Out of the foxhole-moving toward accountability

Abstract

Newly formed employee teams, over a period of two to five years, tend to move away from self-serving behavior (or "foxholing" in research jargon) toward the ideal of a complete partnership with the parent organization and its customers. The initial foxholing condition, where team members focus on personal entitlement and internal objectives (sometimes at the expense of global objectives), should be accepted by management so that teams can build a strong identity which, in turn, will engender powerful synergistic behavior. This paper discusses the leader's role in helping self-directed work teams at IBM's semiconductor manufacturing facility in Essex junction, Vermont, to achieve their highest potential. The collection of teams, called Wenoti's (we, not I's) have learned to operate with a strong emphasis on balancing both relationships and business-task responsibilities. Described are examples (and measurements) of over-entitled teams and how the "foxhole" culture manifests undesirable group behavior and poor business performance. Comparisons between foxhole teams and "accountable" teams (often the same group of individuals over time) are shown. The paper also presents information from studies conducted by Cornell University, individual case histories, and objective measurables to illustrate the connection between a team's growing maturity and the increasing excellence of its work product.