An Ethnographical Case Study; NOBODY IS AS SMART AS EVERYBODY" - A Japanese Proverb; The Story of a High-Performing Work Team

An Ethnographical Case Study “NOBODY IS AS SMART AS EVERYBODY” – A Japanese Proverb The Story of a High-Performing Work Team Abstract This is a case study looking at the critical events that created a high-performing... [ view full abstract ]

An Ethnographical Case Study

“NOBODY IS AS SMART AS EVERYBODY” – A Japanese Proverb
The Story of a High-Performing Work Team

Abstract

This is a case study looking at the critical events that created a high-performing work team. The case is of interest because of the team’s success, the unique events involved, the creative people who were on the team, and the characteristics that defined the team and generated its powerful work environment. This case study is meant to help identify the characteristics of a high performing team (Feagin, Orum, & Sjoberg, 1991, p. 121).

This case is a story describing the team members, executive management, and the team leader’s experiences and recollections of a high-performing work team that installed an employee ownership program at a 70 year-old infrastructure service company. While “high-performing work team” is a term that is generally undefined but often bantered about, everyone involved with this program agrees that, by any measure or standard, our team was “high performing.” The team met its budget goals, met all the schedules and deadlines set, implemented new technology that ran without a problem, and even now when many are questioning the wisdom of inviting individuals to own part of the company they work for, this program stands as a model for sharing a business’s growth and wealth with its employees.

The team was led by a seasoned business professional that had joined the company approximately three months before the project started. The team consisted of a group of six people who were technical experts in their field, who helped design and had primary responsibility for installing the ownership program in what was a 4,000-person company. The project would be completed over two years; the total budget would be $2 million, and at various times the program would consume 100% of the time of approximately 15 internal employees as well as several members of an outside law firm, an accounting firm, and a few outside consultants. It would also be one of the major focuses of the board of directors and its executive sponsor for the two-year period it took to complete. The case was built using interviews of the team leader, team members, the executive sponsor of the project and review of extensive documentation that was archived as part of project implementation.