The Too-Much-Talent Effect: Team Interdependence Determines When More Talent Is Too Much or Not Enough (original) (raw)
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Determinants of performance in general and, specifically, determinants of team performance are some of the most important subjects not only in the field of labour economics but in almost every science of social life. Unfortunately, little really comprehensive knowledge seems to be available up to now. Theories in the fields of, among others, labour economics, industrial sociology, social and motivational psychology, and scientific management differ as dramatically as do the empirical findings. The present paper undertakes to combine the various approaches through a synergetic analysis of only three motivational forces: the force of preference. of conformity, and of anti-conformity. Thereby, a wide behavioural landscape concerning lcvels of performance is opened. The central message of this investigation into team performance within an integrative, broader perspective is that there is no clear effort-enhancing effect through building work teams. Effort may rise or fall compared to some exogenously given or expected standard, or it rnay change – perhaps even abruptly – from a high (low) to a low (high) level.
Team Performance Archetypes: Toward a New Conceptualization of Team Performance Over Time
Group & Organization Management, 2018
We examine the concept of team performance and propose a framework to understand patterns of change over time. Following a literature review on team performance (focusing on empirical articles published between 2007 and 2017) and drawing on Greek and Roman mythology, we identify five team performance trajectories: “Jupiter” (consistently high performing), “Neptune” (relatively steady, average performance), “Pluto” (low performing), “Icarus” (initially high performing, with a downward spiral), and “Odysseus” (initially low to midrange performing, with an upward spiral), which we refer to as “team performance archetypes.” We discuss how they might be used in conjunction with growth modeling methodology to help facilitate theory building and data collection/analysis with respect to team performance. In addition, we discuss the future research implications associated with using the archetypes to help conceptualize patterns of team performance over time.
Prior shared success predicts victory in team competitions
Nature Human Behaviour, 2019
Debate over the impact of team composition on the outcome of a contest has attracted sports enthusiasts and sports scientists for years. A commonly held belief regarding team success is the superstar effect; that is, including more talent improves the performance of a team 1. However, studies of team sports have suggested that previous relations and shared experiences among team members improve the mutual understanding of individual habits, techniques and abilities and therefore enhance team coordination and strategy 2-9. We explored the impact of within-team relationships on the outcome of competition between sports teams. Relations among teammates consist of two aspects: qualitative and quantitative. While quantitative aspects measure the number of times two teammates collaborated, qualitative aspects focus on 'prior shared success'; that is, whether teamwork succeeded or failed. We examined the association between qualitative team interactions and the probability of winning using historical records from professional sports-basketball in the National Basketball Association, football in the English Premier League, cricket in the Indian Premier League and baseball in Major League Baseball-and the mul-tiplayer online battle game Defense of the Ancients 2. Our results show that prior shared success between team members significantly improves the odds of the team winning in all sports beyond the talents of individuals. "The idea of star players is a notion everywhere but nonsense in Germany, " said the football analyst Hienric Spencer after the dominant performance of Germany in the 2014 FIFA (Fédération International de football Association) World Cup 10. Spencer's statement questioned the commonly held belief about the association between higher team performance and the presence of highly skilled players in a team 11. Sports history is, indeed, littered with plenty of instances in which teams with great players have failed. Various factors determine the success of a team. Prior research on team success revealed a positive correlation between cognitive ability and team performance 12 , and a link between individual talents of 'core' members of a team and team performance 13. However, to win in professional sports such as soccer (English Premier League (EPL)), baseball (Major League Baseball (MLB)), basketball (National Basketball Association (NBA)) or cricket (Indian Premier League (IPL)), a team requires not only highly skilled players but also cooperative teammates. A prevalent saying related to the success of a team is "a team is only as strong as its weakest link, " enforcing the idea of building teams with close-knit teammates 14. Within-team relationships may enable more successful collaboration , which is vital for team performance. Information about relations within a team is useful and facilitates teamwork 15,16. A qualitative , longitudinal field study of three virtual global teams over a period of 21 months found that effectiveness increases if a team has a series of adequate communication incidents 2. Previous studies have shown that personal relationships and previous collaborations improve the performance of teams with complex tasks 2-5,17-27. Similarly, the success of sports teams depends on inter-player coordination 6-8. Earlier studies of player interactions have predicted the individual performance of football players in the 2008 Euro Cup 6 , basketball players in the 2010 NBA playoffs 7 , cricket matches played between 1877 and 2010 28 , and soccer players in the 2014 FIFA World Cup 29. However, these studies focused on directly observable player coordination activities during the game (for example, passes in football). Prior collaboration among team members consists of qualitative and quantative aspects that accrue over time 30. While quantitative aspects measure the number of times individuals collaborated in the past for specific tasks, the qualitative aspect captures the outcome of the task (that is, whether teamwork was a success or failure). Psychological experiments and field research point towards measuring shared wins as a way to understand how teammates learn from experience and provide insights into one another. Positive emotions and psychological states such as pride improve the ability of a person to recall complex information and experiences 31 , intricacies about their own behaviour, and to be open to sharing and learning from others. Conversely, negative emotions such as anger, enhance the vulnerability of person to incur losses 31. A related study measuring instant messaging coordination among teams of financial decision-makers found that negative emotions arise in teams in response to financial losses 32. Once the negative emotions arise, team members then tend to 'turtle up' , and complex cognitions, mindfulness and team communications are reduced. The opposite effects are seen when teams make financial wins. Building on the earlier research on successful teamwork and work experience, we determine how prior experience of playing together affects the future performance of a team. In this work, we propose that when the goal of a team is to defeat another team, the attributes of team members and their successful prior interactions directly determine the outcome of the team. We investigate the elements of team success in the context of sports by focusing on the successful prior interactions among team members. In other words, when two teams consisting of highly skilled players are competing against one another, what are the chances of the team with greater prior success among its members? In sports and online games, people often play many matches together as part of different teams, and their successful collaborative experiences facilitate relationship building. The number of times they have played with one another
The Effects of Team Flow on Performance: A Video Game Experiment
2014
Research on effective team work has traditionally explained team performance as a result of team cohesion and goal commitment. Team cohesion was originally defined as the general level of attraction the team members had to all others in their group. This social relations-based concept of team cohesion is generally a strong indicator of team performance. However, more recent research has stressed the importance of incorporating the team members’ mutual level of commitment to the team task as another sub-dimension of cohesion. When including task commitment, team cohesion is a somewhat weaker predictor of team performance (Beal et al., 2003). To better conceptualize the role of the task engagement and to explain team performance, we incorporate a variable more relevant to the characteristics of a team task: team flow. The concept of “flow” has been well researched and theorized at the individual level. However, in an experiment based on collaborative video gaming, we demonstrate that ...