Team performance: when should a routine be changed?
A team can follow its established way of working while accumulating corrections and rework. The managerial question is precise: when should a collective routine be changed, rather than asking employees to apply it more faithfully?
What the literature establishes
Martha S. Feldman (2000, Organization Science) shows, in a longitudinal field study, that organisational routines can evolve through their own enactment. People interpret the outcomes of their actions and adjust what they do when those outcomes fail to meet their expectations. A routine is therefore not necessarily a behaviour repeated identically.
The procedure and its execution are not the same thing
Martha S. Feldman and Brian T. Pentland (2003, Administrative Science Quarterly) distinguish the general understanding of a routine from its specific enactments by particular people in particular situations. Their theoretical article explains how these two dimensions can sustain both stability and change. For a team, this distinction encourages examination of the work actually performed, rather than just the written procedure.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that a high-performing team should let everyone adapt their practices freely. These studies demonstrate neither the general superiority of improvisation nor an automatic performance gain after a routine is changed. A local adjustment may make one task easier while creating a difficulty for the colleague who takes over next. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What these studies cannot measure
The field study and theoretical framework illuminate a mechanism of change, but provide no universal threshold for deciding when to revise a routine. Nor do they constitute a comparative trial involving teams in Berne. Common practice has another limitation: checking documentary compliance is not enough to identify the rework needed to produce a usable result.
A practical check in Berne
As part of SHR’s “Performance d’équipe” programme, a team in Berne could select a handover routine: a case file in the federal administration, information in public health, a ticket in telecoms or a manufacturing file in precision industry. Before and after an explicitly authorised change, it would record the proportion of handovers returned for additional information or correction, keeping the definition of a return unchanged and distinguishing cases of different complexity. The log would record the reason for each return and the time spent on rework, without reproducing sensitive data. Fewer returns without an increase in total turnaround time would provide local evidence of improvement, not causal proof or permission to bypass regulatory requirements. To go further: explore the Team Performance training in Bern in the canton of Bern, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Team Performance in Bern
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