In “The Rise of the New Groupthink“, an OpEd article in the Jan 13th New York Times, Susan Cain argues that the increasing trend toward teams and teamwork might not be resulting in better outcomes in many situations:
“SOLITUDE is out of fashion. Our companies, our schools and our culture are in thrall to an idea I call the New Groupthink, which holds that creativity and achievement come from an oddly gregarious place. Most of us now work in teams, in offices without walls, for managers who prize people skills above all. Lone geniuses are out. Collaboration is in.
But there’s a problem with this view. Research strongly suggests that people are more creative when they enjoy privacy and freedom from interruption…”
The author explores several examples of solitary creativity and contrasts them with examples of dysfunctional team behavior common in today’s organizations. However, she doesn’t completely dismiss teamwork. Rather, she suggests a hybrid approach in her conclusion:
“To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts like Steve Wozniak need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.”
It’s not that teamwork is bad for creatives but rather the right style of teamwork needs to be applied to the right situation.
I certainly can relate to the article – my best work is almost always done in lengthy, solitary bursts. However dismissing teamwork offhand is like saying “diets” are all a waste because most people who diet fail. However, some diets are very effective – e.g. balanced diets that match your calorie and nutrient intake to your consumption. And for people who have specific issues (e.g. gluten intolerance) a diet can be a life saver. But the average person has a wild misconception about what diets can and can’t do and how to use them. Such as it is with teamwork and managers who lack the training to apply teamwork effectively.
For example, brainstorming isn’t actually all that bad if used in a structured way in the right context. Our FASTRACK ideation sessions are usually pretty decent; not necessarily for generating killer ideas but for tilling the mind so that when the participants go online later and collaborate virtually they’re “warmed up” and have some context for the problem domain.
I think the key thing is that nobody really teaches how to work in a team. There are many teamwork approaches, and different approaches are likely to be optimal for various situations. e.g. depending on team composition, task complexity, task duration, etc. At best, teamwork training puts people in teams and gives them a real-world problem to sort out. But these exercises don’t really train them on how to identify which teamwork style is best given a particular situation and how to cope with the various failure modes when the wrong style has been employed.
There was one comment in the “discussion” section of the article that I loved – it was someone who felt it necessary to put their PhD and all their academic qualifications and professional qualifications up front. They then proceeded to attempt to shred the article in a lengthy comment quoting the opening paragraph, apparently without reading any further because their rant presumed that the article was WILDLY IN FAVOR of teamwork!
Which goes to show that solitude can be great for great people, but for idiots it just lets them become more idiotic.
Additional comments powered by BackType