Hey all,

Thanks for some great responses on earlier posts! In this post I want to share a great insight brought to me by Nipun Metha (founder of ServiceSpace, and a living embodiment of ‘doing good as his life’s work’).

During the Wisdom Stockholm conference, Nipun shared a study on effective teams. I found the outcomes of the study intriguing, with implications that are both extremely simple, as incredibly difficult to perform in real life. Here is the summary (results also shown in the visual below).

  • Teams with one consistent contributor (CC, a person who always gives, regardless of choices made by others) outperforms teams without such a person.
  • CCs seem to appear naturally in groups of people (students in the research), but just about 1 in 10 people take this role automatically.
  • The power of CCs lies in changing the group’s norms; when they keep giving, many ‘conditional contributors’ will follow their track and give more for the sake of all team members.

Givers in teams

The study has interesting implications for both managers of high performance teams and social enterprises. For both these groups; a mindset of ‘giving’ matters directly. Recognition – and selection of – givers can be a crucial factor in realising their potential, as IDEO has already realised by mapping ‘helpers networks’. We can do the same for companies through a free network scan – reach out to me if you’re up for this and we’ll provide you with insights on this matter!

More soon!

Rens

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