Teams Blog

The hardest part of leadership is changing yourself. I know, because I have been battling to do it for weeks.

Transferring data is easy. Stick it in a document or a spreadsheet and attach it to an e-mail. Load it into a database. Start a wiki. "Explicit knowledge is encoded in formal organizational models, rules, documents, drawings, products, services, facilities, systems, and processes and is easily communicated externally," writes Ludmila Mládková, University of Economics, Prague, in the Global Journal of Business Research.

Part of the fun of going through studies—yes, I am weird enough to find it fun—comes when business researchers put together two concepts I did not think were related. For example, who would have thought a corporate leadership team's decision-making style might impact whether its company was socially responsible? Apparently, Elaine Wong of the Univ. of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Margaret Ormiston of London Business School, and Philip Tetlock of the Univ. of Pennsylvania would.

Daniel Klein is an economics professor at George Mason Univ. and a self-described libertarian. Though some of his libertarian beliefs would be considered "liberal"—ending of all narcotics laws, for example—most are more on the conservative side, such as ending of the income tax. Klein definitely energized conservatives when he published an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal two years ago declaring American liberals ignorant about economics.

Okay, this is embarrassing. I read halfway through a study intending to blog on it, finding it interesting but also trying to recall a similar study it reminded me of. Suspicions grew. I checked Teams Blog, and sure enough: I’d wasted 30 minutes re-reading a study I blogged about in September.

One line would have been worth the price of admission, if the speech hadn’t been free. Referring to bad behaviors we find ourselves tempted to do, Dr. Dan Ariely said: “The biggest lesson from psychology from the last 50 years is that personality matters very little.” Self-control is the exception, he added, but that “only explains 30% of the variance” between one person’s poor choices and another’s better ones.

There's that person at your work who doesn't say much. Hold a brainstorming session, and their mouth stays calm. Ask for their ideas, and they seem to have none, until you receive an e-mail two days later. Invite them to the bar with the rest of the gang, and you'll have one less drink to buy. Invite them for a one-on-one, though, and they might accept.

My frustration with airport security has risen to the point where I shudder at the mere thought of flying. I have never been a frequent flyer, with 20 flights the most I took in a single year. But now I take as few as possible. My biggest complaints are irrationality and inconsistency in the U.S. security system. For years they banned nail clippers, but not ball point pens. As a martial artist I could defend myself well with a ball point pen, but I have no idea how to hurt someone with a nail clipper. The policy was irrational, yet they kept it for years.

Except on this Web site, I never see the term "decision by committee" used as a positive. Yet self-directed work teams have been highly successful in many situations. Whether you are a believer in group decision-making probably rests on your personal experience with such. If efforts you witnessed were marked by conflicts, or produced bland initiatives because everyone was avoiding conflict, you may wish the boss had just made the decision. Indeed, that might have worked out better.