The prevailing view is that diverse teams confer distinct advantages to the workplace, yielding superior outcomes. However, it is worth noting that teams assembled on the basis of complementary traits among their members tend to be more cohesive and amicable. Nevertheless, such teams run the risk of disregarding dissenting perspectives, potentially foregoing optimal solutions.
A new study from WHU—Otto Beisheim School of Management and the WZB Berlin Social Science Center explores whether these assumptions hold up and finds that both self-selected teams and those assembled at random can both bring certain advantages.
Birds of a feather
Human beings have an inherent inclination towards working alongside colleagues who share their sensibilities. However, in homogenous teams, the majority opinion tends to carry the day, leading to suboptimal decisions and overlooked problem-solving approaches. Recent studies have demonstrated that more diverse teams exhibit greater motivation, productivity, creativity, and risk awareness. The logical conclusion, therefore, is for employers to form diverse teams, right? Not necessarily.
Many companies have embraced agile working practices to increase their internal flexibility, including the option for employees to self-select their collaborators for specific tasks. The goal of this “self-selection” process is to promote stronger team identification among employees, which can boost productivity and yield better results.
However, building diverse teams directly conflicts with humans’ natural tendency to surround themselves with like-minded individuals who share their interests, personality traits, and abilities. This tendency, known as “homophily,” is encapsulated by the adage “birds of a feather flock together,” and can lead to overemphasizing homogeneity and overlooking diversity among members of self-selected teams.
Successful teams
An experiment was conducted in which participants were paired up for a two-month period to complete various tasks. Half of the participants were given the freedom to choose their partners, while the other half were randomly assigned. As expected, those who were able to self-select their partners tended to gravitate towards those with similar cognitive abilities and of the same sex, reflecting our human tendency towards homophily. On the other hand, the randomly assigned teams were more diverse in terms of cognitive abilities and gender.
The study revealed that the method of team assembly had a significant impact on the results of the tasks. Each pair was required to complete two different assignments: a written worksheet and a short video presentation. While the randomly assigned teams performed better in the written task, the self-selected teams outshone their counterparts in the video presentation.
It was found that self-selected teams tend to excel in tasks that require a high degree of coordination and teamwork, as their homogeneity allows for quicker agreement and understanding between members. In contrast, randomly assigned teams were more effective in tasks where individual abilities were of greater importance and little coordination was needed.
Furthermore, the randomness of team composition ensured that there was at least one highly capable individual in the group for tasks that required individual skills. This was not always the case with self-selected teams, as two weaker participants with comparable cognitive abilities could be paired up just as easily as two stronger ones.
