- 27 May 2015
- Research & Ideas
Build 'Scaffolds' to Improve Performance of Temporary Teams
Many critical tasks are performed by teams created on the fly, but lack of stability can hinder their performance. Amy Edmondson and Melissa Valentine use the idea of scaffolds to produce greater collaboration and efficiency on temporary teams. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 24 Sep 2014
- Research & Ideas
The Business of Climate Change
What is the role of business and its leaders in creating positive climate change? In the middle of Climate Week, Six Harvard Business School faculty provide different perspectives. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 24 Sep 2014
- Op-Ed
Take a Trim Tab Approach to Climate Change
Often depicted as greedy and shortsighted, business leaders face a crucial opportunity on the issue of climate change to change that perception, says Amy Edmondson. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 May 2014
- Research & Ideas
Research Symposium 2014
Harvard Business School professors presented their research to colleagues, with topics including speaking up at work, a manager's responsibility to capitalism, and a strategy to fix the health care system. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Jan 2013
- What Do You Think?
Should We Rethink the Promise of Teams?
Summing Up: Teams that are properly structured and managed can support innovative thinking that depends on contributions from both extroverts and introverts, according to Professor Jim Heskett's readers. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 17 Dec 2012
- Research & Ideas
Teaming in the Twenty-First Century
Today's teams are not well designed for getting work done in the twenty-first century, argues Professor Amy C. Edmondson. One starting point: learn the skill of "teaming." Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 02 Aug 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
The Rich Get Richer: Enabling Conditions for Knowledge Use in Organizational Work Teams
Individuals on the periphery of organizational knowledge-sharing networks, due to inexperience, location, or lack of social capital, may struggle to access useful knowledge at work. An electronic knowledge repository (KR) offers a practical solution to the challenges of making knowledge available to people who might otherwise lack access to relevant expertise. Such a system may function as a knowledge-access equalizer. However, the presence of a knowledge repository will not solve the problem of access to knowledge for those at the periphery of the organization unless it is used. In this paper, the authors begin to theorize the social and structural conditions that support KR use by exploring whether individuals on the organizational periphery take advantage of KRs, or whether KRs function more to enrich individuals whose experience and position already provide them better access to other knowledge sources. Using extensive data on KR use at a global, outsourced provider of software services, the authors' results show that despite the seeming promise of a KR to integrate or equalize peripheral players, it instead enriches knowledge access for people who are already well positioned. Findings thus suggest that KR use is not simply an individual activity based on need, but is instead enabled by certain social conditions (such as familiarity and experience) and inhibited by others (such as status disparities and remote location). An organizational KR thus fails to serve as an equalizer absent intervention. Key concepts include: There is a cautionary note for managers: In this study, KRs supported team performance by enriching the knowledge access of central players in the organization. KRs were less effective at ensuring much-needed access for those on the periphery. If individuals cannot get the knowledge that they need, then both their performance and their careers may suffer. Although some individuals are deployed into positions seen as organizationally necessary - such as remote offices or onto teams where they all may not know each other - in these positions they are less likely to make use of available organizational resources. There is a pattern of greater use of a KR and success for teams working in more supportive conditions. Individual and team characteristics enable people to support each other, make use of available resources, and perform effectively. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 25 Apr 2012
- Research & Ideas
The Importance of Teaming
Managers need to stop thinking of teams as static groups of individuals who have ample time to practice interacting successfully and efficiently, says Amy Edmondson in her new book, Teaming: How Organizations Learn, Innovate, and Compete in the Knowledge Economy. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 08 Feb 2012
- Working Paper Summaries
Team Scaffolds: How Minimal In-Group Structures Support Fast-Paced Teaming
It is increasingly necessary for 24/7 shift operations to include some component of team-based work. But how can organizations support such work among constantly changing groups of people in a setting where stable teams are not feasible? This research investigates an organizational structure the authors call team scaffolds: a role set with collective responsibility for accomplishing interdependent tasks. Studying the implementation of team scaffolding in a high-stakes setting, a city hospital emergency room, the authors observed that workers readily affiliated with the temporary teams—even without ongoing relationships—and worked together intensely during the short duration of these groupings, even developing a competitive dynamic with other team scaffolds. The role sets established job placeholders in an interdependent group so that people starting up a shift could take their places in the set and immediately understand the interdependence and accountability they shared with others. Overall, this design improved the ability and motivation of clinicians to engage in teaming. Key concepts include: Team scaffolds, as team shells that can be instantly populated with transitory teams, is an organizational structure that may have broad applicability for supporting teams of people who work intense shifts together in virtual or actual settings. Implementing the team scaffolding organizational design in a city hospital triggered significant changes in teaming networks and behaviors in ways that improved operational performance. With team scaffolds the hospital supported teaming among people who were often strangers and among people who might work together intensely for six hours and then not again for a month. In the team scaffold, people starting a shift would come in and occupy their place in the role set. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 19 Oct 2011
