Calling Captain Obvious?

Here’s a question for which we don’t need to be calling Captain Obvious – if you wanted to get advice on how teams work, who would you ask? More specifically, what if you wanted guidance on teams where the members aren’t from a single organization. Put another way, what does team research say?

Here’s who you probably wouldn’t ask: university students who are getting extra credit for participating in a simulated teamwork environment. Another group you wouldn’t ask: single team members reporting on their experience.

But that’s exactly what a lot of team research is based on. Surprised? I was, but then I learned more about team research. As in…there isn’t really that much of it.

The problem with team research

When you start to think about it, the reason is somewhat obvious (perhaps not to Captain Obvious): it’s hard to get entire teams to participate in research (learn more here). As a result, a lot of what we accept as “best practice” doesn’t have that much solid investigation, based on real world teams, behind it. And as for teams from different organizations – there’s almost nothing, even though we rely on those teams to solve our biggest problems for communities, regions, even the world.

So now what?

Should we stop working with teams? Of course not. And at the Lab, we’re confident that we have some great tools to help: Strategic Doing, Rapid Improvement, and the AEM-Cube to measure cognitive diversity are three, and we’re now able to offer the assessment of your team’s psychological safety that’s endorsed by Amy Edmondson. We’ve seen all of these make for great results with teams. At the same time, we know a lot organizations and leaders that are skeptical of what they think might be just the latest fad. We need to build the body of knowledge in this area…especially related to teams in which the members don’t all work for a single organization.

Want to help?

If you’re part of a team that brings together people from multiple organizations (or can make a connection to a team like that), you can get involved by participating in a study on just these questions. Email me for more – it involves teams asking their members to fill out a short (~15 minutes) survey about their work together.