The multifaceted nature of ‘team effectiveness’
This article is a draft introduction of an opinion paper on team effectiveness. The views represented here are strictly my own and not intended to represent my employer’s views on the issue.
In the knowledge economy, most of the work is done in teams through processes of collaboration and “sorting out interdependencies”. In organisations, the team is “a molecular unit where real production happens, where innovative ideas are conceived and tested, and where employees experience the most of their work”. In this context, it is a matter of course that we examine the effectiveness of teams in our organisations. But what are we really talking about when we talk about ‘team effectiveness’?
What is team effectiveness?
…depending on the functions and objectives of the team in question, what serves as evidence of effectiveness for one team may not be the case for another.
Team effectiveness refers to “the extent to which a team meets the expectations of relevant constituencies from within and outside the team.” The implication of this definition is twofold. First, ‘effectiveness’ encompasses a set of different, but related, measures. Second, ‘effectiveness’ can mean different things to different people. With regards to the latter, it would be useful to bear in mind that the evaluation process is also, essentially, a people-driven process that takes place within context and time. Depending on the purpose of the evaluation exercise, what is measured will differ significantly.
For instance, to determine if a team was able to set up a functional emergency testing centre quickly, relevant performance indicators such as set-up time, environmental hygiene and overall project management could matter most. On the other hand, if the purpose is to determine if the leaders of the team were able to optimise the deployment of their members, indicators that look into members’ collaboration and morale could matter more.
Aligned with this perspective, Amy Edmondson argued that because the contexts of teams are different, the definition of what makes each team effective will be different. In other words, depending on the functions and objectives of team in question, what serves as evidence of effectiveness for one team may not be the case for another. Therefore, she warned against relying solely on universal indicators, which can be highly inaccurate for examining team effectiveness. Recent developments in literature encourage organisations to augment the definition of ‘effectiveness’ to include not only achievement of goals, but also sustainability of performance, and the likelihood of team members’ replicating performance across contexts.
Dimensions of team effectiveness
…three global dimensions of team effectiveness… will have long-term implications for the productivity of teams.
Authors of managinglifeatwork.com proposed three global dimensions of team effectiveness. When designing evaluation, these are subcategorised into more specific dimensions, and measures are designed to evaluate the enactment of relevant behaviours. In a nutshell:
1. Performance
This refers to “the extent to which the team’s output are aligned with the expectations of the organisation and the clients in terms of efficiency, productivity, quality, and innovation.” Examples of measures include number of consultation sessions conducted, queue time reduction, and so on. Organisations are most familiar with this dimension of performance. While this is important, to truly nurture sustainably performing teams and drive organisational learning, we must pay just as much attention to the other two dimensions.
2. Viability
This refers to “the extent to which the team has in place the processes and states necessary to achieve its goals, to improve daily, and to boost its ability to deal with obstacles.” Examples of measures include reported helping behaviours, ratio of cooperation versus competition and so on. Amy Edmondson referred to these as processes of “teaming”, which include structured processes, as well as quality of interactions amongst team members. The process of teaming is important because it is “the engine of organisational learning”, which enables the team to achieve its goals and overcome challenges and ensures that the team and its members can replicate behaviours/performance across contexts.
3. Team members’ growth and well-being
This refers to “the impact that working in the team has on each member in terms of attitudes, behaviours, well-being and professional growth.” Examples of measures include turnover rates, presenteeism rates and so on. In a context where structured learning and conventional relationship-building has been turned on its head, we must make the most of people’s work experiences. In other words, we must find ways to maximise the “70” (i.e., job experience) in the “70 20 10 rule” where “20” and “10” refer to work relationships and formal learning respectively. If we agree that all work experiences are developmental, it becomes critical to evaluate the quality of team members’ experiences in their teams. This is because positive impact on team members is more likely to enable the proliferation of positive teaming practices across times and contexts, which in turn ensures sustenance of effective team processes and performance.
The same group of authors argue that all 3 dimensions make up ‘effectiveness’ and will have “long-term implications for the productivity of teams.” However, considering the contexts of different teams, not all 3 dimensions may be equally relevant to all teams all the time.
The authors also propose ‘team reputation’ as a fourth dimension of team effectiveness. This is defined as the “subjective opinion of others on the characteristics and values of a team, and expectations others have on future behaviour and performance of the team.” I’m not yet sure that this dimension of scrutiny can apply to all teams, but it is an interesting perspective, particularly when evaluating the effectiveness of high stakes teams such as crisis response teams or senior leadership teams where their impact is visible and impact a wide range of constituents.
Using customised indicators to evaluate ‘team effectiveness’
‘Team effectiveness’ is a composite construct. The team that ‘gets the work done’ cannot be considered an effective team if its members reported negative experiences or left a proverbial ‘trail of bruised bodies.’ It is necessary to take a multi-dimensional approach while remaining cognisant of the contextual factors that influence the process of evaluation.
While objective performance indicators continue to serve an important purpose in determining satisfactory performance (or not), there is a case to include customised measures as these better account for the team’s unique job and function. For example, if the purpose is to evaluate ‘how’ the team got the job done, we’ll also have to look into the quality of its processes in addition to the outcomes it achieved. Such processes could include the presence of a process for conflict-resolution, or a structured process that ensures all team members have opportunities for speaking up.
In many instances, customised indicators allow the surfacing of less tangible dimensions of performance, such as the impact of culture or leadership. The process of designing indicators also provides opportunities to unpack assumptions about ‘performance’ so common understanding between the evaluator and the evaluated is ensured.
Finally, to ensure that teams and their members sustain performance over time, ‘effectiveness’ must be examined over time and one of the ways to do this is to take a longitudinal approach to evaluating impact. This means reviewing team effectiveness beyond an episode in time.
