HR WK 5

CHAPTER 6 MANAGING TEAM PERFORMANCE IN COMPLEX SETTINGS: Research-Based Best Practices

Eduardo Salas, Sallie J. Weaver, and Michael A. Rosen

Department of Psychology, Institute for Simulation and Training, University of Central Florida

AND

Kimberly A. Smith-Jentsch

Department of Psychology, University of Central Florida

Within the last decade, the face of work has greatly changed—teams are integral to the majority of business practices, the complexity of work has greatly evolved, and the time to complete work seems to continually shrink (Devine, Clayton, Phillips, Dunford, & Melner, 1999; Goldstein & Gilliam, 1990). To practitioners this is clear in our daily work with clients. The modern economy demands that our clients continually anticipate the changing needs and desires of their customers in what often feels like nano-seconds. They must do this with the utmost effectiveness and efficiency in order to maintain a competitive advantage. Consequently, organizations have turned to team-based work arrangements in order to maximize the use of employee expertise, to juggle multiple projects and deadlines, to reduce errors, and to streamline operations (Baker, Gustafson, Beaubien, Salas, & Barach, 2005). The most recent large-scale random sample of U.S. organizations indicates that 48 percent of organizations utilize some type of team (Devine, Clayton, Phillips, Dunford, & Melner, 1999). Furthermore, this survey indicates that the most common type of team reported was “project teams”—those formed in order to remedy a defined, specialized project or goal and tend to be cross-functional (Sundstrom, Mclntyre, Halfhill, & Richards, 2000).

The trend toward team-based work is also reflected in reports indicating organizations are adopting team-based systems in order to cope with the changing nature of work—characterized by increased cognitive and technological complexity (Ilgen, 1994). From teams responsible for managing complex problems and adapting to a changing economy (project teams) to teams responsible for efficiently executing production in the organization (production teams), team performance plays a critical role in organizational outcomes. Managing the performance of these different types of teams is therefore a critical element of organizational effectiveness and competitive advantage.

The central aim of this chapter is to provide scientifically rooted guidance for managing team performance in organizations. To this end, we begin with a set of definitions to clarify our conceptualization of teams and team performance management. Second, we discuss the performance management process in relation to teams. Third, we outline five key organizational capacities and discuss how team performance is linked to each. Fourth, we present a set of research-based best practices for managing team performance to support each of the five key organizational capacities.

What Constitutes a Team?

By definition a team is a distinguishable set of two or more people interacting toward a common goal with specific roles and boundaries on tasks that are interdependent and that are completed within a larger organizational context (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003; Salas, Dickinson, Converse, & Tannenbaum, 1992). The tasks which teams work on tend to require dynamic exchange of team member resources (including information), coordination of activities, adaptability to task demands, and an organizational structure that organizes members (Swezey, Meltzer, & Salas, 1994). Both task interdependence and outcome interdependence characterize team-based work (Wageman, 2001). Task interdependence refers to the inherent nature of the work itself that requires cooperation for completion, while outcome interdependence refers to the degree to which shared outcomes (rewards) are contingent on collective performance. Compared to individual-level performance management processes, team-level performance management processes must be designed to measure the outputs of combined effort, but also retain individual accountability. You get what you measure and reinforce at both levels; therefore there must be a way to balance performance management strategies at multiple levels while also accounting for membership on multiple teams.

There are also legal implications for multi-level performance measurement. U.S. federal regulations require, in most cases, that at least one critical element of team-level performance assessment is based on individual performance (U.S. Office of Personnel Management, n.d.). By building in individual accountability, the regulation provides for the ability to demote or terminate employees on the basis of unacceptable performance. One stipulation, though, regards manager or supervisor performance. Legally, it is permissible to develop a critical element that holds managers/supervisors accountable for the performance of their team so long as it considers their level of leadership responsibilities for the team.

Teams and Performance Management

Performance management (PM) offers an evidence-based methodology to guide performance measurement, strategic planning, feedback, and reinforcement in order to maximize effectiveness and efficiency at both the team and individual level without being mutually exclusive. Although PM is frequently used synonymously with terms such as performance appraisal and performance review, PM is a process that includes more than simply assessment. It also includes facets of motivation, situational and environmental influences, measure design, feedback, and employee development. According to Armstrong (2000), PM is comprehensive in terms of organizational culture; it does not rely on the cultural assumption that managers are solely responsible for the performance of their teams. Instead, managers and team members share responsibility and are jointly accountable for results.

The term “performance management” refers to the process of measuring, monitoring, and maximizing on-the-job performance (Armstrong, 2000; Dransield, 2000). PM focuses on outputs, results, and meeting goals and objectives efficiently and effectively. In team settings, PM is founded upon the notion of aligning the goals of the team with the overall goals and preferred results of the organization. Teams present a special case of PM, however, in that there are basically two management systems operating simultaneously, one at the individual level and one at the team level. Effective team PM seamlessly interweaves these systems, while maintaining indicators of both individual and team-level effectiveness. This theme runs throughout the best practices presented in this paper.

