Jeff Polzer is the UPS Foundation Professor of Human Resource Management in the Organizational Behavior Unit at Harvard Business School. He studies how people collaborate in teams and across organizational networks to accomplish their individual and collective goals. He has ongoing projects in collaboration with a number of organizations, often working with members of their people analytics groups on problems of mutual interest. He has taught a variety of courses in the MBA, Executive, and Doctoral Programs at HBS, and published his research in numerous top management and psychology journals.
Professor Polzer currently teaches "Leading with People Analytics" as an elective MBA course and in the Harvard Business Analytics Program for executives. His past MBA courses include Leadership and Organizational Behavior, Leading Teams, and Field Immersion Experiences for Leadership Development. He taught the doctoral course Human Behavior and served as the faculty chair of Harvard’s Organizational Behavior PhD program. He has also conducted executive training sessions for a variety of organizations including IBM, Novartis, AT&T, Allianz, Seagate, Jabil, First Abu Dhabi Bank, Citizens Bank, Bharti Airtel, Fresenius, Mercy Corps, and Ernst & Young.
Before coming to Harvard, he taught courses in Organizational Behavior and Negotiations at the University of Texas at Austin and Northwestern University, where he won the Kellogg Graduate School of Management's Doctoral Teaching Award. At HBS, he has received the Robert F. Greenhill Award for outstanding service, the Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching, the Charles M. Williams award for his work with doctoral students, and the Wyss Award for Excellence in Doctoral Mentoring.
A native of Wisconsin, Professor Polzer earned a B.S. in Finance and Economics from the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point and an MBA from Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, where he worked for Burlington Northern Railroad as a marketing analyst. He received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. He has published his research in the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Administrative Science Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Psychological Science, and Small Group Research.
Neale, M., E. Mannix, and J. Polzer, eds. Identity Issues in Groups. Vol. 5, Research on Managing Groups and Teams. Stamford, CT: JAI Press, 2003.
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Patricia Satterstrom, Jeffrey T. Polzer, Lisa Kwan, Oliver P. Hauser, Wannawiruch Wiruchnipawan and Marina Burke
In this paper, we explore whether perceivers can accurately assess the effectiveness of groups, how perceivers use group properties to inform their judgment, and the contextual and individual differences that allow some perceivers to be more accurate. Across seven studies, we present consistent evidence that perceivers can judge workgroup effectiveness in videos of different lengths—60, 30, and 10 seconds—and in 10-second silent videos and 10-second audio clips. We find that perceptions of collective properties of groups, including cohesion, affective trust, and cognitive trust partially mediate perceivers’ ability to accurately judge groups. Furthermore, increased attentional focus improves perceivers’ ability to judge group effectiveness. Finally, we find that perceivers with higher levels of social sensitivity are more accurate at judging group effectiveness. We discuss the implications of these findings for the groups literature and social perception literature.
Satterstrom, Patricia, Jeffrey T. Polzer, Lisa Kwan, Oliver P. Hauser, Wannawiruch Wiruchnipawan, and Marina Burke. "Thin Slices of Workgroups."Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 151 (March 2019): 104–117.
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Carmit Tadmor, Melody Chao, Ying-yi Hong and Jeff Polzer
Individuals who believe that racial groups have fixed underlying essences use stereotypes more than do individuals who believe that racial categories are arbitrary and malleable social-political constructions. Would this essentialist mind-set also lead to less creativity? We suggest that the functional utility derived from essentialism induces a habitual closed-mindedness that transcends the social domain and hampers creativity. Across studies, using both individual difference measures (in a pilot test) and experimental manipulations (Experiments 1, 2a, and 2b), we found that an essentialist mind-set is indeed hazardous for creativity, with the relationship mediated by motivated closed-mindedness (Experiments 2a and 2b). These results held across samples of majority cultural-group members (Caucasian Americans, Israelis) and minority-group members (Asian Americans), as well as across different measures of creativity (flexibility, association, insight). Our findings have important implications for understanding the connection between racial intolerance and creativity.
Carmit Tadmor, Patricia Satterstrom, Sujin Jang and Jeffrey Polzer
Although recent research has consistently demonstrated the benefits of multicultural experience for individual-level creativity, its potential advantages for collective creativity in culturally diverse teams have yet to be explored. We predicted that multicultural experience among members of a collective would enhance joint creativity in a superadditive fashion. Using a two-step methodology that included both individual and dyadic brainstorming sessions, we found that even after controlling for individual creativity, multicultural experience had a superadditive effect on dyadic creativity. Specifically, dyads performed best on a creative task in terms of fluency, flexibility, and novelty—three classic dimensions of creativity—when both dyad partners had high levels of multicultural experience. These results show that when it comes to multicultural experience, the creative whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Implications for diversity research are discussed.
