Crowd sourcing wisdom and harvesting the great thinking of the group is a good thing right? It prevents us from only being as good as our singular leader, right? …well the truth is more nuanced than that. There is absolutely value in the diversity of thought. But in trying to get at that value, some of our practices may actually kill the very value we are trying to harvest. Let’s unpack this.
Diversity of Thought IS Valuable
I don’t think I have to say this anymore, but having a diverse source of ideas about almost any business problem is useful. At least in the early stages of a challenge where ideas are being generated about how to address the challenge. Then, having a lot of ideas, at least on the surface, makes it more likely that there is a good one to be had.
We Can Trigger Groupthink Trying To Get To Diversity
So we should all brainstorm at the beginning of a initiative in order to generate ideas right? Brainstorming is how we harness the diverse thinking of the group right? We, this is where theory starts to depart with reality. Or should I say, brainstorming done right works to harvest the diversity of thought. Done wrong and it leads to the same voices being heard… again.
A 1958 Yale study that compared individual thinkers to groups brainstorming found that:
1. Individuals competed well with brainstorming groups…
2. They generated more solutions
3. They generated higher quality solutions and
4. They generated more original solutions.
I don’t think I have to explain how this works, but here’s the breakdown. In large groups, people act more like herd animals than individual leaders. Typically a few leaders emerge and the group follows what they do. James Clear cites this in his book Atomic Habits. He relates a study in which individuals were placed in a group and asked a simple question. When the group, which was rigged, agreed that the wrong answer was the correct one, the individual, who knew the correct answer, often went along in order to avoid being out of the group.
Individuals thinking alone DO think more individually and with a greater degree of freedom than those working in a large group.
So group brainstorming in which the group works together on a single solution are likely to produce conventional solutions. If you are seeking out-of-the-box thinking and ideas, you need to protect the individuals’ individuality.
We’re Better Working Alone Together
So how does one do this? Brainstorming can be used, but individuals must work alone initially to develop their ideas. Then the team can be brought together after the initial ideas are generated and even fleshed out to the first phase gate. Then the team can work together to identify which ideas are the best among all the ideas that have been generated.
The original research is published in the article “Does group participation when using brainstorming facilitate or inhibit creative thinking?” by Taylor, Berry, and Block, in Administrative Science Quarterly 1958, Volume 6, pages 22–47.
Call To Action
The next time a team of yours needs to conduct ideation to generate new, creative solutions to a problem, keep them working separately initially and only bring them together once the ideas have been developed enough to defend.
Our clients routinely ask us for help with product life cycle, customer life cycle and similar new concept development and management. We’re happy to help you do this as well.
I hope you found something to apply to your business in this MBR. Let me know either way.
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