Teams That Work

Teams That Work Plot Summary

Introduction

In today's complex organizations, effective teamwork has become a critical driver of success. Yet despite the ubiquity of teams in the workplace, many struggle to achieve their potential. Why do some teams excel while others falter, even when composed of equally talented individuals? This question lies at the heart of the science of teamwork, which has revealed that team effectiveness isn't random or mysterious—it follows predictable patterns that can be understood and influenced. The research presented in this work identifies seven key drivers that consistently determine team success: capability, cooperation, coordination, communication, cognition, conditions, and coaching. These drivers form a comprehensive framework that explains how teams function across various contexts, from corporate boardrooms to surgical units to space missions. By understanding these drivers, leaders and team members can move beyond simplistic teamwork myths and develop evidence-based strategies to build teams that not only perform well in the short term but demonstrate sustained excellence, resilience in the face of challenges, and ongoing vitality necessary for future success.

Chapter 1: The Foundation: Understanding True Team Effectiveness

Team effectiveness is fundamentally about more than just short-term results. While performance metrics matter, truly effective teams demonstrate three essential qualities: sustained performance over time, resilience in the face of challenges, and vitality that maintains the energy needed for future success. Teams that sacrifice long-term capabilities for immediate gains, or that succeed only under ideal conditions but crumble when facing adversity, cannot be considered highly effective. Similarly, teams that burn out their members lack the vitality required for adaptation and innovation. Understanding team effectiveness requires recognizing that teams differ in meaningful ways. Some teams operate with members working largely independently, while others require constant coordination. Some maintain stable membership, while others experience frequent personnel changes. The degree of task consistency, geographic proximity, and similarity in expertise among members also varies widely. These distinctions influence which aspects of teamwork matter most in different contexts. For example, collective efficacy and coordination behaviors are more critical in highly interdependent teams than in those where members work independently. The science of teamwork has evolved significantly in recent decades, supported by robust meta-analyses combining findings from hundreds of studies. This research has debunked common myths, such as the beliefs that teamwork is a distraction from "real work," that team members must like each other to succeed, or that teamwork inherently suppresses individual excellence. In reality, teamwork boosts performance, can occur among people with varying degrees of personal affinity, and complements rather than conflicts with individual competence. Not all work requires teams, however. Teams are appropriate when tasks demand diverse expertise, benefit from multiple perspectives, or require interdependent efforts. When deployed properly, teams can achieve outcomes that exceed what individuals working alone could accomplish. But forming a team when individual work would be more effective creates unnecessary complexity and frustration. The key is understanding when teams are needed and how to leverage the seven drivers to maximize their effectiveness. The research also reveals that great teams rarely start that way—they evolve through learning and adaptation. This process doesn't happen automatically but requires intentional development of the right capabilities, attitudes, behaviors, communication patterns, shared understanding, supportive conditions, and effective leadership. Teams that consistently leverage all seven drivers can achieve remarkable results, even in challenging circumstances.

Chapter 2: Capability: Assembling the Right Expertise and Skills

Capability refers to the individual and collective competencies that a team possesses—the knowledge, skills, abilities, and personal attributes needed to accomplish tasks, overcome challenges, and adapt to changing circumstances. Without sufficient capability, a team will struggle regardless of how well they communicate or coordinate. This driver is about ensuring the team has adequate "horsepower" to succeed at its mission. Team capabilities fall into two main categories: task-related capabilities specific to the work being performed (such as programming skills for a software team) and teamwork-related capabilities that enable effective collaboration (such as communication skills). While the exact task capabilities needed vary by context, research has identified several transportable teamwork competencies that benefit almost any team. These include fundamental skills like giving and receiving feedback, communicating effectively, resolving conflicts constructively, demonstrating interpersonal sensitivity, and exhibiting basic leadership behaviors. Personal attributes such as cognitive ability, collective orientation (valuing team success), adaptability, and conscientiousness also contribute to teamwork effectiveness. The relationship between capability and performance isn't always linear. Researchers have discovered what they call the "too-much-talent" hypothesis—teams with an overabundance of star performers can sometimes underperform teams with a mix of talent levels. This counterintuitive finding has been demonstrated in professional basketball and soccer teams, where the performance curve begins to flatten or even decline when more than about 60% of team members are elite performers. The explanation appears to lie in how interdependent the work is; in highly interdependent contexts, too many dominant individuals may create dysfunctional competition and status conflicts that undermine coordination. A practical example of this phenomenon appears in investment banking, where star analysts are frequently recruited from competing firms. Research by Boris Groysberg shows that these stars typically experience a significant performance decline lasting up to five years after changing employers. However, analysts who moved with their support teams or to firms with better resources maintained their performance levels. This illustrates that capability doesn't exist in isolation—it interacts with conditions and teamwork dynamics. The most effective teams combine adequate expertise with the ability to leverage that expertise through effective collaboration, rather than simply accumulating the maximum possible individual talent.

