Team Leadership in High-Hazard Environments

Performance, Safety and Risk Management Strategies for Operational Teams

Randy E. Cadieux

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317046509
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Relaciones laborales e industriales

Safety performance is a complicated issue, particularly in high-hazard environments, where time and other constraints can be amplified, and result in numerous impacts. From an organizational and business perspective, safety and production/performance are often seen as competing goals. When production is increased, safety defenses and barriers frequently decrease, and when programs are developed in an effort to improve safety, employees may be unable to meet production goals within the safety constraints. Team Leadership in High-Hazard Environments recognizes these difficulties and constraints and proposes an approach to safety leadership in which safety and organizational performance are inextricably linked; one that addresses safety from both the systems and human factors perspectives. To that end, Randy Cadieux introduces the nine essential components to team leadership. By studying these areas and using the information in each chapter, organizational leaders, managers, and supervisors will gain an understanding of key factors that will help them design, develop, and implement team training programs that improve the way employees work together and the way they mitigate hazards. Additionally, the book describes how work systems and work environments may be designed or shaped so that teams are placed in a position to do their optimal work, maximizing the potential for human and team performance. This is an important book that draws on techniques and models developed from Crew Resource Management, human factors, risk management, as well as more traditional HR management disciplines.

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Chapter 1
What is Effective Teamwork?

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Leadership in high-hazard environments presents unique challenges to both the team leader and team members. Leadership alone is a challenging skill, but when combined with the difficulties of managing work and coordinating team actions amongst operational hazards, or while faced with high amounts of pressure to get the job done, team leadership takes on a new meaning. Coordinating the actions of individuals so that a common goal can be accomplished is often easy to describe, but hard to achieve. How often have you heard people make comments about effective teamwork? Statements like, “we need better teamwork” or “we need to work more effectively as a team” resonate within organizations, yet these statements are often met with blank stares and little to no action or follow-through. That might be because in many instances effective teamwork is not well-defined, and therefore, cannot be well understood. Maybe, first, it will help to describe what effective teamwork is not. Against the backdrop of high-hazard environments, ineffective teamwork begins to take on a unique meaning.

Ineffective teamwork has higher consequences in high-hazard environments, which are often unforgiving, when the results can be devastating. Consider the following examples of ineffective teamwork and the impacts:

• A crew is conducting a cutting procedure on an underwater gas pipeline, where a diver is required to cut a section of pipe with a hole saw in order to tap into the pipeline. The crew consists of a diver, who is underwater with a saw, and a crew above the surface of the water, including a supervisor. During the process of cutting into a section of the pipe, the diver realizes something is wrong. When he attempts to assert his position and tell the supervisor he believes there are problems with the job, the supervisor uses his authority and directs the diver to go back underwater and continue cutting. Subsequently the diver cuts into the gas line, releasing natural gas into the water (Accident Investigation Report 2–3).

• The crew of a four-engine military transport aircraft is conducting an approach to landing after one of the engines has been shut down as a precautionary measure. During the approach to landing, the crew inadvertently swaps power levers, attempting to add power to an engine that is already shut down, effectively rendering the aircraft with the power equivalent of two engines. This ultimately results in the aircraft crashing short of the runway, causing catastrophic damage and numerous injuries (Marciniak).

These are real-world examples of team-based situations that occurred where teamwork was not effectively used to accomplish the desired goals at the time of the operations and where safety was compromised, at least partially, as a result of breakdowns in teamwork. These cases are not meant to lay blame on any of the crews involved in the situations, and there are certainly more contributing factors than ineffective teamwork, but are used as examples to show how collapses in teamwork can negatively affect mission outcomes, potentially allowing the consequences of hazards to escalate. By identifying ineffective aspects of teamwork we can then turn to a productive discussion on the elements of teamwork that help team members to function more productively and accomplish the goals associated with their operations. Some general symptoms of ineffective teamwork may include:

• Poor communication: Team members do not effectively communicate essential job requirements, either through written, electronic, or verbal means.

• Uncoordinated actions: Team members work either in isolation or near each other, but their efforts do not appear to be in sync. This often results in task repetition, where two or more people perform the same task (leading to waste and lost productivity), tasks not being performed at all (when one team member thinks another team member is doing the work, leading to serious task omissions), and overall errors in task performance.

