Supporting Implementation: The Role of Community Development Teams to Build Infrastructure

Evidence-based methods for assisting consumers, such as counties, in successfully implementing practices are lacking in the field of implementation science. To fill this gap, the Community Development Teams (CDT) approach was developed to assist counties in developing peer networks focused on problem-solving and resource sharing to enhance their possibility of successful implementation. The CDT is an interactive, solution-focused approach that shares many elements of the Interactive Systems Framework (ISF) for Dissemination and Implementation. An ongoing randomized implementation trial of Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC) was designed to test the hypothesis that such interactive implementation methods are more successful at helping counties achieve successful and sustainable MTFC programs than standard individualized implementation methods. Using the Stages of Implementation Completion measure, developed for this study, the potential benefit of these interactive methods is examined at different stages of the implementation process ranging from initial engagement to program competency.     

Outcome interdependence shapes the effects of prevention focus on team processes and performance

Although the effects of regulatory focus on individual-level performance have often been studied, relatively little is yet known about team-level effects. Filling this void, we integrate the notion that promotion-focused individuals are concerned with progress and achievement, whereas prevention-focused individuals are concerned with security and vigilance, with the insight that team processes and performance depend on outcome interdependence (individual versus team rewards). The hypothesis that prevention-focused teams react more strongly than promotion-focused teams to differences in outcome interdependence was tested among 50 teams performing an interactive command-and-control simulation. Regulatory focus and outcome interdependence were both manipulated. The results showed that prevention-focused teams working for team rather than individual rewards reported higher work engagement and less error intolerance, coordinated more effectively, and performed better. Promotion-focused teams were not influenced by outcome interdependence. We discuss the implications of our results for theory and effective team management.     

Functional versus dysfunctional team change: Problem diagnosis and structural feedback for self-managed teams

We describe and examine three changes (personnel, process, and structure) that self-managed teams can make to remedy performance problems. We also discuss why self-managed teams may over-emphasize process and (to a lesser extent) personnel changes over structural changes. Furthermore, we describe and test two specific diagnostic feedback interventions aimed at helping teams make functional structural change. Seventy-eight 4-person teams of undergraduate students participated in two trials of a networked laboratory simulation task. All teams were initially structurally misaligned and subsequently received (a) no feedback, (b) one type of feedback only, or (c) both types of feedback. Results confirmed that structurally misaligned teams demonstrated dysfunctional change by changing process more frequently than structure, with detrimental effects for subsequent performance. When teams received the feedback interventions, however, they were more likely to change their structure and thereby improve their performance.     

Consulting with gargoyles: applying narrative ideas and practices in counselling supervision

This article explores waysin which narrative ideas and practices might influence supervisory relationships in counselling and psychotherapy,and questions some of the taken-for-granted assumptions implicit within counselling supervision. This paper, which represents ‘work in progress’ towards further conversations, rather than an exhaustive study,is illustrated with stories from the author'sown practice as a supervisor and trainer and educator of supervisors.     

Asymmetry in structural adaptation: The differential impact of centralizing versus decentralizing team decision-making structures

This study tested predictions derived from Structural Adaptation Theory (SAT) on the longitudinal effects of centralizing and decentralizing decision-making structures in teams. Results from 93 four-person teams working on a command and control simulation generally supported SAT, documenting that it was more difficult for teams to adapt to a centralized decision-making structure after formerly working within a decentralized structure, than it was to adapt in the alternative direction. The negative effects of centralized shifts were mediated by efficiency and adaptability, in the sense that former decentralized teams experienced the negative aspects of centralization (lack of adaptability), but not the positive aspects (efficiency). The dangers of employing structural reconfiguration to solve certain problems in teams are discussed, especially if these changes are based upon expectations generalized from cross-sectional research that did not directly observe teams that experienced true structural change.     

Coping with challenge and hindrance stressors in teams: Behavioral,cognitive, and affective outcomes

The purpose of this study was to utilize the challenge–hindrance framework to examine the discrete and combined effects of different environmental stressors on behavioral, cognitive, and affective outcomes at the team level. Results from 83 teams working on a command and control simulation indicated that the introduction of a challenge stressor positively affected team performance and transactive memory. The introduction of a hindrance stressor negatively affected team performance and transactive memory and positively affected psychological withdrawal. When the hindrance stressor was combined with the challenge stressor, teams exhibited the lowest levels of performance and transactive memory, and the highest levels of psychological withdrawal. These effects were due to the adoption of specific coping strategies by team members. Implications are discussed, as well as limitations and directions for future research.     

The motivating potential of teams: Test and extension of cross-level model of motivation in teams

Although individual- and team-level studies of motivational processes abound, very few have sought to link such phenomena across levels. Filling this gap, we build upon Chen and Kanfer’s (2006) multilevel theoretical model of motivation in teams, to advance and test a cross-level model of relationships between individual and team motivation and performance. Data from two samples of undergraduates performing simulated team tasks supported the direct and mediated cross-level relationships between team-level prior performance, efficacy, and action processes with individual-level self-efficacy, goal striving, and performance. The findings provide support for a multilevel, system-based formulation of motivation and performance in teams. Findings also contribute to the on-going debate on whether motivational processes account for performance once controlling for prior performance.     

Information elaboration and team performance: Examining the psychological origins and environmental contingencies

Information elaboration enables functionally diverse teams to transform their breadth of knowledge resources into actionable solutions to complex problems. The current study advances information elaboration theory and research in two ways. First, we identify how team ability and social motivation composition characteristics provide the psychological origins of complex information processing efforts. Second, we identify environmental turbulence as an important boundary condition, clarifying when information elaboration benefits team performance and when it does not. These ideas were tested in a sample of 4-person self-managed teams (N = 68) which were functionally diverse and performed a cooperative strategic decision-making task. Results indicate that cognitive ability equips teams with the “can do” ability for complex elaboration efforts through emergent team mental models, whereas low preferences for self-reliance provide the “will do” motivation for in-depth information exchange through collective leadership. In turn, teams benefited from information elaboration in turbulent but not stable environments.     

Book Review

Uncertainty is a major source of psychological strain during organizational change. This study tested a model of change-related communication, uncertainty, and control and their relationship with psychological strain, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions. Self-report data were obtained from staff at a psychiatric hospital undergoing restructuring. Results indicated that uncertainty had a direct and an indirect (via feelings of lack of control) relationship with psychological strain. Partialling out common method variance led to a complete mediation of this relationship by control. Other predictions about the relationship of these variables with psychological strain, job satisfaction, and turnover intentions were supported. Implications for future research and practice of change communication are discussed.