Groups are inefficient vehicles for creative thinking. After the initial high of a group session, you end up with watered-down residue people are relieved to agree on.
Exceptional individuals rarely think in groups. If there is a new idea, it usually stems from an individual who held it in escrow until the opportune moment.
We fetishize mavericks, but when their virtuoso ideas and performances confront us, group cohesion and incrementally painful slow progress prevail at the cost of real innovation.
Whether it's the idea, the hunch, or controversial point that was not brought up, these acts of group cooperation can become acts of individual surrender.
This is not a plea for nonconformity; rebellion for its own sake is equal to its surrender.
We mistake collaboration with conformism, truth-seeking with consensus-seeking, resulting in stale outcomes.
An individual burdened with creative originality is equally burdened with maintaining group cohesion. They are confronted by a choice to accept the reality of organizational culture and play along, retreat in their own world, or, more courageously, create a path for themselves that gives them the leeway to bring exceptional value to the world.
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