Can groups become effective simply by assembling high status individual performers? Though an affirmative answer may seem straightforward on the surface, this answer becomes more complicated when group members benefit from collaborating on interdependent tasks. Examining Wall Street sell-side equities research analysts who work in an industry in which individuals strive for status, we find that groups benefited-up to a point-from having high status members, controlling for individual performance. With higher proportions of individual stars, however, the marginal benefit decreased before the slope of this curvilinear pattern became negative. This curvilinear pattern was especially strong when stars were concentrated in a small number of sectors, likely reflecting suboptimal integration among analysts with similar areas of expertise. Control variables ensured that these effects were not the spurious result of individual performance, department size or specialization, or firm prestige. We discuss the theoretical implications of these results for the literatures on status and groups, along with practical implications for strategic human resource management.
High interpersonal congruence-meaning alignment between team members' self-assessments and their appraisals of one another-improves the performance of diverse teams. And 360-degree feedback can help.
We theorize that in geographically dispersed teams, members' geographic locations are likely to activate "faultlines" (hypothetical dividing lines that split a group into subgroups) that impair team functioning. In a study of 45 teams comprised of graduate students from 14 schools in ten countries, we found that geographic faultlines heightened conflict and reduced trust. These faultlines were stronger when a team was divided into two equally sized subgroups of colocated members and when these subgroups were homogeneous in nationality.
Diversity has the potential to either disrupt group functioning or, conversely, be the source of collective creativity and insight. These two divergent perspectives pose a paradox that has held the attention of scholars for many years. In response, researchers have marshaled evidence to specify the conditions under which diversity leads to more positive outcomes and explain why it does so under these conditions. After describing these foundational perspectives and more recent work that addresses this paradox, we outline several promising directions for research in this domain. We encourage researchers to develop integrative theoretical explanations, use new technologies to gain insight into group processes, study diversity in the context of virtual interaction, and take advantage of opportunities for cross-disciplinary research.
Purpose—We review how team members' identities and interests affect team functioning, paying special attention to subgroup dynamics triggered by fault lines and coalitions. This review sets the stage for describing novel pathways through which identities and interests, when considered together, can affect team processes and outcomes.
Design/approach—We use an extended example of a hypothetical team's decision-making process to illustrate how team members' identities and interests intertwine to affect the distribution and flow of information, subgroup dynamics, and team decisions.
Findings—We develop three specific ideas to demonstrate the utility of this integrative approach. First, we show how the formation of identity-based subgroups can shape information sharing to create a hidden profile where there was none initially. Second, we describe how individual defection can weaken subgroup competition and, paradoxically, increase the chance that a team will optimize its collective welfare. Third, we analyze how shared identities can shape team members' side conversations in ways that create shared interests and information among those with similar identities, even before the team begins its formal meetings.
Originality/value—By identifying new routes through which identities and interests can affect team functioning, we provide a foundation for scholars in this domain to theoretically develop and empirically test these and related ideas. More generally, we encourage scholars to study the interplay among identities, interests, and information in their own research to paint a more complete picture of how individuals, subgroups, and teams perform.
Environmental jolts and shifting membership challenge a group's efficacy and survival. Group identity is critical for a shared interpretation of and response to these challenges, but external and internal changes may require corresponding changes in a group's core identity. In a qualitative study of longshoremen in San Pedro, California, we observe an evolution in group identity as we track communication spoken and printed in the hiring halls, on the docks, and during casual social interactions. The emphasis in the shared language gradually shifts from safety and solidarity to safety, collaboration, and economic power. The newly developed language supports and shapes the longshoremen's identity and provides an interpretive guide for how to react to and benefit from disruptive external events.
We integrate an identity negotiation framework with research on diversity, social identity theory, and status differences. This integration reveals the distinct advantages and challenges that high and low status people face when they engage in identity negotiation processes. In particular, our analysis systematically disentangles the obstacles that members of low status social groups must overcome to elicit verification of their positive self-views. People in this situation are not only working against a stereotype from a position of low influence, but are also threatening the relative standing of those whose appraisals they are attempting to change. By considering status differences, we are able to identify certain conditions under which verification effects should have especially potent effects, and other conditions under which appraisal effects may be of greater benefit than verification effects to the performance of diverse groups.
