Many organizations use teams with the goal of improving performance beyond what individuals can achieve. To reach such synergy, teams need to engage in team learning, the process of working together to enhance collective knowledge. However, learning is difficult to accomplish, as it requires sharing unique information and challenging team members to grow. What enables team learning? To address this question, we synthesized research and identified factors that enhance learning and the process by which learning influences performance and innovation. 

The Importance (and Challenges) of Team Learning 

Team learning refers to a process in which teams reflect on their actions, experiment with various approaches to completing their tasks, and discuss mistakes or unexpected results. Although research indicates that this team process can have a strong, positive impact on desired outcomes, such as team performance and innovation, it is a significant challenge for teams to undertake. Learning often requires teams to behave in ways that seemingly run counter to organizational expectations, such as prioritizing longer-term learning goals over shorter-term performance goals.  Aiming to uncover how to promote learning despite these challenges, our paper, published in the Journal of Management Studies, presents a meta-analysis that quantitatively summarizes evidence regarding how various team and organizational factors influence team learning. 

Team Factors Enhancing Team Learning 

Certain team factors, including team composition, emergent states, and other team processes, influence how teams function and perform. Team composition refers to characteristics such as team personality, ability, and demographic features. Our results indicated that gender diversity positively relates to team learning, possibly due to more positive interpersonal dynamics experienced in more gender-diverse teams. This supports building more, rather than less, diverse teams in the interest of cultivating learning. 

Emergent states are dynamic properties of the team, considered to be motivational, affective, or cognitive in nature. Although each emergent state positively related to team learning, motivation was the most important in bolstering learning, followed by positive attitudinal or affective beliefs, and cognitive emergent states (e.g., a shared understanding of the nature of the task and its specific requirements). Examining behaviors and beliefs included in each category of emergent state, we found that the strongest drivers of learning were psychological safety (i.e., a shared belief that the team is a space safe for sharing thoughts, speaking up, and taking interpersonal risks) and confidence (i.e., a shared belief that the team has strong general abilities and can accomplish the necessary tasks).  

Somewhat similar to emergent states, team processes are cognitive, behavioral, and verbal activities that allow teams to complete the necessary tasks. We found that the team processes of communication and coordination also positively related to learning. 

Organizational Factors Enhancing Team Learning 

In addition to team factors, certain contextual factors can enhance team learning. Our findings highlighted the importance of team structure and a supportive organizational context. Team structure includes specialization (i.e., how labor is divided into tasks and roles), hierarchy (i.e., how labor is divided between leaders and subordinates), and formalization (i.e., the degree to which objectives and procedures are clearly defined). In short, having a strong team structure implies there is a high degree of clarity regarding how work should be completed and who is doing what. This clarity, in turn, provides teams with a stronger understanding of the nature of team tasks, providing space to engage in learning behaviors such as experimenting with approaches to task completion and identifying errors. Similarly, organizational support, encompassing elements such as reduced stressors, perceived support for learning, and the degree to which teams believe the organization values their contributions and well-being, positively related to team learning. 

How Team Learning Enhances Performance and Innovation 

To uncover additional insights into what leads learning to improve team performance and innovation, we examined other team dynamics critical to these relationships. We found that a strong learning orientation, or a shared focus on developing skills and the propensity to view challenges as opportunities for improvement rather than upsetting setbacks, led to a strong shared sense of psychological safety. In other words, teams that are motivated to learn and focused on skill improvement are more likely to develop a shared perception that it is safe to take interpersonal risks and make mistakes within the context of the team, possibly because the motivation to learn overcomes potential embarrassment or fear associated with these risks. Psychological safety, in turn, fosters learning, as teams understand that they can engage in potentially interpersonally risky learning behaviors, such as pointing out mistakes, without being punished. Learning then enhances performance and innovation: teams that learn uncover more effective approaches to task completion and spend more time reflecting on the task itself, leading to more discussions and opportunities that produce novel knowledge. 

Putting it All Together: How Managers Can Enhance Team Learning 

Organizations wishing to reap the benefits of team learning can capitalize on the insight uncovered in our meta-analysis by taking the following evidence-based guidelines into account: 

• Create a Team Likely to Learn: Gender diverse teams comprised of individuals with a strong motivation to develop their skills (i.e., a strong learning orientation) will be better equipped to learn. 
• Clarify Roles and Responsibilities: Clarity surrounding task and role expectations provides teams the necessary space to engage in challenging learning behaviors. 
• Ensure Organizational Context Supports Learning: Policies, practices, and procedures can enhance—or constrain—learning. Conveying support for learning and ensuring practices are commensurate with this aim (e.g., providing time for teams to discuss errors) will encourage teams to learn. 
• Build a Positive Team Climate: Leaders play a particularly significant role in establishing team climate. They can build a positive team climate that supports learning by fostering a shared motivation to improve (e.g., rewarding teams that display learning behaviors) and a psychologically safe environment (e.g., clarifying that minor mistakes made in pursuit of improvement and learning will not be punished, encouraging team members to speak up). 
• Encourage Communication and Coordination: Teams that communicate and coordinate effectively are more likely to learn. Leaders can support these team processes by ensuring teams set aside time to discuss tasks, clearly delegate responsibilities, and address any communication or coordination issues as soon as they arise. 
• Provide Learning-Focused Interventions: Learning-focused interventions, such as after-action reviews or periods set aside for task debriefing, are useful techniques to prompt learning.