Audio Report: Too much teamwork can stifle creativity in your company

BERKELEY
July 19, 2006 5:00am

If your company or management style puts too much emphasis on creating and nurturing teamwork, spontaneity and innovation could be stifled, according to new research by a University of California professor.

Firms that focus on individual employee achievement and uniqueness are more conducive to generating innovative ideas, says UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Professor Barry Staw.

((Listen to Mr. Staw expand on his findings in a CVBT Audio Interview by clicking on the link below.))

Surprisingly, even when groups that emphasize teamwork are instructed to be creative, they generate fewer ideas and less creative ideas than groups who are more focused on independent viewpoints, Mr. Staw found in his study.

Mr. Staw and co-author Jack Goncalo of Cornell University outlined their findings in an article titled "Individualism-Collectivism and Group Creativity," published in the May issue of Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes.

"The message … is that diversity of ideas and perspectives is crucial for innovation," says Mr. Staw, who has been studying creativity for 15 years.

Mr. Staw, chairman of the Haas Organizational Behavior and Industrial Relations Group, says a strong corporate culture can be detrimental to innovation “because everyone has to get on board and be relatively alike."

The upshot of this research is that companies should protect individual perspectives, he says.

"Organizations try to hire people who fit with the culture, but organizations should instead look for people who are different," he says. "Nurturing individualistic perspectives is better than having a corporate-wide direction."

Mr. Staw says that in the past, the U.S. has had a very individualistic culture, “but as we're moving more toward team-based organizations, we risk losing some creativity."