A1 Level – Elementary
1. Do you like working in a team?
2. What makes a good team member?
3. Do you like being the leader?
4. What makes teamwork difficult?
5. What is the difference between working alone and in a team?
6. Do you share ideas with your team?
7. What makes a team meeting productive?
8. What is a common team problem?
9. Do you think teamwork is important?
10. What makes a team win?
11. Do you celebrate team success?
12. What makes a team member reliable?
13. What is the opposite of a good team?
14. What are some different types of team sports?
15. Do you like group discussions?
A2 Level – Pre-Intermediate
1. What are the key differences between a team at school and a team at work?
2. Describe one time when working in a team achieved a better result than working alone.
3. What are the pros and cons of having a very diverse team (age, gender, background)?
4. What role does clear communication play in preventing misunderstandings in a team?
5. Have you ever worked on a team where one person did not contribute their fair share?
6. What specific strategies can a team use to quickly resolve a minor conflict?
7. What is the difference between delegating tasks and simply dumping work on others?
8. What are common challenges when a team works remotely across different time zones?
9. How does technology (e.g., shared documents) improve collaborative teamwork?
10. What are the biggest challenges of giving honest, constructive feedback to a teammate?
11. What is the importance of having a shared, clear goal for all team members?
12. Do you think a team should always try to reach a consensus, or should the leader decide?
13. What are the challenges of managing a team that is constantly changing members?
14. What are the best ways for a team to build trust and psychological safety?
15. What is the difference between a high-performing team and a happy team?
B1 Level – Intermediate
1. Discuss the difficulty of balancing individual accountability with collective team responsibility for success or failure.
2. How can team leaders effectively manage both the technical tasks and the emotional dynamics of the group?
3. What are the ethical issues surrounding the lack of recognition for silent, high-performing support roles in a team?
4. Do you agree that most conflicts in teamwork are rooted in poor communication rather than fundamental disagreement?
5. Describe a time when a change in team composition (e.g., adding a new member) significantly boosted morale and output.
6. To what extent should performance reviews and bonuses be based on individual contribution versus overall team success?
7. What role does non-verbal communication (body language, tone) play in assessing team morale and engagement?
8. How do cultural norms about hierarchy and deference affect open dialogue and idea sharing in international teams?
9. Discuss the psychological phenomenon of “groupthink”—when a team avoids critical thinking to maintain harmony.
10. What are the challenges of coordinating highly complex projects that require interdependence among multiple teams?
11. How does the concept of “transactive memory” (knowing who knows what) improve a team’s efficiency?
12. Should mandatory team-building activities be required to improve communication and trust among colleagues?
13. What is the difference between a team that is task-oriented and one that is relationship-oriented?
14. Discuss the concept of a “Tuckman model” (forming, storming, norming, performing) of team development.
15. What is the long-term impact of consistently successful teamwork on an individual’s career confidence and social skills?
B2 Level – Upper-Intermediate
1. How does the distribution of informal power (e.g., charisma, seniority) within a team affect formal leadership decisions?
2. What are the ethical arguments about penalizing an entire team for the failure or underperformance of a single member?
3. Should all employees be required to rotate through a leadership role to better understand the challenges of teamwork?
4. What are the psychological reasons why people sometimes engage in “social loafing”—putting in less effort in a group setting?
5. How has the dominance of digital communication made it harder to build the non-verbal rapport essential for high-trust teamwork?
6. Discuss the idea that diverse teams, while potentially having more conflict, ultimately achieve superior and more innovative results.
7. What is the role of the “devil’s advocate” or contrarian role in preventing poor group decision-making?
8. How do our cultural assumptions about competence become projected onto the roles and contributions of different team members?
9. What are the challenges of maintaining team cohesion when employees work under different contracts or employment statuses?
10. Discuss the concept of “collective intelligence”—the idea that the group mind is smarter than any individual member.
11. What is the difference between a team that *avoids* conflict and one that *uses* conflict constructively?
12. Should mandatory training for managers focus more on emotional intelligence than on technical expertise?
13. What is the impact of organizational politics and inter-departmental competition on individual team morale?
14. How does the history of military and sports strategy reflect the evolution of effective teamwork principles?
15. Discuss the idea that a high-performing team is one that can quickly and gracefully manage its own temporary dysfunction.
C1 Level – Advanced
1. Analyze the socioeconomic factors that correlate with access to high-quality leadership training and opportunities for early career teamwork.
2. To what degree should the legal system restrict the use of ambiguous contract language that encourages undefined, uncompensated team contributions?
3. Discuss the philosophical concept of “distributed cognition”—how knowledge and memory are shared and accessed across a team.
4. Evaluate the efficacy of modern project management methodologies (e.g., Scrum, Kanban) in fostering genuine team empowerment.
5. How does the strategic use of communication tools (e.g., prioritizating asynchronous vs. synchronous) influence team inclusivity?
6. Examine the legal challenges of ensuring accountability and liability when a project failure is the result of collective team error.
7. What ethical guidelines should govern the use of AI tools to monitor individual contribution and performance within a collaborative team?
8. Discuss the concept of “organizational learning” and how successful teamwork contributes to the collective knowledge of a company.
9. How do different national policies on labor law and worker representation affect the structure and autonomy of work teams?
10. Analyze the interplay between the increasing complexity of global supply chains and the resulting necessity for vast, interconnected work teams.
11. What ethical challenges arise when new team structures (e.g., cross-functional matrix) create confusion about authority and accountability?
12. Debate whether a system of strong, centralized leadership or one of decentralized, self-organizing teams is better for innovation.
13. How does the architecture of modern co-working spaces and innovation labs reflect the ideal design for spontaneous teamwork?
14. Discuss the concept of “systemic resilience” and how it is built by teams that have practiced navigating high-stress, complex failures.
15. To what extent does the emotional investment in a team lead to resistance to necessary change or reorganization?
C2 Level – Proficiency
1. How do you analyze the idea that successful teamwork is fundamentally a continuous negotiation of power, knowledge, and trust?
2. Formulate a critique of organizational systems that systematically reward individual celebrity (e.g., star engineers) over collective collaborative effort.
3. Analyze the intersection of behavioral economics, game theory, and the design of incentive structures to promote genuine team risk-taking.
4. Discuss the philosophical distinction between “cooperation” (working together) and “collaboration” (co-creating a shared outcome).
5. Critically evaluate the effectiveness of external consultants and team coaches in resolving deep-seated, chronic team dysfunctions.
6. Propose a new, data-driven framework for measuring the quality of a team’s *process* (communication, trust) alongside its *output*.
7. Examine the psychological function of shared collective crisis and high-stakes failure in forging deep, long-term team bonds.
8. How does the semiotics of meeting culture (e.g., seating arrangement, jargon) communicate and reinforce internal team hierarchy?
9. Discuss the ethical responsibilities of leaders to dismantle internal team dynamics that lead to harassment, bullying, or social exclusion.
10. Analyze the historical relationship between cycles of economic competition and the subsequent investment in organizational teamwork training.
11. Articulate the inherent tension between the need for speed and efficiency in crisis and the requirement for inclusive, consultative team decision-making.
12. Debate whether the future dominance of AI team members will increase or decrease the overall psychological strain on human workers.
13. Assess the long-term societal effects of mandatory, high-pressure teamwork on individual self-reliance and creative independence.
14. Discuss the philosophical definition of ‘synergy’ and whether the concept is an achievable reality or a motivational myth in teamwork.
15. How might the principles of high-performing teams be used to model processes of political coalition building and inter-nation negotiation?
