Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others

HughPickens.com writes Everyone who is part of an organization — a company, a nonprofit, a condo board — has experienced the pathologies that can occur when human beings try to work together in groups. Now the NYT reports on recent research on why some groups, like some people, are reliably smarter than others. In one study, researchers grouped 697 volunteer participants into teams of two to five members. Each team worked together to complete a series of short tasks, which were selected to represent the varied kinds of problems that groups are called upon to solve in the real world. One task involved logical analysis, another brainstorming; others emphasized coordination, planning and moral reasoning. Teams with higher average I.Q.s didn't score much higher on collective intelligence tasks than did teams with lower average I.Q.s. Nor did teams with more extroverted people, or teams whose members reported feeling more motivated to contribute to their group's success. Instead, the smartest teams were distinguished by three characteristics (PDF). First, their members contributed more equally to the team's discussions, rather than letting one or two people dominate the group. Second, their members scored higher on a test called Reading the Mind in the Eyes, which measures how well people can read complex emotional states from images of faces with only the eyes visible. Finally, teams with more women outperformed teams with more men. It appeared that it was not "diversity" (having equal numbers of men and women) that mattered for a team's intelligence, but simply having more women. This last effect, however, was partly explained by the fact that women, on average, were better at "mindreading" than men.

Interestingly enough, a second study has now replicated the these findings for teams that worked together online communicating purely by typing messages into a browser . "Emotion-reading mattered just as much for the online teams whose members could not see one another as for the teams that worked face to face. What makes teams smart must be not just the ability to read facial expressions, but a more general ability, known as "Theory of Mind," to consider and keep track of what other people feel, know and believe."

Comments

Really? Theory of Mind

[OzPeter]

What makes teams smart must be not just the ability to read facial expressions, but a more general ability, known as "Theory of Mind," to consider and keep track of what other people feel, know and believe."

That sounds a whole like Empathy to me, but dressed up in some fancy new clothes.

Re:Really? Theory of Mind

[AmiMoJo]

It's more than just empathy, it's knowing what other people know and how they think about things.

A classic example I remember from years ago was a salesman telling some people about a computer they were interested in. He told them it had 1GB of RAM and 250GB hard drive an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, without realizing that they had no idea what any of that meant. If he had understood that they didn't know that, and that they thought of RAM in terms of "it runs a few different apps and doesn't slow down" and the hard drive as "it can store a lot of photos and videos" he would have been following the Theory of Mind.

Engineers often do it as well. They explain things in the terms that they understand them, rather than in a way that accounts for the listener's knowledge and beliefs about how things are. In a group some people become ineffective and don't contribute anything meaningful because of gaps in their knowledge or because they have incorrect assumptions that others are not aware of, and no-one is a good enough communicator to recognize that and bring them up to speed.

Re:Really? Theory of Mind

[nine-times]

I think "empathy" is generally characterized more by feelings. You see someone who looks upset, and you find it upsetting. I think this "Theory of Mind" business is more about understanding what else might be going on in another person's head.

Like... you know how when you're a kid, and you're shocked to see your teacher at the grocery store? You hadn't really thought about it, but you had somehow assumed that your teacher lived at the school, and perhaps didn't need to eat. And the important part there is, you hadn't really thought about it.

I think that's sort of an early level of the realization, "Other people are also people, like me. They have lives of their own, they think their own thoughts, just like me." There are deeper understandings of this that people develop, like perhaps realizing, "I sort of think of life like a story, and I'm the main character. But other people must also think of themselves as the main character. To an outside observer, there's no reason why my perspective is more correct."

And I think that in adulthood, some people develop that sensibility in much deeper and more profound ways. They can put themselves in another person's shoes, and not just feel empathy for them, but actually understand how things must appear to another person. They can think about things like, "I disagree with you, but I completely understand why you think that, and I'm not sure you're wrong." Some adults develop very strong skills and impulses along those lines, while others don't. Many people, even into adulthood, think as simply as, "I disagree with you, and therefore you must be wrong and stupid."

I'm not sure that's what they mean, but I would guess that's the sort of thing being included in "keeping track of what other people feel, know, and believe."

could be fems average better at groups, men one by

[raymorris]

It could very well be that females average better during the group portion of tasks, the part that requires a lot of communication and empathy; then when everyone goes back to their desks men average better at _____. I know in my own life women tend to be more interested in having in-depth conversations and understanding each other, on average. Mean tend to be more interested in gadgets and how they work. Again, I'm speaking of averages - individuals vary considerably.

Physically, men tend to do better at tasks involving short bursts of strength like dead lifting, while women tend to have more stamina. It's not unlikely that females mind tend to be better at understanding another person's point of view, while men might be better at disregarding the feelings of a bill collector and hanging up on them or interrupting, not allowing the collector to go off an tangents not appropriate to the issue at hand. That seems to be true from my experience - women generally aren't as comfortable being "rude" . When there is a conflict, it's sometimes effective to first give someone with high estrogen a chance to understand bo

submitted too soon

[raymorris]

When there is a conflict, it's sometimes effective to first give someone with high estrogen a chance to understand both sides' viewpoints and work out a mutually agreeable solution. If that ddoesdoesn't work because the other side is being aggressive, it's often someone with more testerone who is best suited to put their foot down, to say "no, we're not doing that" and stay firm even if it hurts someone's feelings.