Chapter 3: Cooperation: Building Trust and Psychological Safety

Cooperation encompasses the attitudes and beliefs team members hold about their team. These attitudes—which include trust, psychological safety, collective efficacy, and cohesion—emerge over time based on experiences within the team and strongly influence behavior and performance. Unlike capabilities, which individuals bring with them, cooperative attitudes develop dynamically in response to interactions and can change rapidly as conditions evolve. Trust stands as a foundational element of cooperation. Research confirms that when team members trust one another (intrateam trust), they demonstrate better performance even after accounting for past results or trust in leadership. This relationship is particularly strong in teams with high interdependence, centralized authority, or diverse expertise—contexts where reliance on others is unavoidable. Trust emerges from judgments about three key factors: ability (can this person do what they say?), benevolence (do they care about my interests?), and integrity (do they adhere to acceptable principles?). While some individuals are naturally more trusting than others, these specific judgments about teammates ultimately matter more than general trust propensity. Psychological safety represents another critical cooperative attitude—the shared belief that team members can speak up, admit mistakes, ask questions, and take interpersonal risks without fear of embarrassment or rejection. Google's extensive Project Aristotle research identified psychological safety as the single strongest predictor of team effectiveness in their organization. Teams with higher psychological safety were twice as likely to be rated effective and generated significantly more revenue. Psychological safety enables the candid communication, learning behaviors, and constructive conflict necessary for innovation and adaptation, particularly in dynamic environments. It proves especially important in hierarchical contexts, where power differences can otherwise silence crucial information and perspectives. Collective efficacy—the shared belief that the team can succeed in specific situations—provides the motivational foundation for team performance. Unlike individual self-confidence, collective efficacy focuses on the team's capabilities as a whole. Teams with strong collective efficacy set more challenging goals, exert greater effort, persist longer when facing obstacles, and recover more quickly from setbacks. This belief system acts as a self-fulfilling prophecy; teams that believe they can win are more likely to do so, particularly when the work requires coordination and mutual support. These cooperative attitudes cannot be mandated but emerge organically from experiences within the team. Leaders and members can influence their development through consistent behaviors that demonstrate competence, consideration, and integrity. Even small actions—acknowledging mistakes, expressing appreciation, fulfilling commitments, or taking time to understand others' perspectives—can significantly impact these crucial beliefs that ultimately determine whether a team merely survives or genuinely thrives.

