Cognitive thinking behind teamwork

Teamwork has been stressed enough nowadays, in our normal life and in our professions. How does one get the team right ?, Is there a gauge to measure the balance in any team ?, How well will a team collaborate, if put together initially?. All of these questions are sensible, but should never be asked when forming a team. Teams are primarily focused on cohesion, and for a truly functional team, it needs to be dynamic with inter-disciplinary expertise and with profound differences in experiences and culture. Forming a team is an innovative process that outputs emergence from the cognition of the team members individually, manifesting into a collective output.

Research on "Team cognition" says that teams, focus on developing subconscious mental models and Transactive memory systems.

Transactive memory systems are methodology in which people collectively encode, store, and retrieve knowledge. According to Wegner [1], a transactive memory system consists of the knowledge stored in each individual's memory combined with metamemory containing information regarding the different teammate's domains of expertise. This in turn would lead to the development of three major traits amongst teammates, they are:

• Division of responsibility in accordance to each one's specialty, as well as the transparency to learn new things done by your teammates.
• Less time wastage in acquiring new knowledge, as it can be leveraged from your dear teammates.
• With the bonding interpersonal relationship, teams are now well equipped to take well-coordinated and effective interactions, as behaviors are well understood.

Teams are really useful if it is more dynamic, unbalanced, multi-cultural, as it provokes open-mindedness and global thinking. However, maintaining the structural integrity of the team is primordial and it is directly linked to how considerate we are to accepting new ideas and in our behavioral responses to stimulating actions.

References:

[1] Wegner, D. M. (1995). "A computer network model of human transactive memory". Social Cognition.