- Research & Ideas
Designing Cities for a Sustainable Future
The city of the past is likely not the city of the future—climate change is bringing an end to the traditional model. Harvard Business School faculty are thinking along with government leaders and business practitioners about how to create sustainable places to live and work. From HBS Alumni Bulletin. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 22 Sep 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Measuring Teamwork in Health Care Settings: A Review of Survey Instruments
It is critical to accurately assess teamwork in health-care organizations. About 60 percent of primary-care practices in the United States use team-based models to coordinate work across the broad spectrum of health professionals needed to deliver quality care; in many other countries the percentage is almost 100 percent. While the benefits of effective teamwork are substantial, effective teamwork is often lacking in these settings, with negative consequences for patients. To date, little has been known about the survey instruments available to measure teamwork. In this paper Valentine, Nembhard, and Edmondson report the results of their systematic review of survey instruments that have been used to measure teamwork in various contexts. Their research helps to identify existing teamwork scales that may be most useful in testing theoretical models. Key concepts include: Researchers often develop a new scale for their project rather than adapt existing scales. It would be better to utilize existing, psychometrically valid scales when possible so that cumulative knowledge of teamwork can be built. Many scales have been developed to assess teamwork. However, only eight scales satisfy the standard psychometric criteria the authors identified, and only three of those have been significantly associated with non-self-reported outcomes. Future research needs to clarify the concept of teamwork. Currently, the variation in ways of conceptualizing teamwork even within the scales that do show relationships to outcomes of interest makes it difficult to know what dimensions are core versus peripheral to the concept. The criteria set forth in this article should be considered standard research practice, and as such the scales that the authors identified are worthy of attention. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 26 Apr 2011
- Op-Ed
HBS Faculty Comment on Environmental Issues for Earth Day
Harvard Business School faculty members offer their views on the many business facets of "going green." Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 29 Mar 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Risky Trust: How Multi-entity Teams Develop Trust in a High Risk Endeavor
Work that comes with high risk requires a great deal of trust among the individuals involved, whether it's the financial risk of producing a high-budget film or the personal safety risk of working in a war zone. In this paper, reporting on case study research on a high-risk, multimillion-dollar construction project, HBS doctoral candidate Faaiza Rashid and professor Amy C. Edmondson explore the concept of "risky trust," and examine how colleagues can learn to trust each other in the midst of high-risk work situations. Key concepts include: Trusting the intentions and competence of other team members always matters, but in risky situations it's especially vital that workers can also trust the procedures of a team project. Teams can repair damaged trust not only through process innovations, but also by overcoming social barriers to trust. Leadership is a vital activity that can come from multiple individuals in a high-risk project, to facilitate and build understanding. This requires a focus on initial discourse among the team, as well as communicating the importance of trust to the project. Trust at an interpersonal level does not automatically translate to trust at the interorganizational level. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 09 Feb 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Sustainable Cities: Oxymoron or the Shape of the Future?
Among the issues looming large in the twenty-first century is a rapid rise in the number of people living in cities and a rapidly growing awareness of our threat to the Earth's environment. In response to both, a number of major corporations and various government bodies have teamed up to explore the idea of "ecocities" —urban communities ideally designed around the idea of environmental sustainability. This paper explores the idea by looking at several ecocities in progress in China, Abu Dhabi, South Korea, Finland, and Portugal. Research by professors Robert G. Eccles and Amy C. Edmondson, doctoral candidate Tiona Zuzul, and HBS research assistant Annissa Alusi. Key concepts include: About 90 percent of urban growth worldwide occurs in developing countries, which are projected to triple their existing base of urban areas between 2000 and 2030. The World Bank plans to team up with government, NGO, and private-sector organizations to help the development of nascent-stage ecocities. The ecocities in progress rely heavily on "smart infrastructure," or the use of centralized computer systems to manage urban systems such as the electric grid and city bus traffic patterns. Both Cisco Systems and IBM are heavily involved in the technological aspects of these initiatives. Financing is a huge challenge for ecocities, which typically require investment capital upwards of $35 billion. So far, the projects have relied on both public- and private-sector involvement, and all eight of the profiled ecocities are planning on eventual real-estate revenue to help offset the cost of development, although the degree to which they do varies according to the economic model of the project. Open for comment; 0 Comments.
