporary management
thinking.Many flavors of process-focused improve-
ment, such as total quality management, Six Sigma,
and business process reengineering, are extensions
to Taylor’s fundamental insight that work that
is repeated can also be improved. Recently, the
increasingly popular design thinking approach can
be thought of as a charge to tackle ambiguous,
ABOUT THE
RESEARCH
Our dynamic work design
framework originated more
than 20 years ago when
two of the authors worked
together to improve both
manufacturing and product
development at Harley-
Davidson Inc. (At the time,
one of the authors [Don
Kieffer] was leading Harley-
Davidson’s largest engine
development project, and
another [Nelson Repenning]
was doing research on
failures in new product
development.) Following
the principles of action
research, in the ensuing
decades we have regularly
iterated between trying to
help organizations improve
their work design and build-
ing a theory grounded in the
underlying social science
for why these interventions
did or did not work. Over
the years, we have done
dozens of projects in a vari-
ety of industries, including
oil and gas, software, and
genetic sequencing. We
have also supervised more
than 1,000 work design
projects done by executives
in our courses at MIT.
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 19
22. uncertain tasks with a more collaborative, less hier-
archical work design.10
In general, contingency
theory gives managers a straightforward approach
to designing work: Assess the stability of the com-
petitive environment and the resulting work, and
then pick the best mix of defined tasks and collabo-
rationtofitthechallengeathand.(See“ATraditional
Approach to Work Design.”) If the work being de-
signed consists of well-defined tasks (for example,
assembling components), then it is best to organize
it serially, or, as we label the cell on the bottom left,
using the“factory”mode. Conversely, if the work is
highly ambiguous and requires ongoing interaction
(for example, designing new products), then the
work is best organized collaboratively,or,as we label
the cell on the top right,in“studio”mode.
Though powerful,this approach to work design is
not entirely satisfying for two reasons. First, it de-
scribes an unpalatable trade-off:Work done using the
serial factory design isn’t very flexible,making it hard
to adapt to changes in external conditions, and work
done using the collaborative studio approach often
isn’tveryefficient.Second,fewtypesof workperfectly
fit the archetype of well-defined or ambiguous work.
Even the most routine work has the occasional
moment of surprise, and conversely, even the most
novel work, such as designing a new product or ser-
vice, often requires executing routine analysis and
testing activities that support each creative iteration.
Academic theory notwithstanding, real work is a
constantly evolving mix of routine and uncertainty.
At first glance, agile methods appear to fall more
toward the collaborative side of the work spectrum.
However,ourresearchsuggestsadifferentinterpreta-
tion. The conventional approach to process and
organizational design is almost entirely static, im-
plicitly presuming that once a piece of work has been
designed, everything will go as planned. In contrast,
a dynamic approach to work design suggests viewing
work as an ever-evolving response to the hiccups and
shortfalls that are inevitable in real organizations.As
we will describe later in this article,agile methods ac-
tuallytranscendthetraditionalserialvs.collaborative
work framework by creating better mechanisms for
moving between the two basic ways of organizing
work. By identifying mechanisms to cycle back and
forth between well-defined factory-style tasks and
collaborative studio modes when appropriate, an
agile approach can considerably reduce the trade-off
between efficiency and adaptability.
Dynamic Work Design at Toyota
What does this look like in practice? Consider a
well-known example of work and organizational
design, Toyota’s Andon cord. Work on Toyota as-
semblylinesistheepitomeof theserial,mechanistic
design. Tasks are precisely specified, often detailing
specific arm and hand movements and the time
A TRADITIONAL APPROACH TO WORK DESIGN
In a traditional approach to work design, if the work being designed consists
of well-defined tasks (for example, assembling components), then it should be
organized serially, in what we call the “factory” mode. Conversely, if the work
is highly ambiguous and requires ongoing interaction (for example, designing
new products), then the work should be organized collaboratively, in what we
call the “studio” mode.
