Positive Psychology at Work:

Connectivity

Connectivity is a concept that explains how group performance can be more than a sum of the parts. How well an interconnected group (e.g., a management group) is able to perform is not just about who is in the group, it also depends on the relations and interactions between members: if each individual's performance is dependent on the team as a whole being able to work together, then it doesn't matter how good any individual is on their own; if the group isn't working well together, the group performance will be poor. Connectivity is an important indicator of how well a system is functioning, how able it is to respond to changes and how well connected the elements of the system are to each other. Connectivity within groups is expressed through the number of nexi found in the conversation, nexi being strong and sustained patterns of interlocked behaviour between members which are indicative of a process of mutual influence. Sophisticated communication analysis is necessary to uncover these patterns. However, the ratio of positive to negative comments made within a group's communication pattern has been found to be a good proxy for a measurement of nexi. That is to say, such a ratio gives a good indication of the degree of connectivity in the group.

Losada and Heaphy (2004) were interested to discover the relationship between patterns of connectivity in management group conversations and their performance. They studied 60 top management teams having business-related ...