Team development is an essential team science competency

By Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano, L. Michelle Bennett and Yianna Vovides

How does a team develop purposefully from an assembly of individuals with a shared research interest to an integrated and interdependent team? What process can they put in place to explore and discover not just their own but each other’s motivations, needs, and values? What needs to be put in place to collaboratively establish a team culture, norms, and processes from which they can agree to operate?

Here we describe the Reflective-Reflexive Design Method that addresses intra- and inter-personal dynamics for team development. Two assumptions underpin it:

1. reflection and reflexivity are necessary dynamics for teaming success, and
2. interventions that build successful teams take advantage of both dynamics in context and as intersection points.

The Reflective-Reflexive Design Method enables individuals to:

1. Assess their degree of intra-personal collaboration readiness,
2. Surface their thoughts and values with the science team they are working with,
3. Develop a shared understanding of the motivators of team members,
4. Evaluate the readiness of the other individuals within the team, and
5. Collaboratively establish team mindset and behaviors.

Centrally highlighting motivation, needs, and values sheds a new perspective on the role of individuals in science teams. The Reflective-Reflexive Design Method engages the natural sensemaking that people are accustomed to and provides the platform for designing activities that guide them through their journey from ‘individual’ to ‘individual in the context of a team’ to ‘an interdependent team member.’ Guided self-discovery or reflection activities in three dimensions (motivation, needs, and values) enable teams to engage in purposeful reflexive teaming, benefiting individual and team expertise development, and providing a solid foundation upon which the team interacts.

As shown in the figure below, the Reflective-Reflexive Design Method integrates three models, with each making a critical contribution to guiding a collection of individuals through essential steps of becoming an integrated and effective team.

1. The Motivation Assessment for Team Readiness, Integration, and Collaboration inventory (MATRICx) is used to catalyze the method and serves to assess the degree of intra-personal collaboration readiness across five domains:
   • Advancing Science, contributing to an agenda or progression of science;
   • Building Relationships, a personal enjoyment from working with others, benefits that come from being social, sharing and exploring passions, and/ or an affinity toward helping/serving others;
   • Knowledge Transfer, the fluid exchange of knowledge from one part of the organization or sector to another;
   • Maintenance of Beliefs, intellectual stimulation and the shared interests between team members that encourage the same belief system; and
   • Resource Acquisition, allowing individuals to access a series of resources otherwise unavailable when working alone outside of a team context.
2. A more detailed description is provided in a previous i2Insights contribution by Gaetano Lotrecchiano, The MATRICx: Measuring motivation in science teams.
   

2. Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs includes five levels that start with the most basic of human requirements and progress to those that are more intra-personal, beginning from physiological to safety, to belonging, to esteem, and culminating with self-actualization. Integrating discussions of needs into the teaming process serves to surface individual comfort levels and interests within the science team and contributes to a shared understanding of what team members require from each other in the context of how they are going to work and be in a relationship with each other.
3. The values, norms, and processes from the Team Effectiveness Model for Science (TEMS) provide a foundation to establish a shared team culture and behaviors that guide the team members in purposefully designing and sustaining their teams. The Team Effectiveness Model for Science is a normative model that illustrates how mindset drives behavior which in turn impacts results and how, when values, assumptions, and norms are designed purposefully, teams can generate outstanding results.

Putting the Reflective-Reflexive Design Method into Use: From Concept to Intervention

To illustrate how a team would begin its journey from a group of individuals to an interdependent team using the Reflective-Reflexive Design Method we created a template learning tool (see table below), providing a five-step process. The template also provides an example of the kinds of learning goals that a team might develop (see “Learning Goals Per Activity”).

STEP 1: Starting with the Advancing Science domain from MATRICx, identify the team learning goals in that sector that are essential for the team to make progress. Then, work through each of the other MATRICx domains identifying 2-3 learning goals for each one.
STEP 2: Once learning goals are identified for each MATRICx domain, the next step is to review the five Maslow levels and identify the team needs that pertain to each learning goal. Ensure that the needs of all team members are captured. This is important as it pertains to the next steps.
STEP 3: Next, as a team, decide on the shared group values that will underpin your work together using the TEMS model – these relate to mutual learning values, team science values, and relationship values.
STEP 4: Then design your team’s norms and processes using the TEMS behaviors. This means agreeing on how you will do research with each other, behave with each other, what processes you will put in place and commit to (such as how decisions will be made), and agreeing on roles, responsibilities, and shared expectations.
STEP 5: Finally, step back and make sure the behaviors you have agreed to are in alignment with the values, needs, and motivations such that there is not a disconnect between what you say you want as a team and how you have agreed to do it; and to be sure the behaviors and norms will enable your team to achieve their learning goals.

This is a dynamic framework, something that will evolve with the team over time. There will always be opportunities to revisit it, revise it, and revitalize it as your team grows, expands, and transforms.

Concluding questions

What about this approach resonates with you? What causes you concerns? When you have previously brought together individuals to form a new team, what approaches have you taken to clarify and understand each other’s motivations, needs, and values? What process can you imagine for working with a team to identify the shared team values, norms, and processes?
 
To find out more:

Lotrecchiano, G. R., Bennett, L. M., and Vovides, Y. (2023). A framework for developing team science expertise using a reflective-reflexive design method (R2DM). Humanities and Social Science Communications, 10: 810. (Online) (DOI): https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02298-2

Lotrecchiano, G., Mallinson, T., Falk-Krzesinski, H., Schwartz, L. and Rosenberg, A. (2017). The MATRICx assessment: An overview and self scoring-sheet for team use. Science of Team Science Meeting 2017: Clearwater, Florida, United States of America.

Maslow, A. (1943). A theory of human motivation. Psychological Review, 50: 370-396.

Schwarz, R. and Bennett, L. M. (2021). Team effectiveness model for science (TEMS): Using a mutual learning shared mindset to design, develop, and sustain science teams. Journal of Clinical and Translational Science, 5, 1: 157.

Biography: Gaetano R. Lotrecchiano EdD PhD is an Associate Professor of Clinical Research and Leadership and of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine and Health Sciences at George Washington University in Washington DC, USA. His research interests include complexity leadership and characteristics, transdisciplinary team science, and motivation in teams.

Biography: L. Michelle Bennett, PhD is the Principal and Owner of L.M. Bennett Consulting, LLC, based in Potomac, Maryland, USA, having departed her position as Director of the Center for Research Strategy at the National Cancer Institute in 2021. Her main areas of interest are creating collaborative cultures, maximizing creativity and innovation within teams and organizations, and guiding teams in developing strategic approaches to their work and their team relationships.

Biography: Yianna Vovides PhD undertakes work that intersects three areas: education, technology, and development. Her practice and academic efforts address how people learn within networked learning environments. She has worked on projects that emphasize individual and group learning, institutional programs that enable systemic changes, and research that examines how new technologies support teaching and learning. She serves as Senior Director of Learning Design and Research at the Center for New Designs in Learning and Scholarship, Professor for the Master of Arts in Learning, Design, and Technology (LDT) program, and Curriculum Director for LDT, all at Georgetown University, Washington DC, USA.