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Quite some time ago, while still a young, impressionable sophomore at university, I was asked by a senior Psychology major to participate in an experiment. Even though he didn’t explain the nature of the experiment, being young and foolish I naturally accepted. (Of course, because of my vast life experience, I’m far more sophisticated now. These days I wouldn’t even try a new flavor of potato chip without reviewing the ingredients. Humph.)

When I arrived at his dormitory room, I was seated at a desk on one side of the room with a fellow student, while two others were seated at a desk on the other side of the room. Each group was given a pad, two pencils, and a folded slip of paper which had a single word on it (I don’t remember the word, it had perhaps eight or nine characters). The only instruction given was to write down, within 15 minutes, as many words as we could make up from the letters of the word on that slip of paper.

Pretty simple, and no big deal, right? My partner and I came up with a reasonable number of words, and I recall our two teams calling out our current totals in good-natured competitiveness (at least, there were no fist fights or name calling), and I no longer remember who had the higher total (honest!) After experiencing a mild sense of disappointment there were no cash prizes (I mean c’mon, you’d think there would be something), we were sent on our way. The exercise was clearly part of a research project, but no further information or explanation was ever volunteered.

Some time later (I’m embarrassed to admit just HOW much later) it hit me (sound of dull thud): at no time were we explicitly told to form two teams and compete. The instructions were simply to make lots of words from those letters. In other words, the four of us could have pooled our knowledge and probably formed a larger total than either team did separately.

And now, direct from the Department of Duoh!, the American Psychology Association has published a new study (entire 8-page report available here) concluding that groups of three, four, or five perform better on complex problem solving than the best of an equivalent number of individuals (not that our problem was that complex, you understand).

I think these implications are right in line with what you’ll find in The Wisdom of Crowds, written by James Surowiecki. Like many big ideas, this concept is one of those great polarizers out there in the business world – people either love it or hate it (they really do – even up to and including name-calling and having hissy fits). But a careful examination of the conditions wherein a crowd can be wise leads me to believe it’s a valid concept for many of today’s business decision points. I wrote of this here and here months ago; Kathy Sierra and many others seem to agree.

Now let’s get back to my Psychology experiment again. It’s interesting, don’t you think? Without any prompting whatsoever, we immediately thought of ourselves as competing teams, solely on the basis of physical location. Obviously a cultural artifact (it would certainly vary depending on culture and many other factors) but can you see the implications in the way small groups (such as teams) perform, especially teams separated by geographical distance?

We usually think of the term “support group” in a social context (AA, for instance), but maybe that’s what’s needed. Why not form local “power teams” to solve actual applicable business challenges as well? As managers we tend to want to solve our own problems, but when the challenge gets too big, we have to face it and get help.

If you can avoid thinking of it as management by committee, you might just stand a better chance of coming up with more and better solutions.

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