Several months ago, I read a really good article in Harvard Business Review called "Begin with Trust" by Frances X. Frei and Anne Moriss. While the entire article is just outstanding, one of the statements really piqued my interest. I've had the article in a stack of papers on my desk, just waiting for the time to dig in a little deeper.
Here is the passage that I wanted to learn more about (with my own editorial comments in brackets):
Diversity can be a tremendous asset in today's marketplace, and the companies that get it right often enjoy powerful competitive tailwinds [Okay, I've heard that and the research that I've seen definitely backs up that statement].
But this advantage isn't automatic. Simply populating your team with diverse perspectives and experiences doesn't always translate into better performance [Interesting...please tell me more].
In fact, the uncomfortable truth is that diverse teams can underperform homogenous teams if they're not managed actively for differences among members [Whoa - now I need to read more].
The authors are referring to something known as the common information effect. Basically, whenever we are in a group (defined as two or more individuals), we tend to focus primarily (and at times, exclusively) on things we have in common. Allow me to illustrate with an example. Say there are three employees working in a group (#1, #2, and #3). The group has been tasked with hiring a new employee for the team. There are four candidates - A, B, C, and D.
All three employees interviewed the three candidates. However, let's look at two different scenarios. In the first scenario, each employee knows as much about the three candidates as the other two.
Worker #1 - A, B, C, D
Worker #2 - A, B, C, D
Worker #3 - A, B, C, D
In other words, the collective information about each candidate is shared equally amongst the three employees. In a perfect world, this would always be the case, but unfortunately we do not always have equal access to information as in this scenario. From a decision-making standpoint, however, the group should be able to come to a collective decision, as they all have the same knowledge of each candidate.
Let's look at the more realistic case, where each employee knows something unique about one or two of the candidates, through either personal experience working with that candidate in the past or through a recommendation from a trusted colleague or friend. Here is the breakdown of knowledge in this scenario:
Worker #1 - A, B, C
Worker #2 - B, C
Worker #3 - C, D, A
In this second scenario, information on candidate C is shared by all three workers, information on candidates A and B are shared by two workers, and only one worker (#3) has any personal knowledge or history with candidate D. According to the common information effect, the group of workers will spend the most time talking about candidate C and the least amount of time on candidate D. They will likely spend some time talking about candidates A and B, but it will be less than the time they spend on candidate C.
The four candidates in the first scenario, in which the group of workers is less diverse in their experience with the four candidates (they all share equal knowledge), will likely have the same chance of being discussed by the group during the hiring process. However, where the group of workers are more diverse (different background knowledge on each candidate), the discussion will be skewed more heavily towards candidates A, B, and C, with candidate C likely receiving the most attention.
I've never really thought about the common information effect, but as I read more about it, it makes sense. And I've perhaps witnessed examples of this group bias in my own experience. The natural follow-up question is this - what can leaders do to avoid falling into the common information trap? Surprisingly, increasing the size of the group only tends to make the common information effect worse! A laboratory-based study based upon the exact model that I described above (in this case, groups of undergraduate students were selecting a class President), the three-person group discussed 46% of the shared information but just 18% of the unshared information. Adding 3 more members to the group made this difference even worse.
So, if increasing the size of the group doesn't mitigate the common information effect, what does help? First and perhaps most importantly, team leaders have to be aware of the common information effect (and other group biases) and should monitor and manage the flow of information during group discussions. Similarly, leaders should make sure that everyone has a chance to speak up and participate. Studies have shown that in a five-person group, two people do more than 60% of the talking! Even in larger groups, a minority of the participants do most of the talking (in a six-person group, three people do 60% of the talking, while in an eight-person group, four people do 80% of the talking!).
Second, team leaders can help mitigate the common information effect by considering each alternative one at a time. Using our scenario above, rather than asking a generic question at the start of a meeting ("Who did you like best?"), the team leader could make sure that the group discusses each candidate at the start. Giving equal time to each candidate would help draw out more information on each one, particularly in the second scenario where not everyone shares equal information on the candidates.
Third, back to the article ("Begin with Trust") by Frei and Moriss, teams that are familiar with one another and, more importantly, trust one another typically make better decisions and avoid the common information effect. One way to build trust is to flatten the hierarchy. Team leaders should try to minimize status differences between individual members of the group - one of the best ways to flatten the hierarchy is to refer to each member by his or her first name, avoiding the use of titles as much as possible.
Lastly, a meta analysis of 94 studies involving over 5,500 groups suggested that teams that met virtually, as opposed to face-to-face, were less prone to the common information effect. In other words, holding a virtual meeting increased the sharing of unique information! Given what we have learned over the course of the pandemic with holding most meetings virtually, I found that surprising!
Clearly, I have a lot to learn about how groups can work together more effectively. It's not something that is taught in medical school for sure, but at least in my personal experience, it was not taught in business school either. Given the importance of group dynamics in almost every aspect of medicine today, perhaps we should rethink how we prioritize and teach how to work well in groups?
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