Team Effectiveness Building Blocks
“Going back to basics with teams may set you up for better performance”
A new forming team has great potential to achieve goals and fulfill needs for the team members. It also has even greater potential to fail to live up to its objectives and frustrate goal achievement for its members. The difference between these two outcomes is often down to how much careful thought the team and team leader put into systematically considering the challenges that every team faces. A team that deliberately does this is more likely to become (and remain) a high performing team.
Justice and Jamieson (2012) outline nine types of group dynamics. The stages of team development, for example, may not be the same for an intact team as for initial group development but I like their breakdown into five stages:
- Polite
- Goal
- Power
- Work
- Esprit
Groups may need to work through the first three stages before they can concentrate on getting the work done. But that does not mean it is a one-time linear progression. Agreed upon rules need to be developed and maintained.
Four areas to consider in designing a team (not in a specific order)
1 One of the foundations is that teams need a common, agreed upon purpose. Many tasks can be completed by an individual or by a loosely held together group with hand offs. A sales “team” is almost never an actual team for example. It is a group of individuals. A newly formed team needs to be a team to get work done. If it can be done by individuals, do not form a team. Lin et al (2008) found that shared goals and maintaining the focus of the team are strongly related to performance. This agreed upon purpose for me is the foundational aspect of a high functioning team. I personally found this to be true in my previous career as a counselor as members of the team were unified by the concept of good client care. It could even be called the team mission (McEwan et al 2017). Such an agreed, common purpose is a necessary condition for effective teamwork. Without it all the process in the world is going to be substandard. With virtual teams, this is even more important as lack of close contact, missed nonverbal cues, over reliance on electronic communication, and perceived distance introduce a host of complicating dynamics.
2 The second area of dynamics to pay attention to is “psychological safety”. Psychological safety enables the willing contribution of a person’s ideas and actions to collective work. This is particularly relevant for small groups and is often a catalyst for the rapid ‘gelling’ of groups in early formation. People naturally consider the consequences of taking interpersonal risks in their environment. If they believe that these consequences will be detrimental to them (materially or emotionally) they will hold back. The degree of psychological safety determines their beliefs, including beliefs about how others will respond to them when they express themselves. This is apparent when they ask a question, request feedback, report a mistake or share an idea. “If I do X, will I be hurt, embarrassed or criticized?” (Edmondson, 2004). Having high psychological safety in a group means people feel less fear of consequences to their image, status, or career. Moreover, psychological safety is necessary for people to feel secure enough to change their behavior. High performing teams have regular moments of team reflexivity, to ensure members learn collectively from their efforts. This will allow subtle (and not so subtle) changes going forward which will lead to a better functioning and better performing team. Note: in practice psychological safety may be referred to by other names such as a coaching culture, organizational learning etc which have a more palatable name than “psychological safety”.
3 The third area for a new team to concentrate on is to make sure the members have aligned expectations for roles, rules, and responsibilities. This may not look like a top priority at first sight, but it is fundamental to teams operating at peak performance, and certainly one of the most important for its ongoing ability to function. Justice and Jamieson (2012) break this out into two components: task behaviors and maintenance behaviors. Task behaviors “help the group define and accomplish its work and reach its desired outcomes”. They include behaviors that enable the effective combination of the specific individual strengths and contributions of the team members. Typical examples are seeking information and clarification, challenging / disagreeing with one another and so on. Who will record notes? How are decisions to be made and under what circumstances? Maintenance behaviors, on the other hand, “deal more with keeping the group together, maintaining functional relationships and strengthening the ability to perform”. They may include positive reinforcement, setting standards, and holding one another accountable. Without both of these the group will eventually simply cease to function.
4 The fourth and final area I would like to put forward is diversity. Having a diverse team stimulates team creativity and team learning. Diversity is about more than demographics such as age, gender or ethnicity, though. A diverse team (cognitive skills, personality, and diversity of experience, etc.) helps maximize performance particularly when success does not depend on ability to apply traditional solutions (Forsyth, 2014). Only teams with a wide variety of values, preferences, and communication patterns, can fully tap into new perspectives about situations. However, diversity also has the potential to increase misunderstandings and conflict, to decrease participation and perhaps even derail a team of high performing individuals.
Once formed, teams should not rest on their laurels. They need a good way to know if things are working. This has two dimensions. One is results oriented — are they producing what they set out to produce? The other one is process oriented — is the group operating efficiently and effectively as it can be? Frequent check-ins are essential on both fronts, but they don’t need to be fancy or elaborate, especially not for small, fast-moving groups. It could be a simple show of fingers on a count of hands to a question like “Are you getting what you need?” Less than 5 fingers would be an opportunity to explore what is not optimal at that time. A small team could also use the simple Stop, Start, and Continue method to check in at each meeting. Or each meeting could have a check in of what is going right, what is going wrong and where does each individual need assistance. What matters is that self-evaluation for the team is always front of mind, and not something that is done just after the project is completed. Opportunities to do team debriefs increases performance (Tannenbaum et al., 2012).
When you are putting together a new team, this handful of fundamental building blocks may ensure that it becomes an effective team,
(written by Paul Thoresen and Koen Smets)
References
Edmondson, A. C., Kramer, R., & Cook, K. (2004). Psychological safety, trust, and learning in organizations: A group-level lens. Trust and distrust in organizations: Dilemmas and approaches, 12, 239–272.
Edmondson, A. C., & Lei. Z. (2014). Psychological Safety: The History, Renaissance, and Future of an Interpersonal Construct Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1:1, 23–43.
Forsyth, D. (2014). Group dynamics, (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Justice, T., & Jamieson, D. (2012). The facilitators fieldbook, (3rd ed.). New York: AMACOM. (Primers B & C).
Lin, C., Standing, C., & Liu., Y. (2008). A model to develop effective virtual teams. Decision Support Systems, Vol 45, 1031–1045.
McEwan, D., Ruissen, G. R,, Eys, M. A., Zumbo, B.D., & Beauchamp, M. R. (2017) The Effectiveness of Teamwork Training on Teamwork Behaviors and Team Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Controlled Interventions. PLoS ONE 12(1).
Tannenbaum, S. I., & Cerasoli. C. P. (2012). Do Team and Individual Debriefs Enhance Performance? A Meta-Analysis. Human Factors: The Journal of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, 55.1.
