Literature: "Teamwork in the performing arts"

"Teamwork in the performing arts" by William Rouse, Rebecca Rouse (2004)
Proceedings of the Institute of electrical and electronics engineers, vol 92, no.4. 

WILLIAM B. ROUSE (He is responsible for leadership of the School of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, as well as development and management of its human and financial resources. He has over 30 years of experience in research, education, management, marketing, and engineering related to individual and organizational performance, decision support systems, and information systems)

REBECCA K. ROUSE (She works as a playwright, lyricist, director, performer, and occasional theatrical carpenter and master electrician)

This literature addresses teams and teamwork in the performing arts. It has been found that success does not flow automatically from these so it aims to look at "the true nature of teamwork, the role it plays, and how it can be fostered." 

"Such teams are of particular interest because the team performance, in itself, is the outcome of interest, rather than a means to some other ends such as profit, safety or victory. This characteristic, we suggest, enables getting much closer to the essence of teamwork."

The paper firstly looks at business and operational teams. It then focuses on teamwork in the performing arts and how what we know about the former contributes to the latter. The paper then addresses the results of an interview study conducted with performing arts leaders and how these results suggest an “ecology” of performance.

Ecology: "The branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings." (Oxford dictionary)


Business and operational teams

When using team models. 'Hackman' believes the following are common mistakes that can "undermine anticipated success, often leading to frustration." 

• Using a team for work that is better done by individuals
• Calling the performing unit a team but managing its members as individuals 
• Falling off the authors balance beam
• Dismantling existing organisational structures so that teams will be fully empowered to accomplish the work
• Specifying challenging team objectives but skimping on organisational support
• Assuming that members already have the skills they need to work as a team

He also believes there are 2 obstacles to success

• The co-op obstacle: debating values, purposes and collective directions endlessly 
• The corporate obstacle: gradual diminution of performance and commitment as teams encounter long standing and team unfriendly organisational arrangements

To avoid the above mistakes and obstacles, he believes we should answer the fundamental questions of: "who decides, who is responsible, who gains and who learns."

Paris et Al believe the following variable influence how a team performs

• Team selection: individual skills and traits, as well as team size, composition, and stability
• Task design: workload and time constraints, team structure, and technology from both the perspectives of the task domain and the nature of supports for team performance.  
• Team training: content of training, the nature of performance feedback, and instructional strategies for improving performance. 

Klein believes the 5 cognitive processes of teamwork are:

• Control of attention
• Shared situation awareness
• Shared mental models
• Application of strategies to make decisions, solve problems and plan
• Metacognition

The nature of the above are often dictated by the demands and constraints of the tasks and environment.

Rouse et al. discuss the role of shared mental models in team performance. Fig. 1 shows mental models to be "the mechanisms whereby humans are able to generate descriptions of why something exists and its form, explanations of its functioning and what it is doing, and predictions of what it will do in the future." 

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It has been shown that teams benefit from support and training that enhances the knowledge content of shared mental model - see Fig. 2.

Theatre Teams

Fig. 3 summarises a wide range of exercises for training ensemble teams which are most often employed during the first few days of the rehearsal period, after which the team often selects a handful of these to use before every rehearsal and performance. 

"Aside from accomplishing the objectives indicated, these exercises foster close personal relationships among team members."

'Teamwork' is not the same as 'taskwork'. 

"There are important activities, associated with people working together to create a shared product, beyond everyone doing their own task-related work."

Performing arts work best when a collaborative product is created rather than just a sum of solos.

Mechanisms are needed so that people can anticipate others’ actions and needs, i.e. shared mental models, and a means is needed for fostering these shared mental models. Training being one and leadership in order to design and coordinate the teamwork.

The research analysed in this paper aims to assess arts leaders’ perspectives of the role and nature of teams and teamwork in the performing arts. Therefore, the roles of leaders are key. 

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The above experiences in Fig. 7 reflect the team performing beyond what was normally possible. In eight of these cases, success was attributed to teamwork, while in four it was attributed to teamwork and team training. Participants saw well-functioning teams as helping to address the challenges experienced.

With regard to a memorable, as opposed to recent, experience where team work made a difference, "...interviewees most often mentioned instances of high levels of collaboration. Also mentioned were experiences of very high energy levels, feelings of community, joys of performing, and failure due to lack of teamwork."

Fig. 8, as seen below, looks at the impact team size has on performance. Regarding the impact of the leader also performing, "five interviewees, mainly from theatre, argued that the leader (director) should “give” the production to the performers, at the latest upon opening. Two interviewees indicated that the leader should not perform, and one each indicated that the leader is needed less if the team is well trained." The leader performing becomes risky should any problems occur backstage and if no one is available to monitor performance and behaviour both on and off the stage.

The interviewees offered several overall observations on the nature of performing arts. They noted the inherent collaborative nature of the performing arts - first-rate performances depend on everyone, not just a few team members. They also emphasized the role of energy, passion, and drive in people who pursue the performing arts. One interviewee discussed the role of body language in team communication during performances. Another em- phasized the role of mutual respect in team performance in the arts. 

"It was noted that performance skills are a given in professional performing arts organizations, but team skills are not."

It appears that five dimensions are useful for differentiating the 12 performing arts organizations studied:

1) size of performance—number of performers and other participants

2) complexity of performance—extent of required coordination

3) locus of coordination—rehearsal versus performance

4) familiarity of team members—ensemble versus pickup

5) role of leader—prepares team; does versus does not perform

I would say that Musical Theatre epitomizes a large number of performers that require extensive coordination and considerable rehearsal; involving mostly ensemble performers conducted by a leader who rarely performs with the team. 

Fig. 10 provides a summary of potential relationships among key variables. The primary outcome of interest is the extent of team training in order to foster teamwork. The solid arrows in Fig. 10 designate crisp relationships, with upward-pointing deltas indicating positive relationships, and downward-pointing deltas indicating negative relationships. The dotted arrow designates a less crisp relationship.

It is clear that arts leaders recognize the importance of teamwork beyond taskwork. Collaborating is central to excellence in the performing arts. 

"The performance product is inherently a 'group product.' Individual accolades seldom occur without the whole functioning well. This is manifestly true to the audiences of arts performances. Quality is immediately rewarded; lack of quality meets faint praise."

We can see that an established product planning team is quite different from a pickup new product development team. Depending on the task complexity involved, coordination of the pickup team could be enhanced by selection and/or training. In the absence of both of these types of support from the leader, team performance is likely to suffer. 

Team training may “come and go” with changing composition of performing teams and we can apply this to selecting new cast members for our production. If we are just aiming to replace one or two members of the team, it is quite common to ask people back who have done the show before - that way you already have the familiarity and less training is required. When new cast members join, it can often change the dynamic of the team as well as affect creativity. We had an actor join the show for a short period of time and it was amazing how much it altered the performance by the relationships he formed on and off the stage. He was also a fantastic team member - little additional coordination and rehearsal was required to put him into the show and he also brought a great energy to the production.