High Performance Teams in Shared Services

High Performance Teams (HPTs) in Shared Services.

What is the key to a successful and sustainable Shared Services implementation and operations? While strategy experts draft out a master framework to build and implement a Shared Service, what is required to implement and sustain the shared service to function at its optimum level?Is it the technology that you deploy or is it the people that you choose? 

Most of the experts would say it is both. They are in fact two sides of the same coin. While technology is more tangible to describe and implement, people, on the other hand, might be difficult to choose and measure. So you may want to spend more time in forming your team as they would be the key in implementing and operating your Shared Services strategy.

Implementing or transforming your Shared Services would mean a lot of change management both in terms of changing technology as well as people’s way of working. To make this happen, you will need to form a High Performance team with team members who go beyond boundary lines to make things work in an environment where change is usually avoided.

So how do you choose members for your HPT?

Two prominent and well known ways of profiling individuals are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and DISC profiling techniques. Although these are formal ways of finding the right people, there are some tell-tale signs that will tell whether the individuals that you are ear-marking for the Shared Services Project are the right fit or not.

‘Never Say Die’ Attitude: Individuals with a ‘Never Say Die’ attitude are important for a HPT. Although the knowledge of certain concepts are important, place more emphasis in the attitude of Individuals while selecting them.  In one of live cases I know, while implementing Business Shared Services, the implementation team while chalking out the change plan, felt that the easiest transition would be with the IT team. However, we realised later that the IT team although supposed to be trained in ITIL was the toughest team to change. I had a team member who did not have any background in the field of ITIL , but who persistently went behind the IT team to have them adopt the new ITIL ticketing tool as per the BSS change plan. The individual learnt everything there was to know about ITIL and was able to answer the IT team’s queries which enabled the change.

Tech Savvy: It is very important that the team you choose are a bunch of technically enabled people who are able to link technology to daily use. One of the classic examples that I can recall of linking technology to daily use is the use of camera mobile phones in helping the Shared Services go live in the Online Onboarding System. The new system required that prospective candidates upload scanned copies of their education and previous employments which would then be sent to the background check agencies for verification. While there was a lot of push back from the recruitment team to this online system, one of the Shared Services member implementing the project, suggested that new joiners upload a clear picture of the document using a phone since most of the new joiners today have a camera mobile phone. This move worked well and the project was implemented without any hurdles saving close to 50% time for the recruiters.  

Teamwork: When you choose strong individuals for the team, you also bring along traits of hard-headedness.  Choose people who show traits of teamwork. Situational Leadership is very important in any HPTs. Many a times you will find ‘Out of the Box’ ideas from the least expected Individual when faced with an issue. It is important to listen, trust and hand over leadership to that person to tide over issues faster and in a quicker manner.  Different people in the team bring different skills along with them. It’s important for the teams to collaborate and utilise each other’s skills effectively. It’s also important for the leader of the team to assign responsibilities and see to it that team members work with synergy.  

Sense of Documentation: Make sure the team that you select is high on documentation skills. The very basic element of a Shared Services set up is its innate ability to deliver without people dependencies. It is very important the all transactions are systematically documented in the Knowledge Management tool. A lot of quick fix solutions generally tend to get missed out in documentation. 

Utilising HPTs in your SS

Every group that is formed is most likely to go through the Tuckman’s group development tool of Forming, Storming, Norming and Performing. It is important that HPTs go through these stages to stabilise and understand the team’s strengths and weaknesses before plunging into delivering what they are set out to do. You would not want the teams to start bickering within themselves while implementing the SS project. A good leader with participative leadership will be required to keep the team together during all phases. I have seen some very good teams which were being formed disintegrating due to conflict and lack of direction by the team leader in resolving conflicts within the team.

High Performing Teams need High Challenging Jobs 

The design of your Shared Services has to be in such a way that the teams have a steady stream of challenges unfolding before them to utilise their skills. One of the better ways to do this is to implement the ITIL way of Incident – Problem – Change ecosystem in the Shared Services.  This environment allows generation of enough data for the teams to work on newer projects that are being logged on a continuous basis. Innovation is one of the prime movers for HPTs. You need to have avenues for them to innovate. My experience with the ITIL way of working and with HPTs, is that HPTs themselves start generating change initiatives while working on their existing projects. So what you have is an endless list of challenges to do for the HPTs which in turn result in loads of cost and time savings for your business.

Sustaining HPTs

Although having HPTs is an advantage, one of the biggest issues of HPTs is that such teams need to be provided continuous challenging projects else you might end up losing the team. Keeping them going with a continuous stream of projects would keep them engaged to the organisation and the mission.

Although HPTs bring in a lot of change and innovation in the organisation, it is very important to link these initiatives to the bottom line of the company.  A good Shared Services leader would ensure that all initiatives of the Shared Services team is given ample visibility to the top echelons of the organisation to keep the HPTs continuously motivated.