Page 103 - Harnessing the Strengths

86 ■ Servant-Leadership in the Intercultural Practice

lem remains that “individualized” people do not readily
share information.
Another (non-)solution would be to choose a remunera-
tion system only for team spirit. The Japanese are very good
at developing a sense of team. However, an overemphasis
on the importance of the team can lead to a collective medi-
ocrity. The worst option is a compromise where there is no
integration: to reward small teams, with half the reward
going to the individual and the other half going to the team,
for example. With this approach, both the individual and
the team are not properly recognized for their contribution,
and thus become demotivated. But what, then, is a good
solution?
Let’s look again at the example of Sematech discussed
earlier. In that example, strategic cooperation led to the
impressive revival of an industry that was on its “death-
bed.” The approach they took was a classic example of
“co-opetition”: cooperate to compete. The associated com-
panies were focused on transforming groups of creative
individualists into teams where they could exceed them-
selves individually.
It worked, and you can see the result depicted in Fig-
ure 7.2.
Shell also tried something similar at the end of the
eighties. In an experiment with 2,000 people from the
R&D division, the company tried to integrate the talents
of creative individual researchers from various countries
through teamwork. For a period of one year, a 20 percent
variable was divided equally over the individual and the
team bonuses. The individual bonus went to the person who
was chosen as the best team player. The team bonus went to
the team that most excelled at supporting individual creativ-
ity. In this way, the Shell researchers competed for the best
cooperation and they worked together to compete better.