Team Effectiveness
The role of psychological tools
Written by: Andrew Vincent, Medicology Ltd. Published: 3rd June 2010
Encouraging effective team workingsometimes seems a bit like riding a rollercoaster. Just as you think you have got itnailed it races downhill again. And you’veprobably noticed, it positively hurtlesdownhill but chugs slowly back up hill. Thisis in part due to the multifactorial nature ofteam performance with a myriad of factorsinvolved in the final result. We’d like toexplore one aspect of team development– that of the role and use of psychologicaltools.
Perspectives on team performance
Team dynamics are complex. Whenperformance ebbs, it is often possible toidentify distinct causes, such as Jim doesn’treally like Bob and so they avoid each otherand work ineffectively together, also leadingto the ‘Jim crowd’ and the ‘Bob crowd’ orunwanted separation/ factions within asingular team. This factor identification isparamount to resolving team issues butsadly is not helpful in establishing a baselineof high quality teamwork. It is a bit like thepatient with a problem but no outwardsymptoms. You don’t even know you need togo and fix something.
You could be forgiven for pointing out thatteam performance would start to suffer if allwasn’t right. True enough. But most teamsperform well below their true potential; it’sjust that we don’t know it! It’s not until youget a team into a high performance state doyou really realise how ‘ordinary’ performanceactually was. The answer is to systematicallyimprove performance by addressing factorsknown to contribute and for that we need amodel.
10 facets of team effectiveness
As part of developing an effective approachto improving team performance, anexamination of the literature, coupled toexperience, elicited 10 key areas that highperformance teams focus on to ensure theyremain high performance. This frameworkis known as Medicology’s 10 Facets of TeamEffectiveness (see figure 1).
Although overlapping and interacting, eachstands alone in its influence or impact onperformance. The framework can be used todevelop more effective team developmentprogrammes and forms the basis of theMedicology approach to team development.What we’d like to discuss is the use ofpsychological tools in this process, includingboth the benefits and pitfalls, as well as thelimitations.
What do we mean by ‘psychological tools’?The type of psychological tool that we referto is one that helps an individual make senseof or interpret behaviour, behaviour beingthe outward ‘symptom’ of the fuzzy innerwiring. Many healthcare professionals willcome across a plethora of these tools duringtheir career but the more common ones are:
- MBTI® - Myers Briggs Type Indicator
- SDI® - Strength Deployment Inventory
- FIRO-B® - Fundamental Interpersonal Relations Orientation
In healthcare, the commonest one is MBTI,which examines a series of dimensions,for instance ‘introvert-extrovert’, knownas preferences and which give riseto behavioural trends. The tool helpssomeone with a preference for extroversionunderstand and interpret the behaviourof someone with introversion as theirpreference. FIRO-B looks at certain typesof behaviour and how much a persondesires or gives off under certain distinctcircumstances. SDI attempts to examinethe underlying motivation for patterns ofapproaches and predict responses. All ofthese tools have inherent weaknesses, notleast of which is that only a proportion ofparticipants like being ‘analysed’.
Where do they play a role?
Using the 10 facets model, we can examinethe sorts of scenarios where use of apsychological tool may be useful. Thatdoesn’t mean it should be used and thedecision to use is not something thatshould be taken lightly. We approachedthe examination by considering what use atool might be and consequently, whether itwould be valuable, assessed simply as vital,valuable, neutral and low.
What becomes clear is that psychologicaltools play an important or even vital role inteam development, even allowing for ourearlier words of caution.
The cause for caution
Psychological tools can have a numberof detrimental effects when not usedappropriately. The commonest ones are:
- Frustration – if they are too difficult touse practically, then they hold little value
- Isolation – outliers can start to feel likeoutsiders if not handled appropriately
- Generalisation – people get assignedto a box that they may or may not behappy with, resulting in disengagement
We find that some tools that are robust at aresearch/ validity level are less practical ineveryday reality. Without sufficient attentionpaid to embedding the understanding andapplication, they become ‘interesting’ butnot useful. In our book that is also called‘wasteful’. Conversely, sometimes the moresimple tools can provide immense benefitdespite their simplistic approach. We haveto remember that without the benefit ofthese insights our approach to our teamsis somewhat unobjective. In actual fact wetend to approach all team members in amanner that works well for us, which is adirect expression of our own underlyingwiring, and so even subtle changes in thedirection of others can produce measurableimprovements in team effectiveness. Overallwe like them, we just urge organisations tomake an intelligent choice based upon what they are trying to achieve and then devote sufficient attention to making them work.
