Team Training Essentials

A Research-Based Guide

Eduardo Salas

• Éditeur: Routledge
• Année: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781317601951
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Psychologie
• Sous-sujet: Geschichte & Theorie in der Psychologie

Team Training Essentials succinctly outlines best practices for team training, as based in the latest organizational psychology research. Organized into 5 'pillars, ' this clear, accessible guide covers all aspects of team training, from design and delivery to evaluation, transfer, and sustainment methods. Useful for anyone studying team dynamics and performance as well as group training, this book will also be of interest to professionals looking to apply team training practices in real business settings.

1
Introduction

Teams are a way of life in organizations. They afford organizations a competitive advantage by providing complex, innovative, and comprehensive solutions to organizational challenges (Gladstein, 1984; Hackman, 1987; Moreland & Levine, 1992; Sundstrom, DeMeuse, & Futrell, 1990). This advantage occurs because as a work structure, teams offer an opportunity to merge diverse perspectives and skills to improve the overall quality of the team’s outcomes. Further, teams have the potential to adapt to changing environments by providing a means to distribute work functions to reduce work overload and to identify errors and alternative strategies when necessary. Despite the great potential teams hold for improving the effectiveness of organizations and performing tasks that are not able to be accomplished by an individual alone, many teams fail and this can have severe consequences (e.g., loss of profit, loss of life). Additionally, if asked, many employees acknowledge that working in teams is more complex because of the increased difficulty in achieving consensus on a plan of action, frequent miscommunication or lack of communication, and the tension felt in asking individuals with different work habits, capabilities, and constraints to conform to the “team’s way” of getting work done. As a result, organizations and their employees have a love-hate relationship with teams.

Teams may unfairly receive this reputation due to negative experiences (e.g., excessive or needless conflict, social loafing) that may occur while working with others. This may be caused by the laissez-faire assumption common among organizations that teams “just happen,” that employees will naturally understand how to manage the complex dynamics inherent to team functioning (e.g., conflicting personalities, work preferences, competing work commitments). Consequently, teams and team members frequently do not have the requisite skills for effective teamwork, leading many employees to see teams as something they must endure, rather than a method to achieve more than the sum of their individual inputs. The fact of the matter is that teams do not “just happen.” Teams require training to facilitate more effective team processes (Hackman, 1998). Until the science of team training (Salas & Cannon-Bowers, 2001) is more widely used in our organizations, teams will likely continue to underachieve.

Given the importance of—and difficulties associated with—teams and team-work, the purpose of this book is to provide research-based guidance for the effective design, delivery, transfer (i.e., training that leads to improvements on the job), and maintenance (i.e., training that leads to long-term improvements) of team training. Chapter 1 provides the reader with a brief overview of teams, teamwork, and team training to provide structure for the content that is presented throughout this book. We also outline the remaining chapters, which are delineated into five pillars of team training. Briefly, these pillars address essential concepts for effective team training; we present them as easily digestible, action-oriented statements: (1) Ensure the Need for Teamwork Behaviors and Team Training, (2) Create a Positive Climate for Learning and the Learner, (3) Design Team Training for Maximum Accessibility, Learnability, and Usability, (4) Evaluate the Team Training Program, and (5) Create a System for Enduring and Sustaining Teamwork Behaviors in Organizations. These pillars are described in greater detail later in this chapter and fully explicated in their respective chapters. It is our hope that this book will provide a clear and practical way in which team training can be developed, implemented, evaluated, and sustained for any type of team.

Teams, Teamwork, and Team Performance

In the modern working world, teams have become a mainstay of organizational life. Retail stores have different sales teams in different departments responsible for selling products and assisting customers, while management teams lead these teams and make operational decisions. Research and development teams consist of multiple researchers who collectively innovate and improve products. Teams of military personnel work together in dangerous, high-risk, and time-sensitive environments to protect national security. First responder teams collaborate in similar environments to rescue civilians, protect property, and provide order. It seems as if no work of consequence is accomplished completely independent of others. No matter the setting, the axiom that “no man is an island,” seems to be truer now than ever.

Why this reliance on teams, though? In part, this is due to the increasing complexity and competition present within the current organizational landscape (Allen & Hecht, 2004; Bush & Hattery, 1956; Wuchty, Jones, & Uzzi, 2007). Increasing complexity means that it is becoming even rarer that one individual can be completely responsible for the production, development, or provision of any particular good, product, or service. Even a job that might typically be considered a one-person operation—that of a novelist—is in actuality reliant on teams, as the novelist will require a team of agents, editors, and publishers to fully develop, promote, and distribute the book. Furthermore, as technological developments continue to level the playing field amongst economic competitors, organizations must search for new sources of competitive advantage. Teams are often considered to be one source of competitive advantage, as it is often thought that teams promise synthesis and exponential possibilities. In other words, teams may be advantageous because (when functioning correctly) they can produce more than the sum of their component members operating independently (Stagl, Burke, Salas, & Pierce, 2006).

Defining Teams and Teamwork

In an effort to implement teams in organizations, the term “team” has been hastily applied to departments, divisions, and groups of individuals without first considering what actually defines a team. The distinction between a team versus a group is an ongoing debate in the research community (Guzzo & Dickson, 1996; Moreland, Argote, & Krishnan, 2002; Saavendra, Earley, & Van Dyne, 1993; Tannenbaum, Beard, & Salas, 1992). For the purposes of this book, however, we define a team as two or more people whose tasks are in some way interdependent (i.e., individual efforts are dependent upon the efforts of other members) and who have shared, common goals (Dyer, 1984; Kozlowski & Bell, 2003; Salas, Dickenson, Converse, & Tannenbaum, 1992).

