Team Dynamics
On a team of eight, three people get 67% of the airtime.
Research shows that harnessing the unique expertise of team members is one of the most important factors in creating high-performing teams. Darden Business Professor Melissa Thomas-Hunt documents the dynamics that undermine team performance and shares the ways that you can overcome the barriers to success both as a team leader and member.
Discussion Guide
Discussion Guide
Use the free discussion guide to reflect on key takeaways from what you've seen or to start the conversation after watching the video with friends or colleagues.
View Team Dynamics Resources
When what you know is not enough: Melissa Thomas-Hunt and Katherine Phillips explore the role of gender dynamics in the expression of expertise, finding that gender expectations interfere with the expression, perception, and use of expertise.
What makes teams smarter? More women: Anita Woolley and Thomas Malone find little correlation between a group’s collective intelligence and the IQs of its individual members, but its collective intelligence rises if a group includes more women.
Managing Yourself: Bringing out the best in your people: The Harvard Business Review summarizes a research project studying the difference between leaders who multiply intelligence among their employees and those who diminish it.
Introverts Make Great Leaders Too: New research on leadership and group dynamics from the Wharton School challenges the assumption that extroverts make the best leaders.
Why Teams Don't Work: J. Richard Hackman, a leading expert in teams at Harvard University, reveals why teams aren't always the best way to get a job done.
Coming Through When it Matters Most: Harvard Business Review presents research about how teams do their best work under pressure.
View Team Dynamics Biographies
Melissa Thomas-Hunt
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA DARDEN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
EDUCATION MODULE PRESENTER
Associate Professor Melissa Thomas-Hunt teaches Bargaining and Negotiations. Her teaching and research activities focus on conflict management, negotiation and inclusive leadership within global teams and organizations. Her current research activities focus specifically on the effects of status and power on negotiation processes and outcomes and the evaluation and integration of expertise within diverse groups. Prior to coming to Darden, Thomas-Hunt was an associate professor at Cornell’s Johnson School. She also taught at the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, Washington University’s Olin School of Business and Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.
Thomas-Hunt received her MA and PhD from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and her BS in chemical engineering from Princeton University.
Odette Harris
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF NEUROSURGERY
DIRECTOR OF BRAIN INJURY, STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
ASSOCIATE CHIEF OF STAFF, POLYTRAUMA; DIRECTOR, DEFENSE VETERANS BRAIN INJURY CENTER, VHA PALO ALTO CA
CLAYMAN INSTITUTE FACULTY RESEARCH FELLOW, 2012-2013
EDUCATION MODULE INTERVIEWEE
SUPPORTED BY THE IRIS F. LITT, M.D FUND
Dr. Odette Harris is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery and Director of Brain Injury at Stanford University School of Medicine. She is the Associate Chief of Staff, Polytrauma at the VA Palo Alto Health Care System. Harris is also the Site Director/Principal Investigator of the Defense Veterans and Brain Injury Center Palo Alto site. Upon completing her neurosurgical residency, Harris was awarded the William VanWagenen Fellowship from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons. She is a Clayman Institute Faculty Research Fellow.
Dr. Harris graduated from Dartmouth College and received her MD degree from Stanford University School of Medicine. She completed internship and residency at Stanford University Medical Center and earned a MPH from the University of California, Berkeley.
Gina Bianchini
FOUNDER AND CEO, MIGHTYBELL
CLAYMAN INSTITUTE ADVISORY COUNCIL MEMBER
EDUCATION MODULE INTERVIEWEE
Gina Bianchini is an expert in creating communities of interests online and in the real world. She is the founder and CEO of Mightybell, the first community platform built to support networks of groups. Before Mightybell, Bianchini served as CEO of Ning from its inception in 2004 to March of 2010. Bianchini serves on the board of directors of Scripps Networks Interactive (NYSE: SNI). She also serves on the Advisory Council of the Clayman Institute for Gender Research and played an instrumental role in creating the Voice & Influence Program.
Bianchini graduated with honors from Stanford University and received her MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Kim Scott
VICE PRESIDENT, OPERATIONS & ONLINE SALES, DROPBOX
EDUCATION MODULE INTERVIEWEE
Kim Scott is the VP for Operations and Online Sales at Dropbox. Prior to Dropbox, Scott was a member of the faculty at Apple University. She worked at Google from 2004-2010, where she ran AdSense, YouTube, and Doubleclick Online Sales and Operations. Earlier in her career, Scott co-founded Juice Software, a business intelligence and collaboration start up, where she was the CEO. Scott began her career in 1990 in Moscow, working first as an analyst on the Soviet Companies Fund, and then starting a diamond cutting factory.
Scott earned her AB in Slavic Literature from Princeton University and her MBA from the Harvard Business School.
View Team Dynamics References
Who Takes the Floor and Why: Gender, Power, and Volubility in Organizations
Brescoll, V. L. 2011. "Who Takes the Floor and Why: Gender, Power, and Volubility in Organizations." Administrative Science Quarterly, 56, 4: 622-641.
Why Teams Don’t Work: An Interview with J. Richard Hackman
Coutu, Diane. 2009. "Why Teams Don’t Work: An Interview with J. Richard Hackman." Harvard Business Review, 87: 98-105.
Coming through when it matters most: how great teams do their best work under pressure
Gardner, Heidi. 2012. "Coming through when it matters most: how great teams do their best work under pressure." Harvard Business Review, 90: 82-91.
Why teams don't work
Hackman, J. R. 1998. Chapter 12 in Theory and Research on Small Groups, edited by R. Scott Tindale et al. Plenum Press, New York.
Expertise in your midst: How congruence between status and speech style affects reactions to unique knowledge
Lewin-Loyd, D., Phillips, K.W., Whitson, J., and Thomas-Hunt, M. 2010. "Expertise in your midst: How congruence between status and speech style affects reactions to unique knowledge." Group Processes Intergroup Relations, vol. 13 no. 3: 379-395.
Accuracy and Perceived Expert Status in Group Decisions: When Minority Members Make Majority Members More Accurate Privately
Sinaceur, M., Thomas-Hunt, M.C., Neale, M.A., O’Neill, O.A., and Haag, C. 2010. "Accuracy and Perceived Expert Status in Group Decisions: When Minority Members Make Majority Members More Accurate Privately." Personality and Social Psychological Bulletin,
When Timeliness Matters: The Effect of Status on Reactions to Perceived Time Delay Within Distributed Collaboration
Sheldon, O.J., Thomas-Hunt, M.C., and Proell, C.A. 2006. "When Timeliness Matters: The Effect of Status on Reactions to Perceived Time Delay Within Distributed Collaboration." Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 91 no. 6: 1385-1395.
When what you know is not enough: Expertise and Gender Dynamics in Task Groups
Thomas-Hunt, M., and Phillips, K.W. 2004. "When what you know is not enough: Expertise and Gender Dynamics in Task Groups." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, vol. 30 no. 12: 1585-1598.
Who’s really sharing? The context dependent effects of social and expert status on knowledge exchange within groups
Thomas-Hunt, M.C., Ogden, T.Y., and Neale, M.A. 2003. "Who’s really sharing? The context dependent effects of social and expert status on knowledge exchange within groups." Management Science, vol. 49 no. 4: 464-477.
Giving her the floor: How solicitation helps female experts be more influential
under review (unpublished)
Taking the lead: The effects of power distribution on information sharing and team performance
working paper (unpublished)