Group items tagged

From the post: "For de Groot, this failure was a revelation, since it suggested that talent wasn't about memory - it was about perception. The grandmasters didn't remember the board better than amateurs. Rather, they saw the board better, instantly translating the thirty-two chess pieces into a set of meaningful patterns. They didn't focus on the white bishop or the black pawn, but instead grouped the board into larger strategies and structures, such as the French Defense or the Reti Opening."

Summary: "Although groups are initially "wise," knowledge about estimates of others narrows the diversity of opinions to such an extent that it undermines the wisdom of crowd effect in three different ways. The "social influence effect" diminishes the diversity of the crowd without improvements of its collective error. The "range reduction effect" moves the position of the truth to peripheral regions of the range of estimates so that the crowd becomes less reliable in providing expertise for external observers. The "confidence effect" boosts individuals' confidence after convergence of their estimates despite lack of improved accuracy. Examples of the revealed mechanism range from misled elites to the recent global financial crisis."

Summary: "The scores of successful virtual teams the authors examined didn't have many of the psychological and practical obstacles that plagued their more traditional, face-to-face counterparts. Team members felt freer to contribute--especially outside their established areas of expertise. The fact that such groups could not assemble easily actually made their projects go faster, as people did not wait for meetings to make decisions, and individuals, in the comfort of their own offices, had full access to their files and the complementary knowledge of their local colleagues. Reaping those advantages, though, demanded shrewd management of a virtual team's work processes and social dynamics. Rather than depend on videoconferencing or e-mail, which could be unwieldy or exclusionary, successful virtual teams made extensive use of sophisticated online team rooms, where everyone could easily see the state of the work in progress, talk about the work in ongoing threaded discussions, and be reminded of decisions, rationales, and commitments. Differences were most effectively hashed out in teleconferences, which team leaders also used to foster group identity and solidarity."

What is better: more or less freedom to work where and when people want

A review of the literature on self-managed or self-directed work groups lends itself to the fact that more and more organizations are changing as a more competitive global society emerges. As a result, individual, team, and organizational roles are much different now than they were even twenty years ago. In order to stay competitive, organizations must allow themselves to evolve. By tapping into an ever present resource, their employees, the organization gains a wealth of expertise, enabling them to transform externally and, as a result, transforms internally to a healthier work environment. In spite of the challenges, self-managed work groups are an obvious win-win solution in our ever changing environment.