Niranjan S. Janardhanan
Getting to Know You: Motivating Cross-Understanding for Improved Team and Individual Performance
Niranjan S. Janardhanan. 2019. (View Paper → )
Significant research focuses on understanding how teams develop, assimilate, and apply diverse information; yet, organisational practices have evolved in new ways that are not fully explored in the teams literature.
Individuals with diverse motivations, knowledge, and perspectives are often assigned to teams, creating burdens for members to develop effective ways to work together, learn from each other, and achieve goals amid the complexity of today's organisational contexts.
In this paper, we examine a multilevel model of how team goal orientation affects cross-understanding—the extent to which team members understand the other members' mental models—which in turn, affects team and individual performance. We examine these effects using 160 teams of 859 participants who completed a semester-long business simulation.
Findings show that the more team members are motivated by learning goals, the greater a team's cross-understanding and subsequent team and individual performance. These effects are dampened when members are motivated by performance goals—to avoid mistakes or prove competence.
Because team motivation can be influenced by organisational practices, our findings also contribute practical insights for organisational leaders.
Key Learnings:
- Teams with a higher level of cross-understanding, where members understand each other's mental models, perform better overall.
- Teams focused on learning rather than performance goals (i.e., proving competence or avoiding failure) are more effective at fostering cross-understanding.
- Cross-understanding reduces miscommunication, helps prevent conflict, and leads to better task coordination.
- Members of high cross-understanding teams perform better on individual tasks due to exposure to diverse perspectives and deeper learning.
- Performance-oriented goals (proving or avoiding failure) can dampen the positive effects of learning orientation on both team and individual performance.
Practical Tips:
- Encourage teams to adopt a learning-focused mindset, prioritising knowledge sharing and mastery over proving competence.
- Create an environment where team members can openly share their mental models, preferences, and perspectives.
- Reduce the emphasis on performance-prove or performance-avoid goals to foster a more collaborative and learning-driven team culture.
- Incorporate practices such as reflection and feedback to deepen team members' understanding of each other's thinking and work styles.
- Form teams with varied functional backgrounds and ensure they have time to develop cross-understanding for better project outcomes