Emergent Competencies Affecting TT Performance

Throughout this manuscript, we use the term competencies to signify the KSAs that contribute to team, distinct from individual member, performance [13]. Thus, we often use these terms (competencies and KSAs) interchangeably. Observable behaviors associated with the specific competencies we enumerate below are shown in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4. Observable Behaviors of specific competencies within the translational team (TT) competency “domains”. Team-emergent competency domains are shown, grouped by color with the specific competencies for each. For each specific KSA, observable behaviors are listed from simple (novice) to advanced (expert) application. Abbreviations: PI, principal investigator.

1. Affect refers to the development of empathy, affiliation, and rapport between members on the basis of shared regard for the other members of the TT [Reference Lotrecchiano, DiazGranados and Sprecher4,Reference McAllister8]. We identified that the practice of three complementary specific competencies that mostly advance affect are trust, psychological safety, and cohesion. In this setting, Trust refers to the confidence that team members have in the abilities of their colleagues to do reproducible work, share results, and discuss their interpretations. Intra-team relationships developed in a trusting environment contribute to psychological safety, a shared belief that the team environment is safe for risk-taking, formulating opposing ideas, or challenging team assumptions that plays an important role in highly functioning teams [Reference Edmondson14]. Cohesion refers to the multiple factors that act on members to remain committed to accomplishing the team’s goals [Reference Salas, Grossman, Hughes and Coultas15,Reference Carron and Brawley16]. Consequently, cohesion is complementary, yet distinct from trust. Evidence supporting the relationship between these KSAs and team performance, as well as behaviors associated with trust, psychological safety, and cohesion, are elaborated below:

Trust enables a team member to rely on others within the TT because they are accountable, responsible and will support each other when difficulties arise. There is a large body of work that demonstrates a trusting environment has substantial impact on team performance [Reference Edmondson and Lei17,Reference Colquitt, Scott and LePine18]. A comprehensive meta-analysis of 112 independent studies (involving 7763 teams) found that intra-team trust was one of the strongest predictors of team performance, independent of other associated covariates, including trust in the leader and independent of the team’s past successful performances [Reference De Jong, Dirks and Gillespie19]. Intra-team trust is most impactful in teams with high levels of interdependent activities, where projects depend on other team member activities. This interdependency is inherent of complex and innovative research, a characteristic of TT projects. Other studies have shown that developing trust encourages learning, risk-taking, cohesiveness [Reference Edmondson and Lei17,Reference Konradt20], knowledge sharing [Reference Anselmann and Mulder21], project effectiveness [Reference Webber and Klimoski22], team member satisfaction [Reference DeOrtentiis, Summers, Ammeter, Douglas and Ferris23], and creativity [Reference Barczak, Lassk and Mulki24]. Positive relationships with team leadership support team-emergent resilience, consistency, trust, and competence [Reference Kahn25].

A number of team-level characteristics indicate the presence of trust. Trusting teams are more willing to express ideas and exhibit higher levels of listening, and problem-solving behaviors, leading to the phenomenon of “collective intelligence” [Reference Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi and Malone26]. Another manifestation of trusting teams is the enablement of team voice. Team voice is the extent to which team members make constructive suggestions for improvement, share new ideas, and discuss problems or potential problems, or the result of knowledge sharing in a trusting environment [Reference He, Song, Yang and Chen27].

Psychological safety is a higher-ordered manifestation of trust that refers to the perception of the consequences of taking risks in challenging interpretations, scientific dogma, or team processes [Reference Edmondson and Lei17]. Psychological safety arises from trusting interpersonal relationships developed with other team members, organizational norms, as well as with the team leadership [Reference Edmondson and Lei17]. A large body of work supports that psychological safety is an important component of high-performance teams. For example, educational teams who exhibit a climate of psychological safety use conflicts that arise from taskwork to improve team performance, by developing creative ideas and critical discussion [Reference Bradley, Postlethwaite, Klotz, Hamdani and Brown28]. This finding was replicated in a separate study of 47 business teams where psychological safety was positively related to process innovations and performance [Reference Baer and Frese29]. In these ways, building trust is foundational to developing climate of psychological safety, contributing in multiple ways to sustained team performance [Reference Hofmann, Morgeson and Gerras30].

