we've identified how some of the characteristic we use to describe individuals can be high in the trait of openness,
as can a team. along the same lines, have you noticed that some team seem to be smart, while others seem, um, dumb?
this characteristic has nothing to do with the average IQ of the team members but instead reflects the functionality of the whole team.
team that are synergistic excel in logical analysis, brainstorming, coordination, planning , and moral reasoning. and teams that are dumb? think of long unproductive meetings , social loafing, and interpersonal conflicts.
you might be remembering a few teams you've witnessed that are in the dumb category, but we hope you can you think of a few that excelled.
smart team tend to be smart in everything-for any task, they will find a workable solution. But what makes them smart?
researchers in an MIT study grouped 697 subjects into team of 2-5 members to solve task, looking for the characteristics of smart team (they weren't all smart).
the findings were:
1.smart teams did not allow individual members to dominate.
instead , there were more equal contribution from members than in other teams
2.smart team had more members who were able to read minds.
just kidding. but the members were able to read complicated emotions by looking into the eyes of other. there is a test for this ability called reading the mind in the eye.
3.smart team had more women.
it's not that smart teams had more women. this result might be partly due to the fact that more women scored higher in the reading the mind in the eyes test.
the researchers recently replicated the study using 68 team and again found that some teams were smarter than other.
this study added a new angle to the research: how would team working in person differ form teams working online?
surprisingly, there was little difference: all smart teams had more equal member communication (and plenty of it) and were good at emotion reading. when the online collaborators could not see each other, they practiced theory of mind, remembering and reacting to the emotional cues they were able to detect through any mode of communication. theory of mind is related to emotional intelligence(EI)
when we have the opportunity to head-pick team members, we can look for those who listen as much as they speak, express empathy , and remember what others tell them about themselves, for team to which we are assigned, we can seek these attributes in others and help guide the team toward its best self. as for IQ? here's the good news: recent research indicates that our membership in a team actually makes us smarter decision -makers as individuals