A well-oiled machine

In a job I held in the recent past, I worked on a very high-functioning well-organized team, that operated with great efficiency and success.  To the "clients" we served, no single member of the team was stronger than another, but I attribute much of this viewpoint to the successes of our communication and understanding of roles, responsibilities, knowledge and ability to recognize each other's value.  The office was a small office--only three of us to serve a team of three advisors and more than 25 faculty.  And while sometimes we stepped on each others toes, it was normally for good reason, and borne of this overlap were great ideas and processes to simplify our work and unify our outbound "products" (i.e. requested information, budgets, logistics, events, etc.).

In this team my colleague and I (I'll call her Sally for the sake of anonymity) answered to one boss (I'll call her Harriet).  Sally had a defined role in which she handled anything associated with graduate studies.  Nothing happened on the graduate side of the department without Sally's approval.  Similarly, I handled everything on the undergraduate side of the department.  Harriet managed Sally and I and everything associated with human resources and the financial processes (as these naturally connect to the undergrad and grad side of the department).  Admittedly, this is a somewhat oversimplification of our job responsibilities, but should provide enough information that you get the picture.

While I did use the words "one boss" in the above description, I should clarify that that is not the type of structure our office had.  Technically speaking, we worked in a simple hierarchy and Harriet reported directly to the Department Head.  But a hierarchy is not how we operated on a daily basis (probably due to the lack of need for daily Department Head supervision).  A more accurate description would be: our staff of three operated as an all-channel network like that described by Bolman and Deal.  Let me describe further...

As part of my job, I also directed people to the appropriate point of contact who could give the most accurate response.  In a sense, I "conducted the train," if you will, and as a result I solved much of the "assignment problem."  By establishing me as a conductor, Harriet made a conscious decision that I would need to know what everyone else knows.  Harriet sent an announcement to our clients informing them that all questions should initially be directed to me.  From there, I would send them to the correct contact.  This allowed me to avoid knowing the answer to every question and instead, who could appropriately answer the question.  This division of responsibility narrowed our fields of focus, and then we were accountable for knowing the minutiae associated with our field.  As a result of our focused knowledge, rarely did we receive a question that we could not answer immediately.

If a faculty member asked a question to which we did not know an answer, our skills continued to prevail.  By quickly consulting with one another, we developed responses that combined our knowledge of University processes/policies/procedures and provided superior responses to invariably tricky questions.  Without fail, we could produce an accurate response.  The key to our facade of perfection, was a result of our efforts to know as much as we could and share it when the time was right.  I should mention that the close proximity of our offices (located in one suite) may have been a significant factor in the ability to quickly and easily communicate and provide solutions.  There was no need to wait on a set of correspondences or clarifying terms--we simply walked in to one another's offices and asked questions.

A parenthetical note:
I should mention quickly, though, this idea of walking in to one another's offices probably produced a certain number of inefficiencies.  Interrupting one person's work to get their input definitely creates some wasted time.  On the other hand, answering difficult questions with a team of colleagues, generates new knowledge and creates a sense of community among the team.  I should also mention quickly that the transaction costs in terms of monitoring each other was extremely low which probably led to a happier boss and less stressful work environment.  From the time I was hired, I noticed the team was comprised of hard-working individuals and there would be no question as to who was pulling their weight.  If one of us needed assistance, the other two quickly offered their expertise.

The last thing I would like to mention is that our personalities clicked.  While this is not something we discussed in the context of this class, I think it is important to mention.  With such a small team, had even just one of us not felt a sense of responsibility to the team, the result would've been catastrophic.  While technically Harriet was our boss, she would better be described as a member of the team with the responsibility of making the final decision on discretionary matters.  I suppose part of her responsibility would have been to take action to correct poor performance by any member of the team, but our superior staff was not subject to such action.

Overall, our team could not have been described as anything less than a well-oiled machine.  We operated at a peak level of efficiency and quickly corrected problems that tend to exist in poorly functioning teams.  I would be so inclined to suggest that our team was "self-managed."