haruki zaemon

I can’t recall how I came across this paper from the “Center for Evidence-Based Management (CEBMa).”

I found it engrossing, even though it was quite long, especially for something itself described as a summary.

Naturally, there’s a whole lot of nuance and context I haven’t captured, so I highly recommend reading the original:

Most researchers summarise a team’s basic defining characteristics as: a group of employees who are:

1. formally established
2. assigned (some) autonomy
3. interdependent

[…]

Most studies included consider team effectiveness as synonymous with team performance. As such, team effectiveness is broadly defined as task performance, contextual performance, and/or adaptive performance (eg learning, creativity, decision-making).

[…]

This review identified a large number of high-quality studies that indicate that effective teams are not so much determined by their composition, but rather by the emergence of socio-affective (in particular trust, psychological safety and social cohesion) and cognitive states (in particular cognitive consensus, information-sharing and the transactive memory system).

Some thoroughly unsurprising findings:

• Intra-team trust is positively related to performance.
• Group-level psychological safety has a moderate to large positive impact on team performance.
• Team cohesion has a moderate to large impact on team performance.
• The emergence of intra-team trust and social cohesion is critical for virtual teams.
• Team cohesion is strongly associated with team inclusion.
• Team identification has a positive effect on social cohesion and consequently team performance.
• Turnover has a negative effect on social cohesion and consequently on team performance.
• Team cognition – in particular information-sharing, transactive memory systems and cognitive consensus – has a large positive impact on team performance.
• Team learning does not automatically lead to team performance improvement.
• Team reflexivity moderates the effect of team cognition on team performance.
• Teamwork training has a large positive effect on team performance.
• Debriefing sessions and guided team reflexivity have a moderate to large positive effect on team performance.
• Setting group goals that are challenging (in terms of difficulty) and specific (rather than non-specific ‘do your best’ goals) has a moderate to large positive effect on team performance.

Some moderately surprising findings:

• The link between team effectiveness and team diversity dimensions such as age, gender, ethnicity, religion, functional background, educational background, organisational tenure and experience is small and sometimes negative.
• Of the Big Five personality traits, only agreeableness and conscientiousness are (somewhat) positively related to team performance. Other personality traits, such as emotional stability, extraversion and openness to experience, were not related with team performance.

One hard-to-swallow finding was around team building. I’ve never felt team building exercises were of much value, but the science is against me:

A meta-analysis of longitudinal studies shows that, in general, teambuilding interventions have a moderate positive indirect effect on team performance, and a moderate to large positive direct effect on trust, social cohesion and internal communication.

Turns out, I’ve never really experienced the necessary conditions:

Results indicate that the effect of teambuilding is larger when:

• the initiator is external (rather than internal) to the team
• the rationale is corrective (rather than preventive)
• team members are not involved in the planning
• the focus is on both the team’s goals and interpersonal relations
• team building is planned together with other interventions
• team building is led by both internal and external consultants
• the focus is on the group (rather than on individuals)
• team building is supported by (higher) management

1. #leadership
2. #management
3. #organisational-dynamics
4. #performance
5. #psychological-safety
6. #research

As managers and leaders, driving and supporting change is a critical part of the role. When we go about making change, we can inadvertently subvert the process and slow things down. Worse, we run the risk of losing the trust and confidence of the very people we need to enact not just the current, but future change as well.

The hard work is rarely the change itself. The hard work is developing the trust and understanding to make the change in the first place.

When most of us experience what we perceive as resistance to change, our initial response will be to lean into what Adam Grant calls Preacher mode–“they don’t understood how right I am!” If that fails, we’ll become a Prosector–“I’ll show them how wrong they are!” If things get out of hand, and we realise that we’re “losing” the “argument”, we might turn into a Politician–“maybe I need them to like me more?!” If none of that works, we become frustrated, judgemental, angry, and start to blame, at which point we might withdraw and find someone else who is more “willing” to help.

I know this because it was exactly how the majority of my interactions used to go.

What many people perceive as resistance to change is actually discord: between the therapist and the client; between the coach and the player; between the manager and the report; between the executive and the company. When you’re trying to evoke change in someone and you feel they aren’t responding, stop pushing for change and get back to strengthening the relationship before trying again.

Research also shows that self-efficacy is a significant predictor of change success, and that what we perceive as resistance, may actually be ambivalence. People who have been a part of failed change in the past have mixed feelings about their ability to enact change in the future. This experience of failure leads to a lack of confidence in the themselves and the system. When planning change, ensure people feel empowered, have agency, know what good looks like, and understand what might be holding them back from playing a part in their own journey.

Relying on a few “willing” people to drive change and “tell others what to do” may seem like a fast track, but it can be frustrating, exhausting, risky, and unlikely to generate long term improvement.

Scaling change through others requires effort to empower and give people agency. It requires engaging and listening and taking into consideration that you might be “wrong,” and that even when you’re “right,” that you took the action you did after considering their perspectives.

Most people want to improve, know that improvement requires change, and want to take an active part in it. Engage with them early and often, be explicit about what is known, and what is still to be worked through, and help them understand for themselves how to use their own skills to drive the change you want to see.

UPDATE: Catching up on my reading and unsurprisingly, Ray Grasso recently posted on a similar topic. Go check it out.

1. #change
2. #leadership
3. #management
4. #organisational-dynamics
5. #psychological-safety
6. #systems-thinking

It was lovely to meet and chat with such a great bunch of open, curious, and pragmatic leaders:

• Kunal Madhav, GoodHuman’s CTO.
• Nadeesha Cabral, Mr Yum’s Director of Engineering.
• Sumesh Suvarna, Aesop’s Head of Engineering.

We discussed challenges, approaches, mistakes, and lessons we’ve learnt scaling teams.

Mostly though, I just enjoyed the conversation. It didn’t necessarily always stay on topic, in a good way.

1. #decision-making
2. #leadership
3. #management
4. #organisational-dynamics
5. #podcast
6. #psychological-safety
7. #scaling
8. #software-engineering

Well delivered feedback drives improvement, whilst poorly delivered feedback decreases performance and can cause real damage, sometimes lasting for years afterwards.

Good feedback is: Well intentioned; Non-trivial; Truthful; Consensual; Actionable; Timely; Specific; Private; Delivered from your perspective, not that of others; A two-way conversation; Focused; About behaviours and performance, not personalities or style; Combined with positive encouragement.

1. #leadership
2. #management
3. #performance
4. #psychological-safety