Cohesion refers to the strength and extent of interpersonal connection between team members. Cohesion is a multidimensional team attribute that includes task cohesion, social cohesion, and group pride, each linked with team performance in multiple studies [Reference Mullen and Copper31,Reference Beal, Cohen, Burke and McLendon32]. Several comprehensive meta-analyses have linked social and task cohesion to performance in teams whose taskwork requires intensive between-member interactions, characteristic of TTs [Reference Beal, Cohen, Burke and McLendon32]. The relationship between cohesion and performance has been consistently positive across many team types, but found to be highly dependent on intra-group processes. Cohesion has been extensively studied in product development teams. Product development teams have many similarities with TTs in that they are composed of cross-functional expertise who develop a specific product over a definitive time period using interdependent activities [Reference Calhoun, Wooten, Bhavnani, Anderson, Freeman and Brasier3]. An extensive analysis of 157 studies relating task cohesion and social cohesion on performance indicated a positive and strong relationship in project development teams over other team types, such as service teams or production teams [Reference Chiocchio and Essiembre33]. An important characteristic of cohesion is this emerges over time, linked with performance, morale, and resiliency [Reference Bartone and Adler34]. This dynamic property of cohesion should be factored into assessment methods, with social and task cohesion being the primary dimensions of importance [Reference Salas, Grossman, Hughes and Coultas15].

2. Communication is a team-emergent competency domain that refers to the ability to integrate knowledge and expertise in team member interactions and in the task. Team knowledge is the collective understanding of the group on how to coordinate efforts and satisfy needs of other team members. Task knowledge, by contrast, refers to members of a TT having accurate, relevant, and timely information about actions that need to be performed to conduct its research or test a hypothesis. Both forms of communication are critical to effective team performance [Reference Hyatt and Ruddy35–Reference Guchait, Lei and Tews37]. In this review, we found that knowledge sharing is an important specific competency of the communication domain that supports team knowledge, whereas a transactive memory system supports task knowledge.

Knowledge sharing is a behavior where team members provide other members with technical information, “know-how” and skills relevant to advancing the team’s translational product. Exchanging knowledge between team members plays a critical role in performance for teams engaging in highly interdependent activities, cultivating innovation/creativity, and navigating complex decision-making processes [Reference Argote and Ingram38,Reference Srivastava, Bartol and Locke39]. These factors of interdependence, innovation, and complex decision-making are characteristic of TTs [Reference Wooten, Calhoun, Bhavnani, Rose, Ameredes and Brasier5]. The evidence that knowledge sharing leads to superior team performance comes from studies in new product development teams, R&D teams, and software development teams [Reference Madhavan and Grover40,Reference Faraj and Sproull41], team types that share common processes and interdependencies with TTs [Reference Calhoun, Wooten, Bhavnani, Anderson, Freeman and Brasier3]. Meta-analytic results from 72 independent studies encompassing over 4795 groups have demonstrated that knowledge sharing leads to improved team performance through enhancement of team interactions and development of shared mental model (SMMs) [Reference Mesmer-Magnus and Dechurch42].

Transactive memory system is a term that refers to the group-level knowledge of “who” on the team has “what” expertise. A transactive memory system is foundational to promoting information sharing and knowledge integration; this knowledge base is developed through reciprocal exchange and joint effort between individual team members engaged in interdependent projects. This knowledge base depends on the extent to which team members get to know one another and establish routines for interaction and task accomplishment [Reference Li and Huang43]. Because of this dependency, a transactive memory system develops only as a TT matures during its active research phase. We found that the impact of transactive memory system is greatest in technology-focused product development teams, where shared team member knowledge enables teams to deliver products on short timelines. Another important impact of a transactive memory system is that this KSA mediates the positive effect of team-focused training, where groups who are trained together outperform those teams whose members are trained individually [Reference Liang, Moreland and Argote44]. As an aside, a study of teams in time-pressured command/control simulations found that acute stress negatively affected the team’s SMM and transactive memory system, explaining, in part, why team performance may suffer under acute stress [Reference Ellis45].

We find that the affect and communication competency domains are interdependent. Having trust in teammates is an important foundation upon which team members share knowledge, explore, and contribute to successful task completion; particularly when collaboration is required and when creative solutions are needed for successful outcomes. This interdependence has implications for developing KSAs in team-based training and interventions.

3. Management is a competency domain, typically exhibited by leadership, that refers to organizing, planning, and executing components of a TT research program. A number of studies have concluded that effective meeting management improves team effectiveness [Reference Leach, Rogelberg, Warr and Burnfield46,Reference Nixon and Littlepage47]. Competence in this domain includes establishing team membership, defining their roles, and managing their interactions.

