July 2004
Vol. 2, No. 1
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From the Editor: The first and last of this month's studies may disturb you. One reminds us that we humans often follow mathematical patterns in our behaviors, so much so that computers can be programmed to model our conflict behaviors with eerie realism. The other raises the ugly possibility that racial differences cause leaders to hurt team performance. To counteract all the bad news, I have thrown in a free technique you can institute with your teams today, whether you are a leader or a member, guaranteed to overcome many of the challenges raised in this month's issue (and many other challenges as well).
Study: I haven't had a chance before to report on a study using computer modeling. You may think that plugging a bunch of hypothetical numbers into a computer cannot teach us much about reality, but these models have often provided intriguing results that bore fruit when used with flesh-and-blood humans. In this study, researchers reviewed the research on factors that contribute to conflicts between groups. Specifically, they assigned numerical values to the following to see how many conflicts would occur and how much hostility one group felt for the other over time:
In a typical computer simulation, the researchers assign numerical values to various factors contributing to the issue they are investigating. They run the numbers through an equation that seems to mirror how all those factors are related in reality, change one of the numbers, then run the calculation again: 1,000 times for each scenario in this study, looking at change over ten time periods. The researchers keep some numbers the same each time; change the factor they are looking at in a predictable way; and tell the computer to assign values at random to the remaining factors. (Just as in life: some things you can control, and of the things you can't control, some are constant and some happen by chance.) The point is to see the results of many more combinations of factors than you could test in a series of human studies.
The results sounded a lot like reality to me: "as one group grows faster than the other—and thus collects more of the resource pie, conflict incidents increase." In particular, if the groups grew at the same rate, the number of conflicts started by one against the other were about the same. But if one group grew much faster, the weaker group became increasingly more hostile and started more and more conflicts.
The mere existence of hostility at a point in time was more important in causing conflicts later than whatever caused that hostility: current power differences, past conflicts, or just prior hostility. In other words, a group filled with hostility caused problems regardless of what made it hostile. And small differences in power actually increased the number of conflicts compared to larger differences.
When the weaker group "chose" to stop retaliating for prior conflicts, the stronger party stopped, too. And when the stronger party stopped first, retaliations by the weaker party dropped significantly, but it still retaliated some. Meanwhile, negotiation was quite effective in reducing conflicts: "Indeed only a 30% rate of (negotiation) success reduced the mean number of total incidents by half…because a successful negotiation leads to fewer retaliatory incidents down the road." Note, however, that the underlying hostility was not reduced as much: the groups still didn't like each other, though they stopped fighting as much.
Application: Combined with what we observe in human studies, international conflicts, and the workplace, these results support common sense:
In all these cases, perception may be more important than reality. But if two teams are having conflicts, first look at their circumstances: do they really have equal access to equipment, people, assistance from other groups, and control over their work lives? If not, teambuilding and negotiation are unlikely to solve the problem by themselves. As the saying goes, "If you want peace, work for justice."
Source: Miller, H., and K. Engemann (04), "A Simulation Model of Intergroup Conflict," Journal of Business Ethics 50:355.
Study: A two-year study of 35 cross-functional business teams (280 people) in "a high-technology service organization in the travel industry" revealed that empowered virtual teams—those given greater control over their daily work—perform better than less empowered ones. All the teams conducted "all of their day-to-day work…using telephones and voice mail, e-mail, and instant messaging." Performance was rated using the company's standard performance measures on process improvement and customer satisfaction.
Empowering teams is proven to make them more effective in teams that meet face-to-face, but this is the first major study to look at empowerment's effect on virtual team success. There was a catch: Teams that met face-to-face more often didn't need as much empowerment to succeed at process improvement. But for pleasing customers, empowerment was equally important regardless of how "virtual" the teams were.
Application: That "catch" doesn't mean occasional face-to-face meetings hurt performance (which would run counter to other research findings). It just means that if a team meets face-to-face on a regular basis, the greater trust, familiarity, and personal understanding it can gain makes empowerment less important as a management tool for generating team success. Regardless, the researchers state flatly that "for managers to enhance virtual team process improvement and customer satisfaction, they should increase team empowerment." To do so, they wrote:
And if you want to please your customers, empower your teams, no matter how virtual the teams are.
