Psychological Science Agenda | June 2004

SCIENCE BRIEFS

What Makes for a Great Team?

Research has identified five conditions that, when present, increase the probability of team effectiveness.
By Richard J. Hackman, PhD

Let us begin with a thought experiment. Think for a moment about one of the finest teams you have every seen--one
that performed superbly, that operated increasingly well over time, and whose members came away from the group
experience wiser and more skilled than they were before. Next, think about a different group, one that failed to
achieve its purposes, that deteriorated in performance capability over time, and whose members found the group
experience far more frustrating than fulfilling. In your view, what is most responsible for the difference between these
two teams?

If you are like most people I've asked to perform this exercise, the first explanation that came to mind had something
to do with the leadership of the two teams. Indeed, "great leader" is almost always a central feature of the image we
conjure up when we think about a great team. And poor leadership is one of the first explanations that comes to mind
when we contemplate a team that has gone bad. It is, for example, the coach who is celebrated when his or her team
turns in winning performances game after game, season after season. And the standard remedy for an athletic team
that experiences a string of losses is to fire the coach.

Our tendency to assign to the leader credit or blame for successes or failures that actually are team outcomes is so
strong and pervasive that I'm tempted to add to the conceptual clutter of our field by calling it the "leader attribution
error." And it is not just outside observers or bosses who over-attribute to leaders. Team members themselves, the
people who actually generate the collective product, also are vulnerable (Corn, 2002; Pichanick & Roher, 2002).
Indeed, research has shown that the leader attribution error is muted only when there is significant ambiguity about
whether a team's performance was a success or a failure (Meindl, 1990).

The leader attribution error is understandable because people generally assign causal priority more to things they can
see (and leader behavior usually is quite salient) than to things that operate in the background (and structural and
contextual features that shape team performance often go unnoticed). Even so, the error would be little more than a
modestly interesting research tidbit except for what it has spawned: a veritable industry of training programs intended
to help leaders learn and execute the behaviors and leadership styles that those who design the programs think
facilitate team performance. Everything I know about leadership courses suggests that, when well executed,
attendees absolutely love them. The problem is that research evidence that would document the benefits for team
performance claimed by the offerers of such courses is hard to find. It may be hard to find because it does not exist.

Thinking Differently About Team Leadership

The pervasive focus on the team leader in explaining team performance is consistent with the widely-shared view that
performance outcomes are directly shaped by group interaction processes which, in turn, are strongly influenced by
the behavior and style of the team leader. This is a conventional input-process-output model, in which causality flows
linearly from left to right, step by step. Yet, surprisingly, research on task-performing teams has failed to support the
standard model (for a review, see Hackman, 1987). Indeed, there is evidence that, at least in some circumstances,
causality flows in the opposite direction. In this unconventional alternative, how well a team is performing is viewed as
one of the major influences on group interaction processes. Teams that are failing report more than their share of
conflicts and other process problems, whereas those that are performing well view the going as significantly smoother
(Staw, 1975). Moreover, the style of team leaders turns out to be powerfully shaped by the behaviors of those who
are led: If members are behaving cooperatively and competently, leaders tend to operate more participatively and
democratically, but if members are uncooperative or seemingly incompetent, leaders tilt toward a more unilateral,
directive style (Farris & Lim, 1969; Lowin & Craig, 1968; Sims & Manz, 1984).

At the very least, causality runs in both directions--from leader to group, as in the conventional model, but also from
group to leader, as in the unconventional alternative. Regardless of the direction of causal flow, however, both the
conventional and the unconventional models posit linear, cause-effect relationships. Our research suggests that a
robust and useful understanding of team leadership may require more than merely changing the direction of the
causal arrows. Specifically, it may be necessary to focus less on the causes of group behavior and performance and
more on the structural and contextual conditions within which groups form and develop over time.

Conditions Rather Than Causes

To think about the conditions within which groups chart their own courses is very different from conventional scholarly
models. The basic idea is that certain conditions get established, whether deliberately or by happenstance, and
groups unfold in their own idiosyncratic ways within those conditions. As I have argued elsewhere, the difference
between creating favorable conditions and actively managing causal factors in real time is evident in the two different
strategies that can be used by a pilot in landing an aircraft (Hackman, 2002). One strategy is to actively fly the
airplane down, continuously adjusting heading, sink rate, and airspeed with the objective of arriving at the runway
threshold just above stall speed, ready to flare the aircraft and touch down smoothly. The alternative strategy is to get
the aircraft stabilized on approach while still far from the field, making small corrections as needed to heading, power,
or aircraft configuration to keep the plane "in the groove." It is well known among pilots that the latter alternative is
safer.

