The Secrets of Group Emotional Intelligence

“Coming together is a beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”
Henry Ford

Have you ever worked on a team (e.g., task force or committee) that really worked effectively?

Just how well a group performs on a wide range of different tasks is a way to define and measure “collective group intelligence” or “C”.

Who Are Really the Leaders in Groups?

In two very recent studies by Cameron Anderson at UC Berkeley, dominant leaders appeared to achieve influence in their groups in part because they were seen as more competent by fellow group members ((Anderson, C., & Kilduff, G. (2009). Why do dominant personalities attain influence in groups? A competence-signaling account of personality dominance. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 96, 491-503)).

To measure task competence they included ratings of task expertise and general cognitive abilities. To measure social competence they included ratings of leadership and verbal skills by observers.  They used a set of group exercises that was designed to be engaging and evoke a lot of discussion.  After all group sessions had been conducted, outside observers watched a videotape of the sessions and rated group members on the same dimensions on which group members rated each other.

Consistently, the group members who spoke up the most were rated the highest for such qualities as “general intelligence” and “dependable and self-disciplined.”  The ones who didn’t speak as much tended to score higher for less desirable traits, including “conventional and uncreative.”

These findings suggest that dominant individuals (social, talkative, confident) may emerge as early leaders in group settings by appearing helpful to the group’s overall success as opposed to aggressively grabbing power. It seems that dominance leads to influence at least in part because it entails more confident and initiative-taking behaviors. An overwhelming 94% of the time, the groups in the study used the first answer anyone shouted out — mostly ignoring the ideas of others even if they were actually better. 

Anderson and his colleagues also designed a second study to evaluate if it was possible that people who talked more did so because they simply had more to contribute.  They found that people who spoke up more were again more likely to be described by other group members as “leaders” and likely to be rated as competent in the task they were working on.   Being more verbal and assertive seemed to signal “leadership presence” to the other group members initially.

Two longitudinal studies (7 weeks) explored leadership dynamics in unstructured groups in which participants were strangers. The study individuals were subsequently rated negatively by the group as a result of arrogance and high-handedness at the end of the 7 week period ((Paulhaus, D. (1998).  Interpersonal and intrapsychic adaptiveness of trait self-enhancement: A mixed blessing? Journal of Applied Psychology, 74, 197-208)).  These findings suggest that just acting confident and speaking up seem to be the initial ingredients for the emergence of leadership but fade in the end.

So, if being outgoing, energetic and socially oriented help to be viewed being a leader and being too talkative over time erodes the perception of effectiveness, will these qualities in all team members tell us what team emotional intelligence is all about?

What are the Ingredients for “Collective Intelligence” in Groups?”

Anita Williams Woolley (Carnegie Mellon) and her colleagues from Union College and MIT conducted two recent studies to see whether “collective intelligence” exists and what is associated with it ((Williams Wolley, A et al. (2010).  Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups.  Science, 330, 686-688)).  They conducted two studies with 699 people working in groups of two to five on a wide variety of tasks (visual puzzles, brainstorming, making collective moral judgments, negotiations, architectural design game).

Here are some of their findings:

• Overall, they found that individual intelligence was a significant predictor of performance when these tasks were performed individually but not a significant predictor of group performance
• When both individual intelligence and collective intelligence are compared, “C” was a significant predictor of group/team performance and general intelligence was not

What Predicts Group/Collective Intelligence and What Does Not

It seems intuitive that group cohesion, satisfaction with the team and engagement would be pretty important for collective intelligence.  However, none of these were significant predictors of high performance.  Here are three that were:

• Group intelligence was significantly correlated with the average social sensitivity of group’s members measured by a common social and emotional intelligence face recognition test (Reading of the Mind in the Eyes)
• Group intelligence was inversely correlated with having dominant group members who spoke a lot—smarter groups had more equal distribution of “conversational turn-taking” in speaking
• Team intelligence was significantly associated with the number of women in the group but the finding in this studies suggested it was mediated by social sensitivity (women scored as a group higher on this than their male team members) 
  Group intelligence is inversely correlated with having dominant group members who spoke a lot

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How to Build High Collective Intelligent Groups

Based on research on team collective intelligence and performance, here are some tips and suggestions for building high performance teams:

1. Teach leaders to be better “process consultants” to foster and facilitate an equal participation of all group members.
2. Vote dominating group members “off the island” and create a more involvement oriented culture.
3. When selecting teams, look for personality factors of being extroverted (energetic, outgoing, positive affect) and emotionally and socially competent (e.g., interpersonal sensitivity, empathy).
4. Don’t be teased by hiring the “brightest” talent who scores high on traditional measures of general intelligence or “g”—remember, it’s not how smart you are that matters but how you are smart.
5. If you want innovative and creative solutions, create groups that are more similar than different in  terms of experience, stakeholder representation and background—only if you need the most “out of box” thinking should you create very different teams composed of highly different experiences, disciplines and personalities.
6. Select, cultivate and retain high performance women for team based cultures—particularly if they are high on interpersonal sensitivity.
7. Teach team members group process skills as well as collaboration, negotiation, influence and communication skills to enhance collective intelligence.

Jack Welch once said, “The team with the best players wins” but given the research it is probably more accurate to say that “The team with the right players wins”….Be well….

Ken Nowack

Kenneth Nowack, Ph.D. is a licensed psychologist (PSY13758) and President & Chief Research Officer/Co-Founder of Envisia Learning, is a member of the Consortium for Research on Emotional Intelligence in Organizations. Ken also serves as the Associate Editor of Consulting Psychology Journal: Practice and Research. His recent book Clueless: Coaching People Who Just Don’t Get It is available for free for a limited time by signing up for free blog updates (Learn more at our website)