Team Membership, Roles, and Responsibilities. Scientific membership on an interdisciplinary TT is largely influenced by research expertise needed to address current research questions of the TT, and the location of product development along the T0–T4 translational pathway [Reference Wooten, Calhoun, Bhavnani, Rose, Ameredes and Brasier5]. Noted earlier, the core nucleus of a TT, consisting of the principal investigator, scientists, and KL2 trainees, were relatively constant over the evolution of the translational project (Fig. 1, [Reference Wooten, Calhoun, Bhavnani, Rose, Ameredes and Brasier5]). In high-performing TTs, the KL2 scholar provided additional leadership skills to complement those of the principal investigators [Reference Wooten, Calhoun, Bhavnani, Rose, Ameredes and Brasier5]. In addition to providing scientific expertise, the academic stage of collaborating scientists have substantial impact in team productivity. A data-mining study of a large biological sciences department over a 36-year period found that inclusion of postdoctoral fellows account for the large majority of publications, whereas graduate students and postdoctoral fellows with external funding contribute to breakthrough publications [Reference Conti and Liu48]. Other studies have found that inclusion of members with prior team experience impacts a team’s ability to learn and adapt to changing environments, affecting team performance [Reference Morgeson, DeRue and Karam49].

Despite the existence of a core nucleus defined by traditional academic roles (Fig. 1), TTs engage others in its membership, depending on the project needs and the project’s phase in the translational spectrum. In our observational studies, all TTs engaged scientists and members with specific domain expertise – such as technology, informatics, nursing, community, patient groups, trainees, and caregivers at different phases in the translational spectrum [Reference Wooten, Calhoun, Bhavnani, Rose, Ameredes and Brasier5]. This dynamic affiliation of TT members throughout the different phases of translation has important implications on strategies for onboarding new members by providing “Just-in-Time,” team-focused training approaches.

The definition of member roles is complicated by the findings that team members may play multiple roles throughout the team lifecycle. These include “nontraditional” academic roles, such as knowledge brokers, project managers, role models, and co-mentors. The spectrum and impact of these nontraditional roles on TT performance is understudied. However, current evidence indicates that the role of the knowledge broker is very important. Knowledge brokers are established and connected senior-level scientists that disseminate research discoveries or products throughout the scientific field [Reference Murthy and Lewis50,Reference Disis and Slattery51]. These dissemination activities enhance the diffusion of knowledge in the scientific field, publication impact, and adoption of new technologies characteristic of successful interdisciplinary teams [Reference Wuchty, Jones and Uzzi1]. In our studies of TTs in the CTSA environment, non-academic team members, such as community or industry members with vested interests in the translational outcome (“stakeholders”), were involved at distinct times as the project matured towards clinical application. Stakeholder involvement brings invaluable perspectives for planning for future dissemination, implementation, and sustainability at the outset of a research effort, known as “Design for Dissemination.” These principles and methods enhance rigorous adoption and sustainable impact of evidence-based innovations of a translational research product [Reference Kwan, Brownson, Glasgow, Morrato and Luke52,Reference Mehta, Mahoney and Leppin53]. The existence and impact of other nontraditional team roles on effective TT will require further study.

Team member diversity (cognitive, gender, race, and ethnicity) impacts team performance in complex ways and is being intensively studied. Cognitive diversity refers to members’ differences in perspective or information processing styles and is not predicted by factors like gender, race, ethnicity, nor age [Reference Reynolds and Lewis54]. Cognitive diversity boosts innovation, problem-solving, and collaboration within teams in complex environments [Reference Reynolds and Lewis54–Reference Paletz and Schunn57]. Some explanations for this impact are that cognitive diversity increases the connective thinking for solving complex problems [Reference Disis and Slattery58], enriching the solution space, as well as influencing an emergent collective problem-solving property coined “collective intelligence” [Reference Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi and Malone26]. Although contrasting ideas and interpretations can lead to innovation and learning in complex situations, a challenge that cognitively diverse teams encounter is that with greater diversity, conflicts can arise. With too much conflict, teams lose clarity of purpose, limiting team function and knowledge integration [Reference Zhang, Waldman, Han and Li59,Reference Reagans and Zuckerman60]. Consequently, cognitive diversity has an inverted U-shaped relationship with team learning/collective intelligence [Reference Aggarwal, Woolley, Chabris and Malone56]. Gender diversity has been consistently linked with enhanced team communication, interactive decision-making, and innovation [Reference Díaz-García, González-Moreno and Jose Sáez-Martínez61]. The literature has shown positive effects of member heterogeneity demographic (race and ethnicity) on team performance, such as creative problem-solving in knowledge-generating teams [Reference Antonio, Chang, Hakuta, Kenny, Levin and Milem62]. An experiment testing racial/ethnic diversity on a specific type of team, a jury, showed that heterogeneous groups took more time to deliberate, had fewer incorrect statements go uncorrected, and performed more accurately [Reference Sommers63]. Though the literature is sparse, as with cognitive diversity’s inverted U curve, other types of diversity may lead to dysfunctional team interaction and suboptimal performance [Reference Horwitz and Horwitz64]. However, it is crucially important to consider any findings related to diversity and performance in the context of the systems in which implicit and explicit bias exists.

