Do headlines make us dumber?
In the parade of mis-represented research that is modern journalism, we have this short article from MSNBC, titled “Do meetings make us dumber?“.
The article starts with:
People have a harder time coming up with alternative solutions to a problem when they are part of a group, new research suggests.
Which people are these exactly? Articles, and research, treat people as uniform, while we all know the goodness or badness of meetings depends on who is there. If you had a conference call with Bono, Einstein, Dostoevsky, and Susan Sontag, I guarantee the meeting wouldn’t make you dumber.
While folks of their caliber aren’t clambering to join our meetings, it does stand that who controls the invite list holds the fate of the meeting in their hands.
And doesn’t the goal of a meeting impact the quality of what happens? As the articles states:
Scientists exposed study participants to one brand of soft drink then asked them to think of alternative brands. Alone, they came up with significantly more products than when they were grouped with two others.
Wow. I can’t think of a task more inspiring for creative thinking than listing brands of soda, can you? Isn’t that what Mozart, Walt Whitman and the Beatles did?
How can anyone think this is representative of what goes in in “creative” meetings, or is a viable, as science, to use in comparison to how people make decisions, or work in groups, in real life?
Two points of refutation:
- The value of meetings hinges on who is running the thing. A good facilitator can convert most meeting horror shows into productive and near-fun experiences if given the power to do their thing.
- There are well known techniques for creative thinking and tactics any meeting leader can use to minimize the negative effects of groups, while amplifying the positive ones. Good facilitators know these things.
The notion of group behavior harming creative thinking has a long history – the term groupthink coined in 1972, and it offers a more useful analysis that the MSNBC or the research study.
For reference:
– How to run a brainstorming meeting
(Link from Flee)
A meeting with Bono would certainly make me more stupid. If I had to listen to his vacuous prattle I’d shoot myself…
Ok – How about John Lennon instead of Bono?
Anyway, it’d be fun to see Bono and Susan Sontag argue.
Heh – I tend to agree with your points of refutation – there certainly are such things as “productive meetings”. Still – I have been to many, and 9 times out of 10, I felt dumber after walking out of there. And when there’s a problem at work, I am much more likely to solve it alone than in a hastily assembled meeting that turns into the blame-game pretty quickly (but that’s beside the point). Creativity is individual. Meetings are much better at refining existing ideas than discovering and growing new ones.
“…a hastily assembled meeting that turns into the blame-game pretty quickly (but that’s beside the point).”
Interesting, so it’s not just me that’s experienced this! :) I find it quite frustrating when meetings turn into blame-games rather than construtive opportunities to come up with solutions. It happens far too often.
Tomas: I disagree on creativity being “individual”. Sometimes it is, but sometimes it’s two people bouncing ideas off each other that brings out good ideas. Think of all of the great creative partnerships: McCartney and Lennon, Gilbert and Sullivan, Monty Python (largely driven by pairs of writers).
I admit meeting size trends away from creativity – the larger the group the harder it gets, but with a good facilitator or a good group a room of 8 or 12 people can be very creative and in ways impossible working alone.
Yes.
Oh wait, did you actually write an article? I just read the headline…
Seriously though, I think the point is that large groups generally dampens creativity (and the really “out there” ideas) because the group dynamics trend away from such thinking and expression. I’d say this is probably pretty true.
Ultimately, it all depends on the group dynamics and consistency. There are people I can brainstorm well with, and there are people who suck the creativity out of the air simply by being in the room. So yes, responsibility lies with the coordinator – to keep the latter out of the room :)
I agree that it depends on the people who are in the meeting that makes them dumber. With great people around, it wouldn’t be bad for everyone else. We should think of the positive effects and not the negative.
Meetings make us dumber because performing more than one activity at a time makes us dumber. Meetings almost always involve research and synthesis of ideas not just generating new ones. Just as talking on a cell phone makes people worse drivers, doing creative thinking while in a meeting is likely to be more difficult. The question is not whether people are able to generate good ideas in meetings, it is whether people are able to generate better ideas *after* they have had the meeting.
Jeff Curless – the fact that you think that only shows your own stupidity.
When was the last time you did something that saved thousands of lives? :)
I can’t believe you actually wrote an article *defending* meetings.
Sure, meetings are only as evil as the people who set them up.. but then again, guns don’t kill people, people kill people, right?
One wonders if gun control might be as effective as meeting control.
p.s. None of us is as dumb as all of us.