Chapter 4: Coordination: Mastering Essential Teamwork Behaviors

Coordination represents the behavioral manifestation of teamwork—the actions team members take to synchronize their efforts and collaborate effectively. While cooperation concerns attitudes and beliefs, coordination focuses on observable behaviors that enable teams to work together seamlessly. Research consistently shows that teams demonstrating better coordination processes are 20-25% more likely to succeed, and coordination becomes increasingly important as interdependence among team members rises. Four critical coordination behaviors emerge from the research as universally important across team contexts. The first is monitoring or maintaining situational awareness—remaining cognizant of what's happening within and outside the team that might affect performance. Effective teams monitor three key elements: each other (How are my teammates doing? Does anyone need help?), team performance (How are we progressing? Where are we struggling?), and conditions (What's changing in our environment that might affect us?). This awareness enables teams to respond proactively rather than reactively to emerging challenges. The second critical behavior is providing backup and support—offering assistance, advice, or temporarily taking over responsibilities when teammates need help. For backup to occur effectively, team members must recognize the need (through monitoring), feel responsible for helping, and possess the necessary skills to provide assistance. Research with air traffic controllers demonstrates that backup behavior happens more naturally when team members are familiar with one another and understand who possesses which expertise. However, there's a potential downside if certain team members consistently receive help without reciprocating, as this can lead to social loafing and uneven workload distribution. Adaptation represents the third essential coordination behavior—learning from experience and making adjustments to improve performance. Teams can adapt either reactively, in response to immediate challenges, or reflectively, through deliberate analysis of past experiences. The most effective teams engage in both types of adaptation, making real-time adjustments during work while also periodically stepping back to identify patterns and opportunities for more substantial improvements. Team debriefs—structured discussions about recent experiences—serve as a powerful tool for promoting adaptation, with research showing that teams conducting regular debriefs outperform others by an average of 20%. The final coordination element involves managing emotions and conflict constructively. All teams experience disagreements, but high-performing teams handle them in ways that enhance rather than undermine effectiveness. Research distinguishes between task conflict (disagreements about work content), process conflict (disagreements about logistics and assignments), and interpersonal conflict (personal tensions). While the latter two typically harm performance, task conflict can actually improve results when psychological safety is high and team members approach disagreements collaboratively rather than competitively. The goal becomes finding the best solution, not winning arguments.

Chapter 5: Communication: Sharing Critical Information Effectively

Communication serves as the connective tissue that enables team coordination and the development of shared understanding. Effective team communication isn't simply about the quantity of information exchanged but rather about sharing the right information, with the right people, at the right time, in the right way. Meta-analyses confirm that communication quality—not volume—predicts team performance and cohesion. The most valuable aspect of team communication is the sharing of unique information—knowledge that other team members don't already possess. This might include specialized expertise, situation updates, or awareness of emerging issues. In healthcare settings, for instance, failure to share unique information about patient status has contributed to numerous sentinel events. Conversely, when team members effectively communicate unique knowledge, they build collective awareness that enables better coordination and decision-making. Closed-loop communication represents another critical communication practice that significantly reduces misunderstandings. This three-step process involves an initial message (call-out), confirmation of understanding (check-back), and verification or correction by the original sender (close). Research with medical teams shows that tasks are completed 3.6 times faster when closed-loop communication is used, despite the additional time required for confirmation. A simplified version of this approach, called "the convey," involves reflecting back one's understanding of another person's message before responding, giving them an opportunity to clarify if needed. Teams also need effective boundary-spanning communication—interactions with stakeholders outside the team. This includes ambassador activities (advocating for resources), coordination with interdependent groups, and seeking external expertise. Boundary spanning becomes increasingly important as organizational structures grow more complex and teams become more interdependent with other units. Effective boundary spanners clearly understand which external relationships matter most, what information needs to be exchanged, and who is responsible for maintaining those connections. Several common obstacles can undermine team communication. The "everybody knows" bias leads people to incorrectly assume others possess the same information they do. Automaticity—the mental shorthand experts develop—can make it difficult for them to articulate their knowledge clearly to less experienced team members. Communication also becomes more challenging when team membership changes frequently, when members work in different locations, when the team includes diverse functional backgrounds, or when there's a strong hierarchy that discourages speaking up. Recognizing these risks allows teams to implement targeted strategies to overcome them, such as encouraging "dig deeper" questions or establishing clear handoff protocols.

