Over the years, we have advised and studied many teams where teamwork can be the difference between life and death, including patient care and surgical teams, deep sea saturation dive crews, smoke jumpers, military teams, aerospace crews, mining teams, and even cruise ships. In settings such as these, teamwork breakdowns can have fatal consequences for employee and environmental health.
We recently completed a study of teamwork in the petrochemical industry for The Center for Operator Performance. During this effort we:
- Clarified the common teaming risk points
- Identified 19 key teaming behaviors
- Provided the industry with a set of evidence-based tools and practices to enable their teams to work together safely
Interestingly, operators and maintenance workers reported that 75% of their work involves collaboration or communication with others, but the people they interact with can vary from hour to hour and day to day. They engage in dynamic teaming rather than static teamwork.
After learning of our effort, Traci Purdum, editor-in-chief of Chemical Processing, interviewed gOE’s Scott Tannenbaum and Rice University’s Eduardo Salas for a recent podcast episode she called The Life-Saving Science of Teamwork. We believe it has implications for any “high-risk” teamwork setting.