Trust, Courage, and Empathy Improve Team Learning

Two researchers in Spain wanted to know what characteristics increased learning and sharing of knowledge within teams, and in turn, what companies did to instill those characteristics. They studied 363 people in self-managed teams—those without managers involved in their daily operations—in 12 companies.

Three characteristics helped learning, listed below. After each, you'll find the company action that most enhanced that characteristic:

• "Mutual trust and access to help in the work team"—"Leader or coordinator involved with the work team"; this refers to a facilitator, not a traditional supervisor.
• "Courage of the members of the work team"—"Training to work in a team."
• "Active empathy and lenience in judgement in the work team"—"Social events in the company."

In this study, rewarding people with money for sharing information had no significant effect.

The researchers openly admit their results aren't strong enough to explain the causes of team learning. The finding that training a team to be a team is important does fit earlier research, however.

Source: Zarraga, C., and J. Bonache (03), "Assessing the Team Environment for Knowledge Sharing: An Empirical Analysis," International Journal of Human Resource Management 14(7): 1227.