Building Strong and Effective Teams

Teams are becoming essential to organizational functions. However, many factors should be considered if an effective team composition is desired. There are three components to team composition: team type, team tasks, and contextual factors. When forming your own team, every element should be examined to identify the characteristics that members should embody.

Team Type:

The first component, team type allows hiring managers to reflect on the attributes a team needs to successfully complete a specific project or mandate. This can be anything from levels of cohesion, creativity, and professional diversity.

For example, a design team may require greater levels of creativity, while a safety team would benefit from being composed of members from various departments. Knowing the type and purpose of your team will help you know which traits to look for when recruiting new members.

Team Tasks

Team tasks are the second factor to consider. In addition to identifying which traits should be exemplified by your team members, it is also helpful to identify the tasks they will be required to complete.

Understanding these tasks can help you identify the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSA's) that should be represented in the group to achieve successful task performance and effective teamwork. For instance, some tasks may require a lot of teamwork, therefore, people who have KSA's like collaborative problem solving, planning and task coordination, and communication should be included.

In considering KSAO’s for team effectiveness it is important to consider both the individual-level KSAO’s as well as the aggregated team-level KSAO’s. Factors such as individual and aggregate conscientiousness and emotional stability have been found to predict individual and team performance. While the proactive personality trait is correlated with a commitment to the organization, team, and tasks.

Additionally, aggregated scores on characteristics such as agreeableness and self-efficacy can boost a team’s performance depending on the team type or task. In the case of virtual teams, the complexity of the task must also be considered. This is because highly-complex tasks require more interdependence which may be difficult to achieve virtually without team members who exhibit high interpersonal skills. 

Finally, depending on the preferred KSA’s for the team. it is important to consider a complementary or supplementary approach. If taking a complementary fit approach, team members attribute should be assessed to find those that compensate for the weaknesses of other team members. On the other hand, if looking for a supplementary fit, hiring staff must identify the most important KSA’s necessary for job performance and recruit team members that can replicate the strengths of the team.

Contextual Factors

Finally, team contextual factors need to be identified as some factors can hinder or help team performance. Contextual factors include team structure, organizational culture, and cross-cultural interactions.

To provide an example, imagine a transnational merger between American and Japanese companies lead by a team with members from both groups. In this situation, it is important to note the different cultural backgrounds represented in the situation.

This is because members from each culture may prefer different working, leadership, and decision-making style. Ignoring these differences rather than composing your team so that they can address them can cause issues during the project. 

When looking at virtual teams, additional contextual factors that should be considered include the degree of team virtuality, geographic, temporal, and cultural boundaries, and the lifespan of the team.

Team virtually can be determined by the degree to which the team relies on technology, the value of the information communicated, and synchronicity of communication.

Geographic factors must be taken into consideration, as different time zones can lead to difficulty working together, scheduling conflicts, and a lag in communication. The team’s lifespan is also an important consideration as team cohesion is slower to achieve virtually and even more so in a short amount of time.  

Next time you build a team, keep these factors in mind to create a cohesive and high performing team.