Social influence isn’t just reserved for the “influencers”, it is experienced in almost all human contexts. Social platforms like Facebook and Instagram are optimized for keeping us hooked, engaged, and influenced by others in our networks. But we don’t often think about this same phenomenon in work tools — which are also optimized for engagement, active use, and influence. Particularly, team communication tools like Slack or Yammer, consist of constant streams of thoughts, questions, and updates.

Just 2 weeks ago Harvard Prof. Ethan Bernstein and colleagues published an academic paper that has important implications for the modern workplace. They asked the question — how does social influence affect problem solving abilities?

The researchers gave subjects a relatively complex problem solving task, called the traveling salesman problem (more info here if interested). The problem can have many good solutions, but only 1 optimal solution. They split the subjects into 3 groups who completed the same problem over 17 rounds and tried to continuously improve their results.

One group was “always on” and could see the solution of their peers during every round. The “intermittent” group could see the solution of their peers every three rounds. Finally, participants in the “isolation” group never saw anyone else’s solution. Essentially, Bernstein and his colleagues were testing the influence of others on individual performance. Here are the results:

• The “isolation” group came up with the most solutions, but the quality of those solutions were lower
• The “always on” group came up with fewer solutions but more consistent quality
• The intermittent group, where the subjects were only periodically influenced by other’s in the group, came up with the most diverse and highest quality solutions

The results show that as individuals, we are better at coming up with a wider range of unique solutions. When constantly influenced by others, our solutions tend to be more similar and less diverse. Cognitive threats like groupthink, confirmation bias can hinder a group’s ability to present and explore new ideas. On the other hand, when social influence is interspersed with deep solo work, we can build on other’s ideas instead of becoming overpowered by them.

Bernstein’s study illustrates the fine line between the benefits and negative consequences of constant collaboration.

Takeaways:

Most work teams tend to polarize towards always-on or isolated work environments. Practices like pair-programming, or constantly checking Slack come to mind. These are aimed to help us arrive at solutions faster (which they do) but can put a damper on their quality. Alternatively, working solo without much meaningful collaboration prohibits opportunities to build off unique ideas, and learn from our peers.

This study, among many others, is a call to action. The problems we work on today require a diverse range of skills and disciplines, and we need to be deliberate about our collective time and effort. Here are a few suggestions on how to maintain intermittent rhythms in your work:

• Schedule time for solo work in your calendar — turn DnD mode on Slack and set the phone aside. Just make sure your team knows how to find you in case something urgent does pop up
• Draft up a team contract — set expectations on not just who is responsible for what, but some guidelines on when to work together and when to split back up
• Try the Pomodoro technique — a timer is set for 25 minute intervals dedicated to uninterrupted work. I use this desktop timer, it’s simple but does the trick

These are just some methods that help us take advantage of our collective knowledge, but also grant us the crucial time for uninterrupted thinking, coding, and creative work.

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Doplr’s slack analytics can help asses how “always on” or isolated teams are. If you’d like to learn more, get in touch!