Group Size and Split the Bill Problem!

Are larger or smaller groups better to get work done? Research on groups and teams tells us that there is an optimum group size (150- Dunbar Number) beyond which groups/teams become dysfunctional. Hence the need to split groups into smaller operational units once the number of people in the group exceeds 150.

What seems to be the problem? What do we mean by dysfunctionality? What happens in a larger society as compared to a smaller neighborhood? Why is it difficult to get work done through groups?

The other day I was reading about Venkat Krishnan (an IIMA graduate) and his entrepreneurial venture – Give India. He made a few interesting observations:

• He had traveled across the USA and he had found that the middle class there had a high sense of ownership.
• He compared this to the lack of ownership of the Indian middle class. He mentioned what Gandhi had said in the early 20^th century – that the Indian middle class would be the instrument to freedom.

This set me thinking. Tim Harford talks of Split the Bill problem. When there are multiple people involved, but no one has a significantly high majority stake and no one has individual accountability - then everyone tries to maximize individual pleasure/benefit and not look at the total picture. The summation of individual benefits doesn’t lead to an optimum solution at the group level.

I remember a study of different organizational types that concluded privately held organizations, or those with majority stakeholders, seem to do better than listed organizations (without any majority stakeholders).

One thing seems to be clear. Driving ownership and individual accountability seems to become harder as an organization grows in size. Probably that’s the reason why high growth organizations sometimes realize that stories of ‘discretion’ from across seem to thin down as they become larger.

Similarly, given India’s large population, driving ownership amongst citizens is a greater challenge than the challenge might be in countries with lesser population.

So what is the solution for organizations of large size? What can they do to make each employee take ownership for his/her decisions, which invariably would also impact his/her eco-system?

I can think of a few solutions:

• There are advantages of clearly delineating job responsibilities/duties but it also seems to drive unintended consequences. One of these unintended consequences is the mindset ‘My work is my work. Please don’t intrude into it. Your work is your work. I won’t intrude into it.’ In this case the team/group is just a collation of individuals. There are no synergies that emerge from having a team work on a problem. So the challenge is to ensure that job responsibilities specify/highlight what are the minimum expected requirements from the job while at the same time ensuring that employees are encourage to go beyond their job descriptions. How can this be done?
• ‘We can help others if we know what they are working on.’ This means that everyone needs to have clarity on what everyone else is working on. This would enable everyone to understand how their own actions might be impacting others and consequently take corrective action. This, along with understanding and accepting the larger organizational goal, would also form basis for collaboration amongst individuals/teams.

My proposed solution rests on the assumption that individuals are willing to extend themselves for purposes beyond their own immediate benefit.

What other solutions can you think of to drive ownership in large teams?

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Sourav

Phenomenal Field and Informed Choices

Some months back a friend shared an article on how learnings from the Roald Dahl’s “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” can be applied to selection and recruitment. The article spoke about 3 ways of approaching selection and recruitment:

• Psychometric paradigm – this is about selecting a candidate for the organization. Hence look at what is required of an individual to do the job and then assess the candidate on these parameters. The underlying assumption here is that jobs are relatively stable and individuals are the variable which result in performance or non – performance on the job.
• Social Process paradigm – an interview is a part of wider gamut of social interactions..don’t look at an interview as an end in itself..be sensitive to people.
• Person – Organization Fit paradigm –This is about both the parties getting full information on each other and then making an informed choice. Hence there is a lot of mutual information sharing which happens. Hence anchoring candidates onto the company would start off much before making the final offer. It would ideally start off from the first interaction he has about the company. Second, you just don’t stop with evaluating the person for the job. You get to know his “phenomenal field”. The underlying assumptions here are that jobs are not relatively stable and individuals are not the only variable that impact performance/non – performance on the job. You will need to evaluate an individual in terms of the context he would be getting into (the work team, bosses, culture, etc).

Should we look at the “phenomenal field” of an individual?

At the end of the day, all change is caused by individuals. Hence individuals are the instruments for change. But then is there a case for considering the social context s/he would get into? There is a risk of stereotyping here but at the same time it is imperative to understand how an individual would be able to work with and through the key stakeholders in a social context. The focus here is not on whether the individual is significantly different from the others in the system. The focus is rather on how the individual would be an active creator of effective social interactions.

What about “anchoring an individual” towards the company?

Anchoring an individual should start off from the first interaction. Irrespective of whether an individual gets selected or not, s/he still would have formed impressions about your company and would be a messenger. Sharing information with individuals is an important part of creating buy in for the individuals. Anything which is different is bad – that’s normal human reaction. This is the mindset of a new comer to the organization – especially a lateral hire. Anchoring him around how things might be different in your workplace is an ongoing responsibility of the recruitment manager until the joining process is completed, and subsequently of the immediate boss.

In today’s world the individual chooses the organization as much as the organization chooses the individual. At the end of the day, it is the responsibility of the organization to ensure it makes an informed choice and the candidate gets the opportunity to make an informed choice too.

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Sourav