• Unfocused efforts: Much like uncoordinated actions, unfocused efforts disrupt the flow of team activities. This may mean that individual team members lack a clear understanding of what job aspects they should perform, or could be the result of a distracting and hazardous operational environment, resulting in confusion and tasks not being completed correctly or not being completed by a certain deadline.

• Internal conflict: A truly disruptive aspect of teamwork is unmitigated internal conflict. If team members are in intermittent or continuous conflict with each other or the team leaders, the result can be degraded productivity, efficiency, and focus.

• Improper staffing and training: When teams are not staffed with the correct number of qualified individuals, job accomplishment may be extremely difficult to achieve. Additionally, if employees are not properly trained to do their jobs, even the right number of employees for the work at hand can still result in a lack of adequate job quality and safety.

• Lack of shared objectives: This can often be one of the key indicators and causes of ineffective teamwork. When team members and leaders do not have a common understanding of what the job is and why they are performing the necessary tasks, it can be extremely difficult to harness the collective energy and commitment to perform the work correctly, to avoid discord within the team, and to commit to necessary levels of safety.

• Lack of continuous performance and risk assessment during high-hazard operations: Oftentimes, after a job commences, risks that were identified prior to work commencement are not reassessed, and when new risks emerge, they are not viewed with the same level of scrutiny, or, due to a lack of open and honest communications, the potential significance of the risks are not brought to light. Additionally, errors are not assessed in terms of their potential downstream impacts and potential cascading effects.

While we could continue to discuss these attributes in more detail, this list at least begins to help us understand some of the traits that degrade effective teamwork. Additionally, although these qualities tend to impede individual and team performance, they are not necessarily unusual or uncommon in many organizations. So, in many organizations trying to maintain high levels of productivity and safety, there are teams that lack the necessary communication skills, training, or tools, lack overall work system coordination, lack focus and are filled with unproductive internal conflict, that are not staffed with the right number of trained employees, and that lack shared objectives and a true understanding of the team goals. Yet, many of these teams are still able to function at passable levels. While this may be true, and even though jobs may be completed, teams that function in these ways are missing the opportunity to achieve exceptional performance, with less waste, and with increased levels of safety. In other cases, teams with these types of traits have consistent low levels of performance and struggle to keep up with basic processes. If they struggle to keep up with basic work accomplishment, how would they perform if the job requirements increased due to internal or external factors, such as shortened deadlines, decreased budgets, or staffing cuts? By building effective teamwork strategies from the beginning and integrating these strategies into organizations’ teamwork requirements, teams should be better-suited to handle changing performance demands and may be more adaptable to internal or external change.

Now that we have looked at some of the characteristics of ineffective teamwork, we can turn to the task of creating a common framework or description of effective teamwork, and since our focus is on teamwork in high-hazard environments, any definition or description will necessarily include concepts related to hazardous work. For the purposes of our discussion, let’s define effective teamwork as, “the coordinated and cooperative efforts of a team that are adequate to accomplish shared performance and safety goals.” This definition highlights the need for cooperation, coordination, and a common shared objective, while meeting the safety goals of the team.

Effective teamwork, then, may be described as a state or mode of operating where individual actions are coordinated in such a manner that supports safe and successful mission outcomes. Notice that our definition describes teamwork as a state or mode, as opposed to a static property. This is because in order for teamwork to remain effective, team actions must be actively managed and coordinated, and teams must be overseen by competent leaders. Effective teamwork is a continuous process, not something that is simply achieved once and for all, like a qualification. Much like a sports team that may win championship titles in one season and must continue to work season after season to maintain that level of achievement, operations teams must continue to pursue actions that help maintain levels of effectiveness. Additionally, in order for teams to exist and operate in this condition of effectiveness, certain attributes must be driven by the team leader and adopted by each team member.

Elements of an Effective Team

While the topic of team effectiveness could be the focus of an entire book by itself, a short description of effective team attributes will help frame the discussion on teamwork as well as subsequent chapters on the Essential Components of team leadership in high-hazard environments. This section of the chapter will identify and expand upon certain key attributes that may help teams operate more effectively and at optimal levels. This effectiveness may include several benefits, including increased coordination, fewer errors, earlier error identification (and perhaps correction), reduced rework and waste, and improved accuracy of results. Additionally, since this book is highly focused on teams that operate in high-hazard environments, safety should also be tied into the definition of effectiveness. Identifying and describing these key areas should help you understand some of the qualities teams need to operate effectively and understand how to integrate these concepts into employee and team-improvement programs. Many of the following attributes will also be covered in more detail throughout the book, including Chapters 2 through 10, which relate to the Essential Components of team leadership in high-hazard environments.

