At Saberr we take research very seriously. Whenever we are looking to add a new feature to our products, we follow a process to ensure we make informed, smart decisions that will actually bring value to our customers. We then monitor the impact of our products on team performance and iterate on the design accordingly.
As a result, Saberr is based on 100 years of research into what makes teams effective combined with practical field work with leading team coaches. Saberr offers a unique way of using proven techniques to improve team performance. All evidence indicates that teams that practise the disciplines built into Saberr are likely to out-perform teams that do not. As teams practise these disciplines and discuss challenging issues with each other, their environments become “safer” and individuals become more engaged with their team and work. Teams that work in a psychologically safe environment perform better; innovation is fostered, expertise is utilised, processes are improved.
However, we are not naive. Helping teams improve performance is not clean, linear or simple. Teamwork is messy. There isn’t a single set of rules that can guarantee team success. The team’s performance is also governed by organisational factors and market factors beyond the control of the team. External factors must be considered as part of any serious review of team performance.
With that in mind, Saberr also generates insight that will drive future research into collaboration and teamwork. Saberr is keen to conduct research across large groups of teams to understand the impact of team interventions at scale.
This help guide will take you through the eight core research principles that Saberr is built on, summarised below.
There's significant evidence for what is mostly common knowledge...
There's significant evidence for what is mostly common knowledge - that teamwork has a positive impact on organisational and business performance. In fact, teamwork interventions are amongst the most effective ways to drive better performance.
Out of a variety of organisational change interventions, team development interventions were one of the interventions that had the greatest impact on financial performance.
Macy & Izumi (1993) presented the results of a meta-analysis of 131 field studies of organisational change that appeared over a 30-year period. Group-oriented interventions showed evidence of improving behavioural measures of performance such as turnover and absenteeism. In summary, team-oriented interventions are one of a few subsets of interventions that have the most notable effects on organisational effectiveness, and team-oriented interventions affect both financial and behavioural measures of performance.
Teams that demonstrate better teamwork processes are 20 to 25% more likely to succeed.
LePine et al. (2008) examined over 130 team effectiveness studies. They used meta-analysis to quantify what most of us know from experience – that teamwork matters – and found that teams that demonstrate better teamwork processes are more likely to believe their team can succeed, more committed to their team, and 20 to 25% more likely to succeed.
There is a significant effect of team building interventions on economic performance.
Wolfe et al. (1989) tested whether a team building intervention was associated with economic performance. At the end of the first year of the business simulation, teams that had received the intervention had earned approximately $157,870, whilst the control counterpart had earned $82,890. The conditioned groups made better initial decisions and then proceeded to maintain their advantage over the length of the simulation, suggesting that initial team building will have long lasting financial outcomes.
Organisations adopting teamwork practices as an important element of organisation design tend to excel on several performance dimensions such as employee relations and product quality.
According to Kalleberg & Moody (1994) who analysed the relationship between performance and the team-based work practices.
Teamwork training has positive...
Teamwork training has positive effects on behaviours and performance. Giving people the chance to actively learn and practise teamwork, through interactive training methods and simulations is the most effective training method.
People who go through teamwork training engage in more teamwork behaviours and perform better.
McEwan et al. (2017) examined teamwork training and its effect on how well the team performs its task, and how many teamwork behaviours people actually show. They selected 51 studies (from a total of 16,849 reviewed) for a detailed analysis. All these studies compared teams receiving teamwork training to teams with no intervention, a control group. Their meta-analysis found that from all the people receiving the training, 66% show more teamwork behaviours, such as defining the team’s mission or coordinating with each other while working, compared to those who were not trained.
Furthermore, teams also performed better on their tasks after going through teamwork training. This effect was also medium-to-large, and was present both on performance measured objectively (e.g. number of items produced) and subjectively (e.g. by external raters).
In a meta-analysis, summarising research on team training effectiveness, Salas et al. (2008) find that 12–19% of the variance in team effectiveness can be explained by team training: “To know that team training can explain 12% to 19% of the variance of a team’s performance . . . can mean reducing medical errors (in healthcare), saving an aircraft (in aviation), increasing the bottom line (in business), or saving lives (in the military)."