Identifying the appropriate membership/roles of a TT is only part of the complexity of effective TT management. Clarifying individual responsibilities that are aligned with the interests and expertise of team members is also vital. With a deep working knowledge of scientific field, the team leader is positioned to assess member skills and align their responsibilities for effective translation. In this process, the leader must ensure that the roles and responsibilities of individual team members are aligned with the overall translational goal and that commitment of resources and credit for participation in team efforts will be shared and assigned. Leader behaviors identifying member characteristics promoting social cohesion [Reference Barrick, Stewart, Neubert and Mount65] and assigning a clear work responsibility are associated with superior team effectiveness [Reference Kane, Zaccaro, Tremble and Masuda66] and higher team satisfaction [Reference Jurma67]. Setting challenging, yet achievable, goals leads to enhanced strategic risk-taking and improves team performance [Reference Horwitz and Horwitz64,Reference Einstein and Humphreys68,Reference Knight, Durham and Locke69].

Shared Visioning/mental models. TTs work toward a collective goal of knowledge generation and bringing an intervention into the clinic or community. This shared, organized understanding and mental representation of knowledge of the team’s goal is also referred to as a SMM [Reference Klimoski and Mohammed70]. SMMs are important for team effectiveness, especially when teams are faced with complex, dynamic problems engaging in complex interdependent tasks [Reference Mathieu, Heffner, Goodwin, Salas and Cannon-Bowers71]. It has been proposed that individual characteristics, including prior training, team member longevity, and prior team experience, are antecedents to SMMs [Reference Rentsch and Klimoski72]. Establishing the impact of SMMs on interdisciplinary team performance is difficult because this question relies on assessing whether team members share isomorphic cognitive models with others. To address this problem, concept maps have been used to provide evidence that convergence of SMMs is associated with team effectiveness [Reference Minionis, Zaccaro and Perez73] by promoting effective team coordination and communication [Reference Marks, Sabella, Burke and Zaccaro74]. Of particular relevance to TTs, studies of teams in nonprofit organizations including multiple community stakeholders have found that SMMs enable the formation of consistent, collective decisions based on a common understanding of organizational goals and facilitation of stakeholder relationship building [Reference Padanyi and Gainer75]. Note above, SMMs interface with a transactive memory system to enhanced team performance [Reference Austin76,Reference Kozlowski and Ilgen77].

Project Management. Meeting management has been well-established to improve effectiveness and sustainability in research teams creating a foundation for effective communication as teams form and build capacity [Reference Ellis45,Reference Leach, Rogelberg, Warr and Burnfield46]. Because project management of interdisciplinary teams is not uniquely specialized for TTs, this topic has been reviewed extensively [Reference Gladden78]. Project management can be a strategy for change management [Reference Kenny79] and can influence team performance through processes and goal-setting.

More recently, and of special relevance to TTs, work has been focused on dedicated project management as an important role within a TT. The effort devoted to project management within a team depends on the size of its membership and project complexity. For small teams, project management is a nontraditional academic role that may be assumed by a member of the TT core nucleus [Reference Wooten, Dann, Finnerty and Kotarba80]. By contrast, in complex, multiple institution teams, dedicated consortium directors may play an essential role in team productivity. In the case of these inter-institutional teams, the Consortium Director would be a professional with scientific and administrative knowledge and experience with project coordination, development, data management, and others [Reference Rolland and Potter81].

