Jonah Lehrer's article, "GroupThink" in The New Yorker, January 30, 2012 states that brainstorming seems like an ideal technique, a feel-good way to boost productivity. But there is a problem with brainstorming. It doesn't work.
Scientific advances have lead to a situation where all the remaining problems are incredibly hard. Researchers are forced to become increasingly specialized, because there's only so much information one mind can handle. And they have to collaborate, because the most interesting mysteries lie at the intersection of disciplines. "A hundred years ago, the Wright brothers could build an airplane all by themselves," says Ben Jones, a professor at the Kellogg School of Management, at Northwestern University. "Now Boeing needs hundreds of engineers just to design and produce engines." The larger lesson is that the increasing complexity of human knowledge, coupled with the escalating difficulty of those remaining questions, means that people must either work together or fail alone.
Exposure to unfamilar perspectives can foster creativity. Debate, rather than brainstorming, may be less pleasant but it will always be more productive....because the power of dissent is the power of surprise.
Criticism allows people to dig below the surface of the imagination and come up with collective ideas that aren't predictable. And recognizing the importance of conflicting perspectives in a group raises the issue of what kinds of people will work together best.
The best research is consistently produced when scientists work within ten meters of each other. "If you want people to work together effectively, you need to create architectures that support frequent, physical, spontaneous interactions," says Isaac Kohane, a researcher at Harvard Medical School.
How to become a Network Linchpin
A new generation of laboratory architecture has tried to make chance encounters more likely to take place, and this trend has spread in the business world.
Since all the work in every organization is done through relationships, it makes great sense to utilize technology to allow people to connect and collaborate easily and effectively.
Understanding and facilitating these relationships, which flow through a web of professional networks and across functional boundaries, allows employees to create productive change. And since competition is a matter of relations, the company’s ability to structure and control the process of securing productive relationships will determine success in the marketplace.
The best meetings happen by accident, in the hallway or parking lot. To become the network linchpin of your work group, a very good place for your open-door office location is the one closest to the rest rooms.
When the composition for the work group is right--enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways--the group dynamic will take care of itself. Although such conversations will occasionally be unpleasant, that doesn't mean that they can be avoided. The most creative spaces are those which hurl us together. It is the human friction that makes the sparks.