Academics from the University of London studied over 3,500 people working on group tasks over a ten-year period.: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. The first four traits have produced consistent results in terms of how they affect team performance, buthad previously"demonstrated a non-significant and highly variable relationship with team performance," the study says.
Randall Peterson, a co-author of the study and professor of organizational behavior at the London School of Business, told CNBC that past research suggested agreeableness was"mostly irrelevant" to completing tasks. "The basic truth is if you have one competitive person and one cooperative person, the competitive person will always win," Peterson told CNBC."However, two cooperative people will outperform twoAnd managers appear to have taken more notice of this, as Peterson said "people are endorsing cooperation and agreeableness much more than they did pre-pandemic."