Graduates from top universities tend to be less friendly and more prone to conflict — and they could derail your team project
Sep 21, 2020, 23:35 IST
- Hiring an Ivy League graduate, or having one on your team, may hinder success, per a new report in the Harvard Business Review.
- HBR reported on a September 2020 study in the European Journal of International Management which tracked 28,339 students from 294 universities for two months as they worked on virtual consulting projects.
- The study found that graduates from high-ranking universities tend not to pay enough attention to developing interpersonal relationship with coworkers. These workers engage in fewer non-work-related conversations with team members, the authors find.
- The study finds these grads can sometimes be less friendly, more prone to conflict, and less likely to identify with their team.
- Since engaged teams are more innovative and collaborative, the authors say top graduates could impede organizational success if they are not friendly enough.
- But the report also suggests graduates of higher-ranking schools do perform better overall than lower-ranking schools. Out of 20,000 global colleges, graduates perform 1.9% better overall as their university goes up 1,000 spots in the ranking.
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