Source: Kirkman, B., et al. (04), "The Impact of Team Empowerment on Virtual Team Performance: The Moderating Role of Face-to-Face Interaction," Academy of Management Journal 47(2):175.
Study: A small study about trust among team members provided both reassurance for managers who must include contract employees on their teams and, for some, a reality check about having to earn trust themselves.
A survey went out to 128 office workers in 19 major corporations across eight industries. Instead of just the usual questions and answers, this one also asked the respondent to put him- or herself in a story similar to a case study. The person was to imagine that they had just been placed on a project team of eight with a "critical deadline" only three months away. The new team decided they needed two to three more people, and several days later, one new person was added.
In the project kickoff meeting, the new person had a "take-charge attitude" and called the deadline "no problem," even though the team had wanted more people. Afterwards, the respondent spots the new person "whispering in a corner to the Project Sponsor…" The respondent was asked to rate their trust for the new team member. But the story was varied slightly among the respondents such that the new person was either:
For the most part, none of the variables had any effect on how much the respondent trusted the new person. But that's still significant. It means whether the new person was in or outside the company did not matter. It also meant that just because someone was "the boss," that didn't mean they generated any more initial trust than anyone else on the team. The study also (unintentionally) addressed the question of whether trust must be earned or lost: on average, the new person started out being trusted slightly above a 5 on a 1-10 scale (10 being the most trusting). This indicates trust can be both won and lost from a midway starting point.
The one variable that produced a difference in initial trust has an implication for diversity efforts: women respondents trusted the new member equally whether that person was male or female, but male respondents trusted a male new member somewhat more than a new female, 6 to 5.
Application: The good news here, in an economy where more companies are hiring people as contractors instead of regular employees (at least to start), is the possibility that no special effort is needed to help contractors be trusted. But if the team is mostly male, and the new member is female, some trust-building might be in order. And if you're the new boss, don't expect people to give you any special deference just because of your position: you have as much trust to win or lose as anybody else.
See the July Freebie for one solution to improving trust in any work team.
Source: Spector, M., and G. Jones (04), "Trust in the Workplace: Factors Affecting Trust Formation Between Team Members," Journal of Social Psychology 144(3):311.
Article: Although there has been a lot of research into what makes individuals good corporate citizens—some of it reported in TeamResearch News—and some research on citizenship within work groups, little has been done on work teams. A couple of definitions will explain. "Team citizenship behaviors" include helping others, courtesy, teamwork, and being conscientious. A "team" differs from a "work group" in that team members must cooperate closely to achieve their individual tasks: the difference is similar to a basketball or football team versus a golf team.
Two management professors collected 197 member surveys and 40 leader surveys from 71 automotive industry teams "responsible for identifying and implementing organizational changes to increase organizational effectiveness." Based on responses from team members and their leaders, a team was more likely to display citizenship if:
Although the literature indicates teams can get too large for good performance, in this study team size had no direct effect on citizenship. The authors point out that optimal team sizes can vary with the situation, so "it is possible that the teams' sizes may have been well suited to the teams' tasks…" Or maybe team size hurts team performance in ways other than through citizenship behavior.
Application: I wouldn't make any changes based on this study. Since the average team size was 7 members, and fewer than three people per team responded, you have to be skeptical of claims made about their entire teams. Respondents also were mostly older men with long tenures on the job, so be especially careful about generalizing the results to more typical teams. Plus, this is the first look at true teams instead of just work groups.
That said, the survey results closely mirrored those reported for the citizenship behaviors of individual workers. And two of the results add further weight to themes we've often seen in this newsletter: Whether you're a team leader or a team member, make clear that you value members' working together, and make sure teams have everything they need to accomplish what is asked of them.
Source: Pearce, C., and P. Herbik (04), "Citizenship Behavior at the Team Level of Analysis: The Effects of Team Leadership, Team Commitment, Perceived Team Support, and Team Size," Journal of Social Psychology 144(3):293.
