Talk Isn’t Cheap
Team Energy and Engagement are the Key Factors that Influence Productivity
A young software company’s managers wanted to improve team communication and decided to host “beer meets.” They were ineffective. So they tried another tactic. They made lunchroom tables in the office cafeteria longer and, voilà, team communication vastly improved. Why? The longer tables made more room so strangers could sit next to each other. Employees had face-to-face conversations with folks they normally wouldn’t talk to. This may seem like a trivial improvement. But data shows that improved communication amongst team members and between teams determines performance. In a big way.
In the evolving field of team building science, researcher Alex Pentland is a pioneer. In his 2012 paper titled “The New Science of Building Great Teams” published in the Harvard Business Review, Pentland argues that communication is the key factor that influences a team’s productivity. Individual talent or reasoning matters far less than how effectively teams communicate. That may seem obvious, but Pentland argues that the big data he and his team collects allows for precise understandings that can inform successful interventions.
Although we can often intuit which teams click and which teams don’t, Pentland and his team developed sensors to quantify the previously un-quantifiable. The sensors are integrated into badges that employees wear for a set amount of time. These badges measure “sociometrics” or how people interact. The badges generate more than 100 data points per minute by measuring tone of voice, whether folks face each other, how much they gesture, talk, listen, interrupt and levels of extroversion and empathy.
In one study, researchers collected badge data from call center employees. The call center manager couldn’t figure out why some teams were performing better than other, seemingly similar, teams. The badge data showed that the call center teams’ communication patterns held the answer. The most productive teams, measured by customer Average Handling Time (AHT), gave more energy and engagement outside of formal meetings.
Energy is the number of interactions weighted by quality — face-to-face interactions are the highest quality, while email is the lowest. Engagement is the distribution of this energy amongst team members — the more evenly distributed, the better. “Together those two factors explained one-third of the variations in dollar productivity among groups,” concluded the researchers.
What could the call center manager do to improve energy and engagement in low performing teams?
The researchers suggested that the manager change the employees’ coffee break schedule so everyone could take a break at the same time. This idea, for a call center, seems counter-intuitive. Who would take the calls when everyone was on break? But the manager made the change and “AHT fell by more than 20% among lower-performing teams and decreased by 8% overall at the call center.” A huge productivity improvement, all from a bit of daily socializing. As a result, the manager said they would change the break schedule at all the call centers, with a total 25,000 employees, and predicts $15 million in productivity increases.
Who said talk is cheap?
In Pentland’s 2014 TED talk, he recognizes that “big data is creepy” but argues that “it finally gives us the data we need to understand human behaviour.” The biggest problem in the world, he explains, is how to get all of humanity to work together to overcome worldwide issues like climate change. Instead of succumbing to our base instincts, we need to work toward cultivating collective intelligence.
In social physics, Pentland’s field of study, scientists measure collective intelligence via idea flow. Big data analysis illuminates how ideas move through human networks. Equations based on emergent patterns can predict things like a teams’ productivity — even though the content, the ideas communicated, are unknown to the researchers. It’s not what you say, but how you say it, to whom and how often.
Pentland’s team found they could predict which business teams would be the most productive based on the energy, engagement and exploration metrics based on the badge data. From different case studies, they arrived at these indicators for successful teams:
- Everyone on the team talks and listens in roughly equal measure, keeping contributions short and sweet.
- Members face one another, and their conversations and gestures are energetic.
- Members connect directly with one another — not just with the team leader.
- Members carry on back-channel or side conversations within the team.
- Members periodically break, go exploring outside the team, and bring information back.
Pentland emphasizes that it is more important to learn how individuals communicate and “shape and guide the team so that it follows successful communication patterns” rather than to focus on finding folks with top GPAs. Yes, this flies in the face of traditional hiring practices. And we are here for it. Big data might be creepy but so is institutionalized discrimination. Quilian et al’s 2017 study found that “[s]ince 1990 white applicants received, on average, 36% more callbacks than black applicants and 24% more callbacks than Latino applicants with identical résumés.”
Hiring based on merit alone does not address structural inequality — and it also ironically hamstrings a team’s productivity. Research shows that uniform looking, and thinking, teams that arise from merit-only hiring practices often result in lower performing teams.
When you look around at your team, is it cognitively diverse? If so, great! Now think about your communication patterns in regards to energy and engagement. Does one person or only a few people give most of the energy in your team? Or does everyone contribute equally in group discussions and output? If creativity is essential in your industry, also look at exploration — how often team members spend energy gathering information outside of the team.
Creating a cognitively diverse team is one of the first steps towards cultivating high performing, collectively intelligent teams. The next focus is improving team communication that will, in turn, improve idea flow. Pentland’s research shows that productivity hinges on quality communication amongst team members, and their communication with other teams. This high quality, face-to-face communication creates relationships. However, it can be uncomfortable to talk face-to-face with people who have different ideas or who might not look like you.
Phillips et al dig into this difficulty in their 2009 study “To Disclose or Not to Disclose? Status Distance and Self-Disclosure in Diverse Environments.” They explain that “[o]pening yourself to others requires risk taking and trust, but without it employees are less likely to build the deeper relationships that lead both to success and to more happiness at work.” We know from Pentland that we need to improve communications, to improve relationships that lead to collective intelligence. But it can be hard. Phillips et al offer these tips to reduce the stress for both majority and minority racial group members:
- Structure
a. Recognize the role that structure can play in easing the discomfort created by free-form socializing. Instead of a cocktail party, consider structured ice breakers, introductions or a competitive team element.
b. In the context of managers discussing someone’s performance, appoint someone to keep an eye out for subjective comments that refer to social rather than work performance.
2. Learning
a. Adopt an organization wide learning orientation and mirror that on the individual level. For example, instead of asking if anyone watched a certain TV show last night, instead ask what folks are watching that they enjoy.
- Mentorship
a. Recognize that racial boundaries can be a real impediment to socializing and that impediment isn’t going to disappear overnight.
b. Create a buddy system of informal mentorship where more experienced employees help facilitate social relationships for new hires, particularly minorities. This role should also involve feedback.
c. Go easy on eachother, recognize how challenging this can be, give each other the benefit of the doubt.
The researchers emphasize that employees “don’t need to be “best friends”…but friendships tend to create happier workers and more-effective teams.” We can all move forward with intention in our teams and organizations — knowing that the process can be messy and challenging but worth the effort. Not just for higher productivity, but for an inclusive, curious, creative network where ideas flow. Now that is the kind of Monday I’m happy to wake up for.
Small World Solutions strives to help organizations create a diverse, vibrant and dynamic environment. We achieve this via our consulting philosophy, which is based on applied behavioral science, grounded in sound data and driven by human behavior psychology. Our New IQ framework will help your company cultivate the essential building blocks for an inclusive environment.
