Well-organised differences between collaborators are claimed to produce solutions none of them would have reached alone.
The principle states the upside and omits the conditions. Collaborative inhibition, shared information bias and the hidden-profile finding all describe groups performing below the sum of their members. Synergy does occur, on tasks that genuinely require distributed knowledge and with a process that surfaces it, which is a narrower claim than the maxim.
In practice
- A group that pools genuinely different knowledge beats its best member; one that pools the same knowledge does not.
- A diverse team with no process for surfacing disagreement performs worse than a uniform one.
- Possible explanations
- The explanation offered is that well-organised differences let a group reach solutions no member would reach alone, through combination rather than compromise.
- In its favour
- Groups do outperform individuals on tasks where members hold different information and the process surfaces it, and structured techniques for doing so have measured benefits.
- Against it
- Group performance research more often finds process losses than gains, with collaborative inhibition, shared information bias and hidden profiles all documented, and the principle states the upside while omitting the conditions.
- Standing
- Group performance research more often finds process losses than gains, and the conditions under which groups beat their best member are specific. Diversity of knowledge helps where the task requires pooling, and costs coordination where it does not.
- Subject
- Organizations & Bureaucracy
- Essay
- Rules for running organisations, and for pressing them