Effective Teams Part 1: What Drives Team Performance? - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive.
On my first post on the Team Leadership blog, I mentioned that one of the ten things effective teams have in common is norms. A few weeks ago, Wired magazine ran a write up of a study recently published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that illustrates the power of team norms quite well. Here is a quick summary of the study (quoted from the Wired article):
“Each participant (real and virtual) was given a pool of points in each round of the game. These could be kept or put into a central kitty for the team. Putting points into the kitty doubled their value. The participant was then allowed to withdraw up to a quarter of the points contributed by the other four into their own personal bank. They were encouraged to withdraw less than a quarter of the points by being told that if they left them in the kitty they would have an improved chance of winning an unspecified bonus for the group. When the game was over, participants could convert their points into meal vouchers.
Most of the fictitious four competitors playing against each participant would make seemingly fair swaps of putting points into the kitty and taking points for themselves. But one of the four often would make lopsided exchanges — greedily giving up no points and taking a lot from others or unselfishly giving up a lot of points and taking few for themselves.”
When the game was over, the researchers interviewed the people in the study, asking who they would prefer to work with again. The least desired team members? The ones who made the lopsided exchanges—those whose behavior was on either extreme side of the spectrum. So both the greedy players as well as the unselfish players came out as undesirable colleagues.
It wasn’t that they were seen as confused or unpredictable; follow-up experiments ruled that explanation out. Rather, it was thought that those players were breaking rules, making them look bad, or had ulterior motives. This is in spite of the fact that their do-gooder behavior was in their favor!
This study used temporary and fictitious team members—the participants didn’t know each other and they never had to work together again. What would happen if real colleagues who work together daily for months deviate from the group’s informal rules? A similar study was done back in the 1930s, which shows what happens when something like this happens within an existing work team.
In the 1930s study, the researchers proposed incentive pay: extra income was offered for increased individual production. What happened when extra pay was offered? Production… stayed the same. The reasons were similar: the group questioned the motives of the researchers, didn’t trust their company, and individual workers who ramped up or dialed down their efforts were sabotaged or ridiculed by the rest of the team. Being accepted by the group was more important than the extra money.
The work of teams has changed quite considerably since the 1930s experiment, as is reflected in the experimental design. But the fact that remains is our teams and organizations are highly social, with social forces controlling much of our behavior, and consequently, performance. And creativity. These experiments show that group norms control the amount of work that a team performs very effectively through peer pressure and informal group rules.
In Part 2, I’ll cover some specific examples of what kind of informal rules may exist on a working team and in Part 3, I’ll highlight how we can influence and interrupt a team’s habits.
Related posts:
- Effective Teams Part 3: How to Influence Team Norms
- Effective Teams Part 2: Examples of Team Norms
- 10 Signs Your Team is Effective
CRM Software Free Trial – Your CRM online guide to Web-based Contact Management Software Free Internet Trials and the latest news, article, reviews & comparisons.
CRM Software Free Trial – Your CRM online guide to Web-based Contact Management Software Free Internet Trials and the latest news, article, reviews & comparisons.
Post Footer automatically generated by Add Post Footer Plugin for wordpress.
“We here at the “Web-Based Contact Management Software News, Reviews” are posting for your consumption the latest blog posts from the major Web-Based CRM Software vendors around the world who are focused on the development of products that enhance your CRM experience.” enjoy 
——————————
Post Name:
Effective Teams Part 1: What Drives Team Performance? – Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive.
* If Needed – To Read the Full Story: (post’s here may be limited by vendor’s RSS feed) – Highlight above post’s blue title, right click and search with google.
Listed Related posts:
- Effective Teams Part 3: How to Influence Team Norms - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. In a recent post, I described how group norms can have a strong effect on team performance. With this blog post, I want to ask and address, how do these norms develop and is there anything...
- Effective Teams Part 2: Examples of Team Norms - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. Team norms are basically relationship guidelines that develop gradually. Team members develop particular ways of interacting with each other over time until those habits become behavioral expectations. A team can have high performance norms or low...
- Becoming a Better Influencer: 4 Most Effective Influence Tactics (Part I) - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. The ability to influence others is crucial in your career and in management and leadership. When being interviewed for a position, you use influence to demonstrate you are the best candidate for the job. When signing...
- Becoming a Better Influencer (Part II): The Least Effective Influence Tactics - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. Some influence tactics work better than others in general and some work better than others depending on the situation. In a previous article, I covered the most effective influence tactics. Those are good, they work well,...
- How to Motivate Your Team Members over the Holidays - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. Sustaining team motivation during the holiday season is a tall order. After all, your team members would probably rather be anywhere else than at work, and it’s difficult to keep them duly focused on the tasks...
- Shift Work Requires Smooth Transitions Between Teams - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. If your company runs around the clock on a twenty four by seven, three sixty five schedule, it could be at risk for communication issues among the teams who cover different shifts. Twenty-four hour operations add...
- How to Be More Effective: Tips for Extraverts - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. In a recent comment, Cary remarked, “what I’d really like to see is productivity/interaction tips aimed at extroverts. I get a little fed up with so much advice being aimed at introverts as if extroverts don’t...
- Are You Taking Advantage of Mobile Learning? - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. John Hollon, Vice President of Editorial for TLNT.com, reports on a new research study by Bersin & Associates, which says that “mobile learning finally has gone mainstream, driven by consumers in both the developed and developing...
- How to Set Goals That Keep Your Team on Track - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. Setting team goals and ultimately team member goals helps give your team purpose along with checkpoints for measuring success. That old adage “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there,”...
- How to Create a Team Charter for Success - Story From: The QuickBase Blog. Get more connected. Be more productive. You’ve probably had an opportunity to be part of a team that wasn’t as successful as you’d hoped. It isn’t much fun to watch a team struggle and never find their way to success. This will...
