Effective Teams Part 1: What Drives Team Performance?  By Eva
Rykrsmith on February 2, 2011 No Comment  I have previously
written that one of the ten things effective teams have in
common is norms. A few weeks ago, Wired magazine ran a write up
of a study recently published in the Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology that illustrates the power of team norms quite
well. Here is a quick summary of the study (quoted from the
Wired article):  “Each participant (real and virtual) was given
a pool of points in each round of the game. These could be kept
or put into a central kitty for the team. Putting points into
the kitty doubled their value. The participant was then allowed
to withdraw up to a quarter of the points contributed by the
other four into their own personal bank. They were encouraged to
withdraw less than a quarter of the points by being told that if
they left them in the kitty they would have an improved chance
of winning an unspecified bonus for the group. When the game was
over, participant