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There is No “I” in Team: �Racial and Gender Differences in Teamwork Strategies

Cade Robert Creason, B.S. & B.A. & Lucy Zhang Bencharit, Ph.D.

APS 2024

Good afternoon everyone, my name is lucy bencharit and I am an assistant professor of psychology at Cal Poly SLO in California. Today I want to talk to you about an idea that my team and I have been investigating for some time now, and the talk is entitled is there is no I in team: Racial and gender differences in teamwork strategies in the US.

In the US there is a classic saying: There is no I in team. How many have heard this saying? For those who have not, This saying is meant to remind people working on teams that the effort is not about them as individuals, but about their shared goals with others. This saying may be popular because teamwork stands in opposition to the larger cultural contexts in the US which pushes people towards individualism, or having an independent model of self.

We sought out to investigate whether there is any merit to the saying, that there is no I in team. AND whether reminding students that this is the case,and that teamwork is about the needs of others more than the needs of themselves, might help people do teamwork better.

https://www.psychologicalscience.org/conventions/global-summit/cfs/global-summit-roundtable-session-rules-and-guidelines

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Thank you…

Collaborators & Students:

Hazel Markus
Julia Lee Cunningham
Dia Dariwhal
Isabella Gasparayan
Sofia Paletto
Alyssa Fu
Michelle Zhang
Lana Huynh

Labs:

Culture, Diversity & Identity Lab
Stanford SPARQ

Funding Sources:

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Roadmap for today

How does culture influence teamwork?

Racial and Gender Differences in the U.S.

Future Directions: Practical Implications

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GROUPS:

Individual goals and accountability

TEAMS:

Mutual goals and accountability

Shared

Goal

What is teamwork?

Wageman, 1995

To understand what teamwork is, let’s briefly look at how teams are different from groups. While groups are collections of individuals that might work together on something, they often have individual goals. Teams are organized and have a shared goal. Typically their outcomes are tied together.

So we in this room might be a group because we are collectively interested in organizational outcomes across cultures however we are not a team because we have not all agreed on a shared goal. However, if we decided that we are going to be the best symposium in IACCP then that would be our shared goal, and we would come together to work on that as a team.

_______________

...but lines are very fuzzy. Some traditional teams are in organizations, in specialty professions (police, fire), and in sports. There are many other types of teams out there. Teams work better than groups because they have shared goals, so if you can turn a group into a team, that is beneficial.

�So when you design a team (which we’ll talk about more on Wednesday) you want to make sure they have mutual accountability. For example in this class your grade will be 40% of your team’s work. I do this even though it makes some students tremendously stressed, because it helps with this accountability factor.

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Importance of Teamwork

Zippia Research, 2022

Now that we know what teamwork is I want to show why teamwork is important. Here are some cross national statistics around how employees spend their time. Across sectors, we see that employees are reporting they spend 45% of their time working on teams.

We don’t yet have statistics around how many of those teams are multicultural or international, but I would venture to guess that many are. It is especially important to study teamwork at this point in time.

More than 50% of workers say their jobs are reliant on collaboration
About 75% of employees rate teamwork and collaboration as being very important
56% of employers use online collaboration tools and social media to communicate with employees
86% of employees in leadership positions blame lack of collaboration as the top reason for workplace failures
Companies that promote collaboration and communication at work have been linked to reducing employee turnover rates by 50%
Employees are, on average, 17% more satisfied with their job when they engage in collaboration at work

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Increasing Diversity in the United States

United States Census, 2010

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How does culture influence teamwork?

Independent Cultural Contexts

Interdependent Cultural Contexts

Markus & Kitayama, 1991

We predict that in independent cultural contexts like the US, where the focus is on the self, teamwork will be more difficult. This is in contrast to interdependent cultural contexts, ones in which the vast majority of people are interdependent and have been focusing on others their entire lives. In these cultures the institutions and interactions are structured around the needs and goals of others, not just the self. Some we hypothesize that the saying “There is no I in teamwork” may actually function in this way in interdependent cultural contexts, not because they have a saying urging people to think about others but because many of their experiences are structured around thinking of and attending to others.

Our higher education institutions reflect that. We may assign teamwork but it is very rare that the work is for a large proportion of students’ grades. For example in my teamwork class when I set the team project as 60% of students grades, they were outraged! Even if we do assign team work and give them high stakes using grades or other incentives, it is very rare that we teach them HOW to work together. We assume that they are people in this world and should know how to work with other people; which is an assumption that is more often false than it is true, at least from my experience!

