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The concept of "collective intelligence" is simple — it asserts that if a team performs well on one task, it will repeat that success on other projects, regardless of the scope or focus of the work. While it sounds good in theory, it doesn't work that way in reality, according to an Iowa State University researcher.
Marcus Credé, an assistant professor of psychology, says unlike individuals, group dynamics are too complex to predict a team's effectiveness with one general factor, such as intelligence. Instead, there are a variety of factors — leadership, group communication, decision-making skills —that affect a team's performance, he said.
Anita Woolley's research supporting collective intelligence quickly gained traction in the business world when it was first introduced in 2010. The attention was not surprising to Credé. Because organizations rely heavily on group work, managers are always looking for a "silver bullet" to improve team performance, he said. However, after re-analyzing the data gathered by Woolley and her colleagues, Credé and Garett Howardson, an assistant professor at Hofstra University, found the data didn't support the basic premise of collective intelligence. Their work is published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.
[Source]: You would not ask a firefighter to perform open-heart surgery
Do you agree with this premise?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by srobert on Thursday October 19 2017, @04:04PM
I don't even think we should ask firefighters to be EMT's, but we do. It's a requirement for every firefighter in many fire departments. It's probably good to have some EMT's in the fire department. But in my opinion we ought to let firefighters focus on fire fighting, and let the EMT's focus on emergency medical care. Every professional fire fighter I know agrees with this. And so do many EMT's. So with regard to teams, it may be more effective to allow each member to focus on their specialty and have only a general knowledge outside of their expertise.