Team Concept and performance appraisals
How do you get a true team dynamic when many companies promote, terminate, etc based off of individual performance? Why would the rock star of the team be completely transparent if it risks promotion. I am a huge fan of win and lose as a team but unfortunately corporate America does not believe in this. I remember in the day where company policy was to terminate the bottom 10 percent every year. And whenever downturns in any industry hit people naturally go into self preservation mode. I also see this as the number one reason where companies say they are agile but they do not practice it.
How do you get a true team dynamic when many companies promote, terminate, etc based off of individual performance
You often won’t get a true team dynamic until organizations undergo deep and transformative change.
Individuals can help to build a good team capability, such as by stepping up to the mark and cross-training in areas where there is a skills shortage. That might be one way to assess an individual’s “performance” in a team context.
I believe this is the most complex impediment for a scrum master, and it may not be solvable. In the U.S.A. common culture is reward the smoothest talker, the guy that works the most hours (not necessarily best worker). And my guess one of the reasons agile fails. HR typically has full control so even the line managers all the way up to V.P. do not have the authority to resolve issues where being a true team player hurts your chance to succeed. My guess this is why you see people jumping job to job every year or so. And by doing this makes it impossible to firm high performing teams.
Thus the question: How have scrum masters dealt with this issue. Is it even fixable.