“Understanding the reasons why individuals in larger teams in real work settings perform worse may be one key to implementing successful team management tactics in organizatioins.”
For decades, researchers have noted that mere changes in team size can change work-group processes and resulting performance. By studying 238 workers within 26 teams, ranging from three to 20 members in size, Mueller’s research replicates the general assertion that individuals in larger teams do perform worse, but she also offers an explanation for this conclusion. “Understanding the reasons
why individuals in larger teams in real work settings perform worse may be one key to implementing successful team management tactics in organizations, since research shows that managers tend to bias their team size toward overstaffing,” she writes. In addition, “individual performance losses are less about coordination activities and more about individuals on project teams developing quality relationships with one another as a means of increasing individual performance. Because research on teams in organizations has not examined team social support as an important intra-team process, future research should examine how team social support fits in with classic models of job design to buffer teams from negative influences and difficulties caused by larger team size.” But is there an optimal team size? Mueller has concluded, again, that it depends on the task. “If you have a group of janitors cleaning a stadium, there is no limit to that team; 30 will clean faster than five.” But, says Mueller, if companies are dealing with coordination tasks and motivational issues, and you ask, ‘What is your team size and what is
optimal?’ that correlates to a team of six. “Above and beyond five, and you begin to see diminishing motivation,” says Mueller. “After the fifth person, you look for cliques. And the number of people who speak at any one time? That’s harder to manage in a group of five or more.”
DIVERSITY: BAD FOR
COHESION? Klein’s recent research has looked at another confusing area when it comes to teams — the value of
diversity. Various theories suggest that diversity represented by gender, race and age leads to conflict and poor social integration — while various other studies suggest just the opposite. “The general assumption is that people like people who are similar to themselves, so there is a theory to suggest that a lot of diversity is bad for cohesion,” says Klein. “But there is also a theory that says diversity is great, that it creates more ideas, more perspectives and more creativity for better solutions.”
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