Voice Over The Wall

A hot group…is not a name for another kind of organizational unit. A hot group is not to be confused with a team, task force, panel, board, or committee. It is a state of mind, shared by a group’s members. -- Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt, 1999

Such is one way Jean Lipman-Blumen and Harold J. Leavitt describe the phenomenon known as a hot group. Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt have written extensively on the all encompassing, productive, and unconventional execution that is the hot group in an attempt to explain the business benefits. Businesses, however, may ultimately find an explanation of hot group state of mind in the research conducted by the field of humanistic psychology.

Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt suggest the potential value hot groups bring to organizations in their 1995 Harvard Business Review article, “Hot Groups,” their 1999 CIO Magazine article, “Jammin’,” and in their 1999 book Hot Groups. Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (1995) begin by providing a definition of hot groups, by stating,

A hot group is…a lively, high-achieving, dedicated group, usually small, whose members are turned onto an exciting task. Hot groups, while they last, completely captivate their members, occupying their hearts and minds to the exclusion of almost everything else. When the conditions are right, hot groups happen, inspired by the dedication of their members to solve an impossible problem or beat an unbeatable foe (p. 109).

Describing hot groups as such, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt spend the majority of their writings unpacking this definition.

Based on their writings, it can be suggested that hot groups are an alternative to the traditional corporate team structure. Several characteristics of hot groups illustrate this. First, no one can form a hot group or will it into existence. Instead, hot groups form naturally and last only for relatively short periods of time (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1995). Second, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (1995) indicate that the bureaucracy of business distracts members in hot groups. Reports such as expense forms and status reports are deemed unnecessary (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1995). Members avoid symbols of authority amongst each other and instead focus on communicating freely and casually. They tend to set their own schedules, ignore company policy, and work secretly until it is time to unveil the results of their work (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1999). As a result many organizations view hot groups negatively, citing the group’s single-mindedness, self-centeredness, and seemingly uncooperative nature as counterproductive to business (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1995). Ultimately, however, these characteristics are outward expressions of what Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (1995) feel is the single most defining feature of hot groups, total focus on the task at hand.

Members in a hot group all share this total focus because they feel that the group is doing a task full of meaning, one that is extremely significant to their organization (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1995). Every thought of every day during the group’s existence is ultimately focused on the task. In fact, the more challenging the task, the more dedicated and focused the members become (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1995). Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (1995) state, “Participants in hot groups achieve this level of preoccupation because they always feel that their task is immensely significant both in terms of the challenges it represents and in terms of its intrinsic meaning” (p. 111). In fact, this intrinsic meaning causes members to volunteer for extra work, effectively creating more work for themselves (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1999).

In describing the internal dynamics of a hot group, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (1995) state that members of the group feel more “creative, capable, and productive” as part of the group than at any point of their lives (p. 110). Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (1995) describe this as a “peak experience” for those members because they feel like they are stretching and surpassing their normal performance abilities (p. 110). It is here that the humanistic approach can shed additional light on the total focus exhibited in a hot group. Unfortunately, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt provide only a brief mention of the humanistic approach’s influence on the understanding of the hot group. In fact, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt seemingly minimize the humanistic contribution and place it solely in the context of needs-based fulfillment. While needs-based fulfillment is indeed a central tenet of the humanistic approach, it is not the whole of the humanistic contribution to the understanding of hot groups. In Hot Groups, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (1995) state,

Abraham Maslow offered his hierarchy of needs…More recently, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi developed the concept of flow, the urge in individuals to move forward, to accomplish things worth accomplishing. “The best moments [in life] usually occur,” he writes, “when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.” Hot groups don’t help individuals satisfy all their needs, drives, and motives, but they can certainly give us chances to strive toward those “best moments” (p. 219-220).

Such is the extent of Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt’s reference to the humanistic contribution. By confining their research to needs-based fulfillment, they seemingly miss the fact that drives and motives are two integral parts of the hot group mentality. In fact, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt (1995) define the members of a hot group as being “high-achieving and dedicated,” which are essential to succeeding and surpassing one’s normal abilities.

