What you invest in a team pays off – with a delay, and with interest.
A team does not get better on its own. It gets better when someone puts time, money and attention into it: into training, into practicing together, into a lineup that is allowed to stay together. That is what this principle means by investment. A single team-building day is not enough.
The team principle in detail
Four steps through the principle: understand, check, connect, apply. Open any topic to read more.
The explanationThe return comes later. Today the exercise costs half a working day.
- The return comes later.
- Today the exercise costs half a working day.
- The benefit shows only when the team comes under pressure and the coordination is second nature.
- That is why it is so easy to cut back on: you see the costs immediately, but not the gain.
“Interest” is a metaphor. It stands for the way learning and familiarity build up over time.
Read closelyWhat the principle says – and what it doesn’t
Investing in a team works on average. That is the well-supported part of the statement.
- Strictly speaking
- Not every investment pays interest. The return depends on the content, on repetition and on the team staying together.
- There is no automatic compound interest. Without refreshers, the effect of training fades again.
- Socializing alone is a weak investment. Team building has a stronger effect on climate and processes than on performance. Training with clear content – coordination, communication, roles – has better evidence behind it.
The signs3 signs that the principle is at work · 3 that it is missing
- Practice and debriefs have a fixed place in the calendar.
- Training sessions are repeated.
- Proven teams stay together.
- Time for the team is the first thing to be cut when things get tight.
- There are one-off events with no follow-up.
- The team is constantly reshuffled and starts from scratch every time.
The research6 sources: 3 meta-analyses, 1 primary study, 1 review, 1 critique · 1999–2016 · with research limitations
- low
- moderate
- high
Moderate to high – high for “investing in teams works” (three meta-analyses), moderate to low for “with a delay, and with interest,” because the image of compound interest has not been tested directly.
- 1999Robert L. Helmreich, Ashleigh C. Merritt & John A. Wilhelm
Five generations of crew resource management since 1981. Training with repetition changes behavior; pilots’ acceptance, however, declines again over the years.
- 2006Eduardo Salas et al.
28 CRM evaluations: positive participant reactions, but mixed findings on learning and behavior; no safety effect at the organizational level could be established.
- 2009Robert S. Huckman, Bradley R. Staats & David M. Upton
Software projects at an Indian IT services company: the more often members had already worked together, the better the team performed.
- The meta-analyses show moderate effects, but no automatic compound interest: without refreshers, attitudes fade again after training.
- For crew resource management in aviation, proof of “fewer accidents” still cannot be cleanly established.
- That the investment grows over time is plausible as a rule, but not supported as a law.
Read more: what the research shows
Here, research looks at team training and team building – targeted interventions to develop teams – and at team familiarity, the shared experience that builds up when people have often worked together. A meta-analysis led by Eduardo Salas finds moderately strong positive relationships between team training and performance. Another, led by Cameron Klein, shows that team building works on average, more strongly on climate and processes than on performance. Ashley M. Hughes and colleagues confirm the benefits of team training in health care. Using software projects, Robert S. Huckman, Bradley R. Staats and David M. Upton show that teams perform better the more often their members have already worked together.
The originJohn C. Maxwell · “The Law of Dividends”
- 2001OriginJohn C. Maxwell
The 17 Indisputable Laws of Teamwork
- The Law of DividendsInvestment in a team multiplies over time
- todayExpanded
Added here is the condition the research names – the return comes only if the investment has substance and is renewed, and the team stays together.
The related team principles21 Development · 11 Attunement · 09 Bench · 03 Size
The principle supports “Development”, “Attunement” and “Bench”.
It stands in tension with “Size” and with any practice of frequent reshuffling: if you keep reshuffling the team, you lose what it has built up.
The action steps5 steps: Invest in content, not just in morale
- Invest in content, not just in morale: practice coordination, communication and roles with your team on real tasks.
- Plan the repetition right from the start. Training without refreshers loses its effect.
- Keep well-established teams together wherever possible. People who have often worked together perform better on average.
- Expect a delay, and say so to those who sign off on the budget. Do not expect the return in the same quarter.
- Check honestly what an initiative has actually changed: behavior and results, not just good feedback at the end of the day.
The questions for your team3 questions for your team conversation: What have we really invested in as a team over the past year – and what of it is still having an effect today?
- What have we really invested in as a team over the past year – and what of it is still having an effect today?
- Which training or exercise should we refresh?
- Where are we losing the team capital we have built up because we reshuffle too often?
Take time for one question at your next team meeting. Talk about it openly and note down what you take away from it.
The picture to rememberSeeds are planted, and for a long time nothing happens but a time bar ticking along.
- Seeds are planted, and for a long time nothing happens but a time bar ticking along.
- Then branches grow – slowly at first, then faster and faster.
What the Team Principle of Investment looks like in practice
A Light That Stayed Off and an Hour in a Holding Pattern
On December 28, 1978, a United Airlines DC-8 with 189 people on board circles near Portland for about an hour because the landing gear indicator light stays dark – until the engines flame out from fuel starvation and ten people die. The industry responds with an investment in how crews work together.
33 Years to a Starting Eleven from the Club’s Own Academy
On October 20, 1979, FC Barcelona turns the La Masia farmhouse into a boarding school for young players. On November 25, 2012, in a 4–0 win at Levante, for the first time all eleven players on the field come from the club’s own academy.
Long Corridors, Mixed Groups, Years of Time
In 1941, Bell Labs moves into a new building in Murray Hill with strikingly long corridors, so that colleagues cannot help running into one another. For the transistor, Mervin Kelly puts physicists, metallurgists and electrical engineers together in a group that works for more than two years – in 1947, John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley achieve the breakthrough.