A common framework for conceptualizing team performance is to depict teams as having inputs, mediators (i.e., processes or emergent states), and outcomes (Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006; LePine, Piccolo, Jackson, Mathieu, & Saul, 2008). Inputs are those things that feed into the team performance dynamic. These consist of variables characteristic of: (1) the component team members (e.g., skills and attitudes, personality, cognitive ability), (2) the team overall (e.g., team size, structure, task), and (3) the overall organization (e.g., higher leadership, climate, organizational size). Outcomes, naturally, refer to the results of team interaction—ranging from relatively objective metrics of team performance (e.g., sales, efficiency, safety) to more subjective indices (e.g., team and individual job satisfaction). As shown in Figure 1.1, team inputs do not directly translate into effective team performance outcomes. Instead, the effects of team inputs on outcomes are mediated—or transmitted—through teamwork processes and emergent states.

Team processes are defined as “members’ interdependent acts that convert inputs to outcomes through cognitive, verbal, and behavioral activities directed toward organizing taskwork to achieve collective goals” (Marks, Mathieu, & Zaccaro, 2001, p. 357). Team processes can be further categorized as action processes (i.e., those involved when executing a task), transition processes (i.e., those involved when planning, preparing, or reflecting on a task), or interpersonal processes (LePine et al., 2008; Marks et al., 2001). Action processes include such team behaviors as communicating between members, monitoring effective performance, and assisting teammates when they need help on specific task components (i.e., “backup behaviors”). Transition processes primarily (but not only) occur when teams interact but are not engaged in directly performing the primary task; these processes can consist of providing feedback, generating a vision for future task performance cycles, or reassigning roles to different members. Interpersonal processes occur during both action and transition phases of the team performance cycle, and include things such as conflict management and resolution, developing norms for social interaction, and monitoring/managing the emotional atmosphere (e.g., through encouragement behaviors).

FIGURE 1.1. Overview of IMO Framework.

Where team processes simply refer to different types of collective behavior, emergent states (while still a mediating variable between inputs and outcomes) are somewhat more esoteric. Generally, they refer to cognitive and affective variables that are held by individual team members but also exist at the team level and influence team outcomes. Cognitive emergent states include things that influence the ways in which teams collect, interpret, process, and store information, such as transactive memory systems (i.e., the state of team members’ knowledge of what other team members know) and shared mental models (i.e., the collective understanding or mental representation of how different team- or task-relevant variables are interrelated). Affective emergent states, on the other hand, refer to the collective attitudes and feelings within the group such as interpersonal trust, cohesion (i.e., the bond felt toward the task and/or the team), and psychological safety (i.e., the sense that taking interpersonal risks will not be met with negative reactions). Emergent states are partly aggregate manifestations of individual experiences, but as these variables emerge, they come to describe the team itself to a certain extent. For this reason, emergent states are sometimes considered to be both a mediating variable and an outcome of team inputs and processes (Marks et al., 2001).

Teamwork and Taskwork

Ultimately, team processes and emergent states transmit (or mediate) the effects of team inputs on outcomes. Broadly speaking, team processes and emergent states are closely linked to two things that are necessary for accomplishing shared and interdependent tasks—taskwork and teamwork. Taskwork refers to those relevant behaviors that directly lead to the successful accomplishment of collective goals; furthermore, these behaviors are generally actions that individual team members execute and do not directly rely on other team members’ input. Teamwork consists of the interdepen dent interactions among team members as they work towards completing their objectives—including the interpersonal behaviors that facilitate effective and harmonious interactions between team members. Teamwork behaviors include (among other things) coordinating actions between members, adapting to the changing environment, and anticipating each other’s needs to reach the overarching team goals (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003).

Taskwork: Working on a specific duty of one’s job.

Teamwork: Coordination, cooperation, and communication among individuals to achieve a shared goal.

The distinction between taskwork and teamwork is important, because teams that are equipped with appropriate taskwork skills (e.g., manipulating flight controls) may not be similarly equipped with the accompanying teamwork skills (e.g., communication between flight crew and cabin crew members) essential for effective team performance. Given the importance of both of these domains to team performance, those interested in the success and development of teams—trainers, leaders, and team members themselves—must be cognizant not only of generic performance metrics, but of the specific task and team processes underlying team performance. And while team training can indeed teach the team to perform task-work skills, these skills are often highly context specific and are therefore outside the scope of this work. Teamwork skills, on the other hand, are generalizable to a wide variety of situations and are frequently the focus of team training interventions. Accordingly, we briefly review them here.

Teamwork skills and competencies. Teamwork skills and competencies are broad components of effective teamwork that are multifaceted, complex, and often difficult to measure (Rosen, Salas, Silvestri, Wu, & Lazzara, 2008). Indeed, the domain of team competencies is vast and complex. While the broad factors that influence teamwork were introduced in Figure 1.1, some of these factors (e.g., context, composition, culture) are not internal to the team’s functioning and as such are not influenced by team training (though they absolutely influence team training effectiveness). Kraiger, Ford, and Salas (1993) proposed a heuristic for evaluating training that is also relevant for discussing the team-work skills and competencies often focused on as a part of team training. This heuristic consists of the attitudes, behaviors, and co...

Table des matières

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Pillar 1: Ensure the Need for Teamwork Behaviors and Team Training
• 3 Pillar 2: Create a Positive Team Training Climate for Learning and the Learner
• 4 Pillar 3: Design Team Training for Maximum Accessibility, Usability, and Learnability
• 5 Pillar 4: Evaluate the Team Training Program
• 6 Pillar 5: Create a System for Enduring and Sustaining Teamwork Behaviors in Organizations
• 7 Concluding Remarks
• Appendix 1
• Appendix 2
• Appendix 3
• Appendix 4
• Appendix 5
• Index