4. Collaborative problem-solving. Collaboration is a complex interaction to provide solution to non-routine problems. Effective collaboration depends on the academic stage of the team members, their prior knowledge, experience in interdependent research projects, and established norms on how the team’s combined knowledge is applied to the translational goal [Reference Nokes-Malach, Meade and Morrow82]. In an interdisciplinary team, each discipline has its unique worldview – intellectual practices, methods, and biases. Collaborative problem-solving combines communication with cognitive problem-solving approaches from its team members to result in a shared interpretation or vision [Reference Graesser, Fiore, Greiff, Andrews-Todd, Foltz and Hesse11]. The importance of collaborative problem-solving as an emergent team behavior has only been recently appreciated [Reference Graesser, Fiore, Greiff, Andrews-Todd, Foltz and Hesse11,Reference Lotrecchiano and Misra83]. Specific team-emergent skills include learning/adaptation, collective intelligence, and transdisciplinarity.

Learning/adaptation. Team interactions are shaped by complex interactions with its environment, often driven by the process of translation itself. The process by which teams respond to changes in their environments that modify their processes is referred to as “adaptation.” Scholars have developed an input-throughput-output model to illustrate the core processes and emergent states underlying team learning/adaptation [Reference Rico, Gibson, Sanchez-Manzanares and Clark84-Reference Wiedow and Konradt87], resulting in the finding that there is a strong positive relationship between learning/adaptation and team performance [Reference Maynard, Kennedy and Sommer88]. Several validated tools for measurement of team adaptability have been developed and empirically tested, including the Job Adaptive Inventory [Reference Pulakos, Schmitt, Dorsey, Arad, Borman and Hedge89]. With this measurement tool, the knowledge base of factors on teams’ adaptability is better understood. From this, we know that individual member flexibility, task expertise, team expertise, and individual adaptability are linked to team learning/adaptation [Reference Tschan, Semmer, Nägele and Gurtner90,Reference Baard, Rench and Kozlowski91].

Collective intelligence. Group collaborative efforts, shared knowledge and skills, and consensus decision-making result in group-level knowledge, coined group, or collective intelligence. The development of a statistic that quantifies collective intelligence, the “cfactor,” has stimulated research in this phenomenon. From this work, we know that collective intelligence is highly predictive of a team’s ability to solve new knowledge tasks; this association has been validated in over 22 studies of 1356 groups [Reference Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi and Malone26,Reference Riedl, Kim, Gupta, Malone and Woolley92]. Collective intelligence is highly correlated with social sensitivity of the group members and turn-taking in conversation.

Transdisciplinarity. Of importance to TTs, another important outcome of collaborative problem-solving is the development of a transdisciplinary research approach [Reference Lotrecchiano and Misra83]. During the initial development of a TT, the participation and scientific problems are “multidisciplinary” with the investigators largely participating from their own discipline [Reference Calhoun, Wooten, Bhavnani, Anderson, Freeman and Brasier3]. As the TT transcends traditional scientific boundaries to jointly define a problem, conduct problem-solving activity drawing in perspectives from diverse team members, the problem space is broadened to a “transdisciplinary” approach [Reference Lotrecchiano and Misra83,Reference Stokols93]. Collaborative learning, an approach that supports cognitive shifts in understanding through observation of and participation with others, is a key component of transdisciplinarity in TTs. Illustrating the reinforcing nature of this team-emergent KSA, collaborative problem-solving is highly dependent on the strength of communication (knowledge sharing) and management (cognitive diversity) [Reference de Montjoye, Stopczynski, Shmueli, Pentland and Lehmann94].

5. Leadership. TTs conduct repeated cycles of experimentation, analysis, hypothesis refinement within a complex social and organizational environment. Leadership seeks to satisfy a team’s needs by providing the cognitive, motivational, affective, and management processes to help the team thrive in that complex environment [Reference Zaccaro, Rittman and Marks12]. Team leaders provide essential support throughout the lifecycle of a TT, including establishing membership, defining roles, setting expectations, providing feedback, and promoting an environment of psychological safety, teamwork/adaptation, discussed above. During the initial formation of the TT, leadership is primarily provided by the principal investigator. However, as the team matures, leadership can arise also from within the team. Consequently, we do not view leadership as arising solely from the PI of team. A large body of work has shown that the practice of leadership has been associated with enhanced team performance [Reference Morgeson, DeRue and Karam49,Reference Bass and Riggio95]. Transformational leadership involves empowering team members to work towards a common, shared, goal [Reference Roberts96]; a more relevant model is that of functional leadership, where satisfaction of the teams’ needs adapts to the stages of team development [Reference Morgeson, DeRue and Karam49]. Leadership-specific KSAs that we identified include conflict resolution, sense-making, goal-setting, and external networking.