Once more, I'm speaking in terms of averages. There are also empathic men and coarse women. Vanzant could probably kick Chrisley's ass.

Imagine if having more men increased a team's

[Anonymous Coward]

intelligence. The study would not be publishable.

Re:could be fems average better at groups, men one

[AmiMoJo]

I think the genetic differences are overblown. Social differences are a much bigger factor, and either gender can easily learn the skills needed to be a good communicator and team player. Rather than being a gender issue, it sounds more like a training issue.

I have grown skeptical of these experiments.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

It all sounds sciency enough but I have grown very disenchanted with these experiments that use "simple tasks" to judge "$parameter". As my company switched to Agile I was forced to undergo "Agile for managers" or whatever. They made senior manager stuff envelopes and place stamps and had a few gotchas. It made me realize the root of the con game is to pick the tasks that are so simple any team member could do it. The variability in skill set, the varieties of skills needed to complete the project is not fully addressed.

Instead of some simple tasks which anyone can do, if we throw in some tasks that could only be done by one or two persons in the team, then it would be more realistic. Something like some step needs derivative of a function and only one team member remembers calculus 101, or requires translating a passage from French to English.. The moment you introduce variation in skill sets among the team members, agile for software breaks down. This experiment too might have different results.

Re:Significant correlation?

[Anonymous Coward]

"(r=0.23, P=0.007)" "(r=0.26,P=0.002)"

What? Since when 0.23-26 correlation is 'significant' correlation?

*significance* is indicated by p: "The smaller the p-level, the more significant the relationship"

*strength* is indicated by r: " The larger the correlation, the stronger the relationship"

http://janda.org/c10/Lectures/topic06/L24-significanceR.htm

Theory

[kria]

There are studies that show that women are less likely to speak up when outnumbered by men. So if the most successful teams were ones where everyone contributed equally, it seems like those groups would tend to either have more women so that women are more willing to speak up, or no women at all (assuming that men are all likely to contribute in that environment).

http://www.salon.com/2012/09/2...
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01...

Teams are overrated anyway

[Viol8]

Teams are great for doing parallel repetetive tasks such as testing thousands of compounds to pharmacological activity or building a bridge or whacking out 10K lines of boiler plate code. But if you want inspiration or genius or a completely take on a problem then you're looking at individuals (even if they've stood on shoulders of giants). Einstein didn't think up Relativity in a scrum with powerpoint presentations (ok they weren't around then but you get the point), nor did Turing come up his theories on conference calls.

This will sound arrogant but I don't care - teams are great for the slightly dim and/or lazy people in the world because it means they don't have to put so much effort in or think too much. Hence why management tend to be so fond of them.

Re:Teams are overrated anyway

[Anonymous Coward]

No it doesn't sound arrogant, it sounds defensive and most of all stupid. Stupid because you are missing the whole point, the article is not about who is better, it is about what is needed to make a good team. And yes teams are important, not just for your stupid examples. More generally there is a need for organization, you can't just let people do their thing in their corner and hope that you get everything you need. So there is a need for "smart" people and a need for "social" people, we need various qualities to achieve things.

Re:The white in your eyes

[Anonymous Coward]

I am autistic and it is true I can't work in a team, at least not with neurotypical people who can't communicate properly and who rely far too much on emotions instead of simply talking. Each time I tried, I always felt extremely frustrated with the others and the others felt extremely frustrated with me.

Right now I'm a computer consultant. The major problem I face is when I must meet clients. Even in a technical meeting, people are in constant need of socialization. If they don't have this need satisfied, they simply can't work. So in a meeting, I can't think because I must use all of my mind to provide this socialization to others.

My solution is to communicate mostly with emails and telecommute. Of course I can't work for long for the same client, because after a while that client feels frustrated I don't want to meet more often with him. I now live in Quebec, which means I speak French, and the simple fact that I always say "vous" and can't say "tu" to a client frustrate them after a while.

Having said that, when the team is clearly hierarchical and tasks are clearly divided, I outperform about everyone.

An example of that was my two years of military service (as a conscript). I was promoted corporal in 6 months, then master corporal 6 months after and sergeant after another 6 months (in my regiment, there was only two places for sergeant conscripts and I was one of those two).

Because of my military experience, I do think autistic people can work very well in a team. The problem is our world is not a technocracy nor a meritocracy like in the military, but a "socialocracy". It is ruled and shaped by people who have the best social skill, not by people who have the best technical skills. And of course, "hypersocial" people want a world where their social skills is the most important. So anyone who doesn't play their game, using the rules which give them an advantage, is someone they don't want to work with.

Re:The white in your eyes

[myowntrueself]

You don't have to be autistic to find oversocialisation in work meetings to be a problem. Where I work easily half our team meetings are taken up with jokes and banter. Its ridiculous because we actually have work to discuss and work to do after the meetings.

If only people would stop cracking jokes things would be so much better for me. We are there, at the work place, to do a job. That job is not being comedians, its being engineers.

And I am very proudly neurotypical.