Chapter 6: Cognition: Developing Shared Understanding Among Members

Cognition refers to the extent to which team members possess a shared or complementary understanding about key factors affecting their work. These shared cognitions—sometimes called mental models—allow team members to interpret situations similarly, anticipate one another's needs, and coordinate their actions without constant explicit communication. Research demonstrates that teams with stronger shared cognitions exhibit better motivation, more effective teamwork behaviors, and higher performance, even after controlling for other factors like cohesiveness. Eight types of shared cognitions prove particularly valuable for team effectiveness. These include understanding "where to" (vision, purpose, goals), "what's important" (priorities), "who should" (roles), "how to" (tasks, norms, interdependencies), "why to" (rationale), "who knows" (expertise), "what if" (contingencies), and "what's up" (situation awareness). When team members hold compatible views on these elements, they can act in synchronized ways even without extensive discussion. The Los Angeles Rams football team exemplifies this phenomenon; players describe how their collective understanding allows them to adapt plays in real-time based on defensive movements, with linemen and running backs making coordinated adjustments because they share a common interpretation of the situation. Shared cognitions enhance team performance through three primary mechanisms. First, they increase motivation and effort by creating alignment around purpose and direction. When team members believe they're working toward the same goals, they invest more energy in collective success. Second, they improve routine coordination by clarifying expectations about roles and responsibilities. Research with project teams shows that when members disagree about who relies on whom, team success becomes significantly less likely. Third, shared cognitions enable faster, smarter adaptations to unexpected situations by providing a common framework for interpreting events and responding appropriately. Professional familiarity—working knowledge of teammates' capabilities, preferences, and tendencies—plays a crucial role in developing shared cognitions. Studies of software development teams, Olympic hockey teams, and surgical teams all demonstrate that teams whose members have worked together previously perform better than those with equivalent individual experience but less shared history. However, this relationship follows an inverted U-shape; after an extended period together, teams can become too comfortable with established patterns and less open to new approaches. This explains why some long-tenured teams eventually calcify and become less innovative despite their deep shared understanding. Organizations can accelerate the development of shared cognitions through several approaches. Direction-setting techniques like visioning, chartering, and premortems help establish common expectations at the outset. Preparation methods such as role clarification and scenario-based training build shared understanding before work begins. Updating practices like debriefs and huddles refresh shared cognitions based on emerging experiences. And assimilation approaches help integrate new members into existing team mental models. These intentional efforts to build shared cognitions prove particularly valuable when team membership changes frequently or when members work in different locations.

Chapter 7: Conditions: Creating Environments That Support Teamwork

Conditions encompass the context in which a team operates—the environment that either enables or constrains teamwork effectiveness. No team works in a vacuum, and even the most talented and well-coordinated team can struggle in unfavorable conditions. The research identifies two levels of conditions that influence teams: organizational conditions that affect multiple teams simultaneously and local conditions specific to individual teams. Organizational conditions include policies, practices, and cultural elements that signal whether teamwork is truly valued. Hiring practices reveal whether collaboration skills are considered important or merely technical expertise matters. Onboarding processes communicate expectations about teamwork to new employees. Promotion decisions and assignments demonstrate who gets ahead—team players or individual stars. Performance management and reward systems determine whether collaboration is recognized and incentivized or only individual accomplishments count. These elements collectively create what psychologists call "situational strength"—cues that either clearly encourage teamwork or send mixed messages about its importance. Senior leadership behaviors establish another critical organizational condition. Research shows that when senior leadership teams demonstrate collaboration, employee satisfaction and retention improve throughout the organization—even among employees who never interact directly with those leaders. This happens because stories about leadership behavior circulate widely, and employees observe whether senior leaders model cooperation, communicate consistently with one another, and create psychological safety by encouraging candid input and acknowledging their own mistakes. At the team level, four local conditions significantly impact effectiveness. Resource availability determines whether the team has the staffing, funding, information, and tools needed to succeed. Time availability affects whether team members can devote attention to coordination and mutual support beyond their individual tasks. Decision-making authority influences how efficiently the team can respond to challenges without excessive approval cycles. And team mission or purpose provides the motivation and identity that encourages collaborative effort. Teams operating with significant deficiencies in any of these conditions face substantial barriers to effectiveness. The broader cultural context in which an organization operates creates additional conditions that teams must navigate. Different societies maintain varying norms around hierarchy, time orientation, directness in communication, and individual versus collective values. When team members come from diverse cultural backgrounds, these differences can create misunderstandings about expectations and appropriate behaviors. For instance, what constitutes respectful disagreement or acceptable response time may vary significantly across cultures, requiring teams to establish explicit shared expectations rather than relying on unstated assumptions. Effective team leaders actively monitor conditions and work to improve those that fall within their influence. While some conditions cannot be changed directly, understanding their impact allows teams to develop workarounds or adjust their approach to succeed despite constraints. By recognizing that behaviors are shaped by both individual attributes and environmental conditions, leaders can create contexts that naturally encourage the teamwork behaviors they seek rather than fighting against powerful situational forces.

