The Emergency Mind Podcast Episode 126 - Measuring Team Performance Part II
Jan 19, 2026
Annie, a neonatal resuscitation clinician, Patrick Hetrick Schauenberg, a surgeon-intensivist training mission-critical teams, and Preston Klein, CEO of the Mission Critical Team Institute, discuss what team performance means in crises. They explore measuring performance beyond outcomes, simple signals like willingness to rejoin, process and behavioral markers, trust and adaptability, measurement fatigue, and how team identity and environment shape sustained performance.
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Separate Outcome From Performance
- Separate outcome from performance: judge whether the team did the best they could with controllable factors rather than only the final result.
- Dan Dworkis frames performance as doing the best with available resources, not equating survival or victory with team quality.
Measure Against A Shared Purpose
- Define what the team is trying to do before measuring it; shared purpose synchronizes actions and expectations.
- Tom Siemens observed in military work that lack of agreement on direction leads teams down wrong paths despite effort.
Ask If People Would Join The Team Again
- Ask team members if they'd work with this team again as a compact performance indicator of sustainability and culture.
- Preston Klein cites Wharton practice: the simple willingness-to-repeat question predicts long-term team health.