Productivity
A psychologist's guide to building a successful team
Dave Winsborough is a clinical psychologist who specialises in team coaching. Join him as he details key aspects of a winning team and outlines how the Red Bull Wingfinder test can help build one.
Logically, it makes sense that the way people behave and relate should impact team performance. We also expect team success to be affected by things besides personality, such as the calibre of the team members' skills and training, the competence of the team leader, the state of the team's resources and the support provided inside the firm. Amid all of that noise, the fact that we observe frequent relationships between personality and teams reveals that we are dealing with a powerful mechanism.
So, how does personality impact teamwork? Research by the management professor Jeffery LePine sketched two pathways through which personality affects team performance. One path leads directly from personality to team performance via individual behavior – a bad-apple team-mate who soured trust so much it degraded the team’s performance would be an example of this path.
The other route is through the impact of personality on processes. For example, if the entire team was comprised of ill-disciplined introverts, it would be more likely to fail at creating a shared direction with clear deliverables, because they wouldn't interact with one another.
Team psychology in practice
A good football team is a sum of its parts
© Mohamed Mazroua/Red Bull Content Pool
Here's a thought experiment: if you want to create the best football team in the world, signing only players who are superbly fit, strong and possess an unshakeable will to win should instantly translate to a successful formula, right?
Well, it won't if the selections consist solely of fit, strong and unshakeable goalkeepers. Selecting players who are strong, fearless and skilled for the functions required of the team (striker, winger, defender, etc) is closer to a winning strategy.
There's more to a successful team than just being able to do the job capably. People occupy psychological roles in a team as well
Functional roles are often found in many workplaces, too, and reflected in job descriptions. An operating theater, for example, requires a scrub nurse, a circulating tech, a surgeon and an anaesthesiologist. Yet, as we've seen above, there's more to a successful team than just being able to do the job capably – people occupy psychological roles in a team as well. Swapping one equally competent striker for another will not produce the same result.
The secret of a successful team
Find the right mix of personalities and success will follow
© Larry Chen / Red Bull Content Pool
To Henry Ford's distress, people aren't empty organic machines that can be exchanged. They come with hopes, fears, personalities and histories, and if there are two equally skilled people to choose from, it's smarter to go for the one whose attributes, strengths and character will contribute most to the team. In fact, character differences among individuals matter as much to a team's life as their technical skills. Personality preferences carry significant consequences for the team's functioning and performance, and in the real world, functionally-skilled teams can fail because they lack people who can play important psychological roles.
When looking at the individual's personality, the teams that deliver the best performances typically comprise of both high drive/ motivated members who are disciplined, while having a mix of connections or interpersonal factors.
The important point is that, when it comes to personality of great teams, a mix seems to deliver better results. Loading a team with disciplined people is not a recipe for success in all cases. As with being sociable, too much of a good thing can generate poor outcomes. A team composed of too many rule-following, classical people who are also highly disciplined may suppress those who offer different viewpoints. Ultimately, we see that diverse personalities are important to play the different roles needed in a team.
Successful teams have an awareness of their composition and understand that a balance of personalities and strengths is important for effective performance. In contrast, unsuccessful teams seem unconscious, unseeing, or willfully ignorant of the impact of their different personalities. Or they load up with people who are too similar. In short, a team's self-knowledge guides its development. Self-knowledge also helps individuals moderate their dark-side behaviour.
Unsuccessful teams seem unconscious, unseeing, or willfully ignorant of the impact of their different personalities. Or they load up with people who are too similar
What sort of psychological profile is needed depends on the task that people will be doing within the team. It's also important to look at the team profiles collectively to see if you have too much of a particular profile or type.
Successful teams typically have people playing one of four roles:
- Someone high on drive factors whose focus is on results, getting things done and being concerned with outcomes.
- People who are high on inter-and intra-personal connections whose focus is on team relations and inner harmony.
- People who are high on creativity factors that produce ideas and visions for the team.
- Organisers whose thinking style is more analytical. They can use this ability see the patterns in what's done, what's ahead and are good at dealing with the detail.
How Red Bull Wingfinder character assessment can help build a successful team
The Red Bull Wingfinder model
© Red Bull Wingfinder
The Red Bull Wingfinder free online personality test allows participants to assess the above attributes and provides an in-depth report that includes coaching advice from some of the world’s best athletes.
There's no hard and fast rule in team selection. The above is just a general guide and not every area is needed. Team members with only average ability can still succeed by being rewarding and productive; bright people with limited social skills may succeed by being very productive; those who are charming, bright and lazy will succeed as they often do. Those that are creative will be admired for their unique thinking, but if they cannot work with others, or use their creativity to solve problems, they'll be viewed as eccentric.
Regardless, in both sports teams and working groups, members who tick all four boxes can be expected to enjoy higher levels of career success. How they work within a team really depends on the diversity of personalities on that team and the challenge that's set out before them – the first step to getting that right is self-insight for the team members.
Want to know more about the Red Bull Wingfinder psychological test? Head to Wingfinder.com