Team Learning in a Multinational Military Staff Exercise

Context support

According to Edmondson (1999), context support includes adequate resources, appropriate technology, and readily available expert assistance when situations arise that the individual or team is unable to deal with. The team’s dependency on context support may vary and Edmondson found that high-learning teams were initially less dependent on appropriate context support and possessed team strengths and team efficacy that helped them overcome context support obstacles.

Team leader coaching

The team leader is central to team learning and members are particularly aware of the leader’s behavior (Tyler & Lind, 1992). If the leader is supportive, coaching oriented, and responds positively to questions and challenges, it will enhance psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999). Team leaders who encourage team members to ask for help if they are unable to solve a problem, reveal and discuss errors, and have an open-minded approach to discussing and solving problems will create a culture of team psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999). If, however, team leaders act in an authoritarian and punitive manner, it may create a team culture of insecurity, resulting in team members tending to act in ways that inhibit learning when they face the possibility of threat and embarrassment (Argyris, 1982, 1999). Edmondson’s (2002) study revealed that for teams in which discussion, reflection, and change occurred, power distances (Hofstede & Hofstede, 2005) were either absent or narrowed by the leader.

Team psychological safety

Edmondson (1999) maintains that psychological safety is the most important variable for team learning behavior and defines team psychological safety as a shared belief about the consequences of interpersonal risk-taking. Within a team, there is often a general tacit belief and sense of confidence that team members will not attack, embarrass, reject, punish, or bully each other when speaking up or admitting errors. There is a mutual confidence that stems from mutual respect and trust among the team members. To become a real group phenomenon, psychological safety must be a belief shared by the team members. Previous studies on team learning behavior have found that psychological safety supports good learning behaviors (Edmondson, 1999; Van den Bossche, Gijselaers, Segers, & Kirschner, 2006). Summoning the courage to try new ideas in organizations is difficult without psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999; Schein, 1993). Poor psychological safety will undoubtedly result in what Argyris (1999) calls defensive routines.

Team efficacy

Team efficacy is an extension of Bandura’s (1977, 1986) work on self-efficacy, which is an individual’s belief in his or her ability to accomplish goals. Team efficacy is how the team members collectively estimate their possibility to perform well and achieve assigned goals (Bandura, 1997; Gibson, 1999; Parker, 1994; Whiteoak, Chaplin, & Hort, 2004). Previous studies have shown that team efficacy is positively related to both team learning (Edmondson, 1999) and team performance (Gibson, 1999; Gist & Mitchell, 1992; Gully, Beaubien, Incalcaterra, & Joshi, 2002; Pescosolido, 2003; Peterson, Mitchell, Thompson, & Burr, 2000). Team efficacy seems to be derived from four major sources: prior performance, vicarious performance, verbal persuasion, and emotional arousal (Bandura, 1997; Whyte, 1998). Prior successful group performance seems to be most important in forming positive collective efficacy (Zaccaro, Blair, Peterson, & Zazanis, 1995). Jung and Sosik (2002) also found that transformational leadership (Bass, 1985; Burns, 1978) was positively related to empowerment, group cohesiveness, and group effectiveness, and that empowerment was positively related to collective efficacy. These results indicate the importance of the team leader coaching style in building cohesiveness and team efficacy.

Team learning behavior

Team learning in this study is conceived as a group process rather than team performance as the main aim of the exercise is to learn staff working methods and procedures, not to produce excellent orders. The difference between team learning behavior and team performance is similar to Ishak and Ballard’s (2012) distinction between task work versus team processes, that is, task work (performance) is what teams must accomplish, and team processes (team learning behavior) represent how those tasks are accomplished. Team learning should be perceived as an ongoing process of discussion, reflection, and action, characterized by asking questions, seeking feedback, experimenting, reflecting on results, and discussing errors or unexpected outcomes of actions (Argyris, 1982, 1999; Argyris & Schön 1978; Edmondson, 1999; Senge, 2006; Stagl, Salas, & Fiore, 2007).