Polzer, Jeffrey T., and Heather M. Caruso. "Identity Negotiation Processes Amidst Diversity: Understanding the Influence of Social Identity and Status Differences." In Diversity at Work, edited by Arthur P. Brief. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
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Elfenbein, H. A., J. T. Polzer, and N. Ambady. "Team Emotion Recognition Accuracy and Team Performance." Chap. 4 in Research on Emotions in Organizations. Vol. 3, edited by N. M. Ashkanasy, W. J. Zerbe, and C. E.J. Härtel, 87–119. Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007.
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Polzer, J. "Negotiation Tactics." In Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Human Resource Management, edited by L. Peters, S. Youngblood, and C. Greer. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1997.
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Polzer, J. "Role; Role Ambiguity; Role Distancing; Role Set; and Role Theory." In Blackwell Encyclopedic Dictionary of Organizational Behavior, edited by N. Nicholson. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
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Polzer, J., and M. Neale. "Conflict Management and Negotiation." In Health Care Management: Organization Design and Behavior, edited by S. Shortell and A. Kaluzny. Albany, NY: Delmar Publishers, 1994.
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Evan DeFilippis, Stephen Michael Impink, Madison Singell, Jeffrey T. Polzer and Raffaella Sadun
We explore the impact of COVID-19 on employee's digital communication patterns through an event study of lockdowns in 16 large metropolitan areas in North America, Europe and the Middle East. Using de-identified, aggregated meeting and email meta-data from 3,143,270 users, we find, compared to pre-pandemic levels, increases in the number of meetings per person (+12.9 percent) and the number of attendees per meeting (+13.5 percent), but decreases in the average length of meetings (-20.1 percent). Collectively, the net effect is that people spent less time in meetings per day (-11.5 percent) in the post-lockdown period. We also find significant and durable increases in length of the average workday (+8.2 percent, or +48.5 minutes), along with short-term increases in email activity. These findings provide insight from a novel dataset into how the nature of work has changed for a large sample of knowledge workers. We discuss these changes in light of the ongoing challenges faced by organizations and workers struggling to adapt and perform in the face of a global pandemic.
Yael Grushka-Cockayne, Jeffrey T. Polzer, Susie L. Ma and Shlomi Pasternak
Ment.io was a software platform that used proprietary data analytics technology to help organizations make informed and transparent decisions based on team input. Ment was born out of founder Joab Rosenberg’s frustration that, while organizations collected ever increasing amounts of data, the information gathering process did not capture human insights, which he viewed as critical to the use of the data. In early 2020, Rosenberg felt that the company he had started five years ago was taking off, but he wondered how to manage the team’s limited engineering resources to help Ment stand out in a crowded software market. Should the company improve Ment’s user interface, develop new features, or focus on its innovative algorithm?
This is a supplement to the “People Analytics at Teach For America (A)” case. In this supplement, Managing Director Michael Metzger must decide how to extend his team’s predictive analytics work.
This data set is a supplement to the People Analytics at Teach For America (A) case.
Citation:
Polzer, Jeffrey T. "People Analytics at Teach For America (Data Set)." Harvard Business School Spreadsheet Supplement 418-715, February 2018.
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As of mid-2016, national nonprofit Teach For America (TFA) had struggled with three consecutive years of declining application totals, and senior management was re-examining the organization’s strategy, including recruitment and selection. A few months earlier, former TFA corps member Michael Metzger had spearheaded the launch of a predictive analytics team responsible for integrating strategy across TFA’s recruitment and admissions continuum. Metzger believed that predictive analytics could help address TFA’s recruitment and admissions challenges. Now, TFA’s senior management wanted Metzger and his team to put their data models to the test. From a data modeling standpoint, what variables and models should TFA consider as it began a new recruitment season, and, more generally, how heavily should TFA rely on predictive models to reverse the negative trends?
A private equity–backed fast food chain has hired McKinsey’s new People Analytics group to help it improve performance. As the final client workshop approaches, Associate Partner Alex DiLeonardo ponders the best way to present the team’s findings, especially those that conflict with the client executives’ long-held intuitions. If successful, the project would help People Analytics build its reputation both internally and with clients. But to be successful, DiLeonardo knows his team must convince the client that their results are credible and actionable. In addition to discussing the specifics of the fast food project, the case also provides an overview of the people analytics field more broadly through the lens of McKinsey’s client portfolio.
