4.5 Great collaboration feels like playing jazz.
In jazz, there’s no script: You have to figure things out as you go along. Sometimes you need to sit back and let others drive things; other times, you blare it out yourself. To do the right thing at the right moment you need to really listen to the people you’re playing with so that you can understand where they’re going.
All great creative collaboration should feel the same way. Combining your different skills like different instruments, improvising creatively, and at the same time subordinating yourself to the goals of the group leads to playing great music together. But it’s important to keep in mind what number of collaborators will play well together: A talented duo can improvise beautifully, as can a trio or quartet. But gather ten musicians and no matter how talented they are, it’s probably going to be too many unless they’re carefully orchestrated.
a. 1+1=3.
Two people who collaborate well will be about three times as effective as each of them operating independently, because each will see what the other might miss—plus they can leverage each other’s strengths while holding each other accountable to higher standards.
b. 3 to 5 is more than 20.
Three to five smart, conceptual people seeking the right answers in an open-minded way will generally lead to the best answers. It may tempting to convene a larger group, but having too many people collaborate is counterproductive, even if the members of the larger group are smart and talented. The symbiotic advantages of adding people to a group grow incrementally (2+1=4.25) up to a point; beyond that, adding people actually subtracts from effectiveness. That is because 1) the marginal benefits diminish as the group gets larger (two or three people might be able to cover most of the important perspectives, so adding more people doesn’t bring much more) and 2) larger group interactions are less efficient than smaller ones. Of course, what’s best in practice depends on the quality of the people and the differences of the perspectives that they bring and how well the group is managed.
* Source: Principles by Ray Dalio