A dynamic approach to work design suggests viewing work
as an ever-evolving response to the hiccups and shortfalls that
are inevitable in real organizations.
“Factory”
“Studio”
Organize
collaboratively
Organize
serially
Well-defined
work
Ambiguous
work
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 20
23. R E D E S I G N I N G WO R K : O P E R AT I O N S
that each action should take. In a plant we visited
recently, training for a specific role began with the
trainee learning to pick up four bolts at a time —
not three and not five. Only when the trainee could
pick up four bolts regularly was she allowed to learn
the next motion. But, despite an attention to detail
that would have made Taylor proud, sometimes
things go awry. In the Toyota scheme, a worker no-
ticing such an issue is supposed to pull what’s known
as the Andon cord (or push a button) to stop the
production line and fix the problem.
While the management literature has correctly
highlighted the importance of allowing employees
to stop the line,11
what happens after the cord is
pulled might be more important. During a recent
visit we took to a Toyota supplier in Toyota City,
Japan,we observed that one operator on the factory
floor was struggling to complete her task in the al-
lotted time, and so she hit a yellow button, causing
an alarm to sound and a light to flash. (This factory
has replaced the Andon cord with a yellow button
at each operator’s station.) Within seconds, the
line’s supervisor arrived and assisted the operator
in resolving the issue that was preventing her from
following the prescribed process. In less than a
minute, the operator, now able to hit her target,
returned to her normal routine, and the supervisor
went back to other activities.
What,from a work design perspective,happened
inthisshortepisode?Initially,theoperatorwaswork-
ing in the “factory” mode, executing well-defined
work to a clearly specified time target. (See the box
on the lower left in the exhibit “Dynamic Work
Design at a Toyota Supplier.”) But when something
in that careful design broke down, the operator
couldn’t complete her task in the allotted time.
Once the problem occurred, the operator had two
options for responding.She could have found an ad
hoc adjustment, a workaround or shortcut that
would allow her to keep working. But this choice
often leads to highly dysfunctional outcomes.12
Alternatively, as we observed, she could push the
button, stop the work, and ask for help. By sum-
moning the supervisor to help, pushing the button
temporarily changed the work design. The system
briefly left the mechanistic, serial mode in favor of
a more organic, collaborative approach focused
on problem resolution. Once the problem was re-
solved, the operator returned to her normal task
and to the serial work design.
The Toyota production system might at first ap-
pear to be the ultimate in mechanistic design, but a
closer look suggests something far more dynamic.
When a worker pulls the Andon cord, the system ac-
tually moves between two modes based on the state
of the work.Though the nature of the work couldn’t
be more different, such movement between the two
modes is also the key to understanding the success of
agile software development.
Agile as Dynamic Work Design
As we discussed earlier,the last two decades have wit-
nessedasignificantchangeintheconductof software
development. Whereas software was once largely
developed using what is known as the waterfall
approach, agile methods have become increasingly
popular. From a dynamic work design perspective,
the waterfall and agile approaches differ significantly.
In the waterfall approach, the software develop-
ment cycle is typically divided into a few major
phases. A project might include a requirements
phase,an architecture development phase,a detailed
coding phase, and a testing and installation phase.A
waterfall project typically cycles between three basic
DYNAMIC WORK DESIGN AT A TOYOTA SUPPLIER
At a Toyota supplier, a worker on an assembly line can press a button if he or she
faces a problem. A manager then helps solve the problem through collaboration;
once the problem is solved, the worker returns to his or her task. Pushing the button
thus initiates a temporary shift in the work design — from serial to collaborative work
and then back again — that increases agility.
