2006

What makes a multidisciplinary team work well?

Some studies in the past have suggested that having diverse disciplines in teams can actually be a drawback, particularly if the team fragments into cliques.

New research by Doris Fay at Aston University suggests that diverse teams do actually come up with more innovations – but the quality of those innovations is dependent on effective group processes being in place, including: all team members being committed to the same cause; everyone
in the team being listened to; the team reflecting on its own
effectiveness; and there being plenty of contact between team members.

Research reported in the BPS Research Digest blog (recommended!)

If you would like some tips on effective group processes for your team, download our Checklist For An Emotionally Intelligent Team.

What thinking about money does to you

Recently I attended a talk by a wealth coach about the differences between what rich people believe and what poor people believe.

Much of the talk was in the form of questions followed by the "correct" answers, as in: "Would you rather have more money, or more time with your family and friends? Would you rather have more money, or more spirituality?… Rich people say ‘I want both!’"

To me the talk came across as sneering at poor people, and making rich people feel better about themselves. I wasn’t sure that much of it was based on any kind of evidence, and today I came across some research (by Kathleen D Vohs of the University of Minnesota) which suggested a different conclusion – that even thinking about money  tends to make you more independent, but also more selfish.

There’s an article about this research, plus earlier some earlier studies that back it up, by JohnJoe McFadden in the Guardian today.

The original research, The Psychological Consequences Of Money, is published in Science magazine:


Money has been said to change people’s motivation (mainly for the better) and their behavior toward others (mainly for the worse). The results of nine experiments suggest that money brings about a self-sufficient orientation in which people prefer to be free of dependency and dependents. Reminders of money, relative to nonmoney reminders, led to reduced requests for help and reduced helpfulness toward others. Relative to participants primed with neutral concepts, participants primed with money preferred to play alone, work alone, and put more physical distance between themselves and a new acquaintance.

Meetings – thought for the day

In most meetings, pride or caution still forbids one to say what one feels most deeply.

– Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History Of Humanity

I think he’s talking about ‘meetings’ in the sense of everyday human encounters, but it’s probably at least as true about business meetings.

Expressing yourself – thought for the day

… freedom is not just a matter of rights, to be expressed in law. The right to express yourself still leaves you with the need to decide what to say, to find someone to listen, and to make your words sound beautiful; these are skills which need to be acquired.

– Theodore Zeldin, An Intimate History of Humanity

This is the book I’m reading at the moment, and I highly recommend it. Zeldin has an amazing talent for creating profound aphorisms – sometimes two or three to a page!

Elephants Join The Self-Awareness Club

Very few animals can recognise their own image in a mirror – a crucial test of how self-aware they are. It used to be thought that this ability was only possessed by humans and the great apes. More recently dolphins have been found to recognise themselves. Now we find that elephants can do it too.

In the video attached to this New Scientist article, an elephant tries to touch a mark painted on its head  (where it can only be seen in the mirror). Previous experiments to measure the self-awareness of elephants have failed because the mirrors weren’t big enough.

Emotional ambivalence fuels creativity

I found this item on the excellent management-issues.com web site:

People who are emotionally ambivalent – simultaneously feeling
positive and negative emotions – tend to be more creative in the
workplace than those who feel just happy or sad, or lack emotion at
all, according to a new study.

That’s because people who feel
mixed emotions interpret the experience as a signal that they are in an
unusual environment and respond to it by drawing on their creative
thinking abilities, according to Christina Ting Fong, an assistant
professor at the University of Washington Business School.

This
increased sensitivity for recognising unusual associations, which happy
or sad workers probably couldn’t detect, is what leads to creativity in
the workplace, she says.

Get the full story here.

I do wonder what results they would have got if they had looked at levels of excitement, rather than whether the respondents were happy, sad, neutral or ambivalent.

“Realism” versus “unrealistic optimism”? Hooey!

Julie Kay’s article in her Leading Questions blog about Marcus Buckingham’s new book “The One Thing You Need To Know” made me think: (Buckingham) argues that recent research shows that realism in our self-assessment can hinder our performance while unrealistic self-assurance fosters enhanced performance. He describes studies where children from lower socioeconomic sectors of society

Social Intelligence – new book by Daniel Goleman

Social Intelligence: The New Science of Human Relationships on September 28th. The concept of ‘social awareness’ (first proposed by Edward Thorndike in 1920 but ploughed under by psychologists pushing the IQ model) goes beyond the ‘social awareness’ part of Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence model to look at how people behave in social situations.  Because it’s about

Positive emotions are good for you – and here’s the research!

There’s an excellent article by psychologist Barbara Fredrickson downloadable in PDF form here.

Fredrickson is a leading figure in the positive psychology movement but
isn’t referred to much in the EI world – more’s the pity as her
research is throwing up some very valuable insights. Her ‘broaden and build‘ theory suggests that positive emotions, even if experienced only briefly, expand our emotional reserves and help us to get through difficult times.

If I was taking a Daily Mail sensationalist headline-writing approach to Fredrickson’s work, I would have titled it

Positive Emotions Are Better For You Than Giving Up Smoking!

This is indeed one of the findings she quotes, along with:

Positive Emotions Help You Make Better Decisions

Positive Emotions Make You A Better Negotiator

and Positive Emotions Ward Off Heart Disease!

The article is well worth reading.

Emotional intelligence linked to success for female senior managers

A
study of female senior managers has found those who are more likely to
influence change and make their mark on the companies they work for
show higher emotional intelligence (EI) and have a more intuitive
decision-making style.

Conducted by Swinburne University’s Centre for Neuropsychology, the
study assessed 176 female managers on their leadership style, emotions,
behaviour, and emotional intelligence. The managers worked in diverse
industries including education, finance, healthcare, human resources
and telecommunications. [more information here]

This comes as no surprise! If you would like to enhance your emotional intelligence, you may want to consider a good NLP Practitioner course…

Emotional Intelligence coaching

Coaching for Emotional Intelligence

How To Bring Emotional Intelligence To Any Situation Emotions are often overlooked in decision-making. At work we like to think that we make decisions on purely rational grounds. In practice, emotions have an enormous impact on the decision making process, because: We can use the Goleman/Boyatzis Emotional and Social Competence Inventory’s ‘four-quadrant’ model of emotional intelligence

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