The problem-avoiding multi professional team—On the need to overcome protective routines

•Protective routines reduce the threat to professional identity.•Negative effects on affording situations neutralize positive effects of protective routines.•Problems avoidance is about peaceful coexistence instead of conflict or cooperation.•The paper shows how team leadership can enhance the performance of multi-professional teams.

This study examines how compartmentalization in multi-professional teams in healthcare, inhibits productive interaction and the role of team leadership in the institutionalization of professional identity protective routines used in these units as they affect teamwork. The main finding is that protective routines that create compartmentalization reduce the threat to professional identity, but also influence potential affording situations negatively. The positive effect of protective routines in reducing the professional identity threat then is neutralized by this negative effect on affording situations. This explains why the effect of multi-professionalism on creative and effective teamwork may still be minimal despite the low level of professional identity threat. The paper adds to previous research on how team leadership can enhance the performance of multi-professional teams.