“Team Temperature Read” Learning Object

• Enable all members of a team to provide feedback on the quality of their team interactions.
• Provide an opportunity for members to anonymously voice concerns about team progress and interpersonal relations.
• Prompt members to be reflective about their teamwork and how they may work better together.

This tool provides a series of items that can be incorporated into a brief survey and completed independently and anonymously by members of a team. Using a survey or polling software will help promote anonymity. This survey can be administered during or between team meetings; it is brief and can be completed in just a few minutes.

• This survey can be administered more than once, especially if a team is together for many months. Since teams (and the individuals who compose them) change over time, it is good to understand the current state of the team and not rely on survey findings from many months ago.
• This survey can be adapted for a team’s needs. Items can be added, deleted, or edited based on the team’s needs and goals. Consult the sources listed for the below question “What evidence is this based on?” to see more items that may be included on a team’s survey. It may be especially good to circulate in new questions if this survey is administered multiple times to avoid it feeling repetitive.
• Since this survey is likely to not be administered more than once a month, concerns raised via survey responses may come after the reported issues arise. Therefore, results should be interpreted with this delay in mind. Additionally, teams should provide opportunity for members to voice more timely concerns through other means (e.g., during team meetings, via email) if more prompt resolutions to problems are needed.

Team members will be more aware of their own and others’ perspectives on the purpose, health, and efficacy of their team.

Members will have an opportunity to raise concerns anonymously and then participate as a group to build a solution that addresses their concerns.

Good team dynamics are described by the contents of the survey questions, and members are reminded of the goals for their interaction.

Taking the Pulse of a Large Team

This brief survey tool may be especially helpful to get a quick assessment of the feelings of individuals composing a large team. Since the items are quantitative (there is one optional open-ended question), averages, standard deviations, and ranges can be quickly calculated and shared with the whole team. Once summary data are shared, the team can work together through discussion and planning to help address any low-scoring items in the survey and take pride in the high-scoring items.

Waxing and Waning of Teamwork

Teams that are together over a long period of time (many months or more) will inevitably have moments of efficiency as well as stalled progress. The stalls may happen due to a variety of reasons–either due to issues arising within the team such as conflict or lack of communication, or due to external challenges such as increasing demands in other areas of work or personal issues. When administered at several time points, the purpose of this assessment is to provide an updated “state of the team” and open up an opportunity for members of a team to express their areas of concern and make part of the team’s activities to solve current problems and try to prevent future ones.

This tool is best administered at regular intervals (perhaps every 1-2 months or quarterly) with a team that is working together for a long period of time.

For shorter periods of time, agenda items or team updates can be used in place of a formal survey to check in on members and team functioning.

A very small team (2-3 members) or a team that is engaged for a short period of time (such as several weeks), would likely not find this formal survey as effective as open discussion at a team meeting about issues and achievements.

For smaller teams and shorter intervals, it is likely easier to do a check in as a group and raise concerns when issues arise. One drawback of this tool is that it may come at a lag from when issues arise (since it is likely administered every 1-2 months, or less frequently), and as a result it may not be as timely in responding to issues. Therefore, in all teams, there should still be opportunity to raise concerns outside of a survey.

Once members have completed the survey, individual and/or summary responses can be shared with the whole group. If individual responses are shown, careful consideration should be taken not to call out individuals who may be uncomfortable voicing concerns in a meeting.

Special attention may be paid to the higher-scoring items (areas the team is doing well) and lower-scoring items (areas the team could improve). Sharing responses can enable issues to be raised for consideration and resolution by the whole group. This discussion is best conducted live during a meeting and not via email, and may best be started with highlighting what the team is doing particularly well (i.e., higher-scoring items).

In considering the potential emotional reactions or conflicts that could emerge from an honest sharing around team struggles, which this tool may elicit, the team leader or facilitator of this activity may find the following resources helpful (provided by Individual and Team Performance, ITP):

• Tips for Difficult Conversations
• Interpersonal Conflict Management Workbook

This 10-item survey was created, in part, by pulling items from across the two published instruments listed below. As noted above, you may consider swapping in alternative items from these published tools to better address the nature and goals of a given team, as well as to vary the items (to avoid it feeling repetitive) if the survey is administered multiple times.

• Edmonson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383.
• Mathieu, J. E., Luciano, M. M., D’Innocenzo, L., Klock, E. A., & LePine, J. A. (2020). The development and construct validity of a team processes survey measure. Organizational Research Methods, 23(3), 399-431.

There are lots of “Team Health Check” tools online, which can be found via Google. They may be helpful for getting inspiration for what to check on in your team, including alternative questions to include in a survey. One example is provided below.

• Team Diagnostic Survey and Pulse Check

The short article listed below may also be a helpful read, especially p. 11 which provides example language for how team members may broach various topics, some of which may be difficult.

• Schwarz, R. (2011). The eight behaviors for smarter teams. Roger Schwarz and Associates.