There is exciting research going on at universities across the globe focused on understanding the basic constructs that affect team productivity and well-being. I recently wrote about one such study that investigated the effect of positivity vs . negativity on team performance and determined the optimal ratio to help teams flourish. Very cool stuff. http://facilitate.com/blog/index.php/2009/07/the-magic-number-that-helps-teams-flourish.
It’s pretty clear why we should be interested in what this research is turning up. We work in a global and unstable economy where the rules are constantly changing. Our workforce is culturally diverse and often separated by barriers of time and distance. We have an overabundance of technologies to help us collaborate that work well when used appropriately.
In order to succeed in this challenging environment, managers and team leaders must understand the fundamentals of how groups communicate, innovate, and make decisions. Then we can create the right environment, norms and processes to help groups function optimally. If we don’t understand the core forces behind team effectiveness, we might make unfortunate choices in our communication systems (both technological and human) and management systems.
Here at Facilitate Proceedings, we’d like to help make the connection between this academic research and the community of practitioners who could benefit from it. So we have added a new topic to our blog called Research Briefs. These are summaries of research studies written by the primary researcher for the purpose of informing and inviting commentary from practicing facilitators and team leaders.
I’d like to introduce you to Dr. Donna McAllister Kizzier from Morehead State University, who will be a contributing blogger over the next few months. For the last 7 years, Dr. McAllister Kizzier has been conducting a comprehensive study to guide decision making regarding the effective use of Collaborative Systems (CS). Click on the link to download a more detailed description of the study written by Dr. Kizzier.
Look for Dr. McCallister Kizzier’s first brief in this month’s edition and please consider sharing your insights as real-world practitioners.
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10:17
Hi,
First of all I would like to congratulate for this new topic, Research Briefs. It certainly will be very helpful for facilitators and consultants in the field.
Regarding the first review “How Do Collaborative Meeting Systems Affect The Bottom Line?” the results are not surprising.
The face to face meetings are the most important way to build confidence among the participants. In my opinion without confidence there is not much use of audio or video based collaborative systems, eventhoug they may be very useful as a secondary collaborative system. What do you think?
Best,
Kari Murto, PhD
Facilitator
Jyväskylä Education Center
Finland
14:51
Kari, I think we agree that meeting face to face affords a unique opportunity to build a connection between people that then allows them to work more effectively to solve problems and make decisions. What is intriguing about Dr. Kizzier’s research is that it seems to show that ANY meeting can benefit from the effective use of collaborative technology – both face to face and virtual meetings.
I suggest that the most important message is that paying attention to building confidence and trust among participants is critical. If we don’t pay attention we will get poor results regardless of the setting. We are more experienced as facilitators and participants in making those confidence building connections in a face to face situation. However, that does not say it is impossible to create trusted environments and connections in a virtual setting – we just have to work at it in perhaps a different and more deliberate way. Given the reality of that more and more teams work virtually the key for us as facilitators is to help teams and work groups build trust and meaningful connections rather than limit ourselves only to face to face meetings.
13:39
I appreciate the feedback, Kari. Your question is an excellent one.
Meeting facilitators need to be attentive to all factors that lend themselves to support of an effective meeting. Certainly building trust is a key factor, not only in meetings in which participants meet just one time, but also in situations in which team building over time becomes a key factor to accomplish objectives.
Technology is but one tool we use in meeting facilitation. The facilitator can use the many technological tools and facilitation strategies in many ways to achieve effective meetings. One of the elements of meeting success, as you note, is building trust. As Danuta noted, trust can be built by facilitators no matter what meeting venue is used. To me, this is one of the most fascinating results of this research stream–we look at the effect of the personality of the facilitator, among many other factors that will be discussed in later blog postings.
A finding I recall from research conducted by others in the early stages of GDSS, or collaborative technology (like facilitate.com) is that face to face meetings were highly recommended in the initial stages of team building, for the reasons you note. That is, to build trust, to create synergy, to get through the “storming/forming” stages in group dynamics, and so forth. In later stages, after trust was developed and the group matured, the teams could then work more effectively at remote sites, using technology, because the initial stages of team building were effectively achieved.
A question we need to ask today, as technology evolves an increasingly breakneck pace, is if we might at some stage be able to achieve meeting effectiveness in the early stages of group formation without face to face meetings. As we become increasingly global, face to face meetings, especially those that require global travel, become more cost prohibitive.
In my world of education (teaching/learning), for example, we are now delivering classes worldwide, using technology that enables us to use web conferencing, desktop sharing, and web and audio conferencing real-time with our students. In fact, the top accrediting agency of College of Business worldwide (AACSB) strongly encourages development of online learning venues.
Those of us who study the effectiveness of online instruction, have found that, in many ways, online learning can be of higher quality than we can achieve in a traditional classroom. Not only do students and faculty achieve time and location convenience, but we find, for example, that more students engage at a higher level of interaction with professors. Students are spending more time actively engaged in their learning–in some traditional classrooms, they can remain more passive because a one to many model is used. We also find that trust is being built in these online classrooms, without ever meeting the students face to face. In many cases, we get to know these students better than we know our face to face students because our interactions are typically one on one and quite high level.
In any environment, it is important to realize that the technology is merely a tool we can use, as meeting facilitators (and/or educators) to enhance the experience. In the research being reported in this blog, the creativity of the facilitator is one of the key factors. I think Danuta articulated this nicely.
Thanks so much for prompting this important dialogue!! I hope to hear more from you and other readers as I continue to share the results of this research stream.
Donna Kizzier