How to kill chaos with kindness
Using a new methodology for the investigation of the impact of personality traits on groups, this research offers insight into team building and how team make-up is particularly important when it comes to unpredictable situations.
The challenge:
The “Big Five” personality types – neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness – have long attracted the attentions of academic psychologists and business leaders intent on assembling teams of people to execute their designs in the most efficient way. However, whereas researchers have been able to demonstrate consistent cause-and-effect relationships between the first four of those personality types and team performance, their findings regarding agreeableness have demonstrated a highly variable relationship with team performance.
Using a new methodology for the investigation of the impact of personality traits on groups, this research offers insight into team building and how team make-up is particularly important when it comes to unpredictable situations.
The challenge:
The “Big Five” personality types – neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness and agreeableness – have long attracted the attentions of academic psychologists and business leaders intent on assembling teams of people to execute their designs in the most efficient way. However, whereas researchers have been able to demonstrate consistent cause-and-effect relationships between the first four of those personality types and team performance, their findings regarding agreeableness have demonstrated a highly variable relationship with team performance.
The research:
Using a novel interdisciplinary computational modelling approach based on agent-based modelling (ABM) and genetic algorithms grounded in personality psychology, the researchers used computer simulation to simulate the impact of personality types on groups. The results confirmed many of the things that are already known, such as the fact that extraversion and conscientiousness are always helpful in a group. The researchers then entered a variable for predictability or unpredictability and found that the more unpredictable the environment, the more important agreeableness as a quality becomes: higher average team agreeableness correlates with better performance for uncertain work environments.
The impact:
The study is notable for two main reasons. It is the first time that an ABM has been used to simulate how individuals with different personality traits perform as a team. This is significant because management selection systems have historically not considered agreeableness, and we find that in an uncertain world agreeable members contribute positively to team performance. The findings therefore strongly suggest organisations should be searching for agreeableness in whomever they appoint to managerial positions. The second reason why the findings are important now are the action items coming out of them. In an unpredictable and uncertain world, to be able to predict outcomes using a variable - agreeableness - that’s becoming ever more important is a key insight of the study.
