Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy

Amy C. Edmondson

Book | 2012

Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy

Abstract

Continuous improvement, understanding complex systems, and promoting innovation are all part of the landscape of learning challenges today's companies face. I show that organizations thrive, or fail to thrive, based on how well the small groups within those organizations work. In most organizations, the work that produces value for customers is carried out by teams, and increasingly, by flexible team-like entities. The pace of change and the fluidity of most work structures mean that it's not really about creating effective teams anymore, but instead about leading effective teaming. 'Teaming' shows that organizations learn when the flexible, fluid collaborations they encompass are able to learn. The problem is teams, and other dynamic groups, don't learn naturally. I outline the factors that prevent them from doing so, such as interpersonal fear, irrational beliefs about failure, groupthink, problematic power dynamics, and information hoarding. With 'Teaming,' leaders can shape these factors by encouraging reflection, creating psychological safety, and overcoming defensive interpersonal dynamics that inhibit the sharing of ideas. Further, they can use practical management strategies to help organizations realize the benefits inherent in both success and failure. Based on years of research, this book shows how leaders can make organizational learning happen by building teams that learn.

Keywords: Change; Interpersonal Communication; Learning; Values and Beliefs; Innovation and Invention; Management; Performance Improvement; Groups and Teams; Research; Strategy; Complexity; Value;

Format: Print

Find at Harvard Purchase

Citation:

Edmondson, Amy C. Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy. Jossey-Bass, 2012.

Case | HBS Case Collection | December 2018

Corporate Transformation at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany

Joseph B. Fuller, Amy C. Edmondson, Daniela Beyersdorfer and Tonia Labruyere

When Stefan Oschmann became CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, in 2016, the company had started its transformation from a mid-tier traditional German industry player to a global modern science and technology player. The restructuring and portfolio overhaul led by Oschmann’s predecessor Karl-Ludwig Kley since 2007 had been approved by the Merck founding family in its 13th generation, which still owned the majority of the shares. Its intermediate results had been encouraging. After three large acquisitions (Serono, Millipore, and Sigma-Aldrich) that broadened its reach from healthcare and pharmaceuticals into life sciences and performance materials and an internal optimization program, revenues and profitability had doubled in the decade leading up to 2016. But more needed to be done. Preparing for the company’s 350-year anniversary in 2018, Oschmann had kept up the pace of change, and announced further divestments and restructurings, sparking reactions from employees who expressed increasing exasperation about the new measures. In the fall of 2017 Oschmann and his Executive Board had to decide on the best strategic option for the company’s consumer health division. Should they divest a division that lacked scale but that with its consumer brands in pain and cold remedies was viewed as a symbol of the company’s origins? Was more change too much change in such a short time?

Keywords: Corporate governance with Family Ownership; Transformation; Change Management; Restructuring; Corporate Governance;

Citation:

Fuller, Joseph B., Amy C. Edmondson, Daniela Beyersdorfer, and Tonia Labruyere. "Corporate Transformation at Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany." Harvard Business School Case 319-072, December 2018. View Details

Cite View Details Educators

This paper complements the manager-centered analysis of dynamic capabilities with a team-based approach focused on team learning. We argue that team learning capabilities intertwine with managerial cognitive capabilities to support the processes of sensing, seizing, and reconfiguring. We draw from the literature on team learning to develop four categories based on the orientation (exploration/exploitation) and locus (internal/external) of learning in teams: reflexive, experimental, contextual, and vicarious learning. We integrate these categories into the dynamic capabilities framework to show their particular relevance at different points along the sensing-seizing-reconfiguring pathway and assess their potential impact on innovation and strategic change. The framework contributes by adding a meso lens to research on dynamic capabilities to help scholars better understand how learning that occurs in teams may support entrepreneurial managers in enacting their cognitive capabilities in service of sustained innovation and superior firm performance.

Cross-boundary teaming, within and across organizations, is an increasingly popular strategy for innovation. Knowledge diversity is seen to expand the range of views and ideas that teams can draw upon to innovate. Yet, case studies reveal that teaming across knowledge boundaries can be difficult in practice, and innovation is not always realized. Two streams of research are particularly relevant for understanding the challenges inherent in cross-boundary teaming: research on team effectiveness and research on knowledge in organizations. They offer complementary insights: the former stream focuses on group dynamics and measures team inputs, processes, emergent states, and outcomes, while the latter closely investigates dialog and objects in recurrent social practices. Drawing from both streams, this paper seeks to shed light on the complexity of cross-boundary teaming, while highlighting factors that may enhance its effectiveness. We develop an integrative model to provide greater explanatory power than previous approaches to assess cross-boundary teaming efforts and their innovation performance.

Faculty & Research

Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy

Abstract

Citation:

About the Author

More from the Author