Measuring Team Adaptability: A Conversational Behavior Model for the Workplace

By: Dr Jorge Del-Bosque

This article is based on a preprint published on Zenodo: Measuring Team Adaptability: A Conversational Behavior Model for the Workplace (Del-Bosque-Trevino, 2026).

We all know adaptability matters in teams, but how do you actually measure it? Right now, most organizations rely on self-assessments and surveys, which, let's be honest, are about as reliable as asking someone to rate their own driving skills (spoiler: everyone thinks they're above average). The truth is, adaptability and flexibility are rarely measured in real time, during the conversations where adaptation actually happens.

In this article, I introduce a six-dimension model for identifying conversational behaviors that signal team adaptability, developed from a review of over a decade of peer-reviewed research in organizational behavior and work psychology. The model builds on my prior work on classifying conversational behaviors in instructional dialogue15 16 17, extending those methods from one-to-one tutoring to multi-party team meetings.

Team Adaptability Model

The Foundation

I built this model on several influential frameworks, including Burke et al.'s1 four-phase model of adaptive team performance, Marks et al.'s3 taxonomy of team processes, and Pulakos et al.'s4 taxonomy of adaptive performance. It is also grounded in Edmondson's6 research on psychological safety, which shows that teams can only adapt effectively when members feel safe to speak up and flag problems.

The Six Dimensions

1. Problem-Solving & Strategy Adjustment. Proposing alternative approaches, questioning existing strategies, and building on others' ideas. This is where teams translate awareness into action1 3 10.

2. Flexibility in Roles & Responsibilities. Volunteering for unfamiliar tasks, offering support to overloaded colleagues, and renegotiating role boundaries when circumstances change2 5 11.

3. Resource & Time Management. Proposing revised timelines, identifying resource constraints, and reprioritizing tasks in light of new information3 4 8.

4. Emotional & Stress Management. Acknowledging difficulty without catastrophizing, expressing encouragement, and regulating the emotional tone of the discussion3 4 6.

5. Anticipation & Contingency Planning. Raising potential risks, proposing "what if" scenarios, and suggesting backup plans before problems materialize1 12 13.

6. Reevaluation & Reframing. Questioning assumptions, reframing problems from a new angle, and revising goals based on what has been learned6 7 14.

Why This Matters for L&D and HR

Each of these dimensions is observable in everyday meeting conversations. That means adaptability is not a vague personality trait; it is a set of concrete, developable behaviors. You can use this model to assess where your teams are strong, identify gaps, and design targeted development programs.

This is where the opportunity lies: developing these conversational behaviors at the individual and team level can strengthen your organization's capacity to respond to the complex, rapidly shifting demands of modern work.

At Nanu, we built a tool that does exactly this. It analyzes your team's conversations and gives you feedback on these behaviors after each meeting, so you can move from theory to practice without waiting for the next annual survey.

References
  • 1. Burke, C. S., Stagl, K. C., Salas, E., Pierce, L., & Kendall, D. (2006). Understanding team adaptation: A conceptual analysis and model. Journal of Applied Psychology, 91(6), 1189–1207.
  • 2. Rosen, M. A., Bedwell, W. L., Wildman, J. L., Fritzsche, B. A., Salas, E., & Burke, C. S. (2011). Managing adaptive performance in teams: Guiding principles and behavioral markers for measurement. Human Resource Management Review, 21(2), 107–122.
  • 3. Marks, M. A., Mathieu, J. E., & Zaccaro, S. J. (2001). A temporally based framework and taxonomy of team processes. Academy of Management Review, 26(3), 356–376.
  • 4. Pulakos, E. D., Arad, S., Donovan, M. A., & Plamondon, K. E. (2000). Adaptability in the workplace: Development of a taxonomy of adaptive performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(4), 612–624.
  • 5. Mathieu, J. E., Goodwin, G. F., Heffner, T. S., Salas, E., & Cannon-Bowers, J. A. (2000). The influence of shared mental models on team process and performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 85(2), 273–283.
  • 6. Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383.
  • 7. Christian, J. S., Christian, M. S., Pearsall, M. J., & Long, E. C. (2017). Team adaptation in context: An integrated conceptual model and meta-analytic review. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 140, 62–89.
  • 8. Maynard, M. T., Kennedy, D. M., & Sommer, S. A. (2015). Team adaptation: A fifteen-year synthesis (1998–2013) and framework for how this literature needs to "adapt" going forward. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 24(5), 652–677.
  • 9. West, M. A., & Anderson, N. R. (1996). Innovation in top management teams. Journal of Applied Psychology, 81(6), 680–693.
  • 10. De Dreu, C. K. W., & West, M. A. (2001). Minority dissent and team innovation: The importance of participation in decision making. Journal of Applied Psychology, 86(6), 1191–1201.
  • 11. Salas, E., Sims, D. E., & Burke, C. S. (2005). Is there a "Big Five" in teamwork?. Small Group Research, 36(5), 555–599.
  • 12. Waller, M. J. (1999). The timing of adaptive group responses to nonroutine events. Academy of Management Journal, 42(2), 127–137.
  • 13. Rico, R., Gibson, C. B., Sanchez-Manzanares, M., & Clark, M. A. (2020). Team adaptation and the changing nature of work: Lessons from practice, evidence from research, and challenges for the road ahead. Australian Journal of Management, 45(4), 507–526.
  • 14. Uitdewilligen, S., Waller, M. J., & Pitariu, A. H. (2013). Mental model updating and team adaptation. Small Group Research, 44(2), 127–158.
  • 15. Del-Bosque-Trevino, J., Hough, J., & Purver, M. (2020). Investigating the semantic wave in tutorial dialogues: An annotation scheme and corpus study on analogy components. In Proceedings of the 24th Workshop on the Semantics and Pragmatics of Dialogue (SemDial / WatchDial). Brandeis, USA.
  • 16. Del-Bosque-Trevino, J., Hough, J., & Purver, M. (2021). Communicative grounding of analogical explanations in dialogue: A corpus study of conversational management acts and statistical sequence models for tutoring through analogy. In Proceedings of the Conference on Reasoning and Interaction (ReInAct), pages 23–31. Association for Computational Linguistics.
  • 17. Del-Bosque-Trevino, J. (2023). Modelling analogy deployment for Conversational AI Tutoring Systems [Doctoral dissertation, Queen Mary University of London].

Author Profile: Dr Jorge Del-Bosque is the founder of Nanu, a startup on a mission to improve people and workplaces using Human-Centered AI. He holds a PhD in Conversational AI Tutoring Systems and an MSc in Management and Organisational Innovation from Queen Mary University of London. Throughout his 8-year career in the EdTech sector, he developed corporate academies for top financial, tech and manufacturing companies. He is a three-time finalist in the World Triathlon Championship Series.