Collaboration != real time

If you’re not in a synchronous group setting, are you really collaborating? Can you even be creative if you’re not collaborating this way?

While there is value in getting people together, we need to acknowledge that collaboration and creativity have little correlation with synchrony. Dividing and conquering a problem is also collaboration.

 “The New Groupthink elevates teamwork above all else. It insists that creativity and intellectual achievement come from a gregarious place.”

-Susan Cain

Let’s also remember that diverse teams have both extroverts and introverts. Depending on where you sit on the extraversion-introversion spectrum, there’s a “Goldilocks” amount of stimulation that you look for. Not too much, not too little. Just right. The best we can do is to not force stimulation on anyone. Instead let them seek out the stimulation they need.