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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...