8/3/2019 9 Facts Every Creative Needs to Know About Collaborative Teams - Adobe 99U

Big Ideas

9 Facts Every Creative Needs to Know About

Collaborative Teams

e mere presence of other people can boost your performance, and 8 other research-

backed ndings about collaboration and teamwork.

By Christian Jarrett Jun 26, 2013

Look behind any creative success story and you’ll usually find a great team, a group of
passionate people who raised each other’s game.  When thinking about productivity we often
focus on the individual, yet it’s by optimizing teams that we can truly take our projects to the
next level.

How? One secret weapon you have is to appreciate the psychological factors that turn a group
of individuals into a cohesive team unit. To help you optimize your team selection and working
habits, here are nine facts that can help you get the most out of working with others:

1. The mere presence of other people can boost your performance.

One the earliest findings in social psychology was the “social facilitation” effect – the way the
mere presence of other people engaged in the same task as us can boost our motivation. In 1920,
social psychologist Floyd Allport showed that a group of people working individually at the same
table performed better on a whole range of tasks even though they weren’t cooperating or
competing. Allport’s research illustrates how the energy of other people can act as a substitute
team even if we’re working solo (this is why many creatives enjoy working at their local café
surrounded by industrious strangers).

2. A familiar t eam has benefit s like a home st adium.

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Everyone knows that sports teams enjoy an advantage when they compete in the familiar
surroundings of their home stadium. Less recognized are the benefits of having familiar faces
around you. Consider a 2006 Harvard study that showed the performance of heart surgeons
improved over time when working at their main hospital surrounded by their usual team. Crucially,
this improvement didn’t translate to other hospitals with unfamiliar personnel when the surgeons
would cover for other doctors. The surgeons knew these other hospitals well, but didn’t have the
same tacit understanding with the local personnel as they did with their main team.

By working repeatedly with the same people, you get to know their strengths and weaknesses;
you have shared experiences to draw on; and you develop unspoken habits and rules that aid
your mutual understanding. A related lesson here: take a star performer out of their usual team
environment and you might find their performance disappoints.

e mere presence of other people engaged in the same task as us

can boost our motivation.

3. Virtual teams can outperform face-to-face teams.

A 2009 survey by Cisco of thousands of teleworkers found 69 percent said their productivity
was higher when they worked remotely and 83 percent said their communication with other
team members was either unaffected or enhanced by being dispersed. And in 2009, a research
team led by Frank Siebdrat assessed the performance of 80 software companies around the
world and found that more dispersed teams often outperformed “co-located” teams.

Siebdrat and his colleagues said the most important factor in the success of a remote team was
having processes in place to make sure each member contributes fully, including adequate
support and communication. Other good practices include scheduling time for virtual
camaraderie building, including chatting in an informal context (see point 9).

4. A balance of extroverts and introverts makes for a better team.

When Corrine Bendersky and Neha Parikh Shah at UCLA organised hundreds of MBA students
into five-person teams for ten weeks of group assignments, they found that introverts started off
with the lowest status: their peers didn’t think they had much influence, nor did they expect them
to contribute as much to the team as the bolder, brasher team members. Yet, by the end of the
quarter, the students had seen what introverts have to offer – their status had climbed while the
extraverts’ status had fallen.

While extroverts will grab your attention and showcase their abilities, you might need to search a
little harder to spot the talented quiet types. But don’t go too far the other way and ignore
extroverts — a balance of complementary personalities is often the most effective mix.

More dispersed teams often outperformed “co-located” teams.

5. Most good teams have one analytic thinker on board.

Team members with a big picture thinking style are great for brainstorming and creative problem
solving but when it comes to idea execution a study published this year suggests it’s a good idea
to have at least one focused, analytic thinker on your team — that is, someone who can focus on
the details of your project.

Ishani Aggarwal and Anita Woolley at the Tepper School of Business found that teams with an
analytic thinker tended to perform better on “execution tasks” because they paid more attention
to “process focus” – identifying sub-tasks and the resources needed to complete them.
Aggarwal and Tepper warned this benefit needs to be balanced as big picture thinkers and
analytical thinkers can disagree on strategic priorities, harming team performance. To avoid this,
foster a team-wide appreciation of process focus and get team members to agree explicitly on
strategic priorities. Recruiting a rare individual with a mixed cognitive style (big picture and
analytic) can also help foster communication between team members with different thinking
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styles.

6. Teams perform better when they include both men and women.

In 2012, Credit Suisse published an analysis of nearly 2,400 international companies, finding that
those with at least one woman on their boards tended to be the strongest performers. The
benefits of having both men and women in the controlling team were especially apparent in
tougher operating conditions and was attributed by the report authors to issues such as better
team diversity (see point 5) and a balance of leadership skills.

What’s the optimum gender balance to aim for? An experiment published in 2011 by European
researchers found that teams of business students with a 50-50 mix of men and women
performed best at a business venture game. The researchers said this was at least partly due to
mixed-gender groups engaging in more “mutual monitoring” – making sure everyone pulled their
weight for the team’s benefit.

7. There’s a danger of teams splitting into sub-groups.

It’s inevitable that allegiances and friendships will form within teams. Research with space crews
and arctic explorers has shown how these “micro-cultures” can be particularly strong when
they’re based on forms of social identity – such as ethnicity or gender – that predate the
creation of the team. For multi-disciplinary teams, these divisions can also form along shared
professional identities.

A study led by psychologist Doris Fay investigated this problem in the UK’s healthcare system.
Fay found that diversity was a bonus – multi-disciplinary teams produced better quality
innovations than more homogeneous teams – but only if certain processes were in place to help
prevent internal splits. These included making sure all team members were committed to the
same cause; ensuring everyone felt listened to; the team reflected on its own performance; and
there was plenty of communication between team members (see point 9).

Companies with at least one woman on their boards tended to be the

strongest performers.

8. Effective teams depend on “social sensitivity.”

Research has shown that the “collective intelligence” of teams (as judged by their ability to
perform well across a range of challenges) is based not on the average IQ of individual team
members, but on the way team members take turns during conversations, and having a higher
proportion of women in the group (see points 6 and 9).

The research led by Anita Woolley suggests we should road-test our teams for these
characteristics — known as “social sensitivity” — just like we assess individuals. If a team flops at
this assessment, then adjust the personnel to find a better mix, or train the team in better
communication.

9. The best teams communicate outside of formal meetings.

Researchers at MIT’s Human Dynamics Laboratory have found conversations outside of formal
meetings are the most important factor that contributes to team success. Their research
showed that the energy and engagement of these informal interactions accounts for one third of
the differences in productivity between groups.

There are simple steps we can take to increase these valuable encounters, including scheduling
coffee breaks so that all team members get to chat with each other and planning social events.
Related to this, the most productive creative teams are those that strike the perfect balance
between “exploration” and “engagement” – sourcing new ideas from outside the team and
integrating ideas within the team.

How about you?

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How about you?

What conditions do you think lead to better collaboration?

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