Learning ModeAdapting and Innovating

Is Crucial for Teams

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A

Teams in the modern organizational world are awash in change and

confronted by continually shifting opportunities and threats. Those

that do not learn and adapt are bound to fail. There are four general

practices teams can engage in to ensure they are learning as they

work: establishing a climate for learning, continually assessing team

members’ work together, working with a team coach, and managing

knowledge effectively. The team leader plays a central role in all of

these efforts.

by Denn is L indoer fe r

s teams and teamwork areincreasingly woven into the fabric ofglobal organizations’ operations, amajor question arises: how do teamslearn? Management strategist PeterSenge, in his classic book The FifthDiscipline: The Art and Practice ofthe Learning Organization(Doubleday, 1990), talked aboutorganizations “where people continu-ally expand their capacity to createthe results they truly desire, wherenew and expansive patterns of think-ing are nurtured, where collectiveaspiration is set free, and where peo-ple are continually learning to see thewhole together.” Learning teams are

often at the core of learning organiza-tions, so it’s important to gain anunderstanding of team learning.

Teams in the modern organiza-tional world are awash in change andconfronted by continually shiftingopportunities and threats. Those thatdo not learn and adapt are bound tofail. Recent research has shown thatteams that regularly engage in learn-ing behaviors perform better thanthose that don’t.

There are four general practicesteams can engage in to ensure theyare learning as they work:

Establishing a climate for learn-ing. Taking early action to create a

learning climate in a team is a criticalprerequisite to rapid learning in laterstages of team development and per-formance. Norms and corollary prac-tices must be established to createand maintain a learning climate.

Amy Edmondson, a professor ofleadership and management atHarvard Business School, studied adiverse array of teams in a large man-ufacturing company and groupedthem into high-learning and low-learning teams. She also examinedthe teams’ performance. Her findingsprovide a framework for team learn-ing and identify several factors thatinfluence learning and performancein teams. She and several otherresearchers have identified anaction/reflection cycle as the engineof team learning.

For a team to achieve consistentlyhigh performance levels, its membersmust actively ask questions, discusserrors, engage in experimentation andreflection, and seek external feed-back. In high-learning teams, mis-takes are analyzed to determine howimprovements might be made.Feedback, both positive and negative,is considered to be essential andhelpful rather than critical. Theresults of this type of analysis arethen converted into the next round ofteam action, followed by a period ofreflective analysis.

To willingly engage in theselearning behaviors, a team must gaina shared belief that no member ofthe team will be embarrassed,rejected, or punished for speakingup and identifying errors or prob-lems. Team members must alsobelieve that the team will not letitself be unduly demoralized by set-backs or failures and that teammembers will support each otherduring challenging times. Withoutthese pivotal beliefs, team memberswill not take the interpersonal risksinvolved in team learning.

Edmondson refers to this sharedsense of supportiveness, respect, andtrust among team members as psy-

chological safety. A climate of psy-chological safety in high-learningteams allows team members to exper-iment, take risks, make errors, andask for help. This climate is neces-sary to make learning possible. Inlow-learning teams, an emphasis oncriticism and a general lack of trusthave often been observed.

One of the most reliable indicatorsof teams that learn well is the visibleand effective conflict of ideas. Ingreat teams, conflict is frequent andproductive. In lesser-performingteams, conflict is typically suppressedbelow the surface or it erupts in ahighly polarizing fashion.

To achieve healthy group dynam-ics, teams must move from avoidingconflict to confronting it construc-tively. Team learning dictates thatteams move from constructive con-frontation to leveraging previouslyunseen knowledge at the interface ofthe tension. Teams that actively learnfrom their ongoing work togetherdevelop conflict management andresolution skills for a larger purposethan just attending to group mainte-nance. They develop these skills inorder to surface new ideas, knowl-edge, and options.

Continually assessing team mem-bers’ work together. This practicerequires team members to use someportion of each meeting to examinehow they are working together, toidentify what is effective about theirworking methods and what is not,and to make decisions about alteringtheir ways of operating to increasetheir effectiveness.

Among the numerous metrics thatteams can use to assess their work arethe

• New knowledge and skillsacquired by team members

• Adherence to norms set at theteam’s inception

• Progress against performancegoals

• Degree of team member satis-faction

• Volume of task-relevant infor-mation brought into play

• Degree of flexibility in the useof authority in the team

• Effectiveness of team decisionmaking

• Performance against stake-holder expectations

Team members need to agree toone or more of these types of bench-marks and assess themselves againstthem during the last fifteen minutesor so of each working session. Theyneed to plan for adjustments neededfor the next meeting based on thisassessment, and the next meetingshould begin with a brief review ofthese adjustments. This process willdramatically increase team learningand pay tremendous dividends in per-formance gains over time.

