Working with others is a standard practice in organizations and yet, we leave our formal educational settings having a strong background and knowledge of a domain but no one ever tells us what it will take to work well with others. So its not surprising that some teams work better than others. In their recent study, Anita Wooley (Carnegie Mellon University) and Tom Malone (MIT) provide a glimpse at specific characteristics of teams that exemplify what they call “collective intelligence.” Anita suggests that successful collective groups exhibit a characteristic level of intelligence which is – distinct from skills of individual members– predictive of future performance. These are:
1. They benefit from both connectivity and diversity
2. They exhibit connectivity through multiple conversation and attending to the inputs of others from within the group and,
3. They achieve diversity through the composition of the team members and by scanning more options in the environment.
To paraphrase their work, “Its about listening, empathy and more women.” So if you are putting a team together, take a look at how many women are on the team. Teams with more women on them exhibited a higher degree of collective intelligence.
To read an article Anita Wooley wrote that appeared in the New York Times, click this link