In 2017, Sarah Powers, VP of Sales at an automation hardware firm, is trying to understand why some members of her sales team have been underperforming. She is tasked with analyzing her firm’s email and calendar data to try to find relationships between communications and sales performance.
In 2016, Susan Cassidy, VP of sales and marketing for the packaged foods division at CPG firm Bertram Gilman International, has to make a promotion decision. Should she choose the person she has been grooming for the position or another candidate recommended by central HR based on the firm’s promotions algorithm?
Rakesh Khurana, Jeffrey Polzer, Willy Shih and Eric Baldwin
Describes the challenges and successes encountered by GE's Aviation business in implementing a teaming work structure and culture in plants across its supply chain. GE Aviation leadership had seen dramatic gains in productivity, quality, and worker satisfaction in manufacturing plants where it had implemented teaming, which was designed to move decision making as close to the product as possible by delegating authority, responsibility, and accountability to front-line workers. The case describes what teaming looked like in two of GE Aviation's plants and discusses the benefits realized in teaming sites. It also describes the challenges GE Aviation leaders had encountered in implementing teaming in the face of an entrenched work structure and culture in one particular plant and discusses the difficulty management had faced in moving forward in transforming the culture of the plant.
Khurana, Rakesh, Jeffrey Polzer, Willy Shih, and Eric Baldwin. "Teaming at GE Aviation." Harvard Business School Case 413-074, November 2012.
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Bridgewater Associates was the world's largest hedge fund with approximately $120 billion in assets under management in mid-2012, and its leaders attribute its record-beating performance to the firm's culture of "radical transparency." The founder, Ray Dalio, was instrumental in developing this unique culture, but at the time of the case he was transitioning out of the firm's leadership and attempting to institutionalize the culture. For example, Dalio codified his personal and management principles in a 123-page document that was not only mandatory reading for all employees, but also formed the basis for nightly "homework" assignments that quizzed people on their understanding of the principles. The case offers the opportunity to explore the unusual practices that underpin Bridgewater's culture (e.g., videotaping meetings, publicizing every employee's performance review, interrupting investment meetings to provide personal feedback to individuals in front of dozens of colleagues). Class discussion prompts students to critically examine whether, how and to what extent the practices foster high performance and to debate their associated tradeoffs.
This note, which describes the architecture and processes that characterize effective teams, begins by detailing the steps involved in designing a team, from diagnosing the complexity, interdependence, and objectives of the task to harnessing the key resources teams need from their environment. It describes the qualities to search for when selecting team members, including finding the right number of people, individual skills along both technical and interpersonal dimensions, and a mix of skills appropriate for the task. Once the team is designed, team leaders and members need to shape and monitor team processes, starting with the team launch. Describes how to diagnose emergent team processes such as information exchange, collaboration, decision making, impression formation, and underlying identity dynamics. Includes steps managers can take to improve dysfunctional team processes such as restructuring and shaping the social forces within the team. Ends with a discussion of bridging differences in teams across both geographic and cultural divides.
Describes the cases and exercises that comprise the Team Processes module of the Leading Teams course. Also describes the sequence in which the materials are used, along with the connections and transitions among the materials.
Polzer, Jeffrey T., and Scott A. Snook. "Army Crew Team, The (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 404-117, June 2004. (Revised March 2005.)
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Polzer, Jeffrey T., Hillary Anger Elfenbein, and Jenny Illes. "Flextronics: Deciding on a Shop-Floor System for Producing the Microsoft Xbox (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 405-007, August 2004. (Revised March 2005.)
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Polzer, Jeffrey T. "National Semiconductor's India Design Center (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 405-006, August 2004. (Revised March 2005.)
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Jim McCusker must guide a group decision-making process aimed at getting input and buy-in from key people in California, Mexico, and Austria to choose a shop floor IT system for Flextronics. McCusker is Flextronics' account manager for the Microsoft Xbox project. Geographical distance and time pressure make it difficult for all the relevant parties to assemble in person in one location. In a company culture that values fast, decisive action, McCusker wonders whether he has the authority to make the decision himself and, if not, how he should involve the other parties who are keenly interested in the outcome.
