Learning and Development: A Supplement for Poor Team Design?

Not even the best designed training in the world will compensate for a poorly designed team of employees and managers. And this is why Andy Powell thinks team design is so important.

When I came across an interview that esteemed Team Coach Andy Powell participated in with Ioana Jongsma, his words on the topic of team design really intrigued me. As an Instructional Designer, I am trained to assess whether there is a need for training first prior to analyzing the learners for what type of training would be the most efficient. But what if the culprit of organizational dysfunction is neither a knowledge deficiency not a skill deficiency amongst the employees and managers? What if the culprit is actually poor team design? In this interview, Andy Powell described a 'team' with 3 criteria: a group with a minimum of 3-4 people who have clear, specific work that they complete interdependently. When stakeholders consider investing in development for their teams, it would be useful for them ---and the Instructional Designer ---to know whether they have a team in the first place.

"If you are missing any one of those, you may have a group." - Andy Powell

Why is it important for an Instructional Designer and company stakeholders to know whether they have a team before investing in any Learning and Development? Because unnecessary trainings are an easy way to waste resources, time, and labor. When waste happens, no one looks good ----not the employees, not the stakeholders, and certainly not the Instructional Designer. Assembling healthy functional and cross-functional teams has to be important in the minds of the stakeholders and managers, in the minds of Human Resources.

Andy Powell's 3 criteria for a team (interdependence, specific work, group minimum of 3-4 people) is useful and shines a light on what the structure of a team should be; but there are also some other fine components to consider--- a psychological component is one. As Ioanna allowed Andy Powell to elaborate more about the fine components of a team, he revealed the importance of psychological safety within the team. Do the members of the team feel comfortable sharing their insights about their shared work and processes? As a part of any Needs Assessment or even as a part of a Learner Analysis phase, an Instructional Designer may facilitate or be witness to an open discussion where team members can voice some of the challenges they face in their shared work. This information is gold for an Instructional Designer because it informs how they design any needed trainings, but members have to feel safe that opening up won't be met with retaliation or backlash. If communicated well, team members should feel psychologically safe to express their perspective on shared work in a way that improves the team's function overall.

And communication is another one of those fine components for an Instructional Designer to consider when attempting to understand a corporate team. How is this team communicating or not communicating? When miscommunication does occur within the team, is due to content or delivery? Is the tone of the team's communication pretty formal or more casual and jovial? An Instructional Designer may want to consider how the team communicates as a means to craft an educational message that would be most readily received.

"Structurally, I think that another thing that is most important to evaluate in a team [sic] is whether there's a lack of clarity on people's roles within the team." - Andy Powell

Interdependence is already a challenge on its own; when there is a lack of clarity on how a team is to be interdependent, interdependence becomes an impossibility---and an Instructional Designer's worst nightmare. During the Analysis phase of an Instructional Design model, roles within a team are worth defining so that any designed training is dialed in to the team's Current State for the purpose of bringing about the Desired State that stakeholders envision.

Ultimately, Andy Powell and Iona Jonsma's talk about Team Coaching was eye-opening about several things pertaining to my work as an Instructional Designer. I will certainly adhere to the good advice and insights shared as a means to inform my Instructional Design process in the future.