Case Illustration: Motorola, Inc. Support and Reward Teams to Achieve High Performance

A Motorola, Inc., representative told [GAO] that the organization often relied on cross-functional and cross-business unit teams to address strategic business issues, design internal work systems and processes, and meet customer demands more effectively. For example, the representative told us that two distinct divisions of the organization worked together to provide cellular services in Japan -- one designed cellular phones while the other developed the cellular network infrastructure. These divisions formed teams, which also included external stakeholders, such as customer and supplier representatives, to align their efforts to meet customer demands. Also, to support and reward teamwork, the organization sponsored competitions in which manufacturing and service delivery teams established objectives and competed with each other on the basis of how well their team's members worked together to satisfy their customers. According to the representative, thousands of employees working in hundreds of teams representing organizational divisions worldwide entered the competition, and a group of these teams were recognized annually by being selected to participate in a final round that was judged by the senior management team.

back