Chapter 8: Coaching: Leading Teams to Excellence

Coaching encompasses the leadership behaviors that guide team development and performance. While traditionally associated with formal team leaders, coaching functions are increasingly distributed among team members through shared leadership, particularly as organizations become flatter and managers oversee larger groups. Effective coaching ensures teams have all the necessary drivers in place and enables them to learn and adapt over time. Research consistently identifies seven essential leadership functions that must be fulfilled for team success. The first three are task-focused: ensuring clarity and alignment about goals and expectations, holding team members accountable for commitments, and removing obstacles to performance. The next three are team-focused: managing emotions and attitudes within the team, fostering psychological safety that enables candid communication, and encouraging participation and empowerment. The final function—promoting learning and adaptation—addresses both task and team aspects by helping individuals develop while also enabling collective improvement. These leadership functions can be fulfilled through various leadership approaches, each with strong research support. Transformational leadership inspires and energizes team members by communicating a compelling vision, challenging them to excel, and connecting with them emotionally. Meta-analyses confirm that transformational leadership enhances both individual and team performance, particularly by encouraging team members to go beyond minimum requirements and contribute discretionary effort toward collective goals. Shared leadership distributes leadership responsibilities among team members based on expertise and situation rather than formal authority. Research demonstrates that teams utilizing shared leadership outperform those relying solely on hierarchical leadership, particularly in complex or dynamic environments. This approach leverages the full range of team capabilities, enables faster responses to emerging challenges, and fosters greater engagement. However, shared leadership works best when boundaries are clear and team members share a common understanding of when stepping up is appropriate. Servant leadership emphasizes putting team members' needs first and creating opportunities for their growth and development. Though sometimes perceived as "soft," this approach demonstrates robust relationships with performance, citizenship behaviors, and commitment in meta-analytic studies. By demonstrating genuine concern for team members' success rather than self-promotion, servant leaders build the trust and psychological safety that enable other team effectiveness drivers to flourish. An often-overlooked aspect of effective team leadership involves avoiding incivility and toxic behaviors. Research with collegiate basketball teams shows that teams led by coaches who demonstrate more incivility win fewer games, primarily because incivility reduces psychological safety. Similarly, leaders who tolerate toxic behavior from high-performing team members ultimately undermine collective effectiveness, as negative emotions spread through emotional contagion and damage team dynamics. One psychological challenge for team leaders is self-anchoring bias—the tendency for people in positions of power to assume others share their perceptions and feelings. This makes it difficult for leaders to accurately gauge team members' perspectives without deliberately seeking input. Effective team leaders combat this bias by actively listening to team members, inviting candid feedback, and remaining alert to signs that their assumptions about the team's experience might be inaccurate.

Summary

The science of teamwork reveals that team effectiveness follows predictable patterns driven by seven interconnected factors: having the right capabilities, fostering cooperative attitudes, demonstrating coordination behaviors, communicating effectively, developing shared cognitions, creating supportive conditions, and providing appropriate coaching. These drivers form a comprehensive framework that explains why some teams thrive while others struggle, regardless of context or industry. The most profound insight from this research is that great teams are made, not born. Team excellence doesn't emerge spontaneously from assembling talented individuals but develops through intentional attention to all seven drivers. By understanding these evidence-based principles, leaders and team members can move beyond simplistic teamwork myths and implement specific practices that build sustainable team effectiveness. In an increasingly interconnected world where complex challenges require collaborative solutions, the ability to build teams that work represents not just a competitive advantage but an essential capability for addressing our most pressing organizational and societal needs.

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Scott Tannenbaum

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