Surpassing one’s normal performance abilities is a phenomenon that has been studied by humanistic psychologists for several decades. During his career in the mid 1900’s, humanistic psychologist Abraham Maslow described the “peak experience” of psychologically healthy people (Burger, 2000, p. 325). In his explanation, psychologically healthy people are less restricted by the norms of culture, less inhibited, and more spontaneous than the average person (Burger, 2000). These are the people who have peak experiences, which Maslow described as “one in which time and place are transcended, in which people lose their anxieties and experience a unity of self with the universe and a momentary feeling of power and wonder” (Burger, 2000, p. 325). While Maslow’s definition of a peak experience is a bit mystical, it neatly parallels Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt’s assertion that members of hot groups surpass themselves and their abilities. In fact, Maslow’s definition of psychologically healthy people can be applied to the members who are part of a hot group, in that they are a bit unconventional in their ways.

In addition to Maslow’s work on peak experiences, the research of another humanist, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has produced some interesting parallels to the total focus described by Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt. In his research, Csikszentmihalyi described what he called “flow in the optimal experience” (Burger, 2000, p. 326). Csikszentmihalyi (1997) defines flow as occurring “when a person faces a clear set of goals that require appropriate responses” (para. 6). In his studies, participants were presented with challenges that demanded full concentration and afterward, they described the events of these challenges as flowing from one step to the next (Burger, 2000). When a goal was reached the participants stated that the process was more pleasurable than the mastery of the goal (Burger, 2000). In addition, participants described these events as being so involving that they became oblivious to everything else (Burger, 2000). This is essentially the same feeling experienced by the members of a hot group. The oblivious state experienced by the participants in Csikszentmihalyi’s studies parallel the total focus that the members of the hot group experience.

Csikszentmihalyi (1997) states that provided the right elements are present, almost any activity can produce flow. In fact, Csikszentmihalyi (1997) feels that these experiences are more likely to occur at work, where skills are required to attend to challenges presented. Indeed, Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt describe the hot group in the workplace environment. Much in the same way that the flow occurs when the right elements are in place, hot groups grow naturally when the corporate environment is ripe and does not inhibit them. It can be suggested that a hot group in Csikszentmihalyi’s terms is a team that experiences flow in the face of a challenge that requires total use of their skills.

It should be noted that the peak/optimal experience and flow do not necessarily correlate to the hot group experience. The total focus found in the hot group parallels the peak/optimal experience and flow, but total focus is not the sole distinguishing characteristic of the hot group. Other characteristics are present, such as the secrecy, unconventional workplace behavior and the like. Moreover, the research of Maslow and Csikszentmihalyi focused on the individual and not the group. The influence however is unmistakable. Even Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt state that the “psychology of the individual is relevant” (Lipman-Blumen & Leavitt, 1999, p. 219). After all, groups are constructed of individuals by definition.

The contributions of humanistic psychology constructs to the understanding of the hot group mentality cannot be underestimated. The parallels of peak experiences and flow to the hot group mentality abound. Just as hot groups are made up of diverse individuals, the psychology of those individuals makes up the unique and incredibly potent experience that defines that of the hot group. By looking to the understanding of individuals who have peak experiences, businesses can come to understand what makes up the hot group and why Lipman-Blumen and Leavitt believe in the value hot groups offer. Only when businesses understand the dynamics of “hot” individuals can the come to understand the dynamics of the hot groups.

References

Burger, J. (2000). Personality. Santa Clara: Wadsworth.

Csikszentmihalyi , M. (1997, July/August). Finding Flow. Psychology Today. Retrieved February 8, 2004, from http://www.psychologytoday.com/htdocs/prod/PTOArticle/PTO-19970701-000042.ASP

Lipman-Blumen, J. & Leavitt, H. J. (1999, November). Jammin’. CIO Magazine. Retrieved February 8, 2004, from http://www.cio.com/archive/110199/jammin.html

Lipman-Blumen, J. & Leavitt, H. J. (1995). Hot Groups. Harvard Business Review, 109-116.

Lipman-Blumen, J. & Leavitt, H. J. (1999). Hot Groups. New York: Oxford University
Press.

Labels: Academic Papers, Management