Team Assessments

There are a variety of assessment instruments used for employee selection, promotion, special assignments, security clearances, workplace training and development, team selection, and so on. If you have already read and thought a little about personality assessment instruments, you may have some ideas about how and why personality differences might have implications for team performance (Bradley, Klotz, Postlethwaite, & Brown, 2013; D’Silva, Ortega, & Sulaiman, 2016; Luse, McElroy, Townsend, & Demarie, 2013). Despite some advantages of using personality assessments, there are concerns about using personality as a selection factor for teams or positions in an organization. Thus, sound evidence is needed before recommending that a personality assessment be used for this purpose.

Emotional intelligence often has implications for effective team work and for team leadership and may be a factor to consider in team composition. As you probably now realize, this is a question scholars have explored in depth (e.g., Ghosh, Shuck, & Petrosko, 2012; Chang, Sy, & Choi, 2012; Hur, van den Berg, & Wilderom, 2011; Gardenswartz, Cherbosque, & Rowe, 2009; Wei, Liu, & Allen, 2016).

At some point you have probably heard about or perhaps have taken the Myers-Briggs type indicator test or an alternative. As with personality factors, there are some reasons for caution in using type to make judgments that impact a team. If you are interested in learning about type theory, the team might want to try searching the Web for a free assessment. Should the team decide to consider the Myers-Briggs test, caution is recommended (Pittenger, 2005). It will be important to support this decision with a sound argument.

Some of you may have experience with the Hogan Assessment Instruments, including their development (or derailer) survey (Nelson & Hogan, 2009). Nelson and Hogan write about assessment instruments and approaches that may help leaders and managers avoid career derailers and the possible damage to those they work with in organizations and teams. If you want to learn more about Hogan instruments, you can search and find more at the organization’s website.

Other helpful assessments include those that address the following typical team-related challenges:

  • interpersonal and group conflict approaches andpreferences (Bradley, Anderson, Baur, & Klotz, 2015)
  • team communication challenges (Hedman & Valo, 2015)
  • cultural intelligence and cultural orientation indicators (Moon, 2013; Adair, Hideg, & Spence, 2013; Shrish, Boughzala, Srivastava, 2015; Groves & Feyerherm, 2011)
  • team member work preferences (group or individual) (Burch & Anderson, 2004)
  • team cohesion (Salas, Grossman, Hughes, & Coultas, 2015; Mello & Delise, 2015)
  • team member Type A behavior patterns (Strube, 2007)
  • team role preferences (Mathieu, Tannenbaum, Kukenberger, Donsbach, & Alliger, 2015)
  • team diversity (Bouncken, Brem, & Kraus, 2016; Tekleab & Quigley, 2014; Ely, Padavic, & Thomas, 2012; Bell, Villado, Lukasik, Belau, & Briggs, 2011; Stahl, Maznevski, Voigt, & Jonsen, 2010)
  • trust propensity in teams (Yang, 2014; Kuo & Thompson, 2014; Ashley Fulmer & Gelfand, 2012; Yakovleva, Reilly, & Werko, 2010)

Your team should limit itself to developing a good understanding of  three to five areas for assessment you decide are critical. You are not expected to consider all of the issues listed above. Also, do not worry about finding and recommending specific instruments with which to assess these skills. As you will see in the literature, these are all skill areas that have been studied and measured, but the instruments may not be readily available for you to review because many have been developed for commercial use, and access is therefore limited. Agree instead on the issues you believe are likely to be most important for the teams that are your focus for this project. If team members have experience with or know about instruments that might be useful, they may be included in your presentation, but any details should be in an appendix.

