What Happens to Team Performance When the Heat Is On

From the Marshall Memo #429

In this Harvard Business Review article, Harvard Business School professor Heidi Gardner shares her research on what happens when teams are under high-stakes pressure. 

No pressure, no diamonds is the old saying, but Gardner has found there are counterforces that often undermine the quality of work when people are under pressure. “This is profoundly counterintuitive,” she says. “Shouldn’t pressure to do your best work spur you to do your best work?” At first, that’s true, but then, imperceptibly, the quality of work declines. Here’s why:

• Pressure breeds anxiety, and as the stakes get higher, people become risk-averse.
• They opt for approaches they can easily defend with narrowly defined performance metrics.
• They drive toward consensus in ways that shut down access to critical information. 
• “Rather than continuing to build on new ideas, team members seek reassurance that others’ suggestions are valid…” says Gardner. “Enthusiasm for innovation and improvisation gives way to concern for strict professionalism and for covering all the bases.”
• Team members discourage further effort with comments like, “Keep up the debate and we’ll be here all night.” 
• Everyone unwittingly begins to defer to authority, defaulting to traditional hierarchical roles and not listening to team members with valuable contributions.
• Everyone values shared knowledge more than unique expertise. This tendency is always there, says Gardner, but in high-pressure situations it becomes more pronounced and can rob the team of talented individuals’ ideas and expertise. 

What can be done about this tendency for teams to do less well under pressure? Here are Gardner’s suggestions:

• Make sure there’s relevant expertise on the team. This may mean bringing in new team members.

• Make clear up front what everyone is supposed to contribute. One idea is setting up “contribution scorecards” at the first meeting to highlight which team members have relevant expertise and experience to contribute.

• Check to see that everyone is actually contributing. This is the team leader’s job, or might be delegated to one key team member. “Teams cannot have diffuse responsibility because it just evaporates,” says Gardner.

• If the team gets off track, take the time to “reset” and get back on track, even if this feels like backtracking. 

• Make unique knowledge more acceptable to the group. “Those with rare expertise can take steps to avoid becoming marginalized…” says Gardner. “Presenting idiosyncratic information in the context of more-general frameworks can help their anxious teammates make sense of and value their contributions.” 

“Coming Through When It Matters Most” by Heidi Gardner in Harvard Business Review, April 2012 (Vol. 90, #4, p. 82-91), no e-link available