Most leaders want to understand whether their teams are healthy and effective. They want to know if teams are aligned, making progress, and able to adapt. But they don’t always know what to measure or have the data to support it.
Leaders are typically handed metrics like engagement scores, satisfaction surveys, or activity dashboards. These signals provide snapshots of how people feel or what they are doing individually but they do not tell us how teams function together or what they are achieving. In most organizations, the metrics that are easiest to collect do not reflect true performance.
To close that gap, leaders need a better way to measure how teams work and what their collaboration produces. That starts by focusing on outcomes.
Why Outcomes Matter
According to Salas et al. (2024), team effectiveness should be evaluated by the extent to which teams meet their goals consistently and adapt under changing conditions. In other words, the gold standard is not how teams feel; it is what they deliver and whether their results are sustainable.
Grossman et al. (2021) reinforce this view, showing that teams often appear healthy in surveys while still struggling with coordination, alignment, clarity, and follow-through. What matters is not perception but performance: are teams producing the outputs that drive shared outcomes?
This insight reflects a core principle of behavioral science. The most reliable way to evaluate a system is by examining what it consistently produces. When applied to teams, that means looking at outcomes and tracing them back to the outputs and behaviors that create them. Let’s break it down.
What Effective Teams Actually Produce
Using a behavioral science lens, we can break performance down into three parts:
- Outcome: the higher-level result the team is trying to achieve
- Output: the concrete product or milestone that signals progress
- Behavior: the team habits that consistently lead to that output
The table below applies this model to five core areas of team performance.
These outcomes can be observed, measured, and strengthened over time. They offer a clearer view of how a team is performing and where support may be needed.
How to Apply This in Practice
This model can move beyond a practical guide for coaching and support.
1. Choose a priority outcome
Pick one result that is most important to the team right now: delivery reliability, faster decisions, or stronger alignment. Set this as your focus for the next sprint, planning session, or retro.
2. Observe the outputs
Use meeting notes, project boards, and team updates to assess what is being produced:
- Are decisions clearly stated and followed through?
- Are deliverables refined based on peer input?
- Are blockers surfaced and resolved quickly?
This requires consistent observation and curiosity.
3. Reinforce the right behaviors
When someone cues a decision or connects the work to a goal, acknowledge it:
“That helped move us forward; let’s keep doing it.”
Over time, teams build stronger habits through feedback, repetition, and reinforcement. Performance improves because the behaviors that drive success are made visible and supported.
From Activity to Outcomes
Leaders are not looking for sentiment; they are looking for results. But in many organizations, the most accessible data reflects engagement, activity, or task volume, not the quality of collaboration or the results it produces.
Behavioral science connects what teams do to what they achieve. It identifies the outputs that lead to meaningful outcomes. And it gives leaders tools to support teams with more clarity and less guesswork.
When you measure what teams actually produce and understand how they get there, you gain a more accurate picture of effectiveness and a stronger foundation for leadership.
Binder, C. (1998). The six boxes: A descendant of Gilbert's behavior engineering model. Performance Improvement, 37(6), 48–52. https://doi.org/10.1002/pfi.4140370610
Grossman, R., Nolan, M., & Hoffman, D. (2021). Revisiting team measurement: A critical review of team effectiveness metrics and recommendations for improvement. Group & Organization Management, 46(1), 3–36. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601121993205
Salas, E., Shuffler, M. L., Rico, R., & Grand, J. A. (2024). The science (and practice) of teamwork: A commentary on forty years of progress. Frontiers in Communication, 9, Article 1200355. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1200355
