Guide to Building Data-Driven Organizations in the Public Sector

Incentivizing Teams

Team 3: Cody Lundell, Christina Worden, Dan Gabiou

Topic Overview

Idea flow, collective intelligence, and shaping organizations may seem like strange subcategories of incentivising teams. Pentland (2015) discuss how productive, motivated, and satisfied employees can easily be incentivized through social physics. When ideas flow well through an organization then intelligence is built. Collective intelligence requires all team members to be engaged and explorative. The entire organization must be in-tune with one another and share equal conversation representation. And organizations must shaped through visualization of interactive patterns. Information must be collected and shared with energy and diversity must be embraced. A team of quiet individuals agreeing with the “boss” will lack creativity and undoubtedly only produce sluggish idea flow. Individuals are only successful as the collective. This brings us back to there being no “i” in team and only together can we achieve success.

Chapter Summaries

Chapter 3: Idea Flow Summary

Pentland (2015) feels that the rates of idea flow or barriers to idea flow will make or break an organization and set its culture (p. 44). This idea, building off of other chapters, reconfirms the notion that more minds are better than one; that sharing ideas and information will create better solutions and societal norms. Through various research cases related to health habits, political preferences, and consumer consumption, Pentland (2015) believes idea flow can be predicted by direct and indirect exposure to peer behavior (p. 53). Such idea flow leads to efficiencies by learning from others as opposed to starting from scratch. Idea flow also leads to our ability to use “fast thinking” may account for about 90% of most daily decisions, while “slow thinking”—experimentation, critical thinking, and reaching our own conclusions—is only used for about 10% of decision-making (Petland, 2015, p. 54-56). In conclusion, “[i]t is the idea flow within a community that builds the intelligence that makes it successful” (Pentland, 2015, p. 61).

Chapter 5: Collective Intelligence

Collective research in general is incredibly vital to the success of any organization or group. I would argue that if there are at least two people, then a collective intelligence model must be considered. Pentland (2015) discusses how typical perceptions on collective touch points are not statistically significant. As most of us would assume, topics like “cohesion, motivation, and satisfaction” should be replaced with focuses on equality of conversation and the ability to read one another’s social signals (Pentland, 2015). In a nutshell, collective intelligence is gained when members of an organization are allowed to contribute equally and be perceptive to one another’s behavioral queues. In this form, unbridled intelligence is offered, considered, and shared among all present. I believe that all leaders have tried to extract intelligence on cohesiveness from their team members. This is the basis for the approach. One tactic is the focus on exploration and engagement within and between teams to foster creativity. When various team interact well, then successful exploration is possible. Teams that are socially engaged within their team enjoy high levels of idea flow, idea vetting, and the cohesiveness of the team become a more unified body of integrated habits and norms. All of this contributes to generating and promoting higher levels of job satisfaction, cohesiveness, and motivation as a secondary by product. Imagine a team that is engaged, perceptive, and motivated. What better incentive can a managerial leader hope for?

Chapter 6: Shaping Organizations

Pentland (2015) examines how organizations are shaped through visualization of interaction patterns. Concepts focus on how leaders can achieve more interaction within their organizations through engagement, exploration, diversity and social intelligence. Pentland explains a process to encourage more interaction during employee meetings. In one study, an electronic monitor called a Meeting Mediator is used to monitor engagement during a meeting. The study finds that employees tend to be more interactive and self aware when monitored during a meeting. Pentland shows through exploration how mapping a pattern of interaction among employee groups can display organizational weaknesses and strengths in communication. Diversity of ideas covers how organizations work through idea flow, and organizations are most often stunted by echo chamber in which everyone agrees with certain ideas due to social pressure. Finally, Pentland covers social intelligence in which he explores how employees collect information and share it within their organization. He finds that those who are energetic and systematically engaged are most often able to convince others of new concepts and ideas.

Questions:

  1. Do you feel that your network of friends, family, colleagues, and coworkers influence your behavior, beliefs, habits, or decision-making?
  2. (Self-reflection question…) Does your current network positively influence your idea flow and self-development?
  3. I am sure you have had the experience of sitting through a long meeting. Would you be more engaged if you were being graded on your behavior during a meeting using a device like the Meeting Mediator?
  4. How would your employees feel about using Meeting Mediator or a similar device during meetings?
  5. How can we teach team members to be perceptive to one another’s social signals?
  6. Can a team respect organizational positions and have equality in communication? How?

References