Expert Teams: Do Shared Mental Models of Team Members make a Difference?

The purpose of the present thesis was to investigate whether and how familiarity influences coordination, resilience, and efficiency in high performance teams in safetycritical organizations. Research has accumulated solid support for the general presumption that shared mental models are associated with team effectiveness (see overview, Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006). Unfortunately, familiarity and shared mental models have seldom been the subject of investigation. This is surprising since the importance of team members having a shared understanding is underlined in dynamic situations that require high levels of flexibility and adaptability in the team (Cannon-Bowers et al., 1993; Salas & Fiore, 2004). The first study investigated whether knowledge about individual team members would augment the effect of operational skills in predicting operational effectiveness in trained expert teams. The second study investigated the consequences of shared mental models (SMM) of team members in teams that are forced to coordinate their activities towards a shared goal in a distributed team setting. The third study investigated whether shared mental models of team members would transfer across new tasks or situations and, through better coordination, result in improved efficiency and less physiological arousal. Study 1 included samples from 24 active duty officers who made up four submarine attack teams. Studies 2 and 3 included a total of 177 cadets from the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy. The findings from these three studies indicate that familiar teams used coordination strategies that enhanced efficiency. The coordination strategies used by familiar teams are characterized by less overt communication (statements per minute) during high workload (Study 1), a higher global anticipation rate (Study 2), and more adaptability and back-up statements during cross-training (Study 3). In addition, familiar teams showed more overt communication (e.g., confirmation) when confronted with a novel situation (Studies 2 and 3). Familiar teams outperformed unfamiliar teams, being more accurate, quicker and achieving greater mission success (i.e., more hits). Familiar teams were more physiologically aroused (HR) during low workload (Study 2), and less during high workload (Study 1), recovery (Studies 2 and 3), and decreasingly so during training (Study 3). These three studies extend previous research by presenting new empirical data on the significance of shared mental models of team members. Study 1 demonstrated that knowledge about team members (i.e., shared mental models of team members) adds to performance over and above the contribution of operational skills (Aim 1). Studies 2 confirmed Study 1 (within teams) and provide empirical evidence for the effect of shared mental models of team members in distributed teams (Aim 2). The findings from Study 3 suggest that shared mental models of team members are transferable across tasks and enhance the effects of cross-training (Aim 3). All studies extend previous research, but Study 3 in particular indicates that shared mental models of team members are distinctly different from transactive memory systems (Aim 3). Hence, a shared mental model of team members represents an independent, adaptive asset at team level that enhances team performance and efficiency. These studies are the first to provide empirical evidence in support of the notion that shared mental models of team members are a mechanism that improves teams’ efficiency, resilience, and coordination. This thesis confirms shared mental models of team members as an important and independent construct with an added value in relation to team performance and efficiency. It thus expands previous knowledge, where the focus has been on equipment, tasks, and team interaction. The findings are a contribution to and fill an important gap in the literature on Shared Mental Models. Implications are discussed for training, staffing and safety issues in teams in safety-critical organizations

Team og moralsk handlekraft

I mange sikkerhetskritiske organisasjoner må team ta vanskelige og moralske valg i pressede situasjoner. I artikkelen diskuteres hvilken kompetanse som er nødvendig. Felles moralske mentale modeller holdes frem som en forutsetning for å få et samlet team til å forstå hva som skjer og dermed bli i stand til å koordinere hurtig internt i teamet, noe som kan være avgjørende når utfordrende moralske situasjoner oppstår. Artikkelen fremholder særlig et teams evne til å utøve gjensidig monitorering, støtteatferd, tilpasningsatferd, teamorientering og team lederskap i kombinasjon med de to koordineringsmekanismene sirkelkommunikasjon og gjensidig tillit som avgjørende for å skape gode felles moralske mentale modeller og dermed styrke teamets moralsk handlekraft. Flere forslag til nyere forskning blir foreslått

A new model for understanding teamwork onboard: the shipmate model

The increasing complexity onboard a ship underline the importance of crews that are able to coordinateand cooperate with each other to facilitate task objectives through a shared understanding of resources (e.g. team members’ knowledge, skills and experience), the crew’s goals, and the constrains under whichthey work. Rotation of personnel through 24/7 shift-work schedules and replacements often put crews ina position of having little or no previous history as a team. Findings from 3 studies indicated that unfamiliarteams used less efficient coordination strategies which reduced efficiency and increased levels of stress insituations where team members where experts on task, distributed or unknown to task and environment.Implications for staffing, safety and training are discussed

Police Dyads Within an Operational Simulation: an Empirical Test of the Research Propositions Made in the “Big Five” Teamwork Approach

Based on the impact of the theoretical big five of teamwork model proposed by Salas et al. (2005), the present study aimed at investigating the model within an operational police simulation. One hundred and sixty-seven frontline police officers participated in the study. Based on path analyses, a reduced model excluding trust and leadership obtained a good fit with the data. The results provided some support for the model by confirming six out of 10 proposed direct effects and four out of seven indirect pathways. Shared mental models directly affected team adaptability, and backup behavior affects adaptability and team effectiveness. Team orientation affects mutual performance monitoring and backup behavior, and finally, reciprocal monitoring affects backup behavior. Monitoring influenced both team effectiveness and adaptability through backup behavior. Two paths from team orientation towards effectiveness were found. One flowing through monitoring and another through back-up behavior. Our study expands former knowledge of the big five theory by empirically testing the totality of the model and identifying important pathways.publishedVersio

