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Women Make Teams Smarter
May 26, 2011
There are three basics for all human beings, but especially for children. The number one basic is wonder, the second one is discovery, and the third is experience.
-Bev Bos, 1934-2016, Preschool Director and International Speaker
-Bev Bos, 1934-2016, Preschool Director and International Speaker
In this study, reported in Harvard Business Review (June 2011), researchers gave IQ tests to subjects, and then randomly assigned them to teams. Each team was asked to complete several tasks, including brainstorming, decision making, and visual puzzles, and to solve one complex problem. Teams were given intelligence test scores based on their performance. Though the teams that had members with higher IQs didn't earn much higher scores, those that had more women did.
Some observations from the researchers:
"Many of the factors you might think would be predictive of group performance were not. Things like group satisfaction, group cohesion, group motivation — none were correlated with collective intelligence.
"The standard argument is that diversity is good and you should have both men and women in a group. But so far, the data show, the more women, the better.... We have early evidence that performance may flatten out at the extreme end — that there should be a little gender diversity, rather than all women.
"What do you hear about great groups? Not that the members are all really smart, but that they listen to each other. They share criticism constructively. They have open minds. They are not autocratic. And in our study we saw pretty clearly that groups that had smart people dominating the conversation were not very intelligent groups."
In this informative Exchange e-book, "Does Your Team Work?," you'll find exciting ideas from eight different authors on assessing team performance, fostering staff unity, implementing a peer coaching program, managing meetings, and the art of building a team that truly works together.ExchangeEveryDay
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Comments (1)
Displaying 1 CommentLawrenceville, GA, United States
I talk to my husband a lot about the articles that I get in Childcare Exchange newsletter. I told him about women and their part in a team. HE AGREED!!! He is a project manager for a billing systems company. He said his best projects that have been the most successful were with a female co-worker. I am proud of him to be able to admit that. That is why he and I get along so well. We are a team.
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