The Facets of Team Performance Management (TPM)

Letts, Ryan, and Grossman (1998) suggest four key capacities for organizational effectiveness that easily translate into a guide for performance management for team effectiveness.

Adaptive capacity refers to the ability of the team to maintain focus on the “external” environment. In this sense the external environment includes “clients” who are within the same organization, but outside of the team itself, and influences completely external to the organization that impact the team’s ability to meet its goals. In particular, this capacity focuses on maximizing performance, while continually adjusting and aligning the team itself to respond to those needs and influences. Adaptive capacity is cultivated through attention to assessments, collaborating and networking, and planning.

Leadership capacity refers to the ability of both the team leader and the individual members of the team to set direction for the team and its resources and also guide activities to follow that direction. Leadership capacity is cultivated through attention to visioning, establishing goals, directing, motivating, making decisions, and solving problems.

Management capacity is the ability of the team to ensure effective and efficient use of its resources. Management capacity is accomplished through careful development and coordination of resources, including people (their time and expertise), money, and facilities.

Technical capacity is the ability to design and operate products and services to effectively and efficiently deliver services to customers. The nature of that technical capacity depends on the particular type of products and services provided by the team and greater organization.

These four facets provide a framework to guide the performance management process in teams. Using this framework as a foundation, we present a set of best practices in the following section synthesized and accumulated from practical experience and the relevant team, performance management, project management, and human resources literature. These practices are illustrated by examples from encounters with clients, and we provide some tips for execution and implementation.

Best Practices for Addressing the Facets of TPM

Within each of the capacities outlined above, we outline relevant best practices and illustrative examples from the field. Table 6.1 contains a list of the practices we suggest, as well as implementation tips and relevant citations.

Adaptive Capacity

Adaptive team performance is an iterative process whereby team members engage in individual and team-level performance and alter their performance processes in order to more effectively respond to a changing context of work (Burke, Stagl, Klein, Goodwin, Salas, & Halpin, 2006). In order to build and manage effective adaptive capacity on the team level, a performance management process should attend to the following:

Table 6.1 Best practices for performance management of teams.

Best Practice	Tips	Selected References
Adaptive Capacity
1. Build flexible and adaptable team players.	• Build mutual performance monitoring and back-up behavior skills in team members using cross training and other methods. • Build mutual trust among team members.	• Salas, Sims, & Burke, 2005; Porter et al., 2003; Burke, Fiore, & Salas, 2003
2. Build a big play book: Encourage a large team task strategy repertoire.	• Provide a safe environment to practice new performance strategies (for example, use simulation-based training).	• Orasanu, 1990; Salas, Priest, Wilson, & Burke, 2006
3. Create teams that know themselves and their work environment.	• Team cue recognition training. • Perceptual contrast training. • Build team communication skills (information exchange, closed-loop communication).	• Salas, Cannon-Bowers, Fiore, & Stout, 2001; Wilson, Burke, Priest, & Salas, 2005
4. Build teams that can tell when the usual answer isn’t the right answer.	• Develop team planning skills. • Use guided error training to promote an understanding of when the routine solution is not the appropriate solution.	• Lorentez, Salas, & Tannenbaum, 2005
5. Develop self-learning teams: Train teams to help themselves.	• Team self-correction training; team leader debrief skills. • Foster a team learning orientation, psychological safety.	• Smith-Jentsch, Zeisig, Acton, & McPherson, 1998; Bunderson & Sutcliffe, 2003; Edmondson, 1999
6. Don’t let the weakest link have the strongest voice: Build teams that take advantage of their resources.	• Develop a strong team orientation in team members. • Promote assertiveness. • Build diversity of expertise and transactive memory.	• Eby & Dobbins, 1997; Hollenbeck, Ilgen, Sego, Hudlund, Major, & Phillips, 1995
Leadership Capacity
7. Articulate and cultivate a shared vision that incorporates both internal and external clients.	• Ask how the team will make a difference for internal and external clients. • Establish measurable indicators of team success. • Determine what the team hopes to accomplish in its wildest dreams.	• Christenson & Walker, 2004; Williams & Laugani, 1999; Briner, Hastings, & Geddes, 1996
Best Practice	Tips	Selected References
8. Create goals the team can grow with: Build hierarchically aligned goals with malleability and flexibility at both the individual and team levels.	• Include all team members in goal generation. • Set team and individual level goals that are aligned with upper-level goals. • Allow overall goals to have wiggle room and build flexibility into subgoals. • Ensure that there are multiple strategies to reach the goal.	• Locke & Bryan, 1967; Getz & Rainey, 2001
9. Build motivation into the performance management process: Make clear connections between actions, evaluations, and outcomes.	• Team members should be encouraged and rewarded for praising colleague accomplishments and being supportive during setbacks. • Only utilize group-level incentives and rewards for work performance. • Create opportunities for taking major responsibility for some elements of the task for each member. • Make the connections between actions, results, evaluations, and outcomes clear.	• Pritchard & Ashwood, 2008; Swezey & Salas, 1992; Oser, McCallum, Salas, & Morgan, 1989