When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing(51)

3. Pass the Clap.

This is a classic improv warm-up exercise. Form a circle. The first person turns to his right and makes eye contact with the second person. Then they both clap at the same time. Next, person number two turns to her right, makes eye contact with person number three, and those two clap in unison. (That is, number two passes the clap to number three.) Then number three continues the process. As the clap passes from person to person, somebody can decide to reverse the direction by “clapping back” instead of turning and passing it on. Then anyone else can reverse direction again. The goal is to focus on synching with just one person, which helps the entire group coordinate and pass around an invisible object. Search “pass the clap” on YouTube to see the exercise in action. And while you await your search results, perhaps think of a name for this technique that elicits fewer snickers.


4. Beastie Boys Rap.

Named for the hip-hop group, this group game requires individuals to establish a structure that helps others act in unison. The first person raps a line that follows a particular structure of stressed and unstressed beats. The Improv Resource Center wiki (https://wiki.improvresourcecenter.com) uses this example: “LIVing at HOME is SUCH a DRAG.” The rest of the group then follows with this refrain: “YAH buh-buh-BAH buh-BAH buh-BAH BAH!” Then each subsequent person offers a new line, pausing a bit before the final word so the entire group says it together. To continue this example:

Person two: “I always pack my lunch in the same brown BAG.”

Group: “YAH buh-buh-BAH buh-BAH buh-BAH BAH!”

Person three: “I like to take a nap on carpet made of SHAG.”

Group: “YAH buh-buh-BAH buh-BAH buh-BAH BAH!”



To be clear: Not everyone will instantly warm to all these exercises, but sometimes you’ve got to fight for your right to synchronize.


FOUR TECHNIQUES FOR PROMOTING BELONGING IN YOUR GROUP


1. Reply quickly to e-mail.

When I asked Congressional Chorus artistic director David Simmons what strategies he used to promote belonging, his answer surprised me. “You reply to their e-mails,” he said. The research backs up Simmons’s instincts.

E-mail response time is the single best predictor of whether employees are satisfied with their boss, according to research by Duncan Watts, a Columbia University sociologist who is now a principal researcher for Microsoft Research. The longer it takes for a boss to respond to their e-mails, the less satisfied people are with their leader.1


2. Tell stories about struggle.

One way that groups cohere is through storytelling. But the stories your group tells should not only be tales of triumph. Stories of failure and vulnerability also foster a sense of belongingness. For instance, Gregory Walton of Stanford University has found that for individuals who might feel apart from a group—for instance, women in a predominantly male environment or students of color in a largely white university—these types of stories can be powerful.2 Simply reading an account of another student whose freshman year didn’t go perfectly but who eventually found her place boosted subsequent feelings of belongingness.


3. Nurture self-organized group rituals.

Cohesive and coordinated groups all have rituals, which help fuse identity and deepen belongingness. But not all rituals have equal power. The most valuable emerge from the people in the group, instead of being orchestrated or imposed by those at the top. For rowers, maybe it’s a song they all sing during warm-ups. For choir members, maybe’s it’s a coffee shop where everyone gathers before each rehearsal. As Stanford’s Robb Willer has discovered, “Workplace social functions are less effective if initiated by the manager. What’s better are worker-established engagements set at times and places that are convenient for the team.”3 Organic rituals, not artificial ones, generate cohesion.


4. Try a jigsaw classroom.

In the early 1970s, social psychologist Elliot Aronson and his graduate students at the University of Texas designed a cooperative learning technique to address racial divisions in the recently integrated Austin public schools. They called it a “jigsaw classroom.” And as it slowly took hold in schools, educators realized the technique could promote group coordination of any kind.

Here’s how it works.

The teacher divides students into five-person “jigsaw groups.” Then the teacher divides that day’s lesson into five segments. For instance, if the class is studying the life of Abraham Lincoln, those sections might be Lincoln’s childhood, his early political career, his becoming president at the dawn of the U.S. Civil War, his signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and his assassination. Each student is responsible for researching one of these segments.

The students then go off to study their piece, forming “expert groups” with students from the class’s other five-person groups who share the same assignment. (In other words, all students assigned the Emancipation Proclamation segment meet.) When the research is complete, each student returns to his original jigsaw group and teaches the other four classmates.

The key to this learning strategy is structured interdependence. Each student provides a necessary piece of the whole, something essential for everyone else to glimpse the full picture. And each student’s success depends on both her own contribution and those of her partners. If you’re a teacher, give it a try. But even if your classroom days are far behind you, you can adapt the jigsaw approach to many work environments.