A team does as well as you and the team think they can.
This idea is known as the self-fulfilling prophecy. When you believe the team will perform well, in some strange, magical way they do. And similarly, when you believe they wont perform well, they dont.
There is enough experimental data to suggest that the self-fulfilling prophecy is true. One unusual experiment in 1911 concerned a very clever horse called Hans. This horse had the reputation for being able to add, multiply, subtract, and divide by tapping out the answer with its hooves. The extraordinary thing was that it could do this without its trainer being present. It only needed someone to put the questions.
On investigation, it was found that when the questioner knew the answer, he or she transmitted various very subtle body language clues to Hans such as the raising of an eyebrow or the dilation of the nostrils. Hans simply picked up on these clues and continued tapping until he arrived at the required answer. The questioner expected a response and Hans obliged.
In similar vein, an experiment was carried out at a British school into the performance of a new intake of pupils. At the start...