How too much collaboration can stifle a great idea

The other day, I was sent a really good article by Mattew E. May entitled ‘The Downside of a Good Idea: T.M.I.‘.

Of course, one should never judge a book by its cover (or an article by its title for that matter) because I immediately assumed that this was another article about social media and, well, people sharing too much information! As a friend mused earlier, has social media removed our ability to keep our mouths shut? But no, it’s not about that at all.

In the article, May discusses the findings of Indiana University cognitive scientist Robert Goldstone who sets about trying to ascertain the best way to structure a community or organisation to get the best solution to a problem out of the group.

Goldstone argues one of the drawbacks of good ideas that are freely shared is that once they are out there in the ether, they can stunt innovation by distracting others from pursuing even better ideas. I have considered this notion briefly myself in a previous post about the death of the original idea. In a murky, often over-saturated environment – it can be very hard to be innovative. Especially when one considers that necessity is the mother of invention, if there’s no immediate need – why would you bother?

In the article, May notes Goldstone’s observation that “it turns out not to be effective if different inventors and labs see exactly what everyone else is doing because of the human tendency to glom onto the current ‘best’ solution.”

Goldstone reportedly tested this theory in a study in which he divided participants into three groups in ‘virtual’ environments. Each group was given a simple problem to solve.
“Participants guessed numbers between 1 and 100, with each number having a hidden value. The goal was for individuals to accumulate the highest score through several rounds of guessing. Across different conditions, the relationship between guesses and scores could either be simple or complex. The participants saw the results of their own guesses and some or all of the guesses of the others in their group,” explains May.

The three groups were a “fully connected” group in which participants’ work was completely accessible to everyone else in the group. A “locally connected” group in which participants only shared information with their neighbours and a “small world” group who shared information with their neighbours and had a few other distant connections which allowed them to send and receive good ideas from outside the ‘neighbourhood’.

The findings indicated that the fully connected group performed best at solving simple problems, but the small world group performed far better at solving more difficult or complex problems. Goldstone explains that the reason for this is because the small world group encourages and nurtures diversity. This enables ‘cliques’ to come up with differing solutions to the same problem thereby searching the whole problem space more effectively.

The study definitely provokes some interesting questions about collaboration. I guess in an increasingly connected space, it’s even more important for us to keep challenging ourselves to do better and to strive for constant improvement.