Defensive routines

A potentially important variable for team learning behavior not included in Edmondson’s (1999) team learning model is defensive routines. Defensive routines are closely related to Senge’s (2006) concept of genuine dialogue as the fundamental means for successful team learning. However, according to Argyris (1999), there are threats to genuine dialogue when teams trap themselves in defensive routines. The source of defensive routines is fear of exposing the thinking that lies behind our views because we are afraid that people will find fault with them, and we use them to protect ourselves from the embarrassment and threat that may come from exposing our thinking (Argyris, 1999).

Defensive routines can also be a strategy to avoid conflict within the team to maintain a smooth surface in the team. By using defensive routines, teams insulate their mental models and assumptions from examination, which results in the development of a skilled incompetence to learn, the team remaining unable to improve its performance and produce high-quality results. Defensive routines are so diverse and so commonplace that they usually go unnoticed (Argyris, 1999; Senge, 2006). As defensive routines are a very common phenomenon in all kinds of teams (Argyris, 1999) and one of the worst threats against good learning behaviors, it is important to examine if this phenomenon could be identified in this kind of military exercise.

Finally, there is an interplay between two types of team learning behaviors (Edmondson, 1999, 2002) where discussion and reflection promote new insights, but not necessarily actions and new theories in use (Argyris, 1999). Team learning behavior as action comes when decisions are actually made as a result of these new insights.

Cohesion

Group cohesion is the force binding group members together to commit to the group goals (González, Burke, Santuzzi, & Bradley, 2003). Group cohesion is typified by cooperative, holistic, supportive, face-to-face relationships that extend over time, and the essence of strong primary group cohesion is trust among group members together with the capacity for effective teamwork (Siebold, 2007). There are basically two facets of cohesion—social and task cohesion.

According to Siebold (2007), social cohesion refers to the nature and quality of the emotional bonds of friendship, liking, caring, and closeness among group members. A group displays high social cohesion to the extent that its members like each other, prefer to spend their social time together, enjoy each other’s company, and feel emotionally close to one another. The locus of bonding is in the relationship, not in the actions or task interactions between the service member and the group, although such actions or interactions are influenced by and feed back into the relationship. Significant for social cohesion is that it is based on direct personal interactions in relatively closed networks.

Task cohesion refers to the shared commitment among members to achieving a goal that requires the collective efforts of the group (Siebold, 2007). A group with high task cohesion is composed of members who share a common goal and who are motivated to coordinate their efforts as a team to achieve that goal. Several studies show that task interdependence—that is, when the team members need to coordinate and communicate with each other when solving their tasks—relates positively to group cohesion (Gully, Devine, & Whitney, 2012; Kozlowski & Ilgen, 2006; Salas et al., 2008; Savelsbergh, Van der Hejden, & Poell, 2009; Van den Bossche et al., 2006). Furthermore, several studies have shown positive correlations between collective efficacy and both task and social cohesion (Kozub & McDonnell, 2000; Lee & Farh, 2004; Lent et al., 2006), although task cohesion seems to have a greater predictive value regarding collective efficacy (Kozub & McDonnell, 2000). There also seems to be strong evidence that group cohesion has a positive influence on group performance (Gupta et al., 2010; Mullen & Copper, 1994; Webber & Donahue, 2001). This relationship has been observed for both task and social cohesion (Carron, Colman, Wheeler, & Stevens, 2002), but task cohesion seems to have a stronger and more consistent relationship with group performance (Mullen & Copper, 1994).

Moreover, Beal, Cohen, Burke, and McLendon’s (2003) meta-analyses revealed stronger correlations between cohesion and performance when performance was defined as behavior based on a distinction between performance as behavior and performance as outcome (Campbell, Dunnette, & Hough, 1990; Campbell et al., 1993). In a similar manner, this study focuses on team learning behavior as a team process and not team performance as an outcome (Ishak & Ballard, 2012). Beal et al. (2003) also found a stronger correlation between cohesion and performance when patterns of team workflow became more intensive (Tesluk et al., 1997). Intensive workflow occurs when the work has the opportunity to flow between all members of the group, and the entire group must collaborate to accomplish the task, as was the case for the teams in this study.

