The team performance curve follows the development of a team from the initial task force stage to the ultimate goal of becoming a high performing team. Team effectiveness increases further down the curve, but the performance impact may lessen if the group becomes a pseudo-team before reaching the potential team stage. Moving along the curve and becoming more effective and better performing involves taking risks, dealing with issues and concerns, patience, time, and commitment.
The first key point on the Team Performance Curve is a Working Group: A group for which there is no significant incremental performance need or opportunity that would require it to become a team. It is understood by a series of workers who do not pursue a collective objective, oriented in time. Typically, members interact only to share information, methods, and practices, and each member performs in their area of expertise and responsibility. There is often very little room for conflict, no set of goals, and no mutual accountability.
An example of a Task Force is administrative staff members whose duties include answering phones, filing, billing, and scheduling appointments. They all work as part of the same group, but do not have a common, measurable, time-oriented goal to achieve. They work together to maintain a certain acceptable level of performance, but do not collaborate to achieve a set goal.
A work group can become a pseudo-team in its quest to become a real or high performing team. A pseudo team is not actually a team, although it may “go through the motions” and consider itself as such. Pseudo teams show little or no interest in creating clear and concise goals, and their negative roots stem from their inability to shape a common purpose. These “teams” are the weakest of all teams when it comes to impact on performance and productivity. As stated in The Wisdom of Teams by Jon Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith, “the sum of the whole is less than the potential of the individual parts.” In other words, team members are individually stronger than the end result or results that are produced.
Almost always, pseudo teams “contribute less to the performance needs of a company than a work group, and this is because their interactions detract from the individual performance of each member without generating any joint benefit.” This type of team would only become a potential team if it defined specific goals, committed to a common purpose, and then was willing to make valuable contributions based on this premise. A pseudo team only has the potential to become a real team when its members execute the essential principles and standards of any high performing team member.
A potential team is a group for whom there is a significant incremental performance need and who are genuinely trying to improve their performance impact. They usually require more clarity about purpose and goals and more discipline in designing a common work approach. A potential team has not yet established a group responsibility. They are very common in organizations, but they are not good enough. The steepest performance increases occur between this stage and becoming a real team.
There should be an effort for workgroups to jump right into becoming a potential team, skipping the pseudo-team altogether in order to remain at least as productive as they were. A group or pseudo-team only becomes a potential team if it makes a good and honest effort to improve the impact of its performance. Those who risk going up the curve will inevitably face obstacles, some of which will be overcome and some of which will not. Potential teams that get bogged down need to stick to team norms and keep striving for performance. The performance itself has the potential to save a potentially struggling team by illustrating that the team can and will work, therefore providing new motivation.
For a group of people working together to be considered a true team, there are five basic elements that must be met. The necessary aspects relate to the number of people working together, their complementary skills, commitment to performance objectives and a common purpose, commitment to a common approach, and mutual responsibility and accountability. Only once these five aspects are met can a group of workers be labeled as a true team.
There seems to be an agreed notion that teams with fewer members perform better. Teams that we have read about in the text or learned about during class time indicate that anywhere from two to twenty members perform best when they come together. Larger number groups tend to split into smaller sub-teams within a team, leading to miscommunication and a breakdown of team values and structure. The largest teams face problems such as the inability to build clear objectives or clear purposes. They tend to revert to crowd behavior and have trouble finding common ground through their many differences.
Finding a suitable space for a larger number of people also presents a problem. Many companies don’t have enough free space to house a team of fifty, although finding a place to set up a workspace for twelve may be more reasonable. The complementary skills that are brought to a team are also just as important as the number of people working on a team. Within the aspect of skills, we can break it down further by looking at the types of skills needed. Technical, problem-solving, and interpersonal skills are the three types that need to be identified and brought to every real team.
Technical skills include any formal training or specialty that team members bring to a group. An example of this might be a surgical team performing a heart transplant. This team would have to consist of medical specialists ranging from nurses to various doctors. Having a schoolteacher on this team would obviously not be necessary and would not contribute to the successful operation of the team. Matching trained team members with the right teams is very important for that team to achieve optimum performance.
Decision-making and problem-solving skills are often developed while working in a team. Many members bring the foundation of these skills to a group from previous experiences, but since each team is unique, skills in these areas are often readjusted to fit a specific situation. Solving the problems a team faces and making decisions that affect the team and its members must develop when faced with a problem is essential.
Interpersonal skills, such as decision making and problem solving, also develop once a team is formed. Team members will bring to a group the interpersonal skills they have developed throughout their lives, such as how to manage conflict and the purpose of communication. Each team member brings individualism, and with that comes the need to adjust interpersonal skills to complement other team members in a way that is productive to the overall effort being made.
Performance goals and a commitment to a common purpose are an important part of becoming a true team. Teams are formed to achieve a goal. Whether it is developing a new product line or performing a surgical operation, the task at hand is always clearly defined before teamwork begins. Although this goal or opportunity is predetermined, there must be agreement among team members that all are equally capable and willing to work to achieve it successfully.
As stated above, it is very important to have a clearly defined purpose so that a team knows what it is they are working to complete. After defining this goal, a team must decide exactly how they are going to achieve it and achieve success. It is not enough for a surgical team to have the goal of completing a heart transplant. They should also have a plan that contains each step of the surgery, instructions for each team member, and a set of instructions for everyone in the group to follow. Without these instructions it would be impossible to measure success and it would be difficult to achieve a common goal.
By working together, each team member must also take responsibility for the team as a whole. Blaming the individual for failure or success weakens a team’s ability to work as a group. Each member should know that all of her actions are a reflection of the real team and any issues that arise are a direct reflection of each and every member of the group. Going back to the surgical team, if the actual operating doctor makes a mistake and the transplant is a failure, it is the team that failed, not the surgeon. The actions of each member should be considered as important as those of the following members. Without mutual accountability, it is impossible for a group of people to work as a team, rather they are simply a group of people working together.
The last stage on the team performance curve is when a team would like to become a high performing team. A high-performance team meets all the conditions of real teams and has members who are also deeply committed to the personal growth and success of others.