Brain Synchronisation – the Magic Sauce for Team Performance?
Inter-brain synchronisation correlates with many positive things including team performance
I have focused previously on some aspects of team performance such as the underrated high performer. But in this I look at the collective and how the little-known aspect of inter-brain synchronisation which leads to high performing teams. But is this all, and is this true for sports teams as well as business teams?
To be on the same wavelength is a term that is often used to describe how some people get along intangibly. And research over the years has shown that this is, indeed, precisely what is happening – people who get on well together, and the closer the friend, do indeed have the same wavelengths. Specifically, their brains’ synchronise in what is termed inter-brain, or brain-to-brain, synchrony.
In this state people’s brains will follow similar patterns. Brain waves in different regions and across different frequencies will synchronise and follow similar modulations, humming along as if magically interconnected as one unit.
This is an observation that matches other metrics. Friends when they sit together often mirror each other’s body posture and when people watch a film together their heartbeat tend to synchronize also. But not only do brains synch up, which is obvious, or amazing, or both at the same time, but the level of synchrony predicts many things.
Simply put, it predicts being on the same wavelength, of course, but also cohesion, cooperation, and feeling good together.
from Kinreich et al. 2017
This synchronisation was first measured at the turn of the century by Read Montague by placing two people in two separate MRI scanners at the same time. A costly and complicated experiment at the time. Technology has advanced and there are multiple methods now used and more importantly for us is that many of these have become more “naturalistic” i.e. by viewing brains though EEG recordings of groups of people doing tasks together while having some form of freedom of movement and not locked into an MRI scanner. The term of scanning more than one participant at the same time has the cool name of “hyper scanning” and is now combined with other methods such as functional near-infrared spectroscopy.
Trust me, this is still really complex, the signals have to be matched in time very accurately to be able to identify this and the more people, the more complex this gets, very quickly. But neuroscientists are very smart people and so there has been a bunch of studies into this and this seems to have really taken of in recent years with an influx of hyper scanning studies and results into brain-to-brain synchrony.
If you like the idea of inter-brain synchrony you will also find the results mightily impressive.
Response to a musician’s piece of music can be predicted by inter-brain synchrony i.e. the higher the synchrony the better the higher the audience was engaged with the music and the more they like it
Inter-brain synchrony in students increased long-term memory retention
Parents and child exhibit inter-brain synchrony
Simply the physical presence of a spouse in co-parenting couples increases inter-brain synchrony of salient vocalisations
Stress can undermine mother-child inter-brain synchrony
A participative style showed greater inter-brain synchrony between supervisor and employee in performance reviews
The above are all fascinating and point to the fact that inter-brain synchrony is a widespread feature of human nature and collaboration and also points to some unaccountable facets such as the simple physical presence of a spouse can increase synchronisation. So, simply having someone there alters the way the brain works. This is why it “feels” better. There are likely other factors at play also. But now let’s get to the really interesting part and that is of team performance.
I have written in other articles on team performance factors. One was the unrecognised high-performers in lbR 2021-01, and the other was how come sports teams selected from the best players do not necessarily, and often don’t, outperform lower rated teams who play regularly together.
My proposal is that this is based on learning to play together and in being able to predict and adapt one’s play to optimally match those players you regularly play with. But on top of that a team will also be high in brain-to-brain synchrony. And this is indeed what many spectators see in those high-performing teams irrespective of which sport. They somehow seem to function seamlessly as a unit operating as one entity. If that isn’t inter-brain synchrony, I don’t know what is.
But is there any evidence for this?
Yes, there is. Unfortunately, not on the sports field - measuring brain waves while running around a sports field is still out of reach of our innovative neuroscientists. But when it comes to group decision-making and group tasks, we can see a very clear pattern.
Inter-group brain synchrony predicts group performance.
Recent work into team performance accompanied with EEG measurements by Jay Van Bavel and Dominic Packer tested 174 participants in different exercises with individual performance goals, or team performance goals. What they found, as we also outlined in the previous article on competition, is that team performance was invariably higher with team performance goals than in the individual-focused tasks across multiple metrics.
from Reinero et al. 2021
What they also noticed was that on starting a team task (these people were strangers to each other) their brains were not synchronised, but as the task progressed their brains started to synchronise more and more. This shows that simply engaging in team tasks encourages brain-to-brain synchronisation. But the more interesting aspect of this is that performance was predicted by brain-to brain synchrony i.e. the higher the brain-to-brain synchrony the better the output of the team!
This highlights a number of factors that are critical to business and often underestimated (not to mention some sports teams also). Firstly, team performance is essential and produces higher quality results on multiple metrics. Secondly, engaging in team tasks encourages inter-brain synchrony, team engagement, and feelings of connection between employees. Thirdly, and what was outlined in the article on competition, and was also part of this set of experiments, providing individual rewards undermines team performance and inter-brain synchrony. Whereas team rewards improved this. Another one down for classic performance reward systems.
How to increase inter-brain synchrony.
Now, this sound like a really cool thing to have. You may also notice some potential caveats namely that of groupthink and faulty decision making that we noted in previous issues (lbR-2021-04). Interbrain synchony could increase groupthink - with everyone thinking in the same way potentailly leading to bad or disasterous decisions. Whereas this may be the case, the research in these examples showed better outcomes all round so this is likely of less concern. Similarly, group-think scenarios were also dominated by a feeling of not being able to speak out – this in these egalitarian team scenarios is not the case because they have lower power profiles.
So how to increase inter-brain synchrony in business and in your team?
Set team-based tasks
Set team-based rewards
Allow open and transparent contribution
Doing similar activities together can promote this – often used in sports team warmups
Similar personalities are more likely to get along and have inter-brain synchrony (the homophily principle). We measure this in our HBF team reports.
Agreeable personalities contribute to inter-brain synchrony whereas disagreeable characters can disrupt it (yes, that feeling of some idiot spoiling the atmosphere is based on your brain’s sensitivity to disruption in inter-brain synchrony).
Sing or dance together – research shows this promotes synchrony. I know this is not suitable for the office, but nice to know! Also, notably, singing is an important part of sport fan culture but also in the military. No coincidence.
So, getting on the same wavelength has been shown to give better outcomes and this is based on how our brains synchronise together. We can focus more on this, and stimulate this, by engaging in more team-based tasks, and team rewards, where suitable and feasible. Being careful of personalities can lead to better team composition and this also improves synchrony and therefore outcomes.
References
Review
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Cooperation
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General
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Dikker, S., Michalareas, G., Oostrik, M., Serafimaki, A., Kahraman, H. M., Struiksma, M. E., et al. (2021). Crowdsourcing neuroscience: Inter-brain coupling during face-to-face interactions outside the laboratory. Neuroimage 227. doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117436.
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Article
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hyperscans-show-how-brains-sync-as-people-interact/