Studies examining the relationship between cohesion and team learning seem to be much scarcer. An interesting exception, however, is a study by Van den Bossche et al. (2006). Building on Edmondson’s (1999) model, they examined the relationships between team beliefs and team learning, including task cohesion as a team belief in the model. The results showed that task cohesion had a significant positive relationship with team learning. Finally, previous studies indicate that despite the prevailing culture, a supportive type of leadership has more positive influence on group cohesion in general, compared with a more directive and dominating type of leadership (Wendt et al., 2009).

In summary, the specific arguments for adding cohesion to Edmondson’s (1999) team learning model are that research has found important and positive links between cohesion and the factors included in Edmondson’s model. Based on these results, group cohesion was included in the model as an important team belief.

Organizational setting

CJSE was created for individual and team training and learning for the training audience (student officers) at tactical and operational level. The staffs consist of a number of HQ based at four different locations in Sweden. Besides the different staffs, there is an Observer and Training Team in the exercise organization that has a direct pedagogical influence on the training exercise and forms an important contextual support for the training audience. The role of the observers is to sit with the sections and observe their work, giving feedback, advice, and, if necessary, training individuals, groups, sections, or the whole staff. The observers are the main pedagogical instrument for helping the training audience during the exercise. They are experts on all elements of staff work and most of them are experienced officer teachers from the participating nations’ defense academies or universities. The observers also include a group of English-language teachers who provide language support and feedback, primarily to the training audience but also to others involved in the exercise, if required.

Pedagogical setting

The training audience arrives on Tuesday/Wednesday of the first week, when they have to prepare themselves, get to know each other, start pre-train, and build routines for the staff work until Friday of the same week, when they conduct a “rock drill,” which is a kind of dress rehearsal before the exercise starts on Saturday. The exercise lasts for 5 days, from Saturday of the first week to Thursday of the second week. The training audience consists of temporarily assembled staff from different nations, many of whom have never met before, whereas others are student officers from the different national defense academies and universities. The commanders of the sections are supposed to be officers from the SAF HQ who fill the same real positions in the HQ, but it is not always possible for the SAF to support the exercise with professional commanders in all sections, so the student officers have to choose one from among themselves.

All learning activities in the sections and teams focus on the completion of tasks. The teams are given certain tasks that have to be completed within a specific time frame and to a sufficient standard of quality. The time frame on this operational level is not seconds, minutes, or hours such as in action teams (Halfhill, Nielsen, & Sundstrom, 2008; Ishak & Ballard, 2012; Sundstrom, 1999), but more on a one to several days’ perspective. Each task on this level has to pass several working or coordination groups, as well as decision points which basically function as quality controls that can reject or approve the section’s plan or order. The central pedagogical method used in CJSE is on the job training, meaning that the training audience receives a time-framed task for which they generally have no prior experience of. At the end of each day, all sections have a debriefing session named Hot Wash Up, which is an organized learning behavior activity for discussion and reflection aimed at improving the section’s staff work as single- or double-loop learning in action. These debriefing sessions are led by the section commander and one or two observers, who give oral feedback on the section’s work. These debriefing sessions, with qualified feedback from experienced section leaders and observers, are what Rudolph, Simon, Dufresne, and Raemer (2006) call “debriefing with good judgment.” Several studies on team learning show that the participants did not improve their learning and skills in the absence of debriefing, whereas constructive oral feedback by skilled instructors resulted in significant improvement (Petranek, Corey, & Black, 1992; Rudolph et al., 2006; Savoldelli et al., 2006).

Another variable that has an important impact, at least on psychological safety, learning behavior, defensive routines, and leadership is that the official exercise language is English, meaning that everything in the exercise has to be done in English. English-language skills among the training audience varied widely, with some more or less fluent while others struggled, thus influencing their ability to understand, communicate, learn, and solve tasks.

Participating observations

The main data collecting method used in this case study was the ethnographic method of focused observation as an observer-as-participant, which means that the observer sits in and participates a little in the team’s work but is clearly not a member of the team (Cohen, Manion, & Morrison, 2011). The observer then has some knowledge and is quite familiar with the team’s work, narrowing the field of his observation to focus on those issues and processes that are most germane to the research purpose and questions. In this study, the observation was conducted in the same section for 1 full week, with the observer sitting in on the section’s daily working schedule, which is called the “battle wheel,” from early morning (8 a.m.) to late evening (9 p.m.). The observations focused on the variables in the team learning model described above. During the observations, extensive field notes were taken and then expanded after the observations. Finally, the observation notes were structured and analyzed according to the variables in the team learning model.

