The Value of the Sum of the Parts

Recently, I saw a video of a group of vocal artists in a sound chamber producing various tones simultaneously. Their combined sound produced a completely new and unique tone that could not be produced by any one individual. It was a great demonstration of what is possible by leveraging the power of the sum of the parts in a system.

In a similar fashion, team members working collaboratively and interdependently can produce results far better than when they operate independently of each other even when they are working tremendously hard.

One team of dedicated, hard-working employees put in at least ten hours of overtime every week. Many team members had put off vacation for an entire year because they were afraid they would find themselves in an impossible situation when they returned and had to catch up on the additional backlog caused by their absence.

When I suggested the team take a day off to help them work better together, some shouted, “No way!” They were not about to be buried by time off of task for any reason. From their perspective, the suggestion was irresponsible. Despite the resistance, I managed to negotiate two half-day sessions separated by two weeks. During the first session, and over the verbal complaints of some, we mapped key processes and identified redundancies and overly complex process paths. Eliminating just a few of them by simply improving how team members worked together produced an entire day of new time to catch up on the backlog. The second session produced even more efficiencies raising team productivity over 40%.

We have repeated this process with dozens of teams each time finding many ways team members could simplify work and produce better results.

If your team is working hard but having trouble keeping up with the workload, give them time to review their core work processes and find ways to work better together. There are always weaknesses in the system and opportunities to create synergies that produce outcomes only available to a group of hard-working individuals working more inter-dependently in the same system.

Kevin Herring is co-author of Practical Guide for Internal Consultants, and President of Ascent Management Consulting. Kevin can be contacted at kevinh@ascentmgt.com.

Ascent Management Consulting is found at www.ascentmgt.com and specializes in performance turnarounds, leadership coaching, and appraisal-less performance management.