Amabile - HBRs 10 must reads on teams: [if you read nothing else on building better teams, read these definitive articles from Harvard Business Review]

HBRs 10 Must Reads series is the definitive collection of ideas and best practices for aspiring and experienced leaders alike. These books offer essential reading selected from the pages of Harvard Business Review on topics critical to the success of every manager.

Titles include:

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Change Management

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Collaboration

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Communication

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Innovation

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Leadership

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Making Smart Decisions

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Managing People

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Managing Yourself

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Strategic Marketing

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Strategy

HBRs 10 Must Reads on Teams

HBRs 10 Must Reads: The Essentials

On
Teams

HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW PRESS

Boston, Massachusetts

Copyright 2013 Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior permission of the publisher. Requests for permission should be directed to , or mailed to Permissions, Harvard Business School Publishing, 60 Harvard Way, Boston, Massachusetts 02163.

The web addresses referenced in this book were live and correct at the time of books publication but may be subject to change.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

HBRs 10 must reads on teams.

pages cm. (HBRs 10 must reads series)

Includes index.

ISBN 978-1-4221-8987-0 (alk. paper)

1. Teams in the workplace. I. Harvard Business Review Press. II. Title: HBRs ten must reads on teams. III. Title: 10 must reads on teams. IV. Title: Ten must reads on teams.

HD66.H394 2013

658.4'022dc23

2012046240

Find more digital content or join the discussion on www.hbr.org.

eISBN: 978-1-4221-9146-0

Contents

by Alex Sandy Pentland

by Diane Coutu

by Jon R. Katzenbach and Douglas K. Smith

by Lynda Gratton and Tamara J. Erickson

by Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer

by Vanessa Urch Druskat and Steven B. Wolff

by Jeanne Brett, Kristin Behfar, and Mary C. Kern

by Bob Frisch

by Bill Fischer and Andy Boynton

by Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Jean L. Kahwajy, and L.J. Bourgeois III

The New Science of Building Great Teams

The chemistry of high-performing groups is no longer a mystery. by Alex Sandy Pentland

IF YOU WERE looking for teams to rig for success, a call center would be a good place to start. The skills required for call center work are easy to identify and hire for. The tasks involved are clear-cut and easy to monitor. Just about every aspect of team performance is easy to measure: number of issues resolved, customer satisfaction, average handling time (AHT, the golden standard of call center efficiency). And the list goes on.

Why, then, did the manager at a major banks call center have such trouble figuring out why some of his teams got excellent results, while other, seemingly similar, teams struggled? Indeed, none of the metrics that poured in hinted at the reason for the performance gaps. This mystery reinforced his assumption that team building was an art, not a science.

The truth is quite the opposite. At MITs Human Dynamics Laboratory, we have identified the elusive group dynamics that characterize high-performing teamsthose blessed with the energy, creativity, and shared commitment to far surpass other teams. These dynamics are observable, quantifiable, and measurable. And, perhaps most important, teams can be taught how to strengthen them.

Why Do Patterns of Communication Matter So Much?

It seems almost absurd that how we communicate could be so much more important to success than what we communicate.

Yet if we look at our evolutionary history, we can see that language is a relatively recent development and was most likely layered upon older signals that communicated dominance, interest, and emotions among humans. Today these ancient patterns of communication still shape how we make decisions and coordinate work among ourselves.

Consider how early man may have approached problem solving. One can imagine humans sitting around a campfire (as a team) making suggestions, relating observations, and indicating interest or approval with head nods, gestures, or vocal signals. If some people failed to contribute or to signal their level of interest or approval, then the group members had less information and weaker judgment, and so were more likely to go hungry.

When we set out to document the behavior of teams that click, we noticed we could sense a buzz in a team even if we didnt understand what the members were talking about. That suggested that the key to high performance lay not in the content of a teams discussions but in the manner in which it was communicating. Yet little of the research on team building had focused on communication. Suspecting it might be crucial, we decided to examine it more deeply.

For our studies, we looked across a diverse set of industries to find workplaces that had similar teams with varying performance. Ultimately, our research included innovation teams, post-op wards in hospitals, customer-facing teams in banks, backroom operations teams, and call center teams, among others.

We equipped all the members of those teams with electronic badges that collected data on their individual communication behaviortone of voice, body language, whom they talked to and how much, and more. With remarkable consistency, the data confirmed that communication indeed plays a critical role in building successful teams. In fact, weve found patterns of communication to be the most important predictor of a teams success. Not only that, but they are as significant as all the other factorsindividual intelligence, personality, skill, and the substance of discussionscombined.

Idea in Brief

Why do some teams consistently deliver high performance while other, seemingly identical teams struggle? Led by Sandy Pentland, researchers at MITs Human Dynamics Laboratory set out to solve that puzzle. Hoping to decode the It factor that made groups click, they equipped teams from a broad variety of projects and industries (comprising 2,500 individuals in total) with wearable electronic sensors that collected data on their social behavior for weeks at a time.

With remarkable consistency, the data showed that the most important predictor of a teams success was its communication patterns. Those patterns were as significant as all other factorsintelligence, personality, talentcombined. In fact, the researchers could foretell which teams would outperform simply by looking at the data on their communication, without even meeting their members.

In this article Pentland shares the secrets of his findings and shows how anyone can engineer a great team. He has identified three key communication dynamics that affect performance: energy, engagement, and exploration. Drawing from the data, he has precisely quantified the ideal team patterns for each. Even more significant, he has seen that when teams map their own communication behavior over time and then make adjustments that move it closer to the ideal, they can dramatically improve their performance.