- 06 Oct 2010
- Working Paper Summaries
Using What We Know: Turning Organizational Knowledge into Team Performance
An organization's captured (and codified) knowledge--white papers, case studies, documented processes--should help project teams perform better, but does it? Existing research has not answered the question, even as U.S. companies alone spend billions annually on knowledge management programs. Looking at large-scale, objective data from Indian software developer Wipro, researchers Bradley R. Staats, Melissa A. Valentine, and Amy C. Edmondson found that team use of an organization's captured knowledge enhanced productivity, especially for teams that were geographically diverse, relatively low in experience, or performing complex work. The study did not find effects of knowledge use on the quality of the team's work, except for dispersed teams. Key concepts include: Using captured knowledge had a positive effect on the team's project efficiency (delivering on budget) but not on project quality (number of defects in the code). When use of knowledge was concentrated in a small number of team members, efficiency improved but quality declined. Knowledge use improved project efficiency but not quality for teams with less experience. For more dispersed teams, knowledge use was related to improved quality but not efficiency. Team knowledge use was related to improved efficiency and quality for teams completing more complex work. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 28 Jun 2010
- HBS Case
Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center
A recent Harvard Business School case by HBS professors Amy C. Edmondson and Anita Tucker explores how one hospital implemented its own version of health-care reform, taking overall performance levels from below average to the top 10 percent in the industry. From the HBS Alumni Bulletin. Key concepts include: The case offers valuable takeaways for future managers of any complex service organization. A key takeaway for students is the power of transparency as a mechanism for change. Benchmarking themselves to an internal standard helped the group get beyond rationalizing poor performance as an unavoidable consequence of the complexity of patient care. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 14 May 2009
- Sharpening Your Skills
Sharpening Your Skills: Managing Teams
The ability to lead teams is fast becoming a critical skill for all managers in the 21st century. Here are four HBS Working Knowledge stories from the archives that address everything from how teams learn to turning individual performers into team players. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 01 Oct 2007
- Research & Ideas
Encouraging Dissent in Decision-Making
Our natural tendency to maintain silence and not rock the boat, a flaw at once personal and organizational, results in bad—sometimes deadly—decisions. Think New Coke, The Bay of Pigs, and the Columbia space shuttle disaster, for starters. Here's how leaders can encourage all points of view. Key concepts include: All organized human groups are susceptible to suppression of views deemed contentious or disruptive to an organization's foundational beliefs. Decisions are seldom better for silence, and overcoming that is a key task for the leader of any organization. Candor should be rewarded and incentives designed to encourage opposing points of view. An aware, open, and inquiring senior team is critical to sound decision-making. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
- 23 Apr 2007
- Research & Ideas
Are Great Teams Less Productive?
While studying teamwork, Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson chanced upon a seeming paradox: Well-led teams appeared to make more mistakes than average teams. Could this be true? As it turned out, good teams, which value communication, report more errors. In a recent research paper Edmondson and doctoral student Sara Singer explore this and other hidden barriers to organizational learning. Key concepts include: There are built-in tensions between learning and performance, which smart organizations must learn to recognize and deal with. The challenge for managers is to promote learning without sacrificing performance in the short term. In well-led teams, a climate of openness could make it easier to report and discuss errors compared to teams with poor relationships or with punitive leaders. The good teams, according to this interpretation, don't make more mistakes, they report more. Seen in this way, managers have two jobs. One is to become team leaders who encourage open discussion, trial and error, and the pursuit of new possibilities in the small groups they directly influence. The other is to work hard to build organizations conducive to extraordinary teamwork and learning behaviors throughout the organization. Closed for comment; 0 Comments.
The Space Shuttle Columbia’s Final Mission
No organization wants to fail. But even for the best and the brightest, failure is inevitable, and occasionally that failure can be catastrophic. Professor Amy Edmondson describes her experience writing and teaching a case on the Columbia space shuttle’s final mission, including the organizational challenges within NASA that contributed to it, and the lessons that can be taken from the tragedy. Open for comment; 0 Comments.