Conflict Resolution. Conflict arises when two or more members perceive the other’s actions as in opposition to its own. As with other team-emergent competencies, conflict is multidimensional and can manifest as task-based conflict and interpersonal conflict. Task-based conflict enhances effectiveness [Reference Jehn and Chatman97], whereas interpersonal conflict interferes with a team’s ability to collaborate and contributes to reduced satisfaction in team membership [Reference LePine, Piccolo, Jackson, Mathieu and Saul98]. In clinical care teams, high rates of conflict are associated with significant medical errors and adverse patient outcomes [Reference Baldwin and Daugherty99]. Consequently, how a team deals with conflict significantly impacts its performance [Reference Liu and Cross100]. Methods of conflict resolution are based on the degree to which a leader’s practices emphasize cooperativeness or assertiveness [Reference Rahim and Magner101]. Managing conflict cooperatively can lead to higher perceptions of fair treatment among individuals, which in turn leads to better team performance [Reference Tjosvold, Hui and Yu102]. Perspective-seeking and promoting collaborative problem-solving may promote beneficial task-based conflict [Reference Bass and Avolio103].

Sense-making. One important role team that leadership plays in responding to disruptive events is through the practice of sense-making [Reference DeRue and Hollenbeck104-Reference Morgeson106]. In response to external disruptions, transformational leadership practices provide sense-making by shaping the meaning of work to team members [Reference Snook107]. Sense-making activities seek to turn an unexpected disruption into productive activity by providing insight into the event and developing a path forward. Sense-making frames a mental image of where the team is and where they are going in order to create an action plan in the face of uncertainty. By making meaning of these changes, teams are able to formulate a basis for action [Reference Ashmos and Nathan108]. In this way, sense-making enables teams to respond to disruptive events through learning/adaptation [Reference DeRue and Hollenbeck104-Reference Morgeson106].

Goal-setting. Leaders who set clear and challenging goals direct individual action and motivate individuals to achieve performance targets. At the team level, goal-setting helps teams form a common identity to enhance their commitment to team goals. Setting challenging goals enhances outcomes [Reference Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta and Kramer109], energizing team members, and directing their attention [Reference Gibson and Vermeulen110–Reference Cohen, Chang and Ledford112]. Interestingly, identifying challenging goals is as important as leader behaviors that facilitate team creativity [Reference Amabile, Schatzel, Moneta and Kramer109]. Consequently, teams with goal-setting outperform those without [Reference Einstein and Humphreys68,Reference Knight, Durham and Locke69]. In addition to goal-setting, giving and providing feedback is important for team learning and performance. With feedback, shared visioning, and communication, members are more engaged, and the teams show evidence of increased cohesion [Reference Cohen, Chang and Ledford112,Reference Sivunen113].

External networking. Another role of leadership is providing interpersonal ties with external collaborators and networks. Leaders with central ties with external networks tend to have more productive teams. A meta-analysis of 37 studies suggests that teams with densely configured interpersonal ties attain their goals better [Reference Balkundi and Harrison114]. Leadership has a significant positive impact on team learning behavior when time pressure is high [Reference Liu, Liu and Zhang115], a circumstance that TTs often must navigate.

II. Reinforcement Between Competency Domains

Our analysis confirms and clarifies our previous work on team-emergent competency “domains” by suggesting how practice in one domain reinforces practice in others. We note that affect (trust) is foundational to all competency domains. Some of the strongest relationships identified in this review, consistent with prior work [Reference Lotrecchiano, DiazGranados and Sprecher4], are between those in the affect, communication, and leadership domains (Fig. 5). Leadership behaviors strongly influence the growth of a psychologically safe environment. Transformational leadership has a direct positive relationship with a safe team climate, which in turn promotes knowledge sharing and influences team members to trust one another by stimulating communication [Reference Anselmann and Mulder21]. Risk-taking and cohesiveness within this environment encourages learning/adaptative behavior [Reference Zaccaro, Rittman and Marks12,Reference Edmondson and Lei17] and closely linked to team performance [Reference Watthanabut116–Reference Lee, Gillespie, Mann and Wearing118] and team member satisfaction [Reference Siswanto and Yuliana119]. In highly technical teams, shared leadership leverages a culture of knowledge sharing which helps the team to perform effective decision-making, problem-solving, and goal-setting by sharing their expertise and experiences [Reference Muethel and Hoegl120]. These associations were replicated in a larger study of knowledge-based industry teams where transformational leadership was positively related to team member satisfaction and to objective team performance [Reference Yin, Ma, Yu, Jia and Liao121].