Change
work
mode
“Factory”
“Studio”
Problem
solved
Problem
Push
button
Problem-
solving
Organize
collaboratively
Organize
serially
Well-defined
work
Ambiguous
work
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 21
24. modes of work.First,the bulk of the time is spent by
software architects and engineers working individu-
ally or in small groups, completing whatever the
specific phase requires.Second,typically on a weekly
basis, those people leave their individual work to
come together for a project meeting, where they re-
port on their progress, check to ensure mutual
compatibility, and adapt to any changes in direction
provided by leadership. Third, at the end of each
phase, there is a more significant review, often
known as a “phase-gate review,” in which senior
leaders do a detailed check to determine whether the
project is ready to exit that phase and move to the
next. Development cycles for other types of non-
software projects often work similarly.13
Agile development processes organize the work
differently. For example, in the scrum approach14
(one version of agile), the work is not divided into
a few major phases but rather into multiple short
“sprints” (often one to two weeks in length) fo-
cused on completing all of the work necessary to
deliver a small but working piece of software.At the
end of each sprint, the end user tests the new func-
tionality to determine whether or not it meets the
specified need.
Like the waterfall method, the agile approach to
software development also has three basic work
modes — individual work, team meetings, and cus-
tomer reviews — but it cycles among them very
differently. First, proponents of agile suggest meet-
ing daily — thus moving from individual work to
teamwork and back every day — in the form of a
stand-up or scrum meeting, where team members
report on the day’s progress, their plans for the
next day, and perceived impediments to progress.
Second, agile recommends that at the end of each
sprint, the team lets the customer test the newly
added functionality. Finally, in something akin to
the Andon cord, some versions of agile also include
an immediate escalation to the entire team when a
SLOANREVIEW.MIT.EDU
piece of code does not pass the appropriate auto-
mated testing, effectively again moving the system
fromindividualworktotheteamcollaborationmode.
Viewed from a dynamic work design perspective,
agile offers two potential benefits over waterfall.First,
in waterfall development,the frequency of collabora-
tive episodes is usually too low,both among the team
members and between the team and its customers.A
developerworkingforaweekortwowithoutacheck-
in could waste considerable effort before it’s clear that
he or she has made a mistake or gone off course. In
practice,developersoftendonotwaitthislongandin-
formally check in with supervisors or teammates.
While seemingly functional,these check-ins can lead
to a situation in which the entire team is not working
from a common base of information about the state
of theproject.Insuchcases,theoperatingmodestarts
tomigratefromtheboxonthelowerleft,the“factory”
mode,totheoneonthelowerright,whereambiguous
work is organized serially. This results in costly and
slow iteration, which we call ineffective iteration. (See
“Dysfunctional Dynamics,”p. 35.) Research suggests
that in RD processes,this mode can be highly ineffi-
cient.15
Similarly, checking in with more senior
leadership only in the form of periodic phase-gate
reviews means that the entire team could work
for months before realizing that it is not meeting
management’s expectations, thus also potentially
causingrework.
The agile approach to software development also
improvesthequalityof thetimethatdevelopersspend
working alone. The focus on developing pieces of
functionality means that both the team and the cus-
tomer are never more than a few weeks away from a
piece of software that can be used,making it far easier
toassesswhetheritmeetsthecustomer’sneed.Incon-
trast,inwaterfall,theearlyphasesarecharacterizedby
long lists of requirements and features, but there is
nothing to try or test.It’s not surprising that waterfall
methods often lead to projects in which major defects
Checking in with more senior leadership only in the form
of periodic phase-gate reviews means that the entire team
could work for months before realizing they are not meeting
management’s expectations.
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 22
25. R E D E S I G N I N G WO R K : O P E R AT I O N S
and other shortfalls are discovered very late in the de-
velopmentcycleandrequirecostlyrework.16
Applying Dynamic Work Design
Both the Toyota production system and agile-based
software methods are thus examples of what we call
good dynamic work design. In contrast to traditional
static approaches, dynamic work design recognizes
the inevitability of change and builds in mechanisms
to respond to that. Once managers recognize the
necessity of moving between more individual and
more collaborative modes of work,they can build on
four principles to create shifting mechanisms that are
well matched to the work of their organization.