To be stabilized on approach is to have the basic conditions established such that the natural course of events leads
to the desired outcome--in this case, a good landing. The same considerations apply to the design and leadership of
social systems, including work teams. Rather than trying to pinpoint and directly manipulate specific "causes" of
performance outcomes (the parallel of trying to fly the airplane down), scholars and practitioners would seek to
identify the small number of conditions that increase the likelihood that a team will naturally evolve into an ever more
competent performing unit.

What Conditions?
Our research has identified five conditions that, when present, increase the probability of team effectiveness. These
conditions, which are described and discussed in detail in my recent book on team leadership (Hackman, 2002), can
be briefly summarized as a series of five questions. The answers to these questions provide a quick assessment of
the degree to which the conditions are present for a given team.

One, is the group a real team, with clear boundaries, interdependence among members, and at least moderate
stability of membership over time? Two, does the team have a compelling direction, a purpose that is clear,
challenging, and consequential--and that focusses on the ends to be achieved rather than the means the team must
use in pursuing them? Three, does the team's structure--its task, composition, and core norms of conduct--enable
rather than impede teamwork? Four, does the team's social system context provide the resources and support that
members need to carry out their collective work? And five, is competent coaching available to help members get over
rough spots and take advantage of emerging opportunities, and is such coaching provided at times in the team life
cycle when members are most ready to receive and use it? A diagnostic instrument, the Team Diagnostic Survey,
provides quantitative measures of a team's standing on these five conditions (Wageman, Hackman, & Lehman,
2004).

Research confirms that the presence of the five conditions--real team, compelling direction, enabling structure,
supportive context, and competent coaching--enhances team performance effectiveness. In a study of 64 analytic
teams in the U. S. intelligence community, for example, Hackman and O'Connor (2004) found that 74 percent of the
variance on a reliable performance criterion was controlled by these conditions.

Research also has shown that the order of the conditions is important. In a study of self-managing field service
teams, Wageman (2001) obtained independent assessments of each team's design, the coaching behaviors of its
leader, the team's level of self management, and its objectively measured performance. Team design was four times
as powerful as leader coaching in affecting a team's level of self-management, and almost 40 times as powerful in
affecting team performance. Moreover, Wageman found that "good" coaching (such as helping a team develop a
task-appropriate performance strategy) significantly helped well-designed teams exploit their favorable circumstances
but made almost no difference for poorly designed teams. "Bad" coaching (such as identifying a team's problems and
telling members exactly what they should do to fix them), by contrast, significantly compromised poorly designed
teams' ability to manage themselves, worsening an already difficult situation--but did not much affect teams that were
well designed. These findings confirm that even highly competent coaching cannot reverse the impact of a flawed
team design (Hackman & Wageman, in press).

Leading Teams Well

The main work of team leaders is first to ensure that the team's basic performance conditions are sound and then to
help team members take the greatest possible advantage of their favorable circumstances. There is no one best
strategy or style for accomplishing this. Instead, team leadership involves inventing and competently executing
whatever actions are most likely to create and sustain the five conditions identified above. Anyone who helps do that,
including team members who hold no formal leadership role, is exercising leadership. What is important is that the
key leadership functions get fulfilled, not who fulfills them and certainly not how they go about doing it (Hackman &
Walton, 1986; McGrath, 1962).

Even so, our research does point to four personal qualities that appear to distinguish excellent team leaders from
those for whom leadership is a struggle. First, effective leaders know some things--they are aware of the conditions
that most powerfully shape team effectiveness. Second, effective leaders know how to do some things--they have
skill in extracting from performance situations those themes that are most consequential for performance and in
acting to narrow the gap between a team's present reality and what could and should be. Third, effective team
leaders have emotional maturity sufficient for the demands of their role. Leading a team can be an emotionally
challenging undertaking, especially in managing both one's own and others' anxieties. Emotionally mature leaders
move toward anxiety-arousing states of affairs in the interest of learning about them, rather than move away to get
anxieties reduced as quickly as possible. Finally, team leaders need a measure of personal courage. Leadership
involves moving a system from where it is now to some other, better place. That means that the leader must operate
at the margins of what members presently like and want rather than at the center of the collective consensus. This
requires challenging existing group norms and disrupting established routines, which can elicit anger and resistance.
Leaders who behave courageously can make significant differences in how their teams operate--but they may wind
up paying a substantial personal toll in the bargain.

The four qualities just discussed are differentially amenable to training--and in the order listed. It is relatively
straightforward to help team leaders expand what they know about the conditions that foster team effectiveness. It is
more pedagogically challenging but entirely feasible to help them hone their skills in diagnosis and execution. To
foster team leaders' emotional maturity is harder still, and perhaps is better viewed as a developmental task for one's
life than as something that can be taught. Courage may be the most trait-like of the four attributes. Although there
indisputably are individual differences in courage, it is beyond me to imagine how one might help leaders become
more willing than they already are to take courageous actions with their teams, peers, and bosses to increase the
chances that their teams will excel.