Interviews

Semi-structured interviews (Cohen et al., 2011) were conducted with all the section officers at the beginning of the staff exercise and at the end of the exercise. Semi-structured interviews were also conducted among three other section leaders in the middle of the exercise. These interviews were very much focused on the variables in the learning model used in this study. Each interview lasted about 20 to 30 min and was recorded. The interviews were analyzed and structured in line with the themes and issues that were the focus of the team learning model used in this study.

The observations and semi-structured interviews were supplemented with numerous spontaneous informal conversational interviews (Cohen et al., 2011) with all the section members as well with a lot of other officers and student officers from Sweden and other nations on a daily basis. The impression gathered from all these conversational interviews was similar to the opinions put forward by the informants in the observed section.

Context support

Context support elements in this exercise are as follows: the pre-preparation before the training audience arrives at the exercise site, the understanding of the purpose of the exercise, the pre-training at the site before the start of the exercise, the scenario, the operational plan, the standard operation procedures, software in the computer system, language skills, and the observer and training team. Only one member of this section from the SNDC had some pre-preparation before he went to the CJSE, whereas all the members from Baltic Defence College (BDC) had conducted a kind of pre-preparation the week before they arrived at CJSE. The others just went to the exercise without any pre-preparation at all.

The understanding and perception of the aim and objectives of the exercise became very clear at the opening of the exercise, when the supreme commander (a Lt. General) forcefully and several times stressed that this exercise should be perceived as a learning environment for himself as well as for all others: “This is not an exercise where you should be afraid of not knowing everything or making mistakes. Don’t hesitate to ask questions and share knowledge and experience with each other.” This statement was very important in giving the training participants the right understanding and mindset regarding the exercise.

The exercise starts with some pre-training activities at the site, which were basically focused on learning the exercise-specific computer programs and the computer systems used in the CJSE. This gave some of the section members some good context support but not all had time to attend these activities because they had a lot of other things to do.

For some of the Swedish training audience, the scenario seemed too familiar from previous years’ exercises. The Swedish section members stressed that this strong pre-perception of the scenario made it difficult to change their understanding of it, which resulted in their tending to ignore what really happened in the game, instead following their pre-assumption.

The operational plan is the commander’s order for all the staff regarding how to carry out the full operation with its phases, capacities, objectives, time frames, and rules of engagement. This was not sufficiently prepared, and consequently was very time-consuming and frustrating for the training audience at the beginning of the CJSE.

The standard operation procedures that are the instructions for each specific staff member’s internal work regarding questions such as what to do, how to do it, when to do it, and with whom were not complete in all details, making it much more difficult for them to carry out their staff tasks.

The section members felt that the computer system was not of the standard needed for this exercise. The normal standard templates for these kinds of planning processes were not in the computer system, and too much time in the first days was spent on creating these templates, as well as a functional portal structure.

The languages skills in this section varied greatly, and it was quite obvious that the Swedish members were more confident in and used to speaking English than the members from many other nations, which also resulted in their being more active and having more impact on the staff work.

Some of the foreign members mentioned that it was very tiring to have to listen to and speak English all day long. A positive aspect mentioned was that the prerequisite of speaking a foreign language had some positive impact on the atmosphere and culture in the exercise. When everyone has to speak a foreign language, they become a little bit more vulnerable, which elicits humility as everyone understands the difficulties of speaking a foreign language and is trying to do their best. Even the hierarchy between training audience and the officers from the armed forces and HQ became more relaxed and informal because the possibility to play on seniority is reduced by limitations in language skills.

The observer in this section was a very experienced officer but also a teacher at the SNDC with his own personal experience of working in international staff teams at an operational level. His team coaching was very encouraging and characterized by knowledge and experience. The section members were very positive to the observer and stressed that his support was very important for them.

