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Lesson 4: Globalization and the Impact on Communication & Knowledge Sharing
Group Processes: Collective Mind
As mentioned in your assigned reading, trust and communication patterns are integral to the development of effective virtual teams (Rosen et al., 2007). Early research related to virtual teaming reported that teams with a high level of trust spent time socializing at the start of a project and engaged in continuous and frequent communication (Iacono and Weisband, 1997). In the previous section of this lesson you also saw how transactive memory systems were critical for effective virtual team performance. However, team members must also be able to coordinate and interrelate their knowledge and actions to perform their tasks within a well-tuned team. Weick & Roberts (1993) developed the concept of the "collective mind" to describe the socio-cognitive system within teams to understand this system of interrelations. Social interactions within teams can result in collective mental processes and can vary in their degree of development across groups. These processes are revealed in the way individual actions interrelate within a group. In virtual teams, collaboration is successful when a proper state of the collective mind is developed and maintained. This can be achieved through heedful interrelating which includes “a disposition to act with attentiveness, alertness and care, and behavior that takes into account the expectations of others” (Weick & Roberts, 1993).
“The totality of beliefs and sentiments common to the average members of a society forms a determinate system with a life of its own. It can be termed the collective or creative consciousness.”
—Émile Durkheim, 19th century French sociologist, social psychologist and philosopher (Simpson, 1993)
Case Study
The Nimitz Class aircraft carriers can hold 5,000–6,000 personnel (crew and aircrew) and are the largest warships ever built. One ship can displace approximately 100,000 tons, and a flight deck length of approximately 1,090 ft (figure 4.4). Interactions of personnel during flight operations were observed in a five-year long study.
Some organizations, such as the airport operations on an aircraft carrier, require nearly error-free operations in order to function without major disruptions/accidents:
“…imagine that it's a busy day, and you shrink San Francisco Airport to only one short runway and one ramp, and one gate. Make planes take off and land at the same time, at half the present time interval, rock the runway from side to side, and require that everyone who leaves in the morning returns that same day. Make sure the equipment is so close to the edge of the envelope that it's fragile. Then turn off the radar to avoid detection, impose strict controls on radios, fuel the aircraft in place with their engines running, put an enemy in the air, and scatter live bombs and rockets around. Now wet the whole thing down with seawater and oil, and man it with 20-year-olds, half of whom have never seen an airplane close-up. Oh and by the way, try not to kill anyone.”
—from Rochlin, LaPorte, and Roberts’, 1987
Despite a high potential for catastrophic accidents, Navy carriers are quite safe. Organizations that are concerned with reliability (such as Navy carrier operations, nuclear power plants, spacecraft, air traffic control, etc.) use more fully developed aggregate mental processes than those that are seen in organizations that are only concerned with efficiency (Weick & Roberts, 1993). In tightly coupled and interactively complex technical systems it is crucial to strive for error free operation where a small event may lead to catastrophic consequences. Accidents in these systems are a result of a breakdown of comprehension and social processes instead of a failure of technology. In high reliability systems, members are required to act heedfully (i.e.: “carefully, critically, consistently, purposefully, attentively, studiously, vigilantly, and conscientiously” (Weick & Roberts, 1993)). Weick & Roberts (1993) suggest that performance, such as seen on the deck of the Navy carrier, is mediated by collective mental processes, including heedful interrelating.
Weick & Roberts outlined four defining properties of group performance through their observations of crew members on a Navy aircraft carrier (summary adapted from Weick & Roberts, 1993):
- Group members create social forces for the group when they act as if these social forces exist. On the aircraft carrier, the aviator believes that he is receiving integrated information about his current status, but is actually receiving information from several independent sources located on different parts of the ship.
- When group members act as if these social forces exist they contribute, represent, and subordinate. Within a well functioning team, individual members develop their actions (contribute) with an understanding of the larger system of joint actions (represent), while interrelating their action with the system (subordinate). The action of a pilot as she taxies onto the catapult, with the catapult attached to her plane, and then bringing the engines to full power, exemplifies this process. The pilot must examine her role, the role of the catapult team, and be aware of the joint situation to be able to respond and subordinate to the system.
- Contributing, representing, and subordinating, create a system of interrelations among activities. This system is present in the interrelations between the activities of individuals. The “recovery” of an aircraft as it lands on the deck, is a set of interrelated activities among air traffic controllers, landing signal officers, the control tower, etc.
- The effects produced by this system of interrelated activities varies depending on the style (heedful/heedless) and strength (loose/tight) used to tie the activities together. On an aircraft carrier, the interrelated activities involved during the loading of ordnance onto an aircraft can become more or less dangerous depending on how the interrelating is done. (Weick & Roberts, 1993).
Making connections that link distributed activities and an understanding of how those connections are accomplished are both important for the development of the collective mind. The way that individuals connect their activities to the system demonstrates whether their conduct is “mindful.” Weick & Roberts (1993) stressed that the development of the "collective mind" is separate from the development of a group.
Figure 4.5 illustrates how group development and “collective mind” development can occur separately. In a team with a well developed group but underdeveloped mind, groupthink can be observed (see the following section for more detail). In these situations there is an overestimation of the group’s power, morality, and invulnerability. Contributions are often made heedlessly and disasters can result.
In contrast, an undeveloped group with a developed mind can be seen in ad hoc project teams. The authors suggest that if heedful interrelating can occur on an undeveloped group, it changes the way we think about the stages of team development such as Tuckman’s model of Forming, Storming, Norming, and Performing. The same actions that contribute to a well developed collective mind (contribute, represent, and subordinate with heed) can also be thought of as the same actions that are seen in the early stages of new group development (orienting, clarifying, and testing), seen as immature during the “forming” stage of teams. This suggests that teams might be smartest in their early stages and this concept could be tied to the dramatic increase in team comprehension often seen halfway through a project, when teams often undergo a mid-course reshuffling, potentially reflecting a renewing of the collective mind.
Work by Yoo (2001) reports that socio-cognitive aspects of teamwork, the transactive memory system (TMS) and the collective mind, both play an important role in the performance of virtual teams. Their work suggests that while the transactive memory system is important for group members to recognize the available expertise and knowledge in the team, it is the collective mind that allows team members to connect and relate the distributed expertise and knowledge to accomplish tasks as a cohesive team (Yoo, 2001).
Results from their research indicate that communication volume had a significant positive influence on early team performance. Their results also indicate that the collective mind is not fully developed until after the transactive memory system is in place, and then once fully developed, the collective mind mediates the influence of the team’s transactive memory system on its performance. Yoo suggests that equal attention is required for both TMS and the collective mind.
Organizations need to develop tools that facilitate the development of transactive memory systems, as well as ways to facilitate the development and maintenance of the collective mind in virtual teams. Tools such as those developed by Boland et al. (1994), that help facilitate team member’s understanding of the overall problem and to think systematically, can be used to develop the collective mind of the group.