004. Creating excellent teams – TU Delft

  • Oct 2024
  • Claartje Chajes
  • ·
  • Modified 1 Sep
  • 1
  • 92
Claartje Chajes
Kennisbank // Knowledge Base
  • Kim Huijpen
  • Sasja van Warmerdam

Source: Recognition and Rewards magazine '22

In its own perspective on Recognition & Rewards, TU Delft identified two main levers for change towards the national goals. These were ‘Building on talent’ (for individual employees), and ‘Creating excellent teams’.


For the latter, we broadened our approach by not just focusing on team science, but by defining TU Delft teams as ‘teams with shared goals for research, education and valorisation that work towards positive synergy’. This entails that the collective level of performance is greater than the sum of the individual members’ performance. Team members contribute with their:

  • different (scientific) disciplinary backgrounds,
  • different career path accents (research, education, valorisation, support and/ or leadership),
  • different career stages, genders, ages, and ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Organisation Behaviour Management

Within the project on stimulating teamwork, we undertook both desk and field research: we identified existing best practices and held interviews with nine high-performing TU Delft teams using a method called Organisation Behaviour Management. One of the outcomes showed that employees often participate in multiple teams simultaneously. In addition, these teams may differ in ‘location’ (the spectrum ranging from primary team to international team) and the degree of collaboration (from monodisciplinary to transdisciplinary). Furthermore, to do justice to the complexity of university teamwork, we identified potential dilemmas and paradoxes on the level of individuals, teams, team leaders and organisation.

Success factors

In order to counter these dilemmas and paradoxes, we identified success factors for the high-performing teams’ current rewards of teamwork (see illustration). These teamwork rewards turned out to be mostly social- and work- content related rewards, rather than tangible ones (such as teaching the next generation and making scientific discoveries).

Teamwork toolbox

We then invited university staff to join focus groups to share their ideas, needs and wants on a Teamwork toolbox. As teamwork is a responsibility of all employees, most tools are designed to be used by all employees, rather than just for team leaders. The tools will be developed in batches and serve to implement the success factors and rewards. Examples of such tools that are currently being developed are:

  1. A discussion tool to determine the fitting amount and type of team collaboration (related to the success factors, ‘Leadership style’ and ‘Shared mission’).
  2. A manual on how to recognise and reward teamwork, based on scientific principles and the aforementioned TU Delft rewards to choose from (related to the success factors, ‘Positive reinforcement’ and ‘Autonomy’).
  3. A method for solving Wicked Problems using the teams’ thought diversity (related to the success factors, ‘Group growth mind set’ and ‘Collaborative contributions’).

More information about this good practice, please contact @sasjavanwarmerdam.

Comments

1 comment, 15 November 2024

Edited on 15 November 2024

What is your everyday behavior that benefits you and others? And how does it help to build effective teams? Let's start today with a dialogue about your talents and how these talent contribute to make a valued difference in stimulating teamwork. This were the central questions during the workshop How to build a talented Team by the TU Delft.

If you want to read the full report visit: 1.8 How to build a talented team (G) - RRview

The 9 factors below were mentioned in the interviews to facilitate the success of TU Delft teams. Factors 1 to 6 are more generally found in the literature, but success factor 7 to 9 (group growth mind set, collaborative contributions, and autonomy) were new and specific for stimulating TU Delft teams.

  1. Organisational prerequisites
  • The organisation supports teamwork (in people, information, time; resources).
  • The HR policies and administrative processes are developed and aligned to include teamwork (resource allocation, strategic planning, recruitment, on boarding, the results and development cycle, promotion, talent & development).

2. Psychological safety

Psychological safety is a shared belief among team members indicative of an interpersonal climate that supports risk taking and learning. Learning from errors (i.e., to find, reflect, and diagnose them and develop right solutions) is particularly important in science as well as in other teams charged with innovation, and therefore, fostering psychological safety may be uniquely valuable for science teams and larger groups. (National Research Council, 2015).

3. A teamwork fostering leadership style

The leadership style of the team leader is conducive to collaboration. The team leader assigns importance to teamwork, balances individual and collective interests in the team and practically supports collaboration/ teamwork. The 2 most prevalent team leadership styles are transformational and servant leadership (Carter, 2013).

4. Connectivity/ availability of a broad network

Connectivity as a metaphor to explain intra- and inter-organizational interactions has become more important in our interconnected world (Kolb 2008; Kolb et al. 2009; Murphy 2007). Generally, to be socially connected seems to be a good thing (Kolb et al. 2008).

5. Shared a common vision and team goals

Actively sharing a common vision and defining shared goals and aims collectively that are concrete, challenging, and attainable (Appley and Winder 1977, Mattessich and Monsey 1992, Schrage 1995, Daniels (2006).

6. Positive reinforcers/ rewards (including positive emotions such as joy & contentment)

Positive reinforcers are events, actions or objects that are received by individual team members and/ or the team that increase collaborative behaviours and team achievements. These include tangible, social & work-content related rewards that a team members appreciates because they are in line with their personal preferences, needs, wishes & values. And that therefore lead to positive emotions (Daniels, 2006, Den Broeder and Kerkhofs, 2020).

7. Group growth mind-set (new finding)

Open mindedness of a team that nurtures curiosity and which welcomes new ideas (Driessen, 2022).

8. Complementary contributions to innovation (new finding)

Diverse teams have a greater amount of information and ideas, and a greater number of perspectives, than teams in which everyone is the same. (TBM Multiannual plan 2022-2025, p.68). In the TU Delft’s HPAT’s this variety within the team is valued and made productive. The team helps uncovering the unique information team members bring and their exchange of these complementary contributions (their respective knowledge, skills, career tracks and phases and personal and cultural backgrounds). This multi perspective taking then acts as a comparative advantage for innovation and (Wicked) problem solving (Driessen, 2022).

9. Autonomy

Autonomy is the extent to which individual employees can structure and control how and when they do their tasks (Spector, 1986). The Relationship motivation theory states that respect for autonomy helps high quality, truly responsive, mutually satisfying relationships (Martela et al, p.4, 2020). This is relevant for university teamwork as academic staff are characterized as professionals that drive their own learning and work relatively independently (Wierdsma & Swieringa, 2002).

Sasja van Warmerdam

Do you want to provide a comment? Please sign up first

Tags

Explore