Knowledge-Diverse Work Teams Benefit from Fluid Hierarchies

Shifting member influence benefits diverse teams’ problem solving, but not among homogeneous groups, according to new research.

Based on the research of Steven Gray

Some groups of co-workers have much in common: similar academic degrees, work histories, and job skills. But for teams made up of less homogeneous workers, standard hierarchical work structures may prove less effective in producing optimal work outcomes.

In a recent study, Texas McCombs Assistant Professor of Management Steven Gray, along with J. Stuart Bunderson of Washington University in St. Louis, Gerben S. van der Vegt and Floor Rink of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and Yeliz Gedik of Firat University in Turkey, found that groups of workers with varied sorts of knowledge — what they labeled “knowledge-diverse teams” — share more information when members’ influence shifts as new projects and problems emerge. This type of “unstable hierarchy,” or a more fluid and problem-based allocation of influence, helps diverse teams.

A knowledge-diverse new product development team could include a scientist, engineer, operations expert, and a marketer, while a startup team may have a chief technology officer, chief marketing officer, and chief financial officer. In contrast, a homogenous sales team’s members may do the same task although they are designated to serve different customer segments.

“For teams, instability is often seen as a negative,” Gray says. “But we found a scenario in which instability is helpful.”

“Within a diverse team, this type of fluidity helps members bolster their position and standing by demonstrating their expertise and unique value.” — Steven Gray

On the other hand, homogenous teams — ones made up of members with similar knowledge — share more when members’ influence over time is stable.

Measuring Influence

The researchers recruited MBA students to survey work teams in diverse industries. Students couldn’t collect data from organizations they worked for.

The final sample size included 156 workplace teams mostly based in Europe, from industries that included information technology, health care, hospitality, finance, manufacturing, and agriculture. Students visited the work teams on site to administer a series of three written surveys — two team member surveys and one supervisor survey.

In the first team member survey, the student researchers collected data about job roles, educational background, and demographic information to determine knowledge diversity. They also asked how team members perceived one another’s influence.

Two weeks later in a second survey, the same team members answered questions about team processes, including how members shared information. Finally, two weeks after that, supervisors completed the third study survey rating team performance.

The researchers found that diverse teams with a more stable allocation of influence shared 5% less information than diverse teams with more fluid dynamics.

For these teams, “stable hierarchies are harmful,” Gray says, “because the nature of problems a team addresses over time is not constant or static.” Instability or fluidity in diverse team dynamics “might help better elicit everyone’s divergent views.”

With this fluidity, team members may feel more comfortable speaking up when their expertise is aligned to the task at hand. The team might informally grant these team members permission to provide more input and give more weight to their perspective.

“You want to be able to adjust and adapt to a new problem as a team,” adds Gray.

“Who is influential has to evolve as the task evolves.” — Steven Gray

Gray says technology or artistic production teams tend to be more diverse, while heavy manufacturing or financial services, for example, can tend toward homogeneity. But it really depends on the complexity of the team’s task, rather than its larger organization or industry.

Homogenous team members, or those whose skills are more aligned, however, shared 15% more information when the team’s communications dynamics were more stable over time. When these teams had fluid dynamics, people tended to share less.

“Fluidity can be harmful in a homogenous team,” Gray says. “If we all have the same knowledge and we’re equal, I can’t really offer anything unique. Instead, I might withhold information and try to gain an advantage over other team members.”

Lessons for Managers and Teams

Workers on a knowledge-diverse team where influence is fluid should know that by sharing information, they can demonstrate their worth to co-workers and gain greater influence and trust within the team, Gray says.

“Sometimes there’s an impulse to hoard information to help your status or standing. But if you’re in a diverse team, you need to share your knowledge to show your value.” — Steven Gray

Managers should understand that it’s insufficient to bring together people with diverse knowledge and set them on a task. Instead, managers of knowledge-diverse teams need to think about what levers they can pull to promote the elevation of different viewpoints as tasks evolve. For example, a manager might rotate informal leadership roles by regularly appointing a new facilitator as a project moves into a new phase.

Managers of homogenous teams should think about how to promote stability so members don’t compete for status. “Instability in homogenous teams can be a disaster,” Gray says. “It’s far worse than the magnitude of the benefits of fluidity in diverse knowledge teams.”

Future research could look at just that — why instability harms homogenous teams more than fluidity helps diverse teams. The researchers also noticed team members who spoke up more were more sensitive to shifts in influence than members who spoke less — they changed their information-sharing behavior more dramatically.

One explanation could be tied to the concept of “loss aversion” where it’s more upsetting to lose something that you already have than not getting something you don’t yet have. “Those at the top of the hierarchy have status, and the threat of losing that may affect their behavior,” Gray says. More research is needed.

“Leveraging Knowledge Diversity in Hierarchically Differentiated Teams: The Critical Role of Hierarchy Stability” is forthcoming, online in advance in Academy of Management Journal.

To learn more, read the press release from Texas McCombs.

Story by Deborah Lynn Blumberg