The senior managers of the India Design Center used 360-degree feedback to develop their team competencies. Now, three new managers are about to join their management team, and Ashok Kumar, director of the center, must decide how to integrate the new managers in a way that maintains the team's newfound trust and camaraderie. Describes the managers' work activities, including engineering, human resources, and finance responsibilities, to allow a diagnosis of how the managers can benefit from working together as a team. Also notes the challenges these managers face as they work with their bosses and counterparts at the company's headquarters in California, which is 13.5 time zones away. The team is one that could presumably benefit from better cross-functional coordination and communication regarding their collective relationship with the company's headquarters in California.
Polzer, Jeffrey T., and Hillary Anger Elfenbein. "Henry Tam and the MGI Team (TN)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 404-079, May 2004.
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The American Red Cross has a system for structuring, staffing, and leading teams to review its local chapters. Mirroring professional services firms that use teams to serve clients, this system provides detailed guidelines to increase individual team member's efficiency and thoroughness. The protagonist at Red Cross headquarters who designed the system, however, is concerned that the structure she has provided is detracting from the teams' overall creativity and integration. Highlights the trade-offs of providing teams with too little structure (e.g., inefficiency, variable quality of team's work products) vs. too much structure (e.g., team members have little opportunity to utilize their expertise and creativity).
Polzer, Jeffrey T., Anita Williams Woolley, and Jenny Illes. "Chapter Enrichment Program Teams at the American Red Cross (TN) (A) and (B)." Harvard Business School Teaching Note 404-120, April 2004.
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The coach of the varsity Army crew team at West Point assembled his top eight rowers into the first crew team and the second tier of rowers into the second team using objective data on individual performance. As the second boat continually beat the first boat in races, the coach attempted to discern the team dynamics causing these aberrant results. By using very clean, objective performance data, the case makes clear that a team can be more (or less) than the sum of its individual parts, but allows students to analyze the factors that make this true.
Within a short time frame, seven diverse team members assemble to write a business plan for a new company and struggle to define their roles, make decisions together, and resolve conflict. Henry Tam, a second-year Harvard MBA student, who joins an aspiring start-up company and a fellow classmate to enter the school's business plan contest. The founders of the company are two internationally accomplished musicians and a 1987 Harvard MBA, all Russian, who are trying to create, produce, and sell a unique computer-based music game. Conflict builds as the team generates a range of ideas about how to market their product, but has trouble agreeing on which ideas to pursue. Henry Tam wrestles with how to fix the problems that have hindered the team's progress.
This note which describes the architecture and processes that characterize effective teams, begins by detailing the steps involved in designing a team, from diagnosing the complexity, interdependence, and objectives of the task to harnessing the key resources teams need from their environment. It describes the qualities to search for when selecting team members, including finding the right number of people, individual skills along both technical and interpersonal dimensions, and a mix of skills appropriate for the task. Once the team is designed, team leaders and members need to shape and monitor team processes, starting with the team launch. Describes how to diagnose emergent team processes such as information exchange, collaboration, decision making, impression formation, and underlying identity dynamics. Includes steps managers can take to improve dysfunctional team processes such as restructuring and shaping the social forces within the team. Ends with a discussion of bridging differences in teams across both geographic and cultural divides.
This note explains how identity dynamics underlie many of the observable interpersonal problems that team members encounter, ranging from lack of participation and low involvement to misunderstandings and dysfunctional emotional conflict. It provides a framework for understanding how to recognize and manage identity issues in teams, including sections on communicating identities, forming impressions, and the consequences of the resulting level of congruence between people's identities and others' impressions of them. Outlines action steps managers can take to increase the level of interpersonal congruence in their teams, which should, in turn, make their teams more effective.
Patricia Satterstrom, Lisa Kwan, Wannawiruch Wiruchnipawan and Jeff Polzer
Citation:
Satterstrom, Patricia, Lisa Kwan, Wannawiruch Wiruchnipawan, and Jeff Polzer. "Perceiving Collaborative Potential." Paper presented at the International Association for Conflict Management Annual Conference, Istanbul, Turkey, June 2011.
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Carmit Tadmor, Patricia Hernandez, Sujin Jang and Jeff Polzer
Citation:
Tadmor, Carmit, Patricia Hernandez, Sujin Jang, and Jeff Polzer. "The Influence of Multiculturalism and Self-verification on Creativity in Culturally Diverse Dyads." Paper presented at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting, Chicago, August 2009.
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