In addition to this brief and ongo-ing assessment practice, learningteams can perform a couple of peri-odic assessment activities. The first isthe after-action review. This is a morecomprehensive assessment of theteam’s functioning and is much morethorough than the team meetingassessments. Learning teams oftenschedule such reviews to occur duringnaturally evolving junctures or mile-stones in their work. At the designatedtime, an entire meeting or two will bespent examining the team’s interac-tions so far, articulating best practices,and developing plans for remediatingareas of poor functioning or deficits inskills or knowledge. This practice can

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Dennis Lindoerfer is an

enterprise associate at CCL’s

campus in Colorado Springs.

He holds a Ph.D. degree from

the University of Texas.

A B O U T T H E A U T H O R

enable a team to make a quantum leapin its level of performance in the nextround of task work.

Another potentially useful periodicactivity is completion of a formalteam assessment instrument. Thereare many such tools on the market,and the structured, focused feedbackthey provide can give a team greatclarity about what’s working andwhat’s not.

Team members will need to setaside sufficient time and energy toexplore the feedback from such aninstrument and its implications fortheir functioning. As a result of theseexplorations, decisions must be made,and later implemented, to alter theteam’s operating methods. Repeateduse of the same assessment instru-ment allows a team to monitor its per-formance improvement over time.

Working with a team coach. Thechosen coach should be skilled inteam dynamics and process facilita-tion. He or she can work directlywith the team to help the membersbecome more aware of the effectiveand ineffective aspects of their func-tioning. The coach can provide theteam with information about alterna-tive approaches, encouragement forefforts to use this new information,and feedback about the impact ofthese efforts.

Coaches can also facilitate theongoing and periodic assessments.This practice allows the members ofthe team to participate in these activi-ties without dual responsibilities. It

also lets the coach observe the teamfocusing specifically on itself and itswork processes rather than on theofficial tasks at hand. This enablesthe coach to gain additional insightand perspective on the team’s rangeof operating dynamics and skills.

Managing knowledge effectively.At least two aspects of knowledgemanagement further team learning:capturing and disseminating emerg-ing knowledge, and acquiring anddisseminating new knowledge rele-vant to the team’s tasks.

Capturing and disseminatingemerging knowledge requires a sys-tematic way of handling the team’songoing learning. Teams may takewidely differing approaches to doingthis, but it is essential that they usesome disciplined approach that cap-tures lessons learned and best prac-tices from their work and dissemi-nates these among the team membersand others in the organization. Thechoice of method will be driven to alarge extent by the information tech-nology resources available to theteam and the knowledge managementnorms and expected practices in thelarger organization.

A learning team can be encour-aged to devote time and energy toknowledge management by incorpo-rating this expectation into the team’soriginal charter and its performancenorms and metrics.

In today’s complex business envi-ronment, it is rare for any team tohave among its members all theknowledge it needs to be effective inaccomplishing its mission.Consequently, all teams must haveboundaries that are permeable enoughfor taking in additional informationfrom outside, and effective mecha-nisms for conducting this process.

Sources for acquiring and dissemi-nating new, relevant knowledgeinclude research partners, technicalexperts, competitors, business part-ners, stakeholders, and other teamsboth inside and outside the organiza-tion.

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A team norm and accompanyingpractices for seeking out, incorporat-ing, and disseminating new, relevantinformation from outside the teamshould be set, modeled, and consis-tently reinforced by the team leaderfrom the beginning of the team’s life.Information access and disseminationtools must be made available to theteam. If these are not available fromthe organization, the team will needto develop this capacity itself.

Learning teams acquire and useknowledge as a by-product of howthey work. They are continuallystockpiling intellectual capital forthemselves and their organizations. Ifintellectual capital is truly the com-petitive arena of the current businessworld, learning teams can provide apotent competitive advantage.

PROACTIVE LEADERSA great deal of responsibility falls onthe team leader to initiate and main-tain the requisite norms and practices.When teams are at an early stage intheir development, the assumptionsand expectations of team memberswill be driven foremost by what theleader demonstrates in his or her ownbehavior, not by what is written downor inferred from visible designs, pro-cedures, rituals, and publishedphilosophies.

In high-learning teams, leaders areproactive and engaged rather thandistant. They take action to establisha climate of psychological safety inthe team. They operate as committedcoaches rather than as supervisors. Ifthe leader is supportive, coaching ori-ented, and has a nondefensiveresponse to challenges and questions,team members are more likely toconclude that the environment is safefor learning. In contrast, if the leaderdisplays punitive and authoritarianbehaviors, team members’ inherentwillingness to take interpersonalrisks, such as sharing the responsibil-ity for errors or revealing misunder-standings, is likely to be reduced.

