“Teamwork makes the dreamwork”, or so they say. New research reported in a recent Knowledge@Wharton online article (read it here) challenges the belief that teams are always the best option for getting things done. Their findings indicate that it is more about the complexity of the task at hand. “Simple tasks are best accomplished by individuals, while difficult ones are more efficiently completed by a group.”
Interestingly, when tasks are complex groups are more efficient than an individual, and usually just as fast. But simple tasks are best tackled by individuals. Some of the reasons for this is because teams “generates more solutions, they generated faster solutions, and they explored the space of possibilities more broadly.”
The researchers did take into account the potential for negative group dynamics and managed to circumvent this by assigning “a group leader who can keep everyone moving in the right direction.”
The implications for managers is to think about the degree of complexity of the task involved, and to then assign it to either a team or an individual in order to get the matter addressed as efficiently and speedily as possible.