Collective intelligence outweighs individual intelligence.
Several years ago, Google ran a study to determine what made teams effective. While one might think that an effective team depends on having the most capable individuals, Google’s researchers discovered that the members of the team mattered far less than how they interacted. The most effective teams rated highly in psychological safety, where team members all felt welcome to contribute in conversations, rather than team discourse being dominated by the smartest or most powerful.
No matter how brilliant somebody is, they have only one way of seeing the world that is rooted in their own experiences. A team which can bring multiple perspectives to bear on a problem is going to be more effective in anticipating and planning for potential outcomes. And this is part of why diverse and inclusive teams are more effective; they bring additional perspectives, which can help to anticipate risks unseen by the culturally dominant perspective.
If we think of this from a cognition perspective, what makes our human brains phenomenal is not that we have exceptional individual neurons. It’s that our neurons have been wired together such that they share information widely to create a diverse set of mental models that can handle an ever changing set of situations. Our intelligence comes from the structure of interaction and communication between neurons, not from the neurons themselves.
Similarly, creating collective intelligence is less about the individual people, and more about structuring the interactions so that people can share and compare their observations and reasoning.
More thoughts and examples in my blog post at https://lnkd.in/gNPrZJVz
#intelligence #communication #psychologicalsafety