Team leader coaching support

The section commander we observed had a great deal of knowledge and experience of international and national staff work, and was also a commander in this specific staff section and position. This background formed the essential base for his team leader coaching qualities, as well as for his broad spectrum of pedagogical methods and skills. By far the most prominent positive pedagogical tool for the commander’s leadership and team leader coaching support was his subtle but confidence-inspiring way of communicating to staff members his vast knowledge and experiences of staff work and commanding this specific kind of section. He did this not by explicitly boasting about his curriculum vitae (CV) but more by mentioning things, procedures, processes, aims, difficulties in staff work, and other details that clearly indicated that he really knew what he was talking about. The importance of considerable personal knowledge and experience regarding the activity a commander was set to lead was confirmed in all the interviews with the staff members in this section, as well among other informants in the CJSE. The section commander practiced direct face-to-face leadership when he was coaching his section and continuously took active part in helping, instructing, and advising the team members regarding a wide spectrum of issues, such as explaining the greater picture of the whole staff planning processes and procedures in time and space, describing the relationship with other sections and staff, helping them create effective PowerPoint slides and presentations, building up functional computer infrastructure and creating the right templates for their planning on the computer.

This section commander effectively used task cohesion as a leadership tool to build both team efficacy and good team learning behavior. The members in this section considered their commander’s team leader coaching support to be excellent and the most important reason for their learning and managing to solve tasks successfully. The staff work and the section meetings were relaxed and informal but quite task focused, and the commander frequently encouraged the section members to freely ask any questions and be open about needing help or clarification, which increased the feeling of psychological safety among the section members. This commander emphasized having fun during work as one important team leader quality, which he demonstrated by creating an atmosphere where he and the other section members often joked with each other and told funny anecdotes.

Team psychological safety

Interviews with the section members revealed that they all felt very relaxed and safe in the section and with the section commander because of the friendly atmosphere and the confidence they felt in the section commander competence. The section commander seemed to have a fairly developed and well-devised idea and strategy for creating psychological safety in his section. At each meeting, he encouraged the staff to ask questions, which they did throughout the meetings and when they worked with their tasks during the day. Another important strategy for creating psychological safety was to give each section member a small, very concrete, and well-defined task to work on as soon as possible, which could give them back a feeling of control and psychological safety, that is, task giving and task solving as a means to create task cohesion and psychological safety. A third strategy was to continuously inform the section members about what was going to happen next, so that they were always quite clear about what was going on and what they could expect. This gave them an overview and feeling of control but also confirmed that the section commander had good experience and competence, which were essential for the creation of psychological safety. The last strategy observed was that the section commander always tried to create a friendly, positive, and very informal culture within the section, which resulted in a mutually strong feeling of team psychological safety. All this shows how this section commander uses a variety of leadership coaching methods to facilitate psychological safety and successful team learning behaviors.

Team efficacy

The feeling of team efficacy among the section members seems to be a combination of nervousness, curiosity, and good confidence, very well illustrated by one of the informants at the beginning of the exercise, after the “rock drill” who said, “It is difficult because we must have time to build up a team, get to know each other, find out our specific roles and work together.” Another informant said that his first impression of the other section members was good but that “you don’t know how it will be before you have to do the real job under pressure and when it gets tough.” Nevertheless, there seemed to be a common feeling of team efficacy among military personnel, expressed by one section member thus: “if you put together a group of military personnel it will almost work automatically. Everyone knows that it’s a ten-day exercise now, and everyone has to do their best.”

The experienced section commander was very aware of the importance of supporting and building team efficacy, telling the training audience that although this was their first time in this kind of section and position, no one expected them to know how to do everything—that he would help them and they should also help each other. This supportive team leaders’ coaching behavior of the section commander together with his way of using task solving to build task cohesion had positive effects on team efficacy, which increased during the exercise.

Cohesion

The section commander deliberately used interdependent task solving as a means of building up cohesion among section members as the entire group must collaborate to accomplish the task. While the creation of primary group cohesion originated from their interdependent and intensive task solving, it was also very much intertwined with social cohesion processes. The section members joked a lot and talked socially about themselves, their families, hobbies, and much more that had nothing to do with the section’s task solving. All of the section members mentioned joking as an important part of building social cohesion. Social cohesion building also seemed to be very important for the section commander when he started the first meeting with round-the-table presentations in which all section members gave a short presentation of themselves and their civilian and professional backgrounds. The section commander and section members continuously worked to create a positive feeling and a friendly and humorous atmosphere in the section. It was obvious that all of them seemed to have an idea that social cohesion was important, and that it facilitated their task-solving efforts. The section commander built task cohesion by constantly talking to the section members about how much they had to do and how difficult it would be, and that they would succeed if they worked hard together.

