Summary

Governments, businesses, and community groups are increasingly relying on work teams to streamline processes, enhance participation, and improve performance. Teamwork is of worldwide importance; individuals who wish to participate fully in community and professional life must increasingly possess the skills necessary to work in teams.

Although teams are diverse and can take on many forms, all teams are defined by four characteristics. They have two or more individuals; they share a common goal(s); they are task-interdependent; and they have a desired productive outcome(s). These characteristics serve as the basis for developing a working definition of a "team," a definition that the ALL can use to provide insight regarding the prevalence and the expression of teamwork skills across various cultures.

The Teamwork scale of ALL seeks to assess the core skills associated with teamwork. To this end, three primary skills required for effective teamwork—Group Decision Making/Planning, Adaptability/Flexibility, and Interpersonal Relations—are proposed, each represented by distinct behavioral manifestations. Group Decision Making/Planning refers to the ability to identify problems and gather, evaluate, share and link information. Adaptability/Flexibility implies using a variety of task-relevant strategies, providing assistance, adjusting to task reallocation and accepting feedback. Interpersonal Relations reflects supporting team decisions, sharing work, helping others, and seeking mutually agreeable solutions. Communication skills—including providing complete and concise information, listening effectively, and asking questions—underlie the other three skills and serve as a bridge among them. In addition, two other factors play key roles in teamwork: attitudes toward teamwork and past experience with teams.

By definition, teamwork skills can only be observed directly in a teamwork setting. However, because direct observation is not consistent with ALL methodology, respondent teamwork skills should be assessed indirectly. Specifically, knowledge of teamwork skills, attitudes towards teamwork, and past experience in teams should be measured, and links should be drawn between these constructs and team performance.

Finally, teamwork, more than other life skills, is likely to be affected by culture. Although the team skills described in this framework are assumed to define teamwork generally, the behavioral manifestation of these skills is likely to vary across cultures. Respondent performance should be interpreted relative to the effective teamwork behaviors defined for a given country, thereby providing information regarding national attitudes toward teamwork and regarding the degree to which behavioral expressions of teamwork skills vary across nations. This information can be used by employers and educators alike, to assess and improve teamwork in a nation's workforce and general population.