Tuesday, February 07, 2006

I Knew It All the Time

I always hated meetings convened for the purpose of "problem solving." Here's why:
So you need some fresh, innovative ideas. What do you do? Get a group of your best thinkers together to bounce ideas of each other…? No, wrong answer. Time and again research has shown that people think of more new ideas on their own than they do in a group. The false belief that people are more creative in groups has been dubbed by psychologists the ‘illusion of group of productivity”. But why does this illusion persist? . . .

[I]t’s because when we’re in a group, other people are talking, the pressure isn’t always on us and so we’re less aware of all the times that we fail to think of a new idea. By contrast, when we’re working alone and we can’t think of anything, there’s no avoiding the fact that we’re failing.
But if you're constantly coming up with good ideas when you work alone, you know that a group endeavor will simply be a waste of your time. And sure enough -- it is.

That's an INTJ for you.