Backup behaviour
Συμπεριφορά υποστήριξης
Stepping into part of the work that belongs to somebody else, because you can see it is not going to arrive. It counts as teamwork only when both sides know it happened. Done in silence it finishes the work and hides the gap at the same time, and that is why the same thing keeps repeating.
How to spot it
Ask whether the person whose part you covered could name the date and the exact thing that was covered. If they could not, the loop never closed.
The research behind the term
The term is not our invention. It comes from published research, and what follows is what that research found — our own synthesis of the published abstract, not a translation of the original.
Salas, E., Sims, D. E., & Burke, C. S. (2005). Is There a “Big Five” in Teamwork? — doi:10.1177/1046496405277134
What it found
- Knowledge about teamwork condenses into five core components: team leadership, mutual performance monitoring, backup behavior, adaptability and team orientation.
- These five components require supporting coordinating mechanisms: shared mental models, closed-loop communication and mutual trust.
- The relative weight of each component shifts with the team's life phase and the task it is performing.
How it found it
A theoretical synthesis of the fragmented teamwork literature into a five-component framework, with propositions for future research.
What it means for collaboration
A good team is not the one that gets along; it is the one where each person sees how the others are doing and steps in before being asked.
Practised in
The term does not stay a definition. It appears inside missions where the pattern happens in real time and you have to recognise it as it happens to you.
The Third Missed Handover
Sources
Every claim on this page maps to published research. The citations link to the original source.
- Salas, E., Sims, D. E., & Burke, C. S. (2005). Is There a “Big Five” in Teamwork? — doi:10.1177/1046496405277134