Study: Given increasing diversity in the workforce, management researchers seem to be working ever harder at determining what effects diversity has on companies. According to the three authors of a new study relating to team empowerment and effectiveness, "whereas laboratory findings often support diversity benefits…field research tends to show more negative effects." Trying to sort out why, they conducted a large, in-depth study of "four organizations (two Fortune 500 organizations and two smaller companies) that had formally implemented teams in the…United States." The industries were textile manufacturers, a high-tech firm, and an insurance company. More than 1,000 team member surveys and 101 leader surveys (from 112 teams) were supplemented by on-site interviews of 98 teams.
Of all the kinds of diversity tested—including age, gender, and time in the company—only one was related to level of empowerment: the more racially diverse the team, the less likely it was to be empowered. Also, more racially diverse team rated themselves as less effective, as did their team leaders, but other kinds of diversity did not change those ratings. Further analysis of the numbers showed that racially mixed teams were given less power, and in turn the relative lack of empowerment explained the lesser effectiveness. In particular, when team leaders were of a different race from their members, they gave those teams less power and rated them as less effective—although the teams' ratings of their own effectiveness were not related to the race of their boss.
You may be curious about the specific races involved. Racially balanced or mostly minority teams led by whites made up 41%, and balanced or mostly white teams led by minorities were 18%. The study report does not separate out the results for white and minority leaders.
The only other significant difference between respondents was that team leaders with longer time in the company rated their teams lower (regardless of race) than did leaders with shorter tenures.
Application: So teams that were more racially diverse, and those that differed more in race from their team leaders than did others, were less likely to be empowered to make their own decisions by those leaders, which in turn made them poorer performers. The study was not designed to determine what caused the race effects. Nor, unfortunately, did it test effectiveness through some objective means such as costs or output, which could tell us if opinions of lower effectiveness were only that: opinions. The researchers themselves manage to get through the whole article without saying that racism is likely at play, but I'll say it. At the same time, racially similar social groups tend to communicate better and have less destructive conflict, two factors known to help business teams perform better.
Trying to stay objective, the researchers point out that "segregating employees by race into teams is not likely to be accepted in any organization that promotes and values diversity." They also point out that increasing diversity in the trained workforce "require organizations to aggressively recruit and hire minorities." The solutions they suggest are:
But for those of you who pursue these approaches, the authors offer two warnings. First, the "efficacy of diversity training…has received little attention by researchers," which is to say that it has not been scientifically proven (or disproven). Second, noting that "diversity consultants attempt to sell the idea that diversity in groups will result in positive outcomes," they say these "purported benefits of team diversity may be overly optimistic…" and "may not carry over to the work teams on shop floors or back offices…"
Does this mean your company should not pursue racial diversity? Of course it doesn't: besides being morally and legally correct to offer truly equal opportunities, society's growing diversity among both workers and consumers means a slow death to any company that ignores diversity issues. But the results do mean that race is a factor you cannot ignore, and one that makes excellent teaming skills like the "July Freebie" below all the more vital.
Source: Kirkman, B., P. Tesluk, and B. Rosen (04), "The Impact of Demographic Heterogeneity and Team Leader-Team Member Fit on Team Empowerment and Effectiveness," Group & Organization Management 29(3):334.
A powerful method for building trust among team members is a formal system for making and tracking "Action Items." You declare as a team that no decision is considered a "decision" unless it results in an action item. Even if the team decided to take no action, something has to be done about that. An example is deciding that an issue raised by the team manager is not a problem. In this case, someone would take an action item to inform the manager. Not only does this technique build trust by making people accountable to each other for their promises, it also improves meeting effectiveness and general productivity by making sure things actually get done. Note that a team can implement this on its own, with or without a leader's involvement.
Here's how you do it, according to my SuddenTeams® Program:
Note: This should apply to both goal-related issues and routine work-related decisions.
If you are a subscriber (or choose to subscribe) and have any questions, call or write me for details as a free "thank-you." And if you follow through with this technique, please let me know what happens.
TeamResearch News summarizes the latest information from studies or articles on business teams, along with guidance on how to apply that research in your workplace. It is published the first full weekend of each month as a free service from TeamTrainersTM Consulting (www.suddenteams.com). Plain-text e-mail announcements are mailed to subscribers whenever a new issue is posted, containing a list of that month's studies and articles and a link to the newsletter. See our newsletter page for details about the newsletter, cautions about studies, and our privacy policy.
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Jim Morgan
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