Group Behaviors
Recognize that groups can have a dramatic impact on individual behavior in organizations, to either positive or negative effect. Therefore, pay special attention to roles, norms, and cohesion — to understand how these are operating within a group is to understand how the group is likely to behave.
To decrease the possibility of deviant workplace activities, ensure that group norms do not support antisocial behavior.
Pay attention to the status aspect of groups. Because lower-status people tend to participate less in group discussions, groups with high status differences are likely to inhibit input from lower-status members and reduce their potential.
Use larger groups for fact-finding activities and smaller groups for action-taking tasks. With larger groups, provide measures of individual performance.
To increase employee satisfaction, make certain people perceive their job roles accurately.
Diverse Work Groups Are Smarter and More Innovative
Point
Birds of a feather flock together, but when it comes to business, it may be better for pigeons to flock with crows. Employees may feel more comfortable working with people who are similar to them, but this comfort may come at the cost of success.
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Time after time, research demonstrates that more diverse companies have the most success. A global analysis of 2,400 companies demonstrated that the presence of at least one female employee on an executive board leads to higher net income growth and return on equity. Diversity at lower levels of the organization may also be helpful: Companies with more diverse work groups have higher financial returns than companies with fewer minority or female employees.
Diverse groups think smarter. When people are asked to work with people who are different from them, they are forced out of their comfort zone, leading to more critical thinking and innovation. In mock juries, for example, more ethnically heterogenous juries made more accurate decisions and supported their decisions with more facts from the case. Teams of heterogenous financial professionals also performed better on tasks where they were asked to price stocks in a stock market simulation. In addition, a recent analysis of research and design teams in Spain found that teams with greater gender diversity created more innovative products. Other types of diversity may also be beneficial. In a murder mystery task, groups with a mix of organizational tenure were more likely to guess the correct suspect. When cultural diversity of businesses in the United Kingdom were analyzed, more culturally diverse leadership teams created more new products.
So the next time you’re worried about working with someone you don’t have a lot in common with, remember the words of Maya Angelou: “In diversity there is beauty and there is strength.”
Counterpoint
There is some evidence that having diverse leadership may benefit companies. What about the research showing that diversity is linked to lower employee morale and well-being, slower decision making, and increased conflict? Organizations with more diverse work groups are also more likely to be sued for discrimination.
Sometimes more diverse tasks can boost innovation and critical thinking skills, but those advantages may not be worth forcing employees to work with people they feel uncomfortable with. When employees are forced to participate in diversity initiatives, it can lead to more stress. Over half feel that they have to modify their behavior significantly to feel like they fit in. If employees try to act like their peers rather than acknowledging their differences, it doesn’t just lead to stress. Research has shown that any advantages on task creativity disappear when team members don’t openly discuss and acknowledge their differing backgrounds.
Even if employees feel comfortable enough to express themselves, that’s no guarantee that they will actually get along. Group members with diverse racial, gender, and educational backgrounds might have a slight advantage over homogenous groups in some tasks. Yet they can be less effective when group members have different values. When group members have different values because, for example, they have different cultural backgrounds, it may be difficult for the group to overcome these differences.
It may be tempting to think that a diverse team is better, but remember, there’s a reason like attracts like.
