Page 259 - DMGT402_MANAGEMENT_PRACTICES_AND_ORGANIZATIONAL_BEHAVIOUR

Management Practices and Organisational Behaviour

Notes 11. Be an effective listener: You need to listen with intensity, empathy, objectivity, and
do whatever is necessary to get the full intended meaning from each participant’s
comment.
12. Bring proper closure: You should close a meeting by summarizing the group’s
accomplishments; clarifying what actions, if any, need to follow the meeting; and
allocating follow-up assignments. If any decisions are made, you also need to
determine who will be responsible for communicating and implementing them.
Source: Stephen P Robbins, “Organisational Behavior – Concepts, Controversies, Applications” (Seventh Edition),
Prentice Hall Englewood Cliffs NJ 07632 page 327.

Case Study Self-directed Work Teams

t's hard to think of the Internal Revenue Service as a service organisation, let alone one
that has customers. But for the last decade or so, the IRS has actually devoted itself to
Icustomer service – in fact, the agency considers customer service to be a strategic
business objective.
Realizing that the only way to achieve better service was through its employees, former
IRS commissioner Larry Gibbs turned to the human resource department for help. In
conjunction with the union, the HR department instituted a quality improvement process
with more than 400 formal task groups to identify and solve problems, then move to a
strategy of continuous improvement in service.
Initially, the IRS formed four task groups (called "impact teams") that could be monitored
closely for their effectiveness. Each group was small, about twenty members. A manager
was assigned as the leader. The groups were aligned by function, such as tax collection or
criminal investigation, and tasks were specific and measurable, within the realm of each
group's own work processes. Groups were required to use a structured decision-making
model, and though consensus was encouraged, it was not a high priority.
Even with a rigid, closely monitored structure, the groups had to go through stages of
development. Leaders and facilitators (who had separate roles within the groups) first
completed special training sessions on small-group dynamics. But as the groups actually
got going, members often discovered the theories weren't necessarily applicable because
opportunities to practice them didn't always arise. So the groups had to find their own
paths of development.

Eight months after the impact teams began working together, the IRS administered a
questionnaire designed to measure their progress in effective small-group dynamics and
communication. It seemed that three of the four groups were pleased with the way they
had evolved, and most members had developed mutual acceptance, trust, and an ability to
communicate and make decisions together. They said they valued being able to ask each
other questions.
How productive were the groups? Those that tackled small, concrete projects first showed
the best performance. For instance, one team that was located in an area that served a high
volume of taxpayers decided that service could be improved by ensuring that lunch and
other breaks were taken on schedule – so they synchronized the office clocks every two
weeks. Later, as the program expanded, different groups achieved the following: one
created an automated database program that identified taxpayers who were liable for
federal taxes so that state benefits could be withheld; one wrote a step-by-step employee
handbook for preparing tax adjustments; and one made changes in a single tax form that
Contd....

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