Team Research Newsletter

TeamTrainers™ Consulting's Head Coach, Jim Morgan, regularly reviews the latest issues of 40 academic journals and business magazines for team-related information. For nearly three years he published a free monthly newsletter, TeamResearch News, that summarized the latest information from studies or articles on business teams, along with guidance on how to apply that research in the workplace. Though the newsletter is no longer published, its archive remains available here as a public service:

May 2006: Formal teams raise profits; internal networking; team self-reflection; champions and innovation.
April 2006: Monitoring team member effort; gender differences in teamwork; peer rating bias; role confusion and satisfaction.
March 2006: Meeting effectiveness; value statements; emotion in e-mails; factions within teams.
February 2006: Long-term team coaching; group task satisfaction; sense of control over fate; lone dissenters.
January 2006: No issue.
December 2005: Team "virtuality"; unfairness derails agreement; corporate boards and stakeholders; how HR practices effect performance.
November 2005: Software team best practices; responsibility to employees; planning in high-cooperation jobs; using lab and field research.
October 2005: "Lean office" events; peer reviews; ability and trust; helping behaviors.
September 2005: Improvisation training; team vs. individual freedom; informal communications; managing expert teams; team-based pay.
August 2005: Sexual harassment; project preparation; standard processes vs. creativity; shared sense of justice.
July 2005: Leading self-managed teams; successful workplace democracy; work councils; teams in manufacturing; mass collaboration.

Earlier Issues

About TeamResearch News

Each issue of TeamResearch News contains four to six research summaries, each containing these sections:

"Study" or "Article": This contains a description of the academic "study" or business magazine "article" and its results stated in plain English. In the case of studies, I tell you a little about what kind of study was done and who the test subjects were (see About Research Studies below).
Application: Here you'll find my suggestions on how to put the findings to use in your work group or team. Frequently these aren't based just on what the study said, but on its findings within the context of my prior research and experience.
Source: I always provide a full citation so you can have a look for yourself. Unless otherwise noted, all sources were found in the Foster Business Library or Suzzallo-Allen Library at the University of Washington.

Reprinting Articles

You may reprint any part of these newsletters at no charge in any electronic or print publication for which authors do not receive pay for individual articles, subject to the conditions below. This includes but is not limited to company and nonprofit organization newsletters, Web sites, intranets, etc. If authors are sometimes paid on a per-word or per-article basis, contact me to arrange reprint rights. The conditions for free publication are:

The author ("Jim Morgan") should be credited.
"TeamResearch News" must be cited, containing at least the name and the publication date (shown at the top of this page).
A link to this page must be provided, either written out or (in Web formats) as a link from the newsletter title: "www.teamresearchnews.com."
Please notify me of the publication.

The right to reprint does not imply the granting of any other rights, and all copyrights remain the property of Jim Morgan.

About Research Studies

Good researchers always list the "limitations" of their studies, i.e., the reasons their findings may not apply to people differing from the individuals studied. Unfortunately, some consultants and journalists don't make those limitations clear. Since I only use research studies from "refereed" journals—those whose articles have been reviewed by independent scientific peers of the authors—you can feel comfortable that they meet at least the minimum standards for proper science. But you should note the:

Size of the study: The more people there were in the test, the more comfortable you can feel that the results would apply to a wider range of people.
Type of test and test subjects: A laboratory test using undergraduate students may produce results far different from a workplace study with employees. However, lab test results are far less likely to be "contaminated" by variables the researcher can't easily control in the real world. Neither is necessarily better than the other; but results of one type are considered more likely to match reality if they agree with those found by the other type.
Body of knowledge: A study that builds on and is consistent with earlier research is more reliable than an early test of a new theory. Most studies I report on in TeamResearch News fit the first category; if they're in a new area of inquiry, I'll let you know.

About Business Stories

You often hear business success (or failure) stories through the media, consultants, or your colleagues. If you aren't skeptical about what you're told, you could commit money to a technique that won't work for your company, or mistakenly avoid a technique that would. Writers and speakers often misunderstand that two concepts being related doesn't mean one caused the other, or fail to consider the unique circumstances that may have played a role in the outcome. Regarding each claim as to why a success or failure occurred, ask yourself whether there were:

Other possible causes than those the story suggests.
Special circumstances in the unit studied that allowed the technique to work or caused it not to.
Companies built on less-flashy but better-proven techniques that succeeded with (or in spite of) the techniques the story attribute a success to.
Companies that succeeded despite using (or even because of) a technique that caused a failure in the story you heard.
Other reasons the people in the story focused on those techniques (public relations, deflecting personal blame, etc.).

About Correlations

Let's say you are going to look at the link between "Item A" and "Item B." A perfect negative "correlation," shown numerically as -1.0 (on a scale of -1.0 to +1.0), means that when Item A goes up one step, Item B goes down one step (and vice versa—correlation by itself does not show which movement causes the other). At the other extreme, a perfect positive correlation of +1.0 means when either item goes up one step, so does the other. A 0.5 correlation would mean that when one item moves one full step, the other moves only a half step, while a correlation of 0 would mean there is no connection at all between the movements of the two. In short, the distance of the number from zero shows the strength of the link, and the sign (positive or negative) shows whether the items move in the same or opposite directions.