The difference between a 'team of champions' and a 'champion team'

“While Italy was a ‘team of champions’ as they had many talented players, Spain was a ‘champion team’ because each of its 11 players could score a goal,” Somchit Panyasak, general manager of the automobile company, said yesterday.
“Likewise, in the corporate world, Toyota thinks employees do not need to be very capable. Rather, if everyone moves in the same direction, we can accomplish a lot,” he said.
The key to success lies in the ability to cascade a company’s strategy into the entire organisation where managers and their supervisors have aligned their complementary roles, Somchit told a seminar held by Hay Group.
Toyota has initiated many programmes to promote two-way communication – vertically and horizontally – across the organisation, such as the “Sawasdee” campaign that encourages staff to greet and welcome one another.
The company has also extended its “work by heart” campaign introduced last year among managers and supervisors to every employee this year.
“We have the viewpoint that for employees to be happy and dedicated in their work, it derives from attitude. They have to view their work as challenging and fun,” he said.
Toyota staff have been kept alert with performance evaluations conducted three times a year – at the beginning and end of the year for bonuses and in April for salary adjustments. There is also a competency appraisal for promotions.
Daranee Tiradnakorn, human resources director for Indochina at Nestle (Thai), told the conference that at her company, line managers took full ownership to execute and achieve the firm’s objectives and priorities.
“We just finished auditing 3,000 objectives of every individual staff member,” she said.
Everyday coaching is a major emphasis at Nestle, where managers and supervisors at every level have been encouraged to coach and develop their subordinates.
“The one who doesn’t grow and develop his talent team can’t be promoted to become a boss,” she said.
Nestle is aiming to develop new leaders who are highly flexible, capable of learning new things and able to “deal with ambiguity”, as the world has become more volatile and uncertain.
Promoting staff to work across functions could succeed if the company emphasises teamwork and staff see benefits from the move.
“It’s not an easy task. We could start it from product launching or customer service [activities]. Support is needed to encourage teamwork, transparency and a taking of ownership on particular projects,” she said.
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