individuals. But they don’t have to be, as the swarm bees have already shown us. When groups contain the right mix of individuals and are carefully structured, they can compensate for mistakes by pooling together a greater diversity of knowledge and skills than any of their members could obtain on their own. That was the lesson of the experiments Hackman and Woolley conducted in Boston: Students did better at identifying the terrorists when they sorted out the skills of each team member and gave everyone a chance to contribute information and opinions to the process. Simply by drawing from a wider range of experiences, as Scott Page’s theorems proved, groups can put together a bigger bag of tricks for problem solving. And when it comes to making predictions, like how many gift cards will be purchased this month, groups can cancel out personal biases and bad habits by combining information and attitudes into a reliable group judgment.
