Interpersonal Coordination on High Performance Teams

What's the key ingredient to high performance when teams function in demanding, high-stress environments? Mary Waller and her co-authors have studied this question in the context of airplane cockpit crews. They published a paper recently titled "More than a feeling: rapport and complex task performance in teams."  They examined three elements of rapport within these teams while they worked in flight simulators:

1. Interpersonal liking: how positively did the individuals engage with one another
2. Emotional positivity: how optimistic and positive was the emotional tone of their conversations
3. Interpersonal coordination:  How well synchronized was their verbal communication and action

Sally Blount summarized their key finding: “Positivity and liking are great. But unless you can translate that positivity and liking into improved collaboration, it doesn’t have a significant impact on team performance.”  After analyzing video recordings of the teams in the simulator, the researchers observed how the coordination among the high-performing teams tended to be more complex, nuanced, and synergistic.  Kellogg Insight summarized the findings:

Overall, the researchers found that, on average, the teams with the highest levels of interpersonal coordination communicated more often, especially with commands, observations, suggestions, and laughter. The interactions between these pilots also were “significantly more complex” than the interactions between pilots with lower interpersonal coordination.

“In the low-interpersonal-coordination groups, you had less communication and also less encouragement and building off of each other,” Blount says. “So, if things aren’t going well, you might be saying, ‘This guy isn’t helping me, so I’m going to hunker down,’ versus ‘Okay, we got this,’ and ‘I see that. What do you see?’”

Not surprisingly, the pilots themselves did not always perceive the link between rapport and performance correctly.  

Interestingly, when liking and positivity were high, the pilots themselves thought they performed better, but that perception did not always translate into better expert evaluations. The tendency to associate more-positive interactions with better performance is common within teams, but it can be misleading and is a well-known contributor to groupthink, Blount says.

Constraints Are Good For Us

Do constraints and limits enhance creativity and innovation?  Yes, David Epstein argues that they can, bringing together several strands of research, coupled with some amazing stories, in his terrific book titled Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better.  

For example, Epstein tells the story of the terrific young pianist, Keith Jarrett, who was scheduled to play a concert in Cologne, Germany.  Unfortunately, the organizers brought the wrong piano to the venue, and it was woefully out of tune.  A rushed effort to remedy the situation provided only a partial fix.  Forced to improvise with a far-from-optimal piano, Jarrett produced an incredible concert performance.  Epstein writes, "That recording, of the undersized, partly tuned, sticky-pedaled piano, eventually became the bestselling solo piano album of all time."

Epstein grounds his argument in solid research studies, as well as terrific stories. For example, he describes the work of Catrinel Tromp.  She wrote an article titled "The Green Eggs and Ham Hypothesis: How Constraints Facilitate Creativity."  Tromp asked research subjects to develop two-line rhymes for greeting cards.  She found that her subjects were more creative when she imposed significant constraints on them.  She likened this effect to Dr. Seuss writing his famous story after making a bet that he could write an entire children's book using just fifty words.  

I highly recommend the book.  It is an easy read, and his arguments are compelling.  He shows what humans can do when faced with limits.  They improvise, innovate, and create amazing things under certain conditions.  

Staying Grounded: Find the Right Sounding Board

Former Baxter International CEO and current Kellogg Professor Harry Kraemer has written a terrific column titled, "What Every New CEO Should Do In Their First 30 Days."  His lessons apply to people who take on new leadership roles at all levels. My favorite piece of advice focuses on finding the right sounding board.  You need to keep a few truth-tellers close to you.  These are the people who will give you the unvarnished perspective.  They will help you stay grounded too.  Kraemer writes,

The higher you rise, the more essential it becomes to have people who will tell you the truth. For me, that person is my wife, Julie. Whenever I was promoted—including when I became CEO of Baxter International, a $12 billion healthcare company—she would always say how proud she was of me. In the next breath she would remind me, “Harry, we’re not going to change the way we live, right?”

In the same way, you need a sounding board composed of a variety of people, such as a spouse or partner or close friend, a board member (or two), a former colleague now leading another company, or a professional coach. Each of these people has a unique perspective on you, your leadership, and the kind of support and honesty to remind you of who you are, as a person, not just as a leader.

Are You Listening to Me? How Can I Tell?

Are you listening to me? This thought comes to mind for many of us during conversations. How can we tell that someone is listening? Conventional wisdom is that body language and non-verbal cues indicate attentiveness. Is the counterparty nodding in agreement, making good eye contact, and leaning forward into the conversation? If so, they must care about what I'm saying. If not, then they are clearly disengaged.

New research suggests that this conventional wisdom may not be right though. In an article from UCLA's Anderson Review, Carla Fried reviews a stream of research by Hanne Collins and several co-authors. This research finds that people systematically overestimate the extent to which others are listening closely to them. They overestimate because they misread utterances or nonverbal cues... they think that the quiet "mm-hmm" or the nod of agreement signal close listening, when they may not represent that at all. Listeners may be using these conversational devices to "fake" close listening.

Collins and her co-authors instead suggest "conversational listening" as the remedy. Much like a stream of other work, including a great book by Charles Duhigg, they suggest that listeners paraphrase what they have heard and ask for confirmation, ask clarifying questions, and refer back to points made earlier in the conversation as ways to engage more effectively in a conversation.  In short, you must speak, not remain silent, to listen effectively.   Of course, you can not speak too much.  Interrupting without the intention of understanding more effectively can be highly counterproductive. Collins and her co-authors write, "“Conversational listening is a key building block of human social functioning. Information transmission, interpersonal connection, conflict management, happiness — the key foundations of human flourishing — hinge critically on our ability to hear, understand and respond to others.”

Is Hosting the World Cup an Economic Windfall?

