None Of Us Is Smarter Than All Of Us

I'll never forget my first big ah hah moment as a first-year business school student. We all participated in a survival simulation where a helicopter crashes in the Cascade mountains amidst a severe winter storm. As survivors, we had to determine individually, and then as a group, the relative importance of 12 salvageable items from the wreckage so we could make it out alive.

Perhaps not too surprisingly given my being an Eagle Scout and having recently completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, I had the highest individual score in the school (shame on me if I didn't). After this, I got assigned to 5 other people -- a very diverse group (different work experiences, different sexes, different ethnicity, different ages) -- most of whom had never stepped foot into the wilderness, let alone slept a single night in the woods! This only served to fuel my confidence that I already had all the answers. After all, what could these people possibly know about this stuff? To their credit, however, the group challenged my survival strategy and, after some healthy conflict, broke down my stubborn insistence with critical insights (I might be stubborn, but I am not stupid... at least not that stupid!). The result was a re-prioritized list. When the group scores were tallied, my group score was higher than my individual score! In fact, 100% of the groups outperformed their average individual member that day. Aside from dealing a much needed blow to my pride, the big takeaway from the exercise was this: the more heterogeneous the decision input, the better the decision output.

Over the years since that fateful day, I have come to appreciate that synergy is not easily achieved. Groups do not automatically achieve synergy, yet that is exactly the expectation when we, as leaders, ask people to work as a group or team. Regardless of the type of problem, the achievement of synergy depends not only on the diversity of group members, but on the quality of their interactions. And that depends largely on the process and its facilitation. We all recognize the importance of teamwork, participative problem solving and synergy, but in my experience few seem to understand the importance of diversity or how to mine the value of the cognitive dissonance embedded in it. At Vistage, we have a saying that seems especially apropos in this instance: "None of us is smarter than all of us." Better insights really do lead to better decisions.

Group problem-solving simulations, such as the Cascades Survival Situation, provide an excellent opportunity for team members to practice critical skills and for groups to develop more effective interaction styles. They also allow groups to obtain immediate feedback regarding the impact of their skills, processes, and styles on outcomes such as solution quality and solution acceptance. Consider incorporating these exercises into your team building efforts -- you will be glad you did.