When Groups Don’t Think

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Failure to recognize innovation from within the ranks is a surprisingly common group pitfall. Bias in favor of ideas from afar tends to trump internal solidarity: Executives hire consultants to tell them what their employees have been saying all along; researchers derogate their own innovations while trumpeting similar strides made by rival labs; and companies abandon projects only to revive them once competitors make similar forays (as Xerox did, to no great effect).

In a culture that celebrates individualism and rewards innovation, members of a group are understandably hesitant to cooperate with, even acknowledge, the good ideas of “internal rivals”—that is, their own colleagues. “Learning from an outside competitor can be much less psychologically painful than learning from a colleague who is a direct rival for promotions and other rewards,” behavioral scientist Tanya Menon and her coauthors write in Management Science (Aug. 2006).

We take our cues from outsiders at the expense of internal creativity and faith in our own teams. “You lose your ability to internally generate innovation,” Menon told University of Chicago. “You lose your ability to be a thought leader.”

It sounds almost too simple, but Menon’s research demonstrates that doing even a basic self-affirming exercise—such as listing personal skills and accomplishments before heading into a group meeting—dramatically enhances people’s ability to share the limelight with colleagues.

Such an exercise grounds individuals and restores self-worth, which would be far easier to hang on to if not for envy, a prevalent and “invisible destructive force” in groups, according to psychologist Judith Sills. “Envy is so socially undesirable that we disguise it from ourselves,” she explains in Psychology Today (Sept.-Oct. 2008). If you find that you dislike someone, but can’t quite explain why, if you’re critical of qualities that didn’t bother you before, or if you credit someone else’s success to special privileges, it might be time to look in the mirror.

Guarding against the downfalls of group work is well worth the effort. Groups can be smarter and more innovative than individuals working alone, Stuart writes. People are capable of pushing one another to greater heights. All it takes is coming to the table armed with knowledge of where groups derail. As Sills writes, “You can’t pull a weed unless you can spot it.”

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print