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A coach can help team

members become more

aware of the effective

and ineffective aspects

of their functioning.

In what Harvard BusinessSchool’s Edmondson has termedinterdisciplinary action teams—teams in which members with spe-cialized skills must improvise andcoordinate their actions in intense,unpredictable situations—the teamleader is often in the unique positionof seeing the whole picture andunderstanding how different sourcesof expertise fit together in the project.As a result, the team leader can helpthe team create shared meaning aboutthe situations it faces.

Teams that learn new proceduresmost quickly share three essentialcharacteristics: they are designed forlearning, their leaders frame the chal-lenge in such a way that team mem-bers are highly motivated to learn, andtheir leaders’ behavior creates an envi-ronment of psychological safety thatfosters communication and innovation.

Leaders who capitalize on theopportunity to choose particular indi-viduals from relevant specialties reapsignificant benefits. Selection shouldbe based not only on competence butalso on such factors as individuals’ability to work with others, their will-ingness to deal with new and ambigu-ous situations, and their confidence inoffering suggestions to team mem-bers with higher status.

Team members often risk appear-ing ignorant or incompetent whenthey suggest or try something new.Neutralizing the fear of embarrass-ment is necessary to achieve therobust back-and-forth communicationamong team members required forreal-time learning. Teams whosemembers feel comfortable makingsuggestions, trying things out thatmight not work, pointing out poten-tial problems, and admitting mistakestend to be more successful in learn-ing new procedures.

SOCIAL VALIDATIONTeam leaders must first talk directlyabout the desired learning norms andpractices in the opening team meet-

ings and then model the desiredbehaviors—such as taking personalrisks, thinking on the margins, ques-tioning established procedures, andexperimenting with new techniques—early and consistently. Subsequently,the leader must respond positively toand overtly protect those who exhibitsimilar behaviors. He or she must doso until the team members can vali-date that these are desirable behaviorsthat will continue to be treated reli-ably within the team. Only after thissocial validation occurs can thesepractices move from the foreground,as an uncertain experiment, to thebackground, as a shared set of deeplyembedded assumptions. Once thisoccurs, the rate of team learning willincrease dramatically.

Aside from establishing and main-taining a productive learning climate,the team leader also plays a key rolein the other team learning activitiesdiscussed earlier. During the ongoing,end-of-work-meeting team debrief-ings and the more substantial, peri-odic after-action reviews and teamassessments, the team leader must beboth purposeful and participatory.These times in a team’s life providegreat opportunities for the leader tomitigate power differences that mayhave arisen in the team by demon-strating his or her own fallibility(commenting on personal teamworkmissteps, for example), by encourag-ing the quieter team members to par-ticipate more actively, and byrestraining the contributions of moredomineering team members. It is alsouseful to rotate the facilitation of thedebriefing and review sessionsamong the team members, to furtherspread the use of authority in theteam.

In most teams’ early life, main-taining the discipline of these reflec-tion sessions and ensuring that thelessons learned and best practicesidentified are put into play fall to theteam leader. As effective learningteams mature and increase theiraccountability for their work perfor-

mance, these responsibilities begin tobe taken on by the team membersthemselves.

With regard to the practice of hav-ing a team coach work periodicallywith a learning team, the team leadermust continually model thoughtfulconsideration of the coach’s observa-tions and suggestions. In their overtrelationships with team coaches,leaders illustrate the essential aspectsof the relationships that they them-selves hope to have with the mem-bers of the team.

Lastly, when it comes to learningteams’ need to employ effectiveknowledge management, the teamleader is often the shepherd of theprocesses involved. As with thepractices of conducting ongoing andperiodic assessments, using knowl-edge management tools is a disci-pline that is often initiated andmaintained by the team leader, atleast in the early life of a learningteam. It is only after team membersexperience the benefits of some ofthe painstaking activities involved inthe codification of new informationthat they will willingly embracethese processes.

It is worth noting that effectiveknowledge management alwaysinvolves boundary spanning. Whetherdisseminating their own acquiredknowledge or seeking new knowl-edge outside their own domain, teamsmust reach out to others. Here againthe team leader must play a key rolein encouraging and modeling thebehaviors required of learning teamsin reaching outside the sphere ofteam operations.

ADAPT AND INNOVATETeams can be a potent force in themodern organizational world. Thedynamic nature of this world requirescontinual adaptation and innovation.By engaging in the effective learningbehaviors outlined in this article,teams can deliver on the tremendouspotential they carry.

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