One of the most powerful ways to facilitate sustainable levels of performance and learning in your team to develop transactive memory. A transactive memory encompasses two key components. One is the stocks of knowledge possessed by your teammates. And the second is awareness of who knows what in a team. It turns out that the benefits of transactive memory are quite significant. First of all, transactive memory allows you to engage in better search and acquisition of information. So teams that are high in transactive memory, that have well developed transactive memory systems know which teammate is responsible for remembering what piece of information in a meeting with a client. The teammates that have well developed transactive memory, are much better are tacit coordination. What that means is that these teams are much more effective, efficient, and precise in working on complex tasks that require significant degree of interdependence. They're much better at reducing the redundancy of effort, and reducing the cognitive burden on the teammates. Teams with well developed transactive memory systems are also significantly less likely to fall into the common information trap. Recall from our discussion just last week that one of the most pervasive problems in teams is the common information effect. Where in making decisions and solving problems we rely on the information that teammates have in common. Thus often disregarding unique information. Teams with strong transactive memory are much more likely to overcome that effect. Because teammates are substantially more aware of the unique skills and knowledge that their teammates bring to the table and therefore they're gonna much more likely to surface unique information and capitalize on it effectively. Transactive memory is especially helpful for those teams that work on tasks that require memory and information retrieval. If transactive memory is so consequential for teams performance and learning how do we develop it? One of the most powerful insights comes from research done by Dan Leon and colleagues. They set up a study where they asked participants to assemble AM radios. Some participants were assigned to assemble radios individually, others in teams. The participants were given these assembly kits which included the circuit board, a variety of mechanical and electrical components. >> So your goal was to figure out where to plug the components into the circuit board. >> And how to connect them in a way that the radio works. The process unfolded as follows. First of all the facilitator instructed you on how to assemble the radio. Then you would work either individually or in teams to assemble the radio. If you were assigned to work in teams you would assemble the radio together with the teammates. If you were assigned to work individually you would work on that task independently. After that, the facilitator would review your product, identify possible errors and advise you on how to fix them. Now one week later, participants were asked to assemble the radio again. And this is where it gets really interesting. Participants who trained individually were asked to assemble the radio with other participants who also trained individually, and participants who trained as a team were asked to assemble the radio with that same team. Look at the results of the second assembly, which are quite stunning. What you can see here is that people who trained with a team were substantially better at recalling the details of the procedure. Recalling on average over 25 steps compared to only 16 steps for those who trained individually. People who trained with a team we're also substantially more accurate in their assembly. Making fewer than two errors on average compared to over five for those who trained individually. Furthermore, independent judges evaluated those teams that trained together as a team as being significantly better at coordination. So you can see teams that train together as a team were significantly better in their overall performance. They improved their coordination in part due to the development of transactive memory. In a related study, scholars evaluated a broader range of training approaches in terms of their efficacy for developing transactive memory. The outcome here, the performance scale, is the assembly errors. So lower numbers indicate better performance. So one group of participants went through one day of individual training, and then on the day of the test they were assigned to a group of teammates who also train individually. Another group of participants, light blue, trained individually for a day and then had a two day team building workshop before being assigned to work with the teammates who also trained individually and went through the same workshop. The third group, the dark blue. Those teammates trained as a team and tested with exact same team. And the final group, this grey group, they trained as a team together but on the day of the test they were assigned to a different team. And you can see that training with the same team produced by far superior performance than any other training approaches. Teams naturally developed transactive memory as they continued to work on different tasks. But sometimes, it takes a while for us to learn the unique knowledge knowledge and skill sets that our teammates bring to the table. And so it takes us a while to capitalize on those skill sets in a coordinated fashion. Training here helps immensely. But there is a big qualifier. Training helps if you train with your work team. And this is not a trivial distinction, because many companies send people for training individually, or when they send them teams it's typically not their work teams. Training becomes particularly helpful if it's focused on the task to be done, on that particular assembly that the team needs to complete. Simulated experiences are incredibly valuable here. Because they allow you to go through the process without the negative consequences of actual errors. Keep in mind that transactive memory is especially helpful and valuable for those teams that are focused on execution. Surgical teams, firefighters, assembly teams, manufacturing teams, also any teams that rely on memory and information retrieval in their tasks. You can also see how critical it is to foster continuity in team membership for those teams, because high turnover is incredibly disruptive for the development of transactive memory.