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10 tips
to consider in team formation
and development
Written by
Prosper Kwei-Narh (PhD.)
O
ur present work cultures involve the use
of teams, defined as two or more individuals who interact cooperatively and
adaptively in pursuit of shared objectives. Teams
are necessary for performing complex tasks because the varying team members provide unique
contributions to attaining the work outcomes.
Beyond that, teamwork is a useful mechanism to
transfer existing work cultures to new employees
as well as to enhance professional development
through training for existing employees.
Considering these wide range of teamwork
objectives, it is important to understand the
characteristics of effective teams. In this article,
Prosper Kwei-Narh organizes some of the most
important considerations in the use of teams
within work organizations, focusing on team
member characteristics, the necessity of core
teamwork skills, and the indispensable elements
of effective teamwork interactions.
Team composition considerations
Individual differences
1. The right mix of personalities: In general, individuals vary according to how much they possess attributes such as ambition and being reliable
(Conscientiousness), helpful and friendly (Agreeableness), enthusiastic and energetic (Extraversion), calm and secure (Emotional stability), curiosity and imagination (Openness to experience).
Agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness
to experience seems to have the strongest effect on
team outcomes. Over time though, agreeableness
and openness to experience maintained positive
relationship with team emotional climate whereas
conscientiousness might lead to friction.
2. The member’s cognitive ability: Cognitive
ability reflects an individual’s capacity to understand complex ideas, learn from experience,
reason, solve problems and adapt to changing
situations. In most cases, the average cognitive
ability is related to the accuracy of decisionmaking and of the individual’s ability to influence the teammates over time.
3. Cognitive styles: Unlike cognitive ability,
cognitive styles describe an individual’s preferred
mode of interacting with information, which influences perception and problem solving strategies, among others. Numerous cognitive styles
have been proposed but I will focus on 2 kinds of
styles; reflectivity-impulsivity and holist-analyst
styles. The reflectivity-impulsivity poles describe
the extent to which individuals are quick to make
judgments under conditions of uncertainty. In
risky environments or decisions having costly
outcomes, it is important to have very reflective
teammates who will not rush into decisions without estimating the full impact of their decisions.
Another important aspect of cognitive styles is
the holist-analyst cognitive styles. Holist have a
tendency to view problems involving several hypotheses at once, whereas analyst tend to be analytical and will like to understand one aspect of a
problem at a time. There are challenges with both
holistic styles (focusing on the broad goals) and
analyst (focusing too much on details).
The presence of generic teamwork skills
4. Organizing/ Planning skills. Teammates
need training on how to distribute workload appropriately through their own initiatives or the
specification of a leader role. Importantly, teamtraining programs have underpinned the importance of organizing and planning activities
within teams. Planning allows the use of teammate’s skills and resources effectively whiles
uncovering areas in which extra effort and attention needs to be dedicated.
5. Cooperativeness and collaboration: These
are skills related to maintaining a balance ­between
initiative taking and preventing domineering
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Scandinavian Journal of Organizational Psychology 8 (2) | December 2016
Photo: Colourbox.com
members from taking over the group discussion.
There is the need to balance the team member’s
desire to contribute to team discussion with an
awareness to listen to other contributions. This
facilitates the development of mutual trust as well
as ensuring the team unearth as much unique
contributions as possible from teammates.
6. Team orientations to the task as well as to
their teammates. Teammates can build their
team’s task or team orientations (focus) by respectively engaging in two kinds of monitoring
behaviours; monitoring progress towards goals
or team monitoring. On time-limited tasks,
teammates are more likely to be concerned
with monitoring progress towards goals than
on team monitoring. Such a situation will likely enhance the time sensitivity and cause poorer information processing necessary to handle
the task. When teammates focus on providing
assistance and team monitoring, this facilitates
better task performance since it builds better
rapport among teammates. My own research
and others seem to suggest that teammates
should monitor progress at the earlier phase
of the task (or eventually during the task performance by a single member). On the other
hand, team monitoring is very useful throughout the teamwork as it enables teammates to
orient themselves from a focus on an individual task-role to a collective team role through
sharing of information and understanding the
disparate roles of teammates.
Issues in team interactions during
teamwork
7. Sharing cognitive load, example transactive memory systems: Effective team functioning depends on knowing which teammate
to contact when necessary. Through the team
interactions over time, teammates function as
‘knowledge stores’ for team members. That is
teammates no longer have to possess all information/knowledge of the large number of issues they have to deal with but rather they develop specialised mechanism for distributing
knowledge among themselves. It is therefore
only necessary for a team member to know
which teammate ‘knows what’ on the team.
8. Developing mutually overlapping mechanisms for interaction with task and teammates.
This describes shared mental models, reflecting
knowledge structures that help teammates to interact effectively with their tasks and to collaborate
efficiently with each other. Shared mental models
10 tips to consider in team formation and development
reflects the development of a common understanding and agreement upon central features of
the team’s task as well as the roles of teammates.
Shared mental models are argued to be very important in conditions where teammates have less
time for communication such that teams need to
interact with their teammates based on pre-existing understanding and knowledge. This ensures
faster responses from team members and prevents
unnecessary confusion.
9. Affective considerations: This ranges from
trust and liking through to developing a team
identity. Trust reflects a positive expectations
and suspension of uncertainty regarding the actions or knowledge of teammates. Trust is a positive emotional state developed from a rewarding
team experience, or an evaluation of the competence of a teammate. Trust is also important in
the exchange of information within the teams as
when teammates possess the positive emotional
link among themselves; they exchange more information that is appropriate and demonstrate
receptive attitudes towards their teammates’ information requests. Through an evaluation of
the positive affect within the team, team members develop better team identity.
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10. Technological issues: Today’s teamwork
cannot do without tools for storing information,
sharing information, as well as collaborations.
Technology enables flexibility in task and role
performance. However, technological tools vary
in their ability to carry/transfer rich information (containing social, non-verbal, and verbal
cues). For instance, how much information we
extract from an email or skype instant messaging is not the same as the information we obtain
from face-to-face communication. When deferring to technology to intermediate a team’s communication, the team needs to be aware of the
limitations of that technology, have good understanding of the characteristics of the sender,
and an awareness of the sender’s organizational
context.
To conclude, by highlighting how an organisation can find appropriate mechanisms to manage
team formation, implement training to build up
teamwork skills, and attending to these characteristics of teamwork, organisations can appropriate
the benefits of teamwork. In addition, the organisation can implement strategies that facilitate
both the distribution of knowledge within the
team, finding common ground for team interactions, and appropriate use of technology.