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Do you know the feeling at the end of your holiday you spent with a group?
That was fun. Glad it is over. Let’s do this again sometime.
I’ve done some fantastic organized travel tours. Traveling for a month with people you have never met before through a strange continent.
Awesome.
At first everyone is on his own. Getting comfortable in the group setting.
Over time a cohesive group occurs. You find out you have common hobbies, know the same people, went to the same college. You also learn about the different backgrounds, life stories that make the people who they are. Great stuff when you are drinking beer in the dessert.
In the end you shake hands and say goodbye. Just before little annoyances become big problems. Just on time.
It was fun. Looking forward to the next trip.
Groups are temporary.
There is a point when groups are created and when they collapse.
Projects are interventions in a larger organization. After your project is finished things have changed. You altered structures, processes and people’s lives inside the host organization.
You do this with a temporary team: the project team.
You do this with a temporary organizational structure: the project.
While creating change in the host organization, people will push back to the project. People will interrupt. People will ask question. People will have strong opinions.
While creating change, the environment changes too. Reality is different than we thought it would be.
A group has to be able to cope with adjustments while still being able to perform its function. It has to have resilience. Resilience is the ability for a system (like a group of people) to absorb disturbances and still maintain its function.
In my view there are three balances that create resilience in groups. This are delicate balances. Unstable balances.
It’s hard to maintain the right balance, and that’s why a resilient group is always of a temporary nature.
The three balances are:
- Diversity – Homogeneity
- Open Mind – Closed Mind
- Public Information Flow – Private Information Flow (or Transparency – Secretiveness)
A resilient group has these balances right.
But.
The balances are unstable. You can only make it last a little longer. You cannot create it forever.
It is temporary. Always.
Balance One: Diversity – Homogeneity.
There is a delicate balance in groups. One of homogeneity vs cognitive diversity. (“Homogeneous (adjective) means consisting of parts or people which are similar to each other or are of the same type.” Wikipedia)
Cognitive diversity creates different viewpoints, different ways of problem solving, other ways of looking at the world in general. This clash of perspectives produces creative solutions. Diversity creates resilience.
Cultural diversity can provide different interpretations of situations. The difference is upbringing, history and personal experiences shape your brain, color your views, create your filters. It’s not the cultural diversity per se that is of importance, it’s the resulting cognitive diversity that is of essence.
Homogeneity makes sure the group operates as one. Providing a common understanding, shared beliefs and having a culture ensures the group stays together in rough times and communicates effectively.
But it’s a delicate balance.
Too much bonding creates exclusion from outsiders, the bullying of deviants, resistance to change and a strong risk of groupthink.
Too much diversity can cause a lack of coherence and low social support.
Why is this balance hard to maintain?
In general people prefer like minded people. In an environment that changes this means that homogeneous groups would become larger. It is more comfortable to be among “your own people”. So, a changing environment the natural balance would shift toward homogeneity.
Homogeneous closed social systems become less and less resilient. Because of their lack of diversity and lack of outside feedback. When the environment keeps on changing, these groups will collapse. These social systems cannot perform their function under the new conditions.
On the other side, if all the members of the group focus on their being different from the rest to become comfortable (deviancy), the lack of bonding will cause the collapse.
In the next post I will describe the other balances.
Bas, great and is very well- explained. The team stages of forming, storming, norming and performing all fall within the context of your explanation. The four stages exist TOGETHER and that is why balancing them is a very delicate task, as you rightfully explained.
This post also shows the panarchy of teams with resilience, connectedness and growth forming the three boundary dimensions of the cube, which accommodates the seed panarchy.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Bas de Baar and Dave Garrett, RedBow Software. RedBow Software said: Three Balances For Resilient Groups. Why Every Group Will Collapse. http://bit.ly/dOQ8td [...]
For people looking for some background, I encourage you to read
http://www.slideshare.net/hudali15/blue-ocean-strategy-balanced-scorecard-strategy-and-team-forming-a-shared-perspective
by Ali, which puts the stages of teams forming, storming, norming and performing and the context of balancing forces, among a lot of other things mentioned in this post and comments.
Great stuff.
Bas,
An idea just crossed my mind. If you consider three balances for resilience then you may show resilience in a cube form. If your forthcoming posts of the two other balances are balances of three opposing factors as well then you may show each type of balance again in a cube form. This way you have three cubes (balls) and you have to balance them while standing on a fragile piece of wood that is shaking on a fast-moving waters. The ball sizes change with time as they scale up making balancing them even harder.
A crazy idea!
That’s not such a crazy idea
These 3 dimension are the ones I consider for resilience. So a cube can be drawn and may work as a good illustration. will give it a spin.
I think I also have to stretch my main underlying point about stress and comfort. If a system is under stress (group/person), it can only stand so much. It will search for a comfort situation without stress. Hence the last part of the post about the unstability of the balance.
The solution to creating and maintaining the balance over time can be found in setting boundaries so that a “comfort zone” is created.
What I call: border control
http://www.gantthead.com/blog/The-Project-Shrink/2672/
Hope that makes sense.
Great post, Bas, as always.
But I’d like to ask you how you fit this into longer project teams or even fixed functional teams on organizations. The context is different but they are teams just the same. And sometimes you get a great team working together with no turnover… are those the ones that get their balance right? Or do you figure that in longer periods of time there are other dynamics at play?