1. Separate well-defined and ambiguous work.
Begin by clearly separating well-defined and ambig-
uous tasks. Trying to handle both types of work
in the same process often leads to trouble. (See
“Dysfunctional Dynamics.”) Often, the two types
can be separated by inspection, but if not, then look
for the signature element of ambiguous work, itera-
tion. When work is well defined, it can be moved to
the next stage like the baton a relay runner hands off.
When done correctly, it doesn’t need to come back.
In contrast, when work is ambiguous, even the best
effort often needs to be revisited. If you find that a
particular task often requires multiple iterations
through the same set of steps, that’s a good sign that
you are confronting ambiguity inefficiently.
2.Breakprocessesintosmallerunitsofworkthat
aremorefrequentlychecked.If you strip away all the
hype, the agility of any work process — meaning its
ability to both adjust the work due to changing exter-
nal conditions and resolve defects — boils down to
thefrequencyandeffectivenesswithwhichtheoutput
is assessed. In both traditional, pre-Toyota manufac-
turing and waterfall software development, the
assessments are infrequent and not particularly effec-
tive.Consequently,bothapproachestendtobeslowto
adjust to changes in the external environment, and
quality will be achieved only through slow and costly
rework cycles. In contrast, when assessments are
frequent and effective, the process will be highly
adaptable and quality will improve rapidly. The fun-
damental recipe for improved process agility is this:
smaller units of work,more frequently checked.
3.Identify the chain of individuals who support
thosedoingthework.It is also important to identify
thehelpchain—thesequenceof peoplewhosupport
those doing the work. In manufacturing, the help
chain starts with a machine operator and extends
from foremen to supervisors all the way up to the
plant manager. In software, the help chain often be-
gins with an engineer and moves through the team
leader to more senior managers, ultimately ending
withthecustomer.Itiscritical,inourexperience,that
you identify the chains of individuals who do and
support the work, not their roles, departments, or
functions.Increasing agility requires knowing whom
to call when there is a problem or feedback is needed.
4.Introducetriggersandchecksthatmovework
intoacollaborativemode.Once you understand the
help chain, you have two basic mechanisms for acti-
vating it: triggers and checks. A trigger is a test that
reveals defects or misalignment and then moves the
work from a factory mode to a more collaborative
mode.In our opening example,the Toyota operator’s
inability to complete the assembly task on time trig-
gered her pushing a button and then receiving help
from a supervisor. A check involves a prescheduled
pointwhentheworkismovedtoamorecollaborative
environment for assessment. In agile software devel-
opment,thisshifthappensdailyinstand-upmeetings
where the team quickly assesses the current state of
the project.Completing a sprint creates a second op-
portunity,thistimetocheckinwiththecustomer.
Improving Procurement
Performance
Using this dynamic work design framework within
a company can lead to significant improvements in
both efficiency and adaptability. Consider the case
of a company we’ll call “RefineCo,” which owns
several oil refineries and distribution terminals in
the United States. The company had a procurement
organization that was uncompetitive by almost any
benchmark. RefineCo paid more for similar parts
and services than its competitors, and the procure-
ment group’s overhead costs were higher than the
industry average. Even more troubling, when criti-
cal parts were not delivered to a refinery, it often
turned out that the location was on “credit hold”
due to an inability to pay the supplier in a timely
fashion. Every participant in the system, from se-
nior management down to the shipping and
receiving clerks,was frustrated.
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 23
26. DYSFUNCTIONAL DYNAMICS
What happens when organizations don’t do a good job of cycling between factory and studio modes of work? We have observed two
related failure modes, ineffective iteration and wasted attention. When they are combined, they create a truly unproductive work design —
one we have dubbed the axis of frustration. (See “The Axis of Frustration.”)
