Diesel enhances productivity
14/03/2011

It's official: Comith dog Diesel enhances the productivity and team spirit here at the office. It was known already that the presence of a dog has a positive influence on the development of social skills with children and on the emotional well-being of lonely seniors. But now also on creative thinkers.
Christopher Honts and his colleagues at the Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant let several groups of people carry out a number of tasks. With some of these groups a dog was present at the room 'by chance'.
In one of these tests the participants were divided into creative teams of 4 persons each. They had to create an advertisement for an existing product and therefore had to brainstorm intensively. Everyone was free to launch as many ideas as possible, but at the end the team could present only one idea as best team proposition. As it goes in brainstorms, some people stand up for their ideas firmly, and other ideas are rejected with strong arguments. And as we know, this can lead to some 'electricity' in the air.
After the test all participants had to fill in a questonnaire to find out how they had experienced the cooperation. The teams that got the company of a dog, had experienced the atmosphere during the brainstorm test much more positive, and they gave their colleagues a higher score for reliability and cooperativeness. But that we already knew for a long time here.
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