Hi Luis,
Great question and kind words
In my view it’s the stress of change that makes people searching for their comfort zone.
The more stress/change/volatile the environment, the more prominent this mechanism.
This kind of projects (as interventions) is more like a SEAL team dropped in a hot zone. Get in, do you thing and get out
So there might be the difference.
The trick to delay the collapse is I my opinion the creation of “comfort zones”, cultures people feel comfortable in…
(see http://www.shrinkonia.com/sukkah-projects-as-supporting-temporary-structures-3754.html )
So, either the environment is not that volatile, or they have mastered the art of “boundary control”
or they really got their balance right… I mean, it might happen.
Although I still think, there is a time limit to every group
Hope this makes some sense… What do you think?
Note to Self: the stress causes comfort on polar ends of the dimension.
[...] de Baar writes about resilient groups, and why every group will collapse. Except ZZ Top, of course; the same three guys playing the [...]
Luis and Bas,
Great discussion on the effects on fixed functional teams. In my experience, Bas’s mention of “comfort zones” in proportion to environment volatility has merit. I had a past experience managing a high performing technical team where the greater environment surrounding the team was very volatile and stressful but the immediate management and team structure was fixed for about five years. A few people came in and out in that five span, but the core team of five to six people, myself, my reporting manager and their reporting manager were fixed. One of the biggest challenges, mostly as a reaction from the external organizational stresses was the ever creeping negative of group-think. I wrote about the effects of group-think on teams here: http://bit.ly/WyjDH
Additionally, once my reporting manager was replaced with a new manager that, coming in, didn’t have the perceived background nor domain competence, the whole team dismantled over the course of a few months, myself included.
ifbauer, I really enjoyed your comment. Dismantling of teams after five years of formation might not be that harmful for fear of groupthink. But, I liked your approach of mixing fixed and variable team members.
I published a presentation earlier today entitled “Buried ideas singing loudly”, in which I discussed impact of stress and sweet stress. I wish I had read your lovely comment before. Anyway, the link of my presentation is
http://www.slideshare.net/hudali15/buried-ideas-singing-loudly
Ali Anani,
Thanks for the positive feedback … upon re-reading my comment, I should have been more clear. Group-think was an increasing challenge during the tenure of the team, not related to the breakup. As a reaction to increasing stress on the team, the team had a tendency to trend towards group-think as a way to relate to the familiar yet uncontrollable dysfunctional external environment.
jfbauer
I thank you for the clarification, which made things clear. Your response opened a second inquiry: if external pressures increase then a group must be more resilient to cope with the pressure. If not and the group becomes more rigid then it would disintegrate under pressure. Groupthink in my opinion is a form of rigidity and this might have accelerated the disintegration of the group. Do you agree?
Hi John,
So glad you mention this … “As a reaction to increasing stress on the team, the team had a tendency to trend towards group-think as a way to relate to the familiar yet uncontrollable dysfunctional external environment.”
Exactly what I meant! And yes, I truly believe the answer lies in comfort zones.
And thanks for the link, good read!
@Ali: I agree.
Ali Anani,
As you describe the link between group-think, rigidity and team disintegration, my initial reaction is that group-think became a byproduct of a somewhat rigid team trying to cope with a highly politically charged dysfunctional environment. In reflecting back on that experience, I believe the team trend towards group-think was largely dismissed internally as a venting or stress relieving escape. Clearly, all these elements contributed to the eventual break up of the team.
One note: I am more of an engineering mind, thus I try (struggle) to use logic to explain these far from logical emotional and behavioral events.
Hi John,
I really appreciate your openness. Yes, a group under pressure will look for methods to vent out the frustration resulting from this pressure. How, as an engineer, you definitely know there exist a sweet point beyond which stress reduces productivity. Less productivity leads to less happiness and engagement of the employees and even less productivity. This is a vicious circle.
But also you realize that some causes lead to bigger effect because of feedback mechanism. I think that in addition to your very sensible analysis is that negative feeling accelerated and became uncontrollable. That hastened the breakup of the team
Causes have effects that grow at different rates. In your case the effects grew exponentially leading to even less rigidity
I thank you John for your very constructive comments
Hi John
In my previous comment I wrote
Causes have effects that grow at different rates. In your case the effects grew exponentially leading to even less rigidity
Bas,
Help. The comments are sent in part. I meant more rigidity and less flexibility. Only half of my comment was posted!!
[...] This blog post from Bas de Baar explores the dynamic of resilient project team building. [...]
[...] Three Balances For Resilient Groups. Why Every Group Will Collapse. by Bas De Baar at Project [...]
I loved this post, I am going to school to get my BA in Psych and I am doing a paper about Child Sexual Abuse and Psychoeducational information and resilience groups. This info was very helpful, i still have one question, becasue we have to talk about diversity, age and ethics.
What does age has to do in a resilience group? Would that be included in diversity?
Hey Rosa, thanks for your comment. This site is about projects and how groups of people can work in a changing environment (resilient). In our case, yes that could be included in the diversity (although I am more concerned about cognitive diversity). But I really would not know how much overlap there would be with your area of expertise.
I think you are looking for information about “resilience groups”.