Professional Documents
Culture Documents
EDUARDO SALAS
Naval Air Warfare CenterTraining SystemsDivision
DREW ROZELL
BRIAN MULLEN
SyracuseUniversity
JAMES E. DRISKELL
Florida Maxima Corporation
Harry, you weren't kidding when you said this Florida trip would be
no vacation! Building a group like us into a high-perfonning team
takes really hard work! But I wouldn't have missed it for worlds!
309
310 SMALL GROUP RESEARCH I June 1999
Porras and Berg (1978) observed that team building was one of the
most frequently used organization development interventions.
Enthusiastic reports can be found for the application of team build-
ing to such diverse settings as hotel management organizations
(e.g., Beckhard, 1966), microwave cooking manufacturers
(George, 1977), metropolitan rapid transit authorities (Golem-
biewski & Kiepper, 1976), medical rehabilitation teams (Halstead
etal., 1986), and nursing teams(Robinson-Kurpius & Keim, 1994).
A recent special issue of a scholarlyjournal was devotedto applica-
tions of team building to sportsteams (Hardy & Crace, 1997). Also,
as conveyed in the epigram above, team-building interventions are
evidently believed to lead to a substantive increase in team per-
formance. Shandler and Egan (1996) claim that by applying princi-
ples of team building, "any group can transform itself. ..into a
high-performing team" (p. x).
In spite of this popularity of the concept of team building, how-
ever, several reviewers (e.g., Buller, 1986; Woodman & Sherwood,
1980) have observed that there is no conclusive evidence that team
building renders an increase in team performance. Druckman and
Bjork (1994) noted that the enthusiasmfor theseapproachesamong
practitioners "is not matched by strong empirical support for their
effect on team performance" (p. 125). Similar to this, Smither,
Houston, and McIntire (1996) concluded that "Research findings
on the effectiveness of team building provide a complex mix of
results that make drawing firm conclusions difficult" (p. 324). :
More than 20 years after Beer (1976) attempted to formalize the:
notion of team building, some of the most fundamental questions :
about the effects of team building remain: Does team building
enhance performance? Why? Under what conditions? This article
reports the results of a meta-analytic integration of previous
research examining the effects of team building on performance.
Several issues need to be addressed in examining the effect
of teambuildingonperformance.
First,thesignificance
and ..
AUTHORS' NOTE: The views expressedin this article arethoseof the authorsand do not re-
flect the official position of their organizations. Correspondenceconcerning this article
..should be addressedto Eduardo Salas,Naval Air Warfare CenterTraining SystemsDivision, ..
Code 4961,12350 ResearchParkway,Orlando, FL 32826-3275.
Salasetal.! TEAM BUILDING 311
Team building has at its core the central notion that enlisting the
participation of a group in planning and implementing change will .'
be more effective than simply imposing change on the group from ,:
outside. The process by which the members of the team become
able to effectively participate in the targeted change requires that
the team acquire new skills and perceptions. The various defmi-
tions of team building that have been proposed in the research lit-
erature resonate to these elements of participation and acquisition
of new skills and perceptions. For example, Buller (1986) defined
team building as a planned intervention facilitated by a third-party
consultant that develops the problem-solving capacity and solves
major problems of an intact work group. Woodman and Sherwood
(1980) proposed that team building was designedto enhanceorgan-
izational effectivenessby improving team operation through devel-
oping problem-solving procedures and skills and increasing role
clarity (cf. Beer, 1976, 1980; DeMeuse & Liebowitz, 1981; Dyer,
1977).
The effects of team building are often described in extremely
.sanguinary terms. For example, the epigram at the beginning of this ..
312 SMALL GROUP RESEARCH I June 1999
~
Salas et aI.1 TEAM BUILDING 313
Beer (1976, 1980), Dyer (1977), and Buller (1986) have dis-
cussedfour current models of teambuilding: Goal setting, interper-
sonal relations, problem solving, and role clarification. Goal set-
ting emphasizes the setting of objectives and the development of
individual and team goals. Team members exposed to a goal-
setting team-building intervention are supposed to become
involved in action planning to identify ways to achieve those goals.
Interpersonal relations emphasizesan increase in team work skills,
such as mutual supportiveness, communication, and sharing of
feelings. Team members exposed to an interpersonal relations
team-building intervention are supposed to develop trust in one
another and confidence in the team. Problem solving emphasizes
the identification of major problems in the team. Team members
exposed to a problem-solving team-building intervention are sup-
posed to become involved in action planning for the solution of .
those problems and for implementing and evaluating those solu-
tions. Role clarification emphasizes increased communication
among team members regarding their respective roles within the
team. Team members exposedto a role-clarification team-building
intervention are supposedto achieve better understanding of their
and others' respective roles and duties within the team. .
,
These models might be best thought of as components of any f
given team-building intervention. That is, any team-building inter- I
vention might engage any or all of these various components in
varying degrees. For example, Wegenast's (1983) team-building
intervention in child protective service workers involved a rela-
tively high emphasis on problem solving, but relatively low empha-
sis on interpersonal relations. Alternatively, Paul and Gross's
(1981) team-building intervention in the communications and elec-
trical division of city governmentinvolved a relatively high empha-
sis on role clarification but relatively low emphasis on goal setting.
This diversity in team-building interventions represents one of
the major challenges to previous efforts to make sense of the re-
searchliterature on team building. In the present effort, we viewed
this diversity among team-building interventions a~ a. !Jnique
SalasetaI.! TEAM BUILDING 315
The size of social groups has been shown to affect the magnitude
of several other group phenomena, including the participation-
leadership effect (Mullen, Salas, & Driskell, 1989), the ingroup-
316 SMALL GROUP RESEARCH I June 1999
CONTRlBUflONS OF DURATION OF
THE TEAM-BUILDING INTERVENTION
A META-ANALYUC INTEGRATION
PROCEDURE
.
318 SMALL GROUP RESEARCH I June 1999
RESULTS
.
322 SMALL GROUP RESEARCH I June 1999
DISCUSSION
.
Salasetat. / TEAM BUILDING 323
NOTES'
~
1. The included studies reported varying numbersof hypothesistests,ranging from one
per study (e.g., Eden, 1986) to three per study (e.g., Buller & Bell, 1986). In the meta-
analysis reported, each hypothesis test was treated as an independentobservation. This
assumptionof independenceis patentlyfalse. For example,eachof the threehypothesistests
included in Buller and Bell (1986)was derived from the samesubject population at the same
time. However,without making this assumptionof nonindependence,one would beforced to
selectthe besthypothesis test from a study such asBuller and Bell or to pool the resultsfrom
the reported hypothesistestsinto a single test. In the presentcontext,thesealternatives seem
even more arbitrary and capricious than the presentassumptionof independence.The effects
of this assumptionof independenceare examined later.
2. As indicated in Note 1,the assumptionthat eachof the 16hypothesistestsrepresented
an independentobservationis false. However,it can be seenthat suchan assumptiondoesnot
seem to render a distorted summary of this researchdomain. Consider the results of a
326 SMALL GROUP RESEARCH I June 1999
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