Organizational schism: Looking after a psychiatric service

What is opposed to psychoanalysis is not psychiatry but psychiatrists. (Freud, 1916–1917, p. 254)     

Consistency of Mother-Child Interaction Using the Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) Scale

This investigation focused on stability of mother-child interactions in three consecutive situations, as rated by the Mediated Learning Experience (MLE) Scale. The Scale was devised to reflect components of parent interaction hypothesized to facilitate cognitive development of children, as described by Feuerstein. Twenty-two mothers were videotaped in interaction with their pre-school children in three consecutive situations: two structured teaching, and one free play. The Scale was found to have moderate internal consistency and moderate to high interrater reliability. Intersituational consistency of the parents varied with the components. The mediational component of Transcendence correlated significantly and positively with the Perceptual-Performance subscale score of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, and the component of Reciprocity correlated significantly, but negatively, with the McCarthy Perceptual-Performance score. Implications of the results for special practitioners and applied researchers are discussed.     

Substitutes for leadership in anaesthesia teams and their impact on leadership effectiveness

In this study we aim to increase our understanding of leadership in anaesthesia teams by investigating the relationship between substitutes for leadership, leadership behaviour, and team performance in situations with varying levels of routine and standardization. The present study relied on video recordings of 12 anaesthesia teams in a simulated setting with the occurrence of a nonroutine event. Clinical team performance was measured by the speed of adequate team reaction to this event. The leadership behaviours observed were coded either as content oriented (e.g., information transmission) or structuring (e.g., assigning tasks). Results showed that leadership behaviour changed depending upon the level of routine of a situation, the degree of standardization, and, to some extent, on the experience of team members. Leadership tends to be positively related to team performance during nonroutine and low standardized situations but negatively related to team performance in routine and highly standardized situations. Furthermore, leadership is only slightly related to team member experience. This study improves our understanding of influences of substitutes for leadership on successful leadership behaviour in anaesthesia teams. The findings also lead to suggestions for both further research and the enhancement of team leadership in critical care.     

Consequences of Feeling Dissimilar from Others in a Work Team

This study extended the current literature on group diversity by examining the moderating influence of perceived group openness to diversity on the relationships between perceived individual visible, informational, and value dissimilarity; individual task and relationship conflict; and work group involvement. A survey was administered to 129 public service employees who worked in intact teams. Results revealed that value dissimilarity had a positive association with task and relationship conflict and a negative association with work group involvement. Perceived group openness to diversity moderated the associations between visible and informational dissimilarity and work group involvement, and between value dissimilarity and task conflict. These results highlight the importance of managing differences by introducing norms promoting diversity and the involvement of all team members.     

Team-level goal orientation: an emergent state and its relationships with team inputs,process, and outcomes

Building on recent efforts to extend the concept of goal orientation to teams, we identify team-level goal orientation as an emergent state, distinct from static trait goal orientations of team members. We reinforce this distinction by developing and testing hypotheses about team inputs, processes, and outcomes as determinants of the development of team goal orientation over time. We test our hypotheses with longitudinal data from 230 participants on 64 teams engaged in a management simulation. We find that team members’ trait goal orientations affect the team’s state goal orientation, but only in the early stages of team functioning. Team process and interim outcomes drive changes in team state goal orientation.     

‘… you kind of frantically go from one thing to the next and there isn’t any time for thinking any more’: a reflection on the impact of organisational change on relatedness in multidisciplinary teams

This paper reflects on the relational impact on Clinical Psychologists of NHS organisational change in the context of cuts and reorganisation. The reflections illustrate one theme drawn from a study of eight Clinical Psychologists working within adult Community Mental Health Multi-Disciplinary Teams. The paper considers the impact of competition and change in healthcare on the ability to engage in reflective practice potentially affecting client care due to reduced joint-working, consistency and creativity. The paper considers how acts of kindness (compassion) within organisational contexts at all levels can facilitate relatedness, reflection and more human care. It concludes by considering how shifting from short-term planning evaluating efficiencies based on perceived financial value, to thinking more widely and long-term about relational value may be of benefit to clinicians, clients and the system as a whole.     

Families Leaving Family Therapy After One or Two Sessions: A Multiple Descriptive Case Study

A multiple case study design was used to discover something of the experiences of families, therapists, and members of the reflecting team of the first and or second session of family therapy in an attempt to answer questions regarding why families drop out after only one or two sessions. It was found that the families attending these sessions found them to be ineffective in assisting them to re-author the stories of their lives. There many reasons for this being the case.     

Antecedents of daily team job crafting

This study investigated potential antecedents of team job crafting defined as the extent to which team members engage together in increasing (social and structural) job resources and challenges, and decreasing hindering job demands. Mindful of the teamwork literature, we hypothesized that individual employee factors (self-efficacy for teamwork, daily affect), team features (team cohesion, climate) and the organizational context of teams (engaging leadership and organizational resources for teamwork) relate positively to daily team job crafting behaviour. Data were collected among 46 multi-professional rehabilitation teams whose members completed two daily surveys after their weekly meetings. Multilevel regression analyses showed that self-efficacy for teamwork and team members’ positive affect were positively associated with team job crafting behaviour at the individual (within-team) level. In addition, a team climate characterized by a clear vision of the teams’ targets, supportiveness and innovation and connecting leadership were positively related to daily team job crafting at both the within- and between-team levels of the data. Overall, the study offers novel insights into the antecedents of teams’ daily job crafting behaviours. For practice, the results suggest that actions and interventions conducive to positive team processes offer the most promising route to enhancing team job crafting behaviour.     

Generating and sharing of market intelligence in sales teams: an economic social network perspective

In this research, we take a multimethod approach to shed light on the potential costs to sales teams that generate and share market intelligence (MI). First, we introduce an analytical model to propose the respective levels of effort that sales managers, experts, and team members spend generating and sharing MI. To test our propositions, we utilize social network data from 40 independent, business-to-business (B2B) sales teams, representing 287 salespeople. Interestingly, our results support the premise that team members become dependent (reduce MI efforts) when their sales manager or team expert shares MI among the team. We term this a “sharing tax” that sales managers and team experts pay when they share MI. Consequently, sales managers demonstrate greater MI-generation efforts the more they share MI. We also find that experts who share more (less) also show greater (lesser) MI-generation efforts, but only for teams where sales managers share low (high) levels of MI. In summary, our research innovatively conducts an empirical test of the Nash Equilibrium pattern of sales team effort to show that two critical team members, the sales manager and expert, are at a disadvantage when they share valuable MI.     

Family therapists in trauma-response teams: bringing systems thinking into interdisciplinary fieldwork

Attention to the mental health facets of disaster-preparedness and trauma-response teams has increased considerably over the past decade. As family therapists take part in these efforts, they bring with them a worldview that adds valuable contributions to the nature in which fieldwork is conducted and the manners in which interdisciplinary teams function on the ground. In this article, we present how systems thinking sensitizes trauma workers to a variety of clinical presentations and biopsychosocial complexities inherent in this work. We describe common clinical- and practice-related challenges, alongside practical strategies for effectively dealing with these challenges. We draw upon our experiences as family therapists trained in the field of trauma, and our work as field responders, supervisors and team leaders across a variety of local and large-scale disaster events and contexts.