These four personal attributes may seem strange to those who are accustomed to thinking of leadership qualities
mainly in terms of personality or behavioral style, and I offer my views in speculative spirit. But it is nonetheless true
that the superb team leaders I have observed over the years have most, if not all, of these very qualities. It may be
worthwhile to give new thought to old questions about how team leaders might be selected and trained on attributes
such as these.

Conclusion
The challenge of our research findings for psychologists is to take more seriously than we have heretofore the
implications of thinking about team dynamics in terms of conditions rather than causes. Moreover, we need to find
ways of studying those dynamics that do not caricature them in order to make them amenable to study using
conventional cause-effect conceptual models and research methodologies. The challenge for practitioners is to make
sure that team leaders are carefully selected and competently trained, to be sure. But even fine leaders can make
little constructive difference if they have little latitude to act--for example, if all team performance processes are
dictated by technology or pre-specified operating procedures. It is the difference between a jazz musician and a
section player in a symphony orchestra: The former has lots of room to improvise, whereas the latter must follow
exactly a detailed score, and do so under the direct and constant supervision of a conductor. Team leaders should be
more like jazz musicians.

Both scholars and practitioners compromise their own espoused objectives when they hold constant conditions that
may be among the most substantial influences on their phenomena of interest. Yet we regularly do this: researchers
do it to achieve experimental control, and practitioners do it to preserve established organizational structures,
systems, and authority hierarchies. Until both scholars and practitioners break out of traditional ways of construing
and leading social systems, we will remain vulnerable to the leader attribution error--and we will continue to
mistakenly assume that the best leaders are those who stand on whatever podium they can command and, through
their personal efforts in real time, extract greatness from their teams.

References
Corn, R. (2000). Why poor teams get poorer: The influence of team effectiveness and design quality on the quality of
group diagnostic processes. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Harvard University.

Farris, G. F., & Lim, F. G., Jr. (1969). Effects of performance on leadership, cohesiveness, influence, satisfaction, and
subsequent performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 53, 490-497.

Hackman, J. R. (1987). The design of work teams. In J. Lorsch (Ed.), Handbook of organizational behavior (pp. 315-
342). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Hackman, J. R. (2002). Leading teams: Setting the stage for great performances. Boston: Harvard Business School
Press.

Hackman, J. R., & O'Connor, M. (2004). What makes for a great analytic team? Individual vs. team approaches to
intelligence analysis. Washington, DC: Intelligence Science Board, Office of the Director of Central Intelligence.

Hackman, J. R., & Wageman, R. (in press). A theory of team coaching. Academy of Management Review.

Hackman, J. R., & Walton, R. E. (1986). Leading groups in organizations. In P. S. Goodman (Ed.), Designing
effective work groups (pp. 72-119). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Lowin, B., & Craig, J. R. (1968). The influence of level of performance on managerial style: An experimental object-
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McGrath, J. E. (1962). Leadership behavior: Some requirements for leadership training. Washington, DC: U.S. Civil
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Meindl, J. R. (1990). On leadership: An alternative to the conventional wisdom. Research in Organizational Behavior,
12, 159-203.

Pichanick, J. S., & Rohrer, L. H. (2002). Rewards and sacrifices in elite and non-elite organizations: Participation in
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Sims, H. P., & Manz, C. C. (1984). Observing leader verbal behavior: Toward reciprocal determinism in leadership
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Staw, B. M. (1975). Attribution of the "causes" of performance: A general alternative interpretation of cross-sectional
research on organizations. Organizational Behavior and Human Performance, 13, 414-432.

Wageman, R. (2001). How leaders foster self-managing team effectiveness: Design choices versus hands-on
coaching. Organization Science, 12, 559-577.

Wageman, R., Hackman, J. R., & Lehman, E. V. (2004). The Team Diagnostic Survey: Development of an
instrument. Manuscript submitted for publication.

About the Author

J. Richard Hackman is Cahners-Rabb Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology at Harvard University. He
received his doctorate in social psychology from the University of Illinois, and then taught at Yale for twenty years. In
1986, he moved to his present position at Harvard. Hackman conducts research on a variety of topics in social and
organizational psychology, including team dynamics and performance and the leadership of self-managing groups
and organizations.

He is the author of numerous articles and seven books, the most recent being "Leading Teams: Setting the Stage for
Great Performances." Hackman received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the American
Psychological Association's division on industrial and organizational psychology, and both the Distinguished Educator
Award and the Distinguished Scholar Award of the Academy of Management.