SAFETY FOCUS

One of the main characteristics of teams that operate effectively in high-hazard environments is a focus on safety. While some may argue that safety is simply an add-on attribute that teams look to develop after they build proficiency in their craft or trade, safety is actually an integral and necessary quality teams need so they can work at optimized levels for job accomplishment. This is because safety helps teams to limit or eliminate unnecessary risk, and to reduce waste through the preservation of human and material assets. When organizations fail to design safety into tasks, processes, and operations, the employees doing the work tend to be exposed to increased hazards on a regular basis and in some cases, the severity of hazard consequences may be misunderstood, or downplayed. Unmitigated hazards, when combined with human exposure, can often result in injuries or fatalities. Even a single lost-work day from a work-related accident can impact operational teams and their ability to conduct work effectively. Therefore, safety should be viewed as a critical element of effective work system design and an emphasis on safety is a key characteristic of effective teams. High-performing teams will place an emphasis on identifying risks, determining where and how things can go wrong, ways employees may be hurt, and strategies for mitigating these hazards. This process should be built into work planning strategies so teams view it as a “normal way of doing business” rather than an addendum after planning is complete.

TRAINING AND QUALIFICATION

One of the hallmarks of effective teams is an emphasis on ensuring employees receive adequate job training and evaluating employees for task/job proficiency and competency by a qualified evaluator. There is a distinct difference between training, proficiency/competency, and qualification. Training may be described as the process of learning a craft or skill, while proficiency or competency is a measurement of the ability of an employee to actually effectively apply that training in an operational context. Qualification is the final step after an employee is deemed proficient or competent after undergoing an assessment by an authorized evaluator. It is important for supervisors, team leaders, and managers to understand the difference. Effective teams are comprised of individuals who have achieved the required level of qualification for their position through a training and evaluation process. Additionally, training and qualification in effective teams typically falls into at least two categories: Initial and Refresher (also called Recurrent) Training and Qualification.

1. Initial Training is typically conducted when a team member is preparing to work in a new position. He or she must complete training and pass an evaluation before being allowed to work on a team without the supervision of a trainer.

2. Refresher Training is typically conducted at pre-defined intervals, and should be designed to help ensure that team members maintain the knowledge, skills, and abilities required to complete a task or job. When teams fail to utilize a refresher or recurrent training approach, team members may be operating with outdated knowledge and/or performance gaps may not be detected.

COMPETENCY AT ALL LEVELS OF THE TEAM

While it may be tempting to think that only certain members of the team need to be competent, effective teamwork really requires every team member to be qualified and competent at the job being performed. Some may think that only the employees at the sharp end (those doing the work and closest to the hazards) need to be qualified and proficient, but it is essential for supervisors and team leaders (even if they are removed from direct hazard exposure) to possess the appropriate level of proficiency and qualifications in order to properly supervise and manage the job or operation at hand and to be able to effectively lead the team during operational execution. Team leaders may not necessarily need to be qualified or competent at every job being performed by each team member, but they should at least have an understanding of the specific tasks that need to be completed during the process or operation. If supervisors and management/leadership staff are not competent and qualified at their oversight duties, they may lack the ability to properly direct the actions of team members and they will often lose credibility in the eyes of their subordinates, which can make followership problematic. Consider a situation where a stand-in supervisor from another department is called in to oversee a team during an operation where he or she has little to no knowledge or experience. This supervisor is in a poor position to make decisions and team members may see this supervisor as incompetent (and perhaps rightly so). This perception can degrade team effectiveness and reduce the authority of the supervisor.

APPROPRIATE RANGE OF EXPERIENCE

Effective teams are not only made up of competent and qualified individuals, they also employ a variety of experience levels and expertise so that a balance is achieved between operational execution and ongoing training and learning. When organizations neglect to staff their teams and crews with this range of experience several problems can occur, ranging from a lack of knowledge (leading to poor task execution and a reduced ability to effectively solve complex or unexpected problems) to a lack of organizational knowledge transfer between experienced and novice team members. A well-balanced team includes the following qualities:

• Experienced employees who are willing to mentor and train new employees.