References

Adair, W. L., Hideg, I., & Spence, J. R. (2013). The culturally intelligent team: The impact of team cultural intelligence and cultural heterogeneity on team shared values. <em>Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 44</em>(6), 941-962. doi:10.1177/0022022113492894 

Ashley Fulmer, C., & Gelfand, M. J. (2012). At what level (and in whom) we trust: Trust across multiple organizational levels. <em>Journal of Management, 38</em>(4), 1167-1230. doi:10.1177/0149206312439327

Bell, S. T., Villado, A. J., Lukasik, M. A., Belau, L., & Briggs, A. L. (2011). Getting specific about demographic diversity variable and team performance relationships: A meta-analysis. <em>Journal of Management, 37</em>(3), 709-743. doi:10.1177/0149206310365001

Bouncken, R., Brem, A., & Kraus, S. (2016). Multi-cultural teams as sources for creativity and innovation: The role of cultural diversity on team performance. <em>International Journal of Innovation Management, 20</em>(1) doi:10.1142/S1363919616500122

Bradley, B. H., Anderson, H. J., Baur, J. E., & Klotz, A. C. (2015). When conflict helps: Integrating evidence for beneficial conflict in groups and teams under three perspectives. <em>Group Dynamics, 19</em>(4), 243-272. doi:10.1037/gdn0000033

Bradley, B. H., Klotz, A. C., Postlethwaite, B. E., & Brown, K. G. (2013). Ready to rumble: How team personality composition and task conflict interact to improve performance. <em>Journal of Applied Psychology, 98</em>(2), 385-392. doi:10.1037/a0029845

Burch, G. S. J., & Anderson, N. (2004). Measuring person-team fit: Development and validation of the team selection inventory. <em>Journal of Managerial Psychology, 19</em>(4), 406-426. doi:10.1108/02683940410537954

Chang, J. W., Sy, T., & Choi, J. N. (2012). Team emotional intelligence and performance: Interactive dynamics between leaders and members. <em>Small Group Research, 43</em>(1), 75-104. doi:10.1177/1046496411415692

D’Silva, J. L., Ortega, A., & Sulaiman, A. H. (2016). Personality and task interdependence as moderators for task conflict and team effectiveness. <em>Asian Journal of Applied Sciences, 9</em>(2), 62-69. doi:10.3923/ajaps.2016.62.69

Ely, R. J., Padavic, I., & Thomas, D. A. (2012). Racial diversity, racial asymmetries, and team learning environment: Effects on performance. <em>Organization Studies, 33</em>(3), 341-362. doi:10.1177/0170840611435597

Fenigstein, A., Scheier, M. F., & Buss, A. H. (1975). Public and private self-consciousness: Assessment and theory. <em>Journal Of Consulting And Clinical Psychology, 43</em>(4), 522-527. doi:10.1037/h0076760

Gardenswartz, L., Cherbosque, J., & Rowe, A. (2009). Coaching teams for emotional intelligence in your diverse workplace. <em>T and D, 63</em>(2), 44-49. Retrieved from www.scopus.com

Gevers, J. M. P., Driedonks, B. A., Jelinek, M., & Van Weele, A. J. (2015). Functional diversity appropriateness: Members’ and managers’ differential perceptions. <em>Journal of Managerial Psychology, 30</em>(6), 709-725. doi:10.1108/JMP-01-2012-0020

Ghosh, R., Shuck, B., & Petrosko, J. (2012). Emotional intelligence and organizational learning in work teams. <em>Journal of Management Development, 31</em>(6), 603-619. doi:10.1108/02621711211230894

Groves, K. S., & Feyerherm, A. E. (2011). Leader cultural intelligence in context: Testing the moderating effects of team cultural diversity on leader and team performance. <em>Group and Organization Management, 36</em>(5), 535-566. doi:10.1177/1059601111415664

Hedman, E., & Valo, M. (2015). Communication challenges facing management teams. <em>Leadership and Organization Development Journal, 36</em>(8), 1012-1024. doi:10.1108/LODJ-04-2014-0074

Hur, Y., van den Berg, P. T., & Wilderom, C. P. M. (2011). Transformational leadership as a mediator between emotional intelligence and team outcomes. <em>Leadership Quarterly, 22</em>(4), 591-603. doi:10.1016/j.leaqua.2011.05.002