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Prior research shows culture matters for teamwork

Dittman, Stephens & Townsend, 2020

Divide and Conquer

Working Together

Middle Class Students

Working Class Students

There is some work that already supports these predictions from Andrea Dittman and Nicole Stephens and Sarah Townsend. Here they had middle class and working class students work on a teamwork task, and the middle class students, who are from independent cultural backgrounds do something that they call divide and conquer. We’ve all seen this in our classes, this is when students spit up the work on day 1 and many enter everything into a google shared doc, then get together in their last week of class to maybe meet for 10 minutes of zoom before submitting it. In contrast they see working class students actually working together, and what this means is that they engage in more turn taking. And they indeed find that working class students are more successful at teamwork and enjoy teamwork better than their middle class counterparts. This is some evidence that culture as it is instantiated in social class identities, might shape the way we interact with others.

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Participants

599 U.S. Undergraduate Business Students
40% BIPOC
37% Female
Age: M = 20

Pre-class

Survey

Teamwork Instructions & Task

Post-class Survey

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Methods

Debate with others
Convince others that you are right
Try to influence others
Assert your own ideas/opinions

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Influencing Strategies

Adjusting Strategies

More common for independent groups

Adjust to others
Take others’ suggestions
Affirm others’ views
Listen to others’ ideas/opinions

More common for interdependent groups

Pre-class

Survey

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Results

* p < .05

** p < .01

*** p < .001

F (1, 595) = 23.69, partial η²= .04

Pre-class

Survey

*

***

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Results

* p < .05

** p < .01

*** p < .001

Pre-class

Survey

***

*

***

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Results

Pre-class

Survey

𝛘² (3) = 15.79, p < .001

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Current directions: �Cross-Cultural Comparisons

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Cultural Differences

From your experiences, how do different cultural norms influence the way individuals approach teamwork?

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Cultural Differences

In what ways do your racial and gender identities shape strategies for collaboration within diverse teams?

1. How do different cultural norms influence the way individuals approach teamwork?

What are some examples of how collectivist versus individualist cultures approach teamwork differently?

2. In what ways do racial and gender identities shape strategies for collaboration within diverse teams?

How do perceptions of leadership, contribution, and communication vary across these identities?

3. What role does power dynamics play in teamwork across different cultures, and how can teams navigate these dynamics effectively?

Are there specific challenges related to authority and hierarchy that differ between cultural contexts?

4. How do cross-cultural differences impact conflict resolution within teams?

Are there specific strategies that different cultural groups employ to handle conflict in collaborative environments?

5. What strategies have been found to help bridge the gap between independent (individualistic) and interdependent (collectivistic) teamwork approaches?

Can hybrid models of teamwork enhance team performance in diverse environments?

6. In what ways do gendered expectations influence teamwork strategies across cultures?

How do gender roles differ in leadership positions and task delegation in diverse teams?

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Cultural Differences

How can teams effectively navigate power dynamics across different cultures during teamwork?

1. How do different cultural norms influence the way individuals approach teamwork?

What are some examples of how collectivist versus individualist cultures approach teamwork differently?

2. In what ways do racial and gender identities shape strategies for collaboration within diverse teams?

How do perceptions of leadership, contribution, and communication vary across these identities?

3. What role does power dynamics play in teamwork across different cultures, and how can teams navigate these dynamics effectively?

Are there specific challenges related to authority and hierarchy that differ between cultural contexts?

4. How do cross-cultural differences impact conflict resolution within teams?

Are there specific strategies that different cultural groups employ to handle conflict in collaborative environments?

5. What strategies have been found to help bridge the gap between independent (individualistic) and interdependent (collectivistic) teamwork approaches?

Can hybrid models of teamwork enhance team performance in diverse environments?

6. In what ways do gendered expectations influence teamwork strategies across cultures?

How do gender roles differ in leadership positions and task delegation in diverse teams?

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Practical Implications

How can organizations promote inclusive teamwork strategies that accommodate cultural differences?

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Practical Implications

What are the most common barriers to effective teamwork in racially and gender-diverse teams?

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Practical Implications

What best practices ensure that independent and interdependent team members feel valued?

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Future Research

How can future research better address the intersection of culture (i.e. race and gender) in teamwork?

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Future Research

How might evolving workplace trends (i.e. remote work, global teams) influence teamwork?

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Questions?

ccreason@calpoly.edu

ybenchar@calpoly.edu

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Questions?

ybenchar@calpoly.edu

ccreason@calpoly.edu