Fig. 5. Reinforcing interrelationships of competencies. This analysis suggests that a triad of team-emergent competencies of affect, communication, and leadership reinforce and support each other and are highly linked to team performance capacity and productivity. We posit that translational teams displaying these knowledge skills and attitudes at an expert level will advance to high performance.

Additionally, competencies in communication influence affect and collaborative problem-solving . In educational teams, communication promotes affect (trust) and learning/adaptive behaviors [Reference Akhtar, Khan, Hassan, Irfan and Atlas122]. Leadership sense-making promotes trust and conflict resolution [Reference Stone, Patton and Heen123], where conflicting insights can be resolved and integrated into a common mental model [Reference O’Rourke, Crowley and Gonnerman124].

Skill-building Approaches

Having examined the specific 15 KSAs linked with team performance, we further examined the literature for approaches that would enhance behaviors of this competency (Table 1). The approaches below were evaluated on the strength of the evidence base on TTs using the Wisconsin Interventions in Team Science framework [Reference Rolland, Hohl and Johnson125] and represent “empirically informed” strategies.

Table 1. Interventions for promoting Knowledge Skills and Attitudes. For each competency, interventions and proximal outcomes and behaviors are listed

1. 1. Affect. Facilitating TT affect can be highly influenced by leadership behaviors, behaviors that can be learned and coached [Reference Ladegard and Gjerde126]. A comprehensive meta-analysis of ∼5000 groups on the antecedents and outcomes of psychological safety found that positive leader interactions play a critical role in fostering an environment of inclusion and risk-taking [Reference Frazier, Fainshmidt, Klinger, Pezeshkan and Vracheva127]. Understanding styles, tendencies, recognizing strengths, and weaknesses is a component of inclusive leadership practice, promoting a feeling of team membership [Reference Lattuca, Knight and Bergom128–Reference Almeida and Mendes130]. Transformational leaders who understand and listen to members promote trust, conflict resolution, and empowerment [Reference Stone, Patton and Heen123,Reference Zhu, Yao and Zhang131]. Diversity practices by the team leader have also been shown to promote affect . In a study of >4500 health sector employees, Leadership diversity practices were found to enhance trust and psychological safety [Reference Downey, van der Werff, Thomas and Plaut132]. These interventions and proximal outcomes are shown in Table 1.

2. 2. Communication. Simulation studies have found that cross-training enhances the development of SMMs, leading to enhanced performance[Reference Marks, Sabella, Burke and Zaccaro74]. Additionally, one impactful specific practice of transformational leadership, particularly during the formation of a TT, is that of “inspirational communication,” where a leader articulates an inspiring vision stressing the importance of collective action and of the mission to be accomplished (Table 1). A study of transformational leadership communication types comparing inspirational motivation or intellectual stimulation found that inspirational communication is linked to team performance and creativity [Reference Boies, Fiset and Gill133]. Moreover, satisfaction of the teams goals and team performance was found to be associated with a multi-level trust – exhibited as both trust in the leader as well as trust in the team [Reference Braun, Peus, Weisweiler and Frey134]. Finally, transformational leadership promotes within-team knowledge sharing and team innovative performance through an integration mechanism [Reference Jiang and Chen135] and increasing knowledge sharing through the density of intra-team advice network density [Reference Zhang and Peterson136].

