Don't be a SMUG

Believing and behaving like you are the SMUG (SMartest Unit in the Gathering) is a real affliction and it’s getting in the way of team performance. Let me explain... 

From my experience, a good way to spot a high performing team is to observe it over a series of interactions and to look at how evenly the members are contributing. A continually dominating voice or two within a team, even that of the leader, is normally a bad sign.

Research by Professor Anita Williams Woolley at Carnegie Mellon University backs this up. She found that the effectiveness of a team is tied more closely to its collective intelligence than the average IQ of its members. How well the team works together is a stronger predictor of success than the intelligence of its individual members. 

Based on this research, what are the key attributes of high performing teams? 

1. Social Perceptiveness and Sensitivity: Teams perform well when members are attuned to social dynamics, are aware of others emotional cues, and respond to the group's needs.

2. Equal Contributions:  The groups that had smart people dominating conversations were not very intelligent groups. Balanced participation in discussions is crucial for team success. When all members have roughly the same airtime, performance tends to thrive. Dominance by a few individuals hampers collective intelligence and leads to groupthink - where the desire for harmony leads to ineffective decision making outcomes.

3. Right People:  Probably of no surprise to half of you, teams with a slightly higher proportion of female members tended to perform better. Gender diversity, particularly with a tilt towards women, enhances collective intelligence due to females' (generally) higher social perceptiveness.

4. Right Goals: Teams with a process-focused approach (think audits) excel in tasks requiring impartiality and error prevention, while outcome-focused teams (think strategy) are more suited to tasks requiring innovation and creativity. You obviously need a  proportion of both.

Professor Woolley also made the point that extremes don’t work either. Extremely homogeneous or extremely diverse groups aren’t as intelligent. When not enough diversity exists within a group it stagnates, while too much diversity creates gaps that participants are unable to bridge. Teams need to know each other’s strengths and expertise, and how to work together to leverage them. Long-lived teams are far more likely to possess this ‘collective’ memory. It's also worth remembering that every time you get a new team member, it's a new team!

So back to being SMUG. It’s good to reflect on where you are on the SMUGOMETER scale. To do this, think about these questions:

1. In most meetings do you believe and behave like you are the smartest person in the room?

2. Is your voice heard more than it should be given the group size? 

3. Are you often dominating talk time?

4. Do you know other team members' strengths and expertise? Do you leverage them?

If you answered ‘yes’ to the first three and ‘no’ to the latter, I crown you the SmugMeister! Oh and it’s not a good thing - you need to dial it down Champ! At the moment your smugness wafts off you like a pungent smell, and while you’re waiting to bless the team with your wisdom, they are waiting to be heard. 

The great news is that it's absolutely possible to change your behaviour. Simply adjust your etiquette based on where you sit on the scale. Perhaps it’s waiting for others to speak before you voice your opinion or maybe you need to do the opposite and speak first!

Key outtake for leaders?

A lot of leaders feel the need to dominate discussions. In fact some see it as part of their role. This is a very natural belief, but it’s not a helpful one. Most of the time (not always) the best advice for leaders is to use the collective intelligence of the team, speak less and speak last.

Unless you want to dumb down the group, you may also need to coach various members to speak less (or more) and make absolutely sure that you all know and leverage each other’s strengths and expertise. I can’t stress how important this last point is in order to operate as a High Performing Unit.