Kuo, E. W., & Thompson, L. F. (2014). The influence of disposition and social ties on trust in new virtual teammates. <em>Computers in Human Behavior, 37</em>, 41-48. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2014.04.030

Luse, A., McElroy, J. C., Townsend, A. M., & Demarie, S. (2013). Personality and cognitive style as predictors of preference for working in virtual teams. <em>Computers in Human Behavior, 29</em>(4), 1825-1832. doi:10.1016/j.chb.2013.02.007

Mello, A. L., & Delise, L. A. (2015). Cognitive diversity to team outcomes: The roles of cohesion and conflict management. <em>Small Group Research, 46</em>(2), 204-226. doi:10.1177/1046496415570916

Moon, T. (2013). The effects of cultural intelligence on performance in multicultural teams. <em>Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 43</em>(12), 2414-2425. doi:10.1111/jasp.12189 

Nelson, E., & Hogan, R. (2009). Coaching on the Dark Side. <em>International Coaching Psychology Review, 4</em>(1), 9-21.

Pittenger, D. J. (2005). Cautionary comments regarding the myers-briggs type indicator. <em>Consulting Psychology Journal, 57</em>(3), 210-221. doi:10.1037/1065-9293.57.3.210

Salas, E., Grossman, R., Hughes, A. M., & Coultas, C. W. (2015). Measuring team cohesion: Observations from the science. <em>Human Factors, 57</em>(3), 365-374. doi:10.1177/0018720815578267

Shirish, A., Boughzala, I., & Srivastava, S. C. (2015). Bridging cultural discontinuities in global virtual teams: Role of cultural intelligence. Paper presented at the <em>2015 International Conference on Information Systems: Exploring the Information Frontier, ICIS 2015</em>, Retrieved from www.scopus.com

Stahl, G. K., Maznevski, M. L., Voigt, A., & Jonsen, K. (2010). Unraveling the effects of cultural diversity in teams: A meta-analysis of research on multicultural work groups. <em>Journal of International Business Studies, 41</em>(4), 690-709. doi:10.1057/jibs.2009.85

Strube, M. (2007). Personalities and behavior patterns, type a and type b. In R. F. Baumeister & K. D. Vohs (Eds.), <em>Encyclopedia of social psychology</em>(pp. 655-655). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE Publications Ltd. doi: 10.4135/9781412956253.n391 http://sk.sagepub.com.ezproxy.umgc.edu/reference/socialpsychology/n391.xml 

Mathieu, J. E., Tannenbaum, S. I., Kukenberger, M. R., Donsbach, J. S., & Alliger, G. M. (2015). Team role experience and orientation: A measure and tests of construct validity. <em>Group and Organization Management, 40</em>(1), 6-34. doi:10.1177/1059601114562000

Tekleab, A. G., & Quigley, N. R. (2014). Team deep-level diversity, relationship conflict, and team members' affective reactions: A cross-level investigation. <em>Journal of Business Research, 67</em>(3), 394-402. doi:10.1016/j.jbusres.2012.12.022

Wei, X., Liu, Y., & Allen, N. J. (2016). Measuring team emotional intelligence: A multimethod comparison. <em>Group Dynamics, 20</em>(1), 34-50. doi:10.1037/gdn0000039

Wildman, J. L., Shuffler, M. L., Lazzara, E. H., Fiore, S. M., Burke, C. S., Salas, E., & Garven, S. (2012). Trust development in swift starting action teams: A multilevel framework. <em>Group and Organization Management, 37</em>(2), 137-170. doi:10.1177/1059601111434202

Yakovleva, M., Reilly, R. R., & Werko, R. (2010). Why do we trust? moving beyond individual to dyadic perceptions. <em>Journal of Applied Psychology, 95</em>(1), 79-91. doi:10.1037/a0017102

Yang, I. (2014). What makes an effective team? the role of trust (dis)confirmation in team development. <em>European Management Journal, 32</em>(6), 858-869. doi:10.1016/j.emj.2014.04.001