• Supervisors who take a hands-on approach and who help other team members solve problems and learn from their successes and errors.

• Experienced team members who are consistently focused on training their replacement(s), whomever they may be. These team members understand that continuity of skills and knowledge transfer is required for continued team and organizational effectiveness and learning, and therefore do not feel threatened by sharing this knowledge with others. Since they do not feel threatened by this knowledge transfer, they are not afraid to impart their experience to other team members.

• New-hires and lesser-experienced employees, who are willing to learn, are eager to contribute to the team’s goals, and who are also willing to share their knowledge and ideas. Novice employees are just as important as experienced employees because they will provide the continuity when more experienced employees leave the team as a result of retirement, job transfer, or personal reasons. Novices can also present a fresh perspective to older/more experienced employees who may have become set in their ways, and this fresh perspective can often reveal opportunities for team improvement.

COLLABORATION

Effective teamwork includes a spirit of collaboration. While it may seem obvious that collaboration is a requirement for teams to accomplish their goals, it is quite easy to ignore the need for team members to cooperate with each other. By not deliberately focusing on the collaborative nature of effective teams, employees may get very comfortable working independently, apart from other members. This can even occur when employees are working in close proximity to each other. Collaboration in its simplest form means working together, which includes participating with each other when key decisions are made, such as during resource allocation. Effective collaboration includes an understanding of the personal and professional attributes every person brings to the team, from the technical knowledge, skills, and abilities required for the job, to the non-technical aspects of team interaction, including supportive and helpful attitudes, social interaction and motivational skills, and the ability to listen and facilitate team activities. Many of the requirements for developing a collaborative work environment are the responsibility of senior leaders and managers (above the team level, such as director-level positions), but collaborative facilitation flows down to the team leader and supervisor level. If organizational and local leaders do not facilitate a collaborative work environment many of the team activities will be disjointed, potentially resulting in waste, rework, and even in failure to complete job requirements.

SHARED MISSION OBJECTIVES OR ORGANIZATIONAL/TEAM GOALS

One critical element of team effectiveness is the requirement for shared objectives or goals among team members. This means that all team members have been briefed on the overall goal of the mission or job, as well as specific task completion requirements. It can also be helpful when team members are told how their specific tasks or job completion requirements fit into the overall process or operation, which helps them understand their contribution to the “the big picture,” or other areas within the organization. This description could include how effective job accomplishment will enable meeting customer or stakeholder needs. While this explanation may not make team members better at their individual crew positions, it may help provide additional motivation to work together as a team, particularly when employees have a strong connection to the organization and its mission. Tying their individual/team actions to organizational and/or mission success may help shape positive team-oriented attitudes and may help link individual action to overall vision or goals.

LEADER’S INTENT

Leader’s Intent is derived from a term known as “Commander’s Intent,” which is a concept that has been used in the military to help set the environment for effective and efficient teamwork. Leader’s Intent is a guiding principle or set of principles that, in the absence of prescriptive orders, tasks, or job statements, allows team members and supervisors to make decisions during job planning and operational execution. Leader’s Intent is helpful if it is in the form of a statement regarding the desired outcomes of the job or process (Command and Control 72). This deliberate statement may be known as a Leader’s Intent Statement, which helps provide a vision of a desired end-state to team members, who can then wrap their minds around what their team leader wants accomplished. Since a well-defined Leader’s Intent Statement explains what needs to be done, but not necessarily how to do the work, it allows employees a degree of freedom to use their knowledge, skills, abilities, and collaborative capacity to complete the job in the most effective and efficient manner feasible.

DISTRIBUTED LEADERSHIP AND DECISION MAKING

Effective teamwork requires team members who can make decisions that are in the best interest of both employee safety and job accomplishment. This type of decision making c...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• List of Abbreviations
• Reviews of Team Leadership in High-Hazard Environments
• Introduction
• 1 What is Effective Teamwork?
• 2 Authority and Responsibility in Operational Teams
• 3 Leadership in Operational Teams
• 4 Team Communications
• 5 Focus on Operations and Safety
• 6 Job Planning and Execution Analysis
• 7 Resilience, Adaptability, and Adaptive Capacity
• 8 Decision-Making Techniques for Operational Teams
• 9 Mutual Support and Backup
• 10 Time-Sensitive Risk Management
• Conclusion: Integrating Team Leadership and Performance into Daily Operations
• Bibliography
• Index