High performance teams

I have always been extremely interested in high performing teams in general. I would like to know what is their success story, how they did it, what were the contributing factors and what were the tools they used (if any). Today, while reading some articles online, it dawned upon me that there are still many workplaces operating in a highly structured and controlled manner. To give one extreme example, there are workplaces which uses the time logging system and tracks when you arrive at work, when you leave for lunch, when you return to office and when you go home. In one story I read, an organisation even tracks the amount of time each employee spends at the bathroom.

We have left the era of industrial revolution where workers are highly skilled in only one specific area (e.g. screwing the car door to its body) and nothing else. Those were the days where the workplace was a highly controlled environment and everyone just did their specific small job scope and nothing else. We are currently in the era of knowledge workers who can think, decide and follow up on their own responsibilities and actions. Knowledge workers nowadays do not have a small job scope but is responsible for many different areas of work. However not all organisations are treating their employees like knowledge workers.

In order for Enterprise 2.0 to succeed, the workplace culture and environment must embrace such forms of activities. After all, Enterprise 2.0 is the term for the technologies and business practices that liberate the workforce from the constraints of legacy communication and productivity tools like email. Definition from Enterprise2Conf.

Employers must liberate their workforce and allow people to contribute and be responsible for what they say. HR must employ people that fit into this sort of work environment and employees themselves must have the mentality that sharing of information does not mean that they lose competitiveness but gaining recognition for contributing and sharing. This is a whole new mindset and people need to adopt quickly.