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Why is it that teams following the same best practices can achieve different results? We studied new team formation to understand why some teams succeed while others struggle.
Effective teams can be significant drivers of innovations that enable broader quality improvements and efficiency gains across organizations. But despite the wealth of research and managerial expertise describing characteristics of effective teams, people and organizations still struggle to deploy
teams that achieve their potential, regardless of individual effort and good intentions. More puzzling is that teams following the same template of best practices can achieve different results. We studied new team formation to understand why some teams work and others struggle. Our research suggests that transitioning to effective teams depends on mutually reinforcing functional and cultural change processes. The way in which organizations combine these two key change processes is critical for success.
In our study of a dozen primary care clinics trying to establish multidisciplinary health care teams, we identified three prototypical approaches to establishing team-based care: pursuing functional change only, pursuing cultural change only, and pursuing both functional and cultural change processes. 1 While functional and cultural change processes were individually important, they were most effective when mobilized in tandem. This taxonomy of approaches to change can inform how organizations go about forming teams and evaluating progress toward effective teamwork.
Making change is difficult in any organization - particularly in health care, a field in which many individuals belong to professions with strong preexisting roles and identities. The dynamics we observed in team formation, however, are not unique to health care, which is just one of many knowledge industries turning to teams to cope with the proliferation of new information, new technologies, and an increasingly pressurized need to marshal data.
Teamwork in Health Care
The Research
The authors used survey data on team performance combined with qualitative data on characteristics associated with effective team-based care and capacity for continuous improvement to identify higher- and lower-performing teams.
They measured performance using the Primary Care Team Dynamics Survey and a work satisfaction rating from all patient-facing staff at each clinic. 1 The survey covers five domains of teamwork, including: skill sets of teams, communication within teams, shared goals and understanding of roles, and perceptions of mutual...