Moving toward Collective Mindsets: An Investigation of Group-based Synchrony in Work Teams

Abstract

The keys to creating effective team performance have long been under investigation by researchers. Past research identifies social cohesion as an important precursor, but how to achieve social cohesion is lesser understood. This study proposes that at the core of an effective team is synchrony—the act of moving together “as one”—which has been shown to predict a variety of psychological and social outcomes. The question of whether— and if so, how—synchrony’s benefits extend to the domain of team performance, however, remains untested. This group- level study consists of examines real undergraduate student teams working together over an academic semester. This study tests a series of predictive links between synchrony, entitativity, and cohesion as team-level characteristics and their relationship to team performance. Results of structural equation models reveal that synchronous teams demonstrated greater team performance, as measured by instructor-assigned grades. Specifically, synchrony enables a social process of greater team entitativity and cohesion to emerge within teams, in turn predicting better team performance. In light of significant results, analytical alternatives for considering team-level emergent processes are provided, along with implications for leaders, managers, and educators wishing to extract the benefits of synchrony to build cohesive, yet effective, teams.