Team learning behavior

The basic pedagogical method used in this exercise is learning by doing, the pedagogical setting being a roleplay of a kind of authentic war scenario where the training audience has to solve staff tasks in a coherent and approved way. It can be described as a being thrown in at the pedagogical deep end, in that section members are put in a situation of which they have no or little knowledge and experience. They just have to do their very best to solve tasks with help from each other, the section commander, and the observer. The daily work and learning activities of the section are organized around what the military call the battle wheel, which is the daily working schedule and routines for the section’s meetings and activities. The main forum for learning as reflection and discussion are the four daily section meetings in the battle wheel. The morning, lunch, and afternoon meetings are a type of working meeting when the section commander and the section members discuss and plan their work. During these meetings, there are many questions about how to solve different tasks and the commander continuously assists the section members in understanding their particular section’s role and contribution to the whole system of different sections and staffs.

The last section meeting in the battle wheel at the very end of the working day is called the Hot Wash Up, which is a kind of debriefing session with opportunities for the section members to reflect and discuss on how the work has gone during the day. Each section member talks about what has been easy or difficult, what has gone right or wrong, worked well or not, and how he or she can improve his or her work. This is a very effective pedagogical method to facilitate sharing of knowledge and experiences among the section members, and also functions as an efficient way of giving the section members a common understanding and awareness of the different issues they discuss and learn. The section commander leads the Hot Wash Up meetings but is also supported by the section’s observer, who always participates in Hot Wash Up and gives his or her comments on the section’s work during the day, along with advice on how to improve different things the next day. Essentially, much of the reflection and discussion output in all of these meetings is in the form of single-loop learning, which means that they are mainly aimed at improving and adjusting the section’s routines and work in action and are therefore immediately transformed into new types of actions and routines the same or next day. Of course, not all reflection and discussion take place during the section meetings. Much of it also takes place during work meetings with other sections and not least during the daily staff work in the section when members are working with their different tasks and continuously asking each other questions or helping each other solve things or help with their English. If the section members fail to find the answer or help in their own section, they do not hesitate to ask for help outside their own section.

Defensive routines

It is not easy to discover defensive routines in a section where everybody is trying to put their best foot forward and when section members know that CJSE is a short exercise and may therefore choose not to raise important but tricky issues—issues that would ultimately require discussion in a real-working situation. On the surface, it appeared that all the important questions and issues were put on the table and discussed, but after almost a week of observing and listening to the section, it was possible to discover some defensive routines. One issue surrounded by defensive routines was the widely differing language skills among the section members, who originated from three different countries. While this question most certainly could not have been resolved during the CJSE, it might have been fruitful to discuss with the section members to identify any negative impact it had on their work and to try find ways of mitigating this impact, for example, through the division of labor or in supporting each other. A second example of a defensive routine expressed by some of the informants (and that could be very bad for good learning behavior) was that it is more important for your future career to avoid doing something wrong than to take a chance to do something very good.

A third defensive routine issue highlighted in this section, but also in the interviews with other informants, was of a more fundamental character. Some had doubts regarding whether their staff work really had the intended and expected effect on the situation they were striving to solve in the scenario. This question of double-loop learning character is also too complex to solve within CJSE but could have been an important one for reflection and critical thinking at Hot Wash Up, providing a deeper understanding of the whole planning process.

One positive example of solving a defensive routine situation was when, at the end of the Hot Wash Up, one of the staff members admitted that he had been almost completely lost among all the processes, meetings, working groups, sections, and so on. This was the key to initiating an open and fruitful discussion among all the section members, when it became obvious that others also felt the same. This example can be seen as an archetypical basic defensive routine situation insofar as a number of people find themselves in a situation they do not really understand but are too embarrassed to admit it and are afraid of losing face.