Exploring the core of crew resource management course: speak up or stay silent

The Norwegian Costal Express travels 24/7 along a coast considered as one of the most dangerous littoral areas of the world. It is crucial for safe voyage to speak up when one of the crewmembers discovers a discrepancy or vital new information to the passage that needs to be shared and acted upon. Crew resource management courses are intended to increase safety and we suggest that the key is to enhance the ability to speak up. Watch keepers valued a 4-h course intended to enhance the ability to speak up and improve listening skills as highly relevant (89%) and educational (69%). These high scores indicate that this type of training is necessary to improve safety.

Daily work pressure and task performance: The moderating role of recovery and sleep

Whereas previous research has focused on the link between (mental and physical) workload and task performance, less is known about the intervening mechanisms influencing this relationship. In the present study, we test the moderating roles of daily recovery and total sleep time in the relationship between work pressure and daily task performance. Using performance and recovery theories, we hypothesized that (a) work pressure relates positively to daily task performance, and that both (b) daily recovery in the form of psychological detachment and relaxation, and (c) total sleep time independently enhance this relationship. Our hypotheses were tested in a 30-day diary study with 110 officer cadets on a cross-Atlantic voyage on a Naval sail ship. The results of multilevel modeling lend support to all three hypotheses. Taken together, our findings suggest that recovery and sleep duration between shifts play a key role in the relationship between daily work pressure and task performance. We discuss the implications of these findings for the stressor-detachment model

Implementering av teamevaluering i operativ avdeling: En case studie av «Bottom-Up» organisasjonsutvikling

Operative avdelinger er avhengig av gode teamferdigheter. Slike ferdigheter omfatter mer en taktikk og prosedyrer og gode avdelinger har også et fokus på samhandling (også kalt nontechnical skills) da dette bidrar til bedret oppdragsløsning. Til tross for den uttalte betydningen av samhandling i team har få avdelinger et redskap for å vurdere og utvikle slik atferd. Denne artikkelen har derfor til hensikt å beskrive implementering av en tilnærming til evaluering og utvikling av teamatferd i politiets spesialstyrke (Beredskapstroppen), basert på teorien om felles mentale modeller. Prosessen med implementering, fra seleksjon av operatører til tilnærmingen ble integrert i daglig virksomhet, representert ved trening og øving, er redegjort for. Basert på erfaringen med implementering av evalueringsmetoden er det utledet en «Bottom-up» modell som forklaring på hvorfor en slik tilnærming til organisasjonsutviklingsprosesser (OU-prosesser) kan virke i operative avdelinger. Kunnskap om virksomme måter å evaluere og utvikle teamatferd samt hvordan OUprosessene kan virke i avdelinger med svært dedikert personell, er viktig innen alle operative virksomheter

The indirect effect of experience between personality hardiness and situational awareness

Studies on the relation between personality and Situation Awareness (SA) have been inconclusive. The present study investigates the relation between personality hardiness and SA during a simulated police scenario using a mediation approach. One hundred and sixty-seven police officers completed the test in a scenario with the arrest of a suspected perpetrator. The results showed a direct relationship neither between hardiness and SA, nor a total effect of the model tested. However, an indirect relationship between hardiness and SA, through the amount of annual operational training, beyond mandatory training, occurred. This indirect effect of training occurred for the total hardiness score, and for the control dimension on the facet level of the Dispositional Resilience Scale (15 items). The findings were interpreted as police officers high on hardiness being more motivated and engaged in voluntary operational training. By being more involved in training, they were gaining more experience in perceiving and interpreting critical stimuli in operational scenarios. Thus, the findings of an indirect effect was seen as a result of the relationship between experience and SA

Job crafting and playful work design: Links with performance during busy and quiet days

This study uses proactive work behavior and job demands–resources (JD-R) theories to propose that employees can use two proactive behavioral strategies to improve the internal organizational environment, namely job crafting and playful work design (PWD). Whereas job crafting concerns the proactive adjustment of the job, PWD refers to the active creation of conditions at work that foster play. We hypothesize that individuals perform better on the days they seek job resources and challenges, or design their work to be playful. In addition, we propose that seeking job resources and reducing job demands are most effective when work pressure is high, and that seeking challenges and PWD are most effective when work pressure is low. A total of 77 Norwegian naval cadets completed a diary questionnaire for 30 consecutive days (total N = 2310). Results of multilevel modeling showed that daily seeking job resources, seeking challenges, and playful work design were each positively related to colleague-ratings of job performance. Reducing job demands was negatively related to performance. Furthermore, as hypothesized, seeking challenges and PWD were most effective when the work pressure was low. These findings contribute to the proactive work motivation and JD-R literatures by showing which work strategies are positively related to job performance, and under which conditions.acceptedVersio

Teamwork on Patrol: Investigating Teamwork Processes and Underlaying Coordinating Mechanisms in a Police Training Program

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