3. 3. Management. A number of established approaches have been developed by professional societies to provide project management skills to TTs. The nontraditional role of the “project manager” can provide essential coordination for team activities; these skills have been empirically derived from CTSA-based TTs [Reference Wooten, Dann, Finnerty and Kotarba80]. In addition, team charters describe an intervention used to develop team norms and processes and define various aspects of teamwork, including purpose and mission statements, operating guidelines, behavioral norms, and performance management practices [Reference Mathieu and Rapp137,Reference Shuffler, Diazgranados, Maynard and Salas138]. Feedback enables adaptation and enhances long-term performance [Reference Einstein and Humphreys68,Reference Kozlowski and Ilgen77,Reference Sivunen113]. Empiric work has shown that shared leadership has a positive impact on team members’ innovative behavior [Reference Liu, Gao, Xing, Xu, Wang and Yu139] and ability to overcome barriers [Reference Sirkin, Keenan and Jackson140]. Feedback enables adaptation and enhances long-term performance [Reference Einstein and Humphreys68,Reference Kozlowski and Ilgen77,Reference Sivunen113]. Leadership behaviors can promote adaptation through leader briefings if team expertise can be developed and team knowledge enhanced [Reference Marks, Zaccaro and Mathieu141]. We have recently developed a workshop approach to foster interdisciplinary collaboration known as “Collaboration Planning” [Reference Rolland, Scholl and Suryanarayanan142]. Tested in 40 TTs, Collaboration Planning is a high-impact team-building activity that provides members with the skills to participate in collaborative TTs as well as promoting affect and a culture of reproducibility. Collaboration Planning is a ∼90-minute facilitated intervention in 10 areas, including Rationale for team approach and configuration, Collaboration Readiness, Technological Readiness, Team Functioning, Communication/coordination, Leadership/management/administration, Conflict prevention/management, Training, Quality Improvement and Resource Allocation [Reference Rolland, Scholl and Suryanarayanan142]. Some of the unique aspects of the TT model that separate it from traditional product development teams are its dynamic membership and dependence on voluntary participation [Reference Calhoun, Wooten, Bhavnani, Anderson, Freeman and Brasier3]. Although we noted that the TT has a stable core consisting of PI, trainee, and collaborating scientists (Fig. 1), additional scientists and community members associate with the team during its evolution. This association was dynamic, voluntary, and driven by the phase of translation [Reference Wooten, Calhoun, Bhavnani, Rose, Ameredes and Brasier5]. New members can bring needed perspectives and technological talent, but also can be disruptive to many team activities. Approaches to vetting potential team members that have been found to be useful by NIH Ombudsman include interviews with prospective members focusing on values, performance, and behavior [Reference Bennett, Gadlin and Marchand143]. Collaborative agreement documents and “Welcome letters” are also approaches to reinforce expectations of working within a TT [Reference Bennett, Gadlin and Marchand143]. As new team members are brought into the project, focused onboarding activities, such as collaboration planning, and team-level training interventions may need to be repeated or made available in real-time.

1. 4. Collaborative problem-solving. Promoting cognitive diversity is foundational to effective collaborative problem-solving . During formation of the group, the toolbox dialog exercise is a workshop using a philosophical approach to promote interdisciplinary integration, promoting shared views, and language [Reference Looney, Donovan, O’Rourke, O’Rourke, Eigenbrode and Wulfhorst144]. In established teams, Leadership practices that value and manage knowledge diversity are essential for engaging in learning that support the team goals [Reference Zhang and Guo145,Reference Yang, Huang and Hsu146] and effective team behaviors [Reference Pelled, Eisenhardt and Xin147]. One approach, “perspective-taking,” is a collective cognitive process, through which team members strive to understand the world from other members’ viewpoints [Reference Hoever, van Knippenberg, van Ginkel and Barkema148]. Perspective-taking increases proficiency, adaptivity, and proactivity when leaders adopt “both-and” approaches that behaviorally accept and integrate competing viewpoints [Reference Xia, Yu and Yang149]. Additionally, cognitive diversity is advanced by inclusive leadership behaviors that support sharing multiple viewpoints and mitigate hierarchal differences [Reference Lattuca, Knight and Bergom128–Reference Almeida and Mendes130]. Inclusive leadership is positively linked with innovation in business teams [Reference Qi, Liu, Wei and Hu150,Reference Homan, Gündemir, Buengeler and van Kleef151] and potentially supports stakeholder engagement in TTs. An assessment tool for collaborative problem-solving has been applied in a 2015 international survey of 500,000 students in 52 countries, and training approaches have been proposed [Reference Graesser, Fiore, Greiff, Andrews-Todd, Foltz and Hesse11]. In this analysis, the specific team training strategies that can be related to team-focused training in knowledge sharing, critical thinking, and coordination have been shown to have some of the most important impact. More work will be required to adapt these training approaches to TTs and to evaluate their impact on performance or innovation.

2. 5. Leadership. A number of leadership models have been developed in generic business and health care teams to promote sense-making and goal-setting. Taking from the business domain, the MIT Sloan School of Management has developed a stepped model for sense-making [Reference Ancona152]. This approach employs 1. exploring the wider system; 2. creating a map of the current situation; and 3. acting to change the system to learn more about it. Consequently, teams are better able to adapt and respond to disruptive events (Table 1). Although sense-making approach has been developed for generic business teams, this approach will need to be adapted to the unique aspects of TTs.