Giving people the chance to actively learn and practise teamwork, through interactive training methods, had the largest effect on their behaviours and performance.
Those are workshop-style exercises involving all team members, simulations of tasks that the team has to do, and indeed team reviews and debriefs on their real work together (like Saberr's retrospectives). The aim is to stimulate people’s critical thinking regarding teamwork in the workplace, and simply lecturing them might not do it.
Hackman and Wageman (2005) define team coaching as direct interaction with a team intended to help members make coordinated and task-appropriate use of their collective resources in accomplishing the team’s work. Coaching a team focusses on improving its effectiveness, which makes a team more likely to produce sustainable and repeatable performance in their outcomes.
All members of a team can receive individual coaching to improve their personal capabilities and yet the team’s performance may not show any notable improvement, according to a study of 100+ top teams from around the world by Wageman et al. (2008).
“A surprising finding from our research is that teams do not improve markedly even if all their members receive individual coaching to help develop their personal capabilities. Individual coaching can indeed help executives become better leaders in their own right, but the team does not necessarily improve […] Team development is not an additive function of individuals becoming more effective team players, but rather an entirely different capability. The reason for that is not immediately obvious. In essence, it is the because the team itself is an entity separate from the individuals who constitute it. For the team to get better that entity needs to be coached while members are actually carrying out their collaborative work.”
Reflection is linked to outcomes directly: Regular team reflection has been found to significantly impact effectiveness and innovation, two of the most sought after qualities of high performing teams.
End-points, where a team completes a block of work, are typically considered to be a good time for reflection. At this point, it is usually clear whether work has been a success or failure, and that knowledge can lead teams to misattribute blame or praise to individuals (often the leader), rather than to consider how they worked as a team. This makes end-of-work reflections a particularly important place for coaching structure to be introduced.
However, in the mid-point of a team’s work, reflection and strategic interventions are particularly useful. Woolley (1998) showed how drastically team performance could be increased (in an experimental setting) by introducing mid-point reflections. When a team has enough experience to reflect on, but still enough time to make use of new strategies, they have the most to gain.
Employees of managers who don’t have one-to-one meetings are 4 times as likely to be disengaged, whilst employees who have regular one-to-one meetings with their managers are 3 times more likely to be engaged, according to a study by Gallup (2015).
Findings from Saberr’s primary research.
Saberr interviewed 100 people across industries, countries and seniority levels. Almost everyone interviewed, had engaged in some form of one-to-one in the last year, however, there was some confusion around the terminology of a one-to-one. In less tech focussed circles the term one-to-one was often associated with six month-yearly reviews.
Participants found frequent, regular one-to-ones most effective.
Most positive feedback about one-to-ones came from people who have them more frequently, anywhere between once a week to once a fortnight. Monthly one-to-ones were the limit for effective meetings. Beyond that either they misunderstood what a one-to-one is or the outcome was negative.
One-to-ones were found to be more effective if participants shared the job of setting an agenda.
Agenda setting was overwhelmingly decided by the manager in most cases. It was interesting to note that whenever Saberr spoke to an employee who was either given full control of their agenda or had a fair amount of input, the one-to-ones were consistently praised for their effectiveness. When those who were not so positive were asked what would be one way to improve a one-to-one, almost everyone quoted agenda setting as their number one improvement.
Psychological safety refers to an individual’s perception of the consequences of taking an interpersonal risk or a belief that a team is safe for risk taking in the face of being seen as ignorant, incompetent, negative, or disruptive. In a team with high psychological safety, members feel safe to take risks with each other. They feel confident that no one on the team will embarrass or punish anyone else for admitting a mistake, asking a question, or offering a new idea.The term was coined by Amy Edmondson, who continues to pioneer the research on psychological safety. The effects on employee engagement and performance in a wide range of settings (industries, team types, geographies) are summarised below. Further details for each of the case studies below can be found in the appendix.
Reflection is linked to outcomes directly: Regular team reflection has been found to significantly impact effectiveness and innovation, two of the most sought after qualities of high performing teams.
Reflection (or reflexivity) is important on an ongoing basis.
