Collective Intelligence for Work: The Science Behind a Sidebar 'Personal Board of Directors'
Sidebar is a private community of small peer groups designed to support exceptional senior leaders in doing their best work.
We are at a unique time in the history of work. The pandemic, the rise of remote work, layoffs, and the surge in entrepreneurship have marked an era of profound transition. Amidst this backdrop, senior leaders are finding themselves navigating uncharted waters. The challenge is twofold: the "loneliness at the top" that comes with their pivotal roles and the struggle to find peers who genuinely comprehend the intricacies of being a high-growth leader.
The professional development realm has been rife with new and innovative approaches that attempt to address this, and while the allure of Sidebar is evident in its growing popularity among senior tech leaders (thousands on our waitlist and counting), its success can be scientifically backed.
A Sidebar ‘Personal Board of Directors’ offers an amalgamation of diverse perspectives, psychological safety, heightened accountability, social learning, collective intelligence, and symbiotic growth.
Sidebar is not just a novel approach to professional development; it's an evidence-based methodology that leverages the power of community, for individual growth.
The Power of Diverse Thought
“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” - Ryunosuke Satoro
According to the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, diverse groups consistently outperform homogenous groups in problem-solving tasks. Specifically, a higher degree of conversational turn-taking and a high degree of social sensitivity is the strongest contributor to task performance, more than average intelligence.1
Taking turns to speak, while carefully understanding each other, predictably raises a group’s performance. Additionally, when participants in Sidebar's groups hail from different backgrounds and expertise, they bring a wider perspective to the table.
This diversity in thought, combined with strong attentiveness and understanding, drives richer discussions and fosters creativity that leads to more innovative solutions.
The Psychological Safety of Small Groups
An environment of ‘psychological safety’, where individuals readily share, speak and take risks, cannot be overlooked.2 Imagine feeling immune to criticism. While this is a half-truth and exaggeration, we want to distinguish that conventional settings, be it team meetings or manager interactions, are often marred by the apprehension of judgment. Small groups have the opportunity to stand apart in this regard, like those at Sidebar. The safe space of a peer group not only ecourages profound trust but is also detached from workplace baggage. This allows for a fresh, unbiased perspective, culminating in a space where members genuinely feel safe to be vulnerable and express their challenges.
From Words to Actions: Accountability and Commitment
“If you want to go fast, go alone; if you want to go far, go with others.” - African proverb
People are more likely to follow through with a commitment when they make it in front of others, as opposed to in private. Making our commitments in front of others, and maintaining them, is especially powerful if done voluntarily, or if it’s internally motivated.3 Furthermore, in the case of small peer groups, members tend to monitor each other’s actions, thereby keeping each other accountable to set goals and raising responsibility.4
The small group setting of Sidebar ensures that members hold each other accountable, increasing the likelihood of action and change.
The Social Learning Theory
Sidebar enables profound learning opportunities, allowing members to extract lessons from others' experiences rather than experiencing them directly. Allowing members to share their strategies, successes, and failures, to grant insights and application to external contexts, is underpinned by established theories of social learning. It contends that observing others, understanding their actions and the consequences, can be a significant learning source in itself.5
Symbiotic Growth
“Many ideas grow better when transplanted into another mind than the one where they sprang up.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes
Taking a leaf from nature's book, Sidebar embodies the principles of symbiotic growth. Within its groups, members are not just passive consumers of wisdom but also active contributors. This concept of mutual growth and shared experience is a 'community of practice,' where learning is a shared journey, and everyone plays a part in co-constructing knowledge.6 At Sidebar, every act of teaching is enriched by learning, perpetuating a loop of mutual progress.
Strength in Numbers: Collective Intelligence
“No two minds ever come together without thereby creating a third, invisible, intangible force which may be likened to a third mind.” - Napoleon Hill
Groups possess an intelligence that’s distinct from, and often superior to, the aggregate of the individuals involved.7 Perhaps more significant is that this collective intelligence is not strongly correlated with the average or maximum individual intelligence. Rather, collective intelligence is sprung from the effective collaboration and interaction of group members, relying on their prior experiences, mutual respect, and ability to read each other. In facilitating dialogue that is both diverse and inclusive, Sidebar offers its members the opportunity to tap into this collective intelligence pool, raising the bar for innovative strategies and solutions for novel problems.
For growth-minded leaders navigating the challenges of leadership and seeking meaningful growth, Sidebar provides not just a community, but a scientifically backed foundation for transformative progress. It is collective intelligence for work.
Ready to catalyze extraordinary success? Apply to become a Founding Member at Sidebar.com.
Meet the Author
Megan McDevitt, Sidebar Leadership Facilitator
Megan McDevitt is a renowned team coach and facilitator who joined Sidebar after 8 years at Facebook, where she supported senior leadership to help teams perform better and achieve business results. Using research-based best practices from the fields of group dynamics and leadership development, she creates a safe container where leaders are both supported and challenged by peers to innovate, push through obstacles, and lead from a place of integrity.
References:
Woolley, A. W., Chabris, C. F., Pentland, A., Hashmi, N., & Malone, T. W. (2010). Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 687-690.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1193147Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44, 350-383.
https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999Lokhorst, A. M., Werner, C., Staats, H., van Dijk, E., & Gale, J. L. (2013). Commitment and behavior change: A meta-analysis and critical review of commitment-making strategies in environmental research. Environment and Behavior, 45(1), 3-34.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0013916511411477Webber, S.S. (2008). Development of cognitive and affective trust in teams: A longitudinal study. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(6), 1230-1236.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1046496408323569Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity. Cambridge University Press.
https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511803932Woolley, A. W., Aggarwal, I., & Malone, T. W. (2015). Collective intelligence and group performance. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 420-424.
https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415599543
Thanks for sharing Megan!
This is genius