The New Groupthink: Does The Hive Mind Work Offline?
If “social media” describes the act of creating information as a virtual collective effort, why don’t we label the places we work and study “social” too? It would make sense. After all, much of the work we do academically and professionally is done as part of a team. Knowledge workers –people ostensibly hired to individually produce creative ideas– routinely spend hours a day in meetings and conference calls and sit in noisy open office plans to maximize interaction with others. School projects frequently involve group presentations in which creative compromise trumps individual insights.
“We like to believe that we live in a grand age of creative individualism,” says Susan Cain, author of Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World that Can’t Stop Talking, “but the way we organize most of our important institutions tells a different story. It’s the story of a contemporary phenomenon I call The New Groupthink, [which] elevates teamwork above all else.”/.../
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