committee work?

Last Tuesday, I am on the highway driving home from work during rush hour and yabadabadoo three cars go barreling past me. The speed limit is 55 mph, the traffic is flowing at 65 mph, and these three cretins must have been going at least 85, zooming in and out of traffic lanes like it was a video game slalom race. The only thing worse than yahoos like that is the slowpoke driver in the center lane, plodding along, seemingly oblivious to the fact that they are being passed on the left and the right. According to an article on traffic flow, the major cause for traffic jams is due to people passing other cars. Passing cars cause slowdowns because people will invariably press on their brakes when someone passes them in tight quarters, causing a cascade of brake lights throughout the pack of cars which results in slower traffic flow.

Some drivers are fast, some slow, some suffer road rage, some are asleep at the wheel, while others are only casually involved because they are busy talking on their cell phone…while the ideal situation is everyone moving at the same pace with a vigilant, high-level of attention. Fat chance.

Have you ever worked on a committee that suffered from a traffic jam driven by conflicting personalities or opposing agendas? Or worse yet, spent copious amounts of time on a committee that yielded a product that resembled an accident more than the outcome from a logically considered strategic analysis? Committees are supposed to collect the insight from a range of stakeholders and arrive at a solution that surpasses the ability of an individual working alone.

Unfortunately, collaboration has no philosophical heritage in Western Civilization (Miles & Miles, 1999).

Given that statement, the implementation of the Professional Learning Community paradigm needs very careful consideration (but that is a tangent to be explored at a later date). Committees characterized by collaboration and consensus is in conflict with our philosophical heritage. Malcolm Gladwell, refers to research by a psychologist working for IBM’s Human Resources department, Geert Hofstede, that supports this conclusion. One of the “Hofstede Dimensions” is individualism vs. collectivism and data shows that Americans score the highest on the character trait of individualism when compared to other countries.

A positive spin on that is that if your committee has an individual with expertise, then that should produce quality decisions. Unfortunately, Libby, Trotman and Zimmer (1987) find that the inability of the groups to recognize expertise in group members results in the failure to capitalize on the expert knowledge. Often the extrovert controls the conversation and not the expert. If the collaboration occurs at the direction of whomever happens to initially gain control of the conversation, then it takes a socially courageous individual to buck the trend. Think Henry Fonda in the Twelve Angry Men.

There are many flaws that can interfere with the success of group work. Bernard Bass’s study on leadership finds that successful collaboration may be hindered by social loafing and groupthink. James Surowiecki’s book, The Wisdom of Crowds, investigates the problems inherent in group work. He defines groupthink as a consensus reached without the benefit of an articulated debate of ideas and options. Surowiecki states that conformity can result from social momentum or it may occur because alternative ideas are not available; “imitation is a kind of rationale response to our own cognitive limits” (p. 54). Throw in "confirmation bias", which is when we unconsciously only seek the information that conforms to our underlying intuitions, and we have the scenario for a pretty limited decision.

An “information cascade” is another problem inherent to group work. We have all experienced the situation where a grand idea is introduced and other members of the committee respond in unison with information in support of the idea. There is a primitive delight in this manner of escalation, similar to adding more wood to a campfire until there is a huge blazing bonfire. Surowiecki states that during an information cascade people will ignore their individual insight in order to join the herd, contributing to a sequence of uninformed choices. What happened to the beautiful blending of expert opinions?

All that sounds pretty gloomy, but there is hope; after all Surowiecki’s book is titled the Wisdom of the Crowds. He refers to research on small group dynamics (p. 176) that shows success is achieved when there is a clear agenda, all members give input, and attention is given to the nuances of each members‘ personal insight. Surowiecki states that the best strategy to maximize the insight of each group member is to have each person offer judgments independently and simultaneously (as in write down your top three candidates for the new position), and then aggregate the responses. A discussion or debate then can begin with each member having their own opinion to work from. This helps avoid an information cascade along one line of reasoning.

A divergent opinion can only be value-added if it is expressed. A great example of this phenomenon is provide by Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers. Commercial aircraft are designed so that it takes more than one pilot to run the plane. The strategy being that the second pilot can inform the captain of any malfunctions or errors. However, this only works if there is open communication. The data of airplane crashes around the world shows that most airplane crashes occur when the captain is flying and the second pilot does not convey clearly the pending trouble or is intimidated and fails to explicating inform the captain of the pending disaster.

“In small groups, diversity of opinion is the single best guarantee that the group will reap the benefits from face-to-face discussion” (Surowiecki, p. 183).

Face-to-face discussion is the forum that supports the formation of a committee in the first place. If you don’t need face-to-face real-time discussion (where people can readily sense the emotional impact of their ideas/opinions), then just solicit ideas via an email or some form of web-based document editing process. Diversity of opinion is good. “One of the real dangers that small groups face is emphasizing consensus over dissent” (p. 180). Consensus without consideration of conflicting opinions can result in a sheltered forum which produces a decision that can not withstand the harsh realities of implementation in a diverse workplace. It is much better to have an idea fail to withstand scrutiny in a committee than fail in its implementation. Surowiecki does caution about “group polarization” where dissent radicalizes points of view rather than moderating them (Again, think of the movie, Twelve Angry Men and the last holdout in the debate).

Committee work may suffer from road rage, backseat drivers, or incompetent navigation. But Surowiecki offers hope that with a clear agenda/roadmap and an intentional inspection of independent viewpoints, then small group decision-making can be a successful journey. Have a nice trip.

Make a good day,
Tod

PS. Bass, B. M. (1998). Transformational leadership: Industrial, military, and educational impact. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

PSS. Gladwell, M. ((2008). Outliers: The story of success. New York: Little, Brown and Company.

PSSS. Libby, R. Trotman, K. & Zimmer, I. (1987). Member variation, recognition of expertise, and group performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 72(1), 81-87.

PSSSS. Miles, R. & Miles, G. (1999). Leadership and collaboration. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Inc.

PSSSSS. Surowiecki, J (2004) The wisdom of crowds: Why the many are smarter than the few and how collective wisdom shapes business, economics, societies, and nations. New York: Doubleday.

PSSSSSS. Clip of Fred Flintstone’s commute:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s13X66BFd8

PSSSSSSS: Twelve Angry Men trailer:http://www.tcm.com/mediaroom/index.jsp?cid=95851