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

This year, the United States, Mexico, and Canada will host the World Cup to much fanfare.  Soccer enthusiasts are excited about the competition. They look forward to some thrilling games and the prospect of their country coming out on top.  Off the field, an economic issue bears examination: Does hosting the World Cup make financial sense?  Holy Cross Professor Victor Matheson has taken a hard-nosed look at the pros and cons of serving as the host country.  While Matheson acknowledges the benefits, he does not conclude that hosting is an obvious positive from an economic standpoint.  Naturally, Matheson cites some of the significant costs that accrue to the host country.  More interestingly, he describes how the benefits are often overstated for three key reasons:

1. The substitution effect:  For the local citizens attending World Cup games, the spending may not be "new" or "incremental" in any real sense. This spending may simply displace other leisure activities. If so, the country's economy does not grow as a result of the locals' spending on World Cup games, apparel, etc. 

2. The crowding out effect: The hoopla around the event may cause tourists who may otherwise visit the host country or host cities to avoid traveling to those locations.  Matheson cites the example of Orlando, Florida.  The city lost tourists who otherwise would have visited area theme parks, but avoided the area because of the soccer fans filling up area hotels, restaurants, and the like.  He cites a similar study that found that France did not gain international tourists during the 1998 World Cup. 

3. Leakages.  Matheson argues that FIFA collects much of the ticket revenue, and most of that money does not remain in the host country.  Moreover, most of the increased hotel profits typically do not remain in the local economy.  

Matheson concludes that these three effects cause the economic gains often to be far lower than those projected before the event takes place.  In fact, he writes, "The results generally show that the observed impact of the World Cup has been a fraction that touted by the event boosters, and frequently the observed impact has actually been negative."  

By describing these issues, I don't mean to put a damper on what should be a very exciting event.  However, the analysis put forth by Matheson should cause us to examine "economic impact" studies with a very critical eye.  That does not just hold for World Cup events.  The same type of critical evaluation should be applied to any of these types of studies, whether it be for hosting an Olympics, building a new sports stadium, or constructing a new concert venue. 

Espoused Strategy vs. Strategy-in-Use: Watch How The Resources Are Allocated

I recently encountered an organization with two main business units: the large core business and a smaller adjacent unit.  The enterprise as a whole was doing quite well, though it competed in a market that was becoming increasingly challenging.  Senior executives and board members lamented that the core business, while quite healthy, lagged behind several industry-leading competitors.  They pointed to  analysis by outside parties as evidence of the core business' secondary position in the industry.  Executives and board members had bold aspirations for elevating the core business to a more prominent competitive position. They wondered why managers and employees could not improve performance.  The stated strategy was clear: make the core business a top-ranked competitor in its industry.  

A close examination of resource allocation at the enterprise revealed a quite different story.  Competitors also had a similar structure: a large core business and a smaller adjacent unit.  Yet, the top competitors in the industry invested much more heavily in their core businesses and allocated far fewer resources in their adjacent units.  In fact, this organization invested three times as much on its adjacent business as the top-ranked competitors did.  Yet, executives and board members were shocked that the enterprise's core business lagged behind these rivals.  Company leaders loved to talk a good talk about being #1 in the industry in which the core business competed, but they loved to invest in the adjacency that was a pet project of some enterprise leaders.  

The story illustrates a powerful distinction between espoused strategy and strategy-in-use.  The great scholar Chris Argyris coined the terms espoused values and values-in-use to describe the distinction between what companies say their values are and how people in those organizations actually behave.  The same distinction can apply to strategy.  Don't pay attention to what executives and board members say that their strategy is.  Instead, pay close attention to how they allocate resources.   In so doing, you will see the actual strategy-in-use.  Pay even closer attention when you see resource allocation fundamentally divorced from the stated vision and strategy.  In the end, don't focus too much on executive speeches, strategic plans, and slick promotional materials.  Focus on where the dollars flow.  That will tell you about the actual strategy.  If you discover a mismatch, ask yourself: Why is there a divide between the espoused strategy and the strategy-in-use?  Uncovering the reason for that divide will help you think about how that enterprise has undermined the competitive position of its core business, as well as how a successful transformation can be unleashed.   

Achieving Your Goals by Talking about Time Differently

https://esheninger.blogspot.com/

I didn't have time.  I was too busy.  My schedule became too hectic.  We have all made these excuses when we didn't achieve our goals.  Of course, these explanations included more than a bit of truth.  Competing priorities and packed schedules do, in part, become an obstacle to achieving our goals.  However, new research suggests that how we talk about time might really matter when it comes to getting back on track and meeting our original objectives.  Luis Abreu and his colleagues have co-authored a new paper titled "Didn’t Have Time or Didn’t Make Time? How Language Shapes Perceived Control over Time and Motivation."   The authors explain what they found through a series of experiments:

Consumers often purchase products, subscribe to services, and download apps in support of valued goals, yet fail to use these tools as much as intended. But might the language consumers use to describe such goal failures affect how they subsequently pursue those goals? Nine experiments demonstrate that, compared with saying “didn’t have time,” saying “didn’t make time” increases subsequent motivation. This is driven by perceived control over time. Specifically, saying “didn’t make” (vs. “didn’t have”) time makes consumers feel more in control of their time, which increases their subsequent motivation to reengage with the goal.

Jordan Etkin, one of the authors, explains, "“The experiment shows how a simple linguistic cue can shift people’s sense of agency."  Of course, this shift requires being honest with ourselves, and that can be difficult at times. It means attributing our failure to achieve our goals to an internal cause (or own behavior) rather than external circumstances (factors outside our control).  When we feel, we tend to look externally.  We have to overcome that tendency to engage in this type of productive reframing that Abreu and his co-authors recommend.