Ineffective Iteration Consider first what happens when elements
of the work in question are highly ambiguous but are nonetheless
organized serially (captured in the box in the lower right-hand cor-
ner). Relative to a more collaborative design, this approach tends to
create slow and costly iteration. The lack of speed comes
because the ambiguity must travel among participants to be re-
solved, thus requiring multiple rounds, each of which takes time.
Worse, when knowledge work is designed serially, many of these
interactions take place through email or text messaging. Re-
search suggests both that such communication modes are
less effective for reducing ambiguity than face-to-face com-
munication and that those sending such messages are
unaware of those limits.i Trying to resolve ambiguity via email
or text messaging tends to create more misunderstandings
and often necessitates multiple iterations.
Wasted Attention On the flip side, organizing well-defined
work in a collaborative fashion also creates inefficiency. If the
work is clearly defined, then it doesn’t benefit from a collabor-
ative approach, and collaboration just multiplies the cost.
Worse, too much collaboration may prevent the efficiencies
that come with the learning curve that emerges when people
repeat the same task.ii
The Axis of Frustration Whereas functional work processes
move between the factory and studio modes, our research
suggests that absent careful design attention, processes can
devolve to the point where they move between the failure
modes described above, oscillating between wasted attention
and ineffective iteration — the dynamic we call the axis of
frustration.
Getting stuck on the axis of frustration typically starts
with time pressure — a project is behind schedule or a more
repetitive process is not delivering on its targets. When peo-
ple feel they are behind, they don’t want to take the time to
shift into collaborative studio mode for problem-solving, pre-
ferring to stay in the factory box on the lower left and “just get
the work done.” The consequence of this decision is to leave
one or more problems unresolved, whether it is an element of
a product design that doesn’t work or a defect in a manufactured
product. Eventually, these problems will be discovered, usually
by an activity downstream from the one that generated it. And, if
this problem is not then solved in collaborative studio mode (again
due to time pressure) but instead sent back for rework, then the
system has effectively moved from the box on the lower left to the
box on the lower right and is now in “ineffective iteration” mode.
The consequence of ineffective iteration is that the process
becomes increasingly inefficient and incapable of meeting its
targets. Senior leaders are, of course, unlikely to stand idly by
and will eventually intervene. Unfortunately, the typical interven-
tion is often to scrutinize the offending process in more detail,
usually in the form of more frequent and more detailed review
meetings. (As a manager we once interviewed said, “I knew
my project was in trouble when I was required to give hourly
updates.”) But the form of those reviews makes all the difference.
If they are well designed and focus on resolving the key problems
that are causing the iteration, then they can move the system
back to a more productive cycling between factory and studio
modes. Such interventions, however, are the exception rather
than the rule.
Most work processes have not been designed with escalation
mechanisms in mind. So, when senior managers want to intervene
and scrutinize a project, they don’t know where to look and want to
review everything. The result of such scrutiny is long review meet-
ings, the majority of which focus on elements of the process that are
just fine, thereby trapping the process in the upper left-hand box,
“wasted attention.” Worse, long review meetings and the prepara-
tion that they require steal time and resources from actual work, thus
intensifying the time pressure that prevented a proper shift between
work modes in the first place. Without careful attention to the mecha-
nisms that move a process between the individual and collaborative
modes, processes can increasingly cycle between ineffective itera-
tion and wasted attention, basically moving between frantically trying
to solve (or at least hide) the latest problem before the next review,
and endless, soul-destroying review meetings that never get to
solving the problems that would really make a difference.
Organize
collaboratively
Organize
serially
“Factory” Ineffective iteration
Wasted attention “Studio”
Well-defined
work
The axis of
frustration
Ambiguous
work
THE AXIS OF FRUSTRATION
When organizations make the mistake of both structuring
well-defined work collaboratively and ambiguous work
serially, the result is a highly inefficient process we call
the axis of frustration. This process oscillates between
wasted attention and ineffective iteration.
SPECIAL COLLECTION • HOW WINNING TEAMS WORK • MIT SLOAN MANAGEMENT REVIEW 24