When teammates work together as a team, they need to share important information with each other to do their best. This information can be big or small and must be accurate. If they share too little or wrong information, it can hurt the team’s performance.
Teammates should know about different things to work well together. They should know about each other, the whole team, the task they have to do, and the situation they are in. This shared knowledge includes how they think, feel, and behave, both during their competition and in other situations.
To work together smoothly, teammates need to know who does what, why, when, where, and how. This means they must share different types of knowledge, such as knowing facts (know-what), understanding strategies and reasons (know-why), knowing the right timing (know-when), knowing the right places (know-where), and knowing how to do things (know-how).
In psychology, this shared knowledge among teammates is called “Shared Mental Models” (Mohammed et al., 2010). It is important for teammates to have similar ways of thinking and understanding, especially in complex tasks that require everyone’s unique skills for success. This is known as “Complementary Mental Models.” Together, these concepts are studied under the term “Team Mental Models,” which looks at how shared and complementary mental models affect how well teams work together and perform (Filho & Tenenbaum, 2012).
Filho, E., & Tenenbaum, G. (2012). Team mental models in sports: An overview. In R. J. Schinke (Ed.), Athletic insight’s writings in sport psychology (pp. 329 342). Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, Inc.
Mohammed, S., Ferzandi, L., & Hamilton, K. (2010). Metaphor no more: A 15-year review of the team mental model construct. Journal of Management, 36, 876 910.
