Jeffrey Polzer, Harvard Business School

Too Many Cooks Spoil the Broth: How High Status Individuals Decrease Group Effectiveness
Jeffrey Polzer, Organizational Behavior, Harvard Business School

Description

Semester: 
Fall 2005
Lecture Time: 
Friday, October 21, 2005 (All day)
Lecture Location: 

Room 4212, School of Education

Abstract

Can groups become effective simply by assembling high status individual performers? Though an affirmative answer may seem straightforward on the surface, this answer becomes more complicated when group members benefit from collaborating on interdependent tasks. Examining Wall Street sell-side equities research analysts who work in an industry in which individuals strive for status, we find that groups benefited, up to a point, from having members who achieved high individual performance and high individual status. The marginal benefit decreased, however, as the proportion of individual stars in a research group increased. In fact, the slope of this curvilinear pattern became negative when teams reached a high proportion of star members. This pattern was especially strong when stars were concentrated in a small number of interdependent sectors, likely reflecting dysfunctional team processes in departments with “too many cooks.” Control variables ensured that these effects were not the spurious result of individual performance, department size or specialization, or firm prestige. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results for the literatures on status and groups, along with practical implications for strategic human resource management.

Recording & Additional Notes

Introducer: Brian Sandovol, Organizational Psychology