Narrative Reflection as a Means to Explore Team Effectiveness

Abstract

The aim of this article is to explore how teams make sense of their effectiveness over time by telling their team story. We selected five team stories from health care teams perceived by the organization as effective. We analyzed their stories using three-level narrative analysis, which addresses the temporal, social, and normative complexities of narrating effective teamwork. Two story types were identified: developing effectiveness stories, which represent stories about a transition from ineffective to effective, and continuous improvement stories, which represent relatively consistent high performance. This distinction seems to indicate differences in the way teams engage in and profit from narrative reflection, and how they relate to the organizational context. Our findings showed that narrative reflection provides insights into incongruence between teamwork elements, invites members to exchange perspectives, and reveals lessons learned for future recycling. Future research could explore how composite stories might provide insights for other teams to reflect on.

Cross-Disciplinary Care: A Systematic Review on Teamwork Processes in Health Care

“…This would be particularly beneficial, given the reliance of other disciplines on quantitative data. For example, many studies published in the social sciences used qualitative methods to describe the emergence of teamwork processes within health care teams (e.g., Anonson et al, 2009; Hilligoss, 2014; Lohuis, Sools, van Vuuren, & Bohlmeijer, 2016). Future studies on these topics can further explore findings through quantitative markers, measuring dimensions of qualitative codes or developing measures around emergent themes.…”

Through the client’s eyes: using narratives to explore experiences of care transfers during pregnancy, childbirth, and the neonatal period

“…For the purpose of this article, only the first level was analysed. This method has previously been applied in the context of patient narratives and healthcare [ 25 , 28 , 29 ].…”

Mirror, Mirror: Guided Storytelling and Team Reflexivity’s Influence on Team Mental Models

“…On the cognitive side, narrative 1 portrays events in a clear and structured manner and therefore helps to make sense of complex and ambiguous concepts, improving problem solving (Fiore et al, 2009). Supporting some of these conceptual claims, qualitative research confirms the value of storytelling as a key communication mechanism through which team members deliberate and negotiate difficulties (Ryfe, 2006), reframe meaning to acquire leadership and power (Davis, 2008), and make sense of temporal, social, and normative complexity inherent in teamwork (Lohuis, Sools, van Vuuren, & Bohlmeijer, 2016). Building on this theoretical and qualitative research, the study presented here supplies important, but currently missing pieces of the research puzzle.…”

“…Indeed, narrative has been described anecdotally and proposed theoretically as improving TMMs (e.g., Bartel & Garud, 2009; Denning, 2001; Fiore et al, 2009). For example, Lohuis and colleagues (2016) postulated (but did not test) that “storytelling may enhance teams’ ability to achieve consensus . .…”

“…As such, team reflexivity may provide the mechanism by which relevant content can be more fully processed, fostering greater TMM similarity. Indeed, the combination of storytelling and reflection has been discussed theoretically (e.g., Fiore et al, 2005) and observed qualitatively (e.g., Goldsmith et al, 2010; Lohuis et al, 2016), but not empirically tested. Thus, the current research examined the independent and interactive effects of guided storytelling and team reflexivity interventions on TMM similarity and subsequent performance.…”