End-points, where a team completes a block of work, are typically considered to be a good time for reflection. At this point, it is usually clear whether work has been a success or failure, and that knowledge can lead teams to misattribute blame or praise to individuals (often the leader), rather than to consider how they worked as a team. This makes end-of-work reflections a particularly important place for coaching structure to be introduced.
However, in the mid-point of a team’s work, reflection and strategic interventions are particularly useful. Woolley (1998) showed how drastically team performance could be increased (in an experimental setting) by introducing mid-point reflections. When a team has enough experience to reflect on, but still enough time to make use of new strategies, they have the most to gain.
Antecedent conditions
Not all of the Saberr platform functionalities may be relevant for every type of team. By asking a few simple questions about the type of team, Saberr can ensure teams focus their efforts where they’ll have the biggest impact. A team’s antecedent conditions, such as poor team design, can reduce the impact of Saberr interventions, even when these are targeted and well executed. Rather than taking these as inevitable circumstances, organisations have a duty to determine whether the basic structural conditions that enable team coaching interventions to be fruitful are in place.
Saberr processes and behaviours
These data are collected to ensure Saberr interventions (foundations and habits) are having the desired effects; building the foundations and habits of high performing teams.
Direct impacts of Saberr
These data are collected to prove that Saberr interventions (foundations and habits) have a positive impact on psychological safety and teamwork engagement, which have been proven as moderators of team performance.
Market factors and organisation factors
Saberr doesn’t collect these data as standard. These are shown in the model above as a reminder that teams do not exist in a vacuum; they exist in real-time amongst fluid organisational circumstances and market factors, making the measurement of any coaching intervention a challenge.
Team performance
Saberr collects data on team members’ perception of their team’s performance as a unit. More robust quantitative data on team performance cannot be collected in product but can be collected and analysed internally by any companies who wish to conduct a deeper research.
Proving the impact of team coaching interventions is hard
As mentioned, measuring the impact of any type of coaching intervention is far from straightforward. Now consider measuring the impact of team coaching interventions, that are determined jointly by organisation, team and individual factors. For this same reason, amongst others, improving team performance is not a simple, linear journey.
How much data is the right amount of data?
The Saberr team iterates on the platform's design and data capture on an ongoing basis to deliver value to three stakeholder groups:
These different drivers mean Saberr faces trade-offs that need to be navigated carefully. Saberr has potential to collect a wide range of robust team data (for example, we could ask a dozen questions to measure psychological safety alone). However, we also place great focus on a team’s user experience of our products. After all, if teams don’t want to use our product we will not have a sustainable data collection process.
Become part of the future of teamwork
The data collected in the platform will enable Saberr, over time, to understand a team’s needs before they become problematic and provide the best solution given that team’s context.In order to continue generating new insight and analysis, we welcome partners for a unique project to both improve and understand team performance better. Combining performance coaching with cutting edge research this project would both improve performance of teams and generate insight understand drivers of team dynamics in your organisation.
These different drivers mean Saberr faces trade-offs that need to be navigated carefully. Saberr has potential to collect a wide range of robust team data (for example, we could ask a dozen questions to measure psychological safety alone). However, we also place great focus on a team’s user experience of our products. After all, if teams don’t want to use our product we will not have a sustainable data collection process.
“Saberr has surfaced some of the underlying niggles in the team that are now openly being talked about. People seem happier to share their thoughts.”
“Since using Saberr, people are more patient. We’ve become more polite on conference calls and there seems to be a better understanding among team members.”
“Saberr was easy to use and it added value to how we operate... It’s a non-intrusive way to keep on top of things that you don't naturally do on a day to day basis.”
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Bradley, B.H., Postlethwaite, B.E., Klotz, A.C., Hamdani, M.R. and Brown, K.G., 2012. Reaping the benefits of task conflict in teams: The critical role of team psychological safety climate. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(1), p.151.
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Chughtai, A.A. and Buckley, F., 2013. Exploring the impact of trust on research scientists' work engagement: Evidence from Irish science research centres. Personnel Review, 42(4), pp.396-421.
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Edmondson, A.C., 2018. The Fearless Organization: Creating Psychological Safety in the Workplace for Learning, Innovation, and Growth. Wiley.
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