“We find converging evidence of a general collective intelligence factor that explains a group’s performance on a wide variety of tasks,” the researchers wrote in their Science article. “This kind of collective intelligence is a property of the group itself, not just the individuals in it.”29 It was the norms, not the people, that made teams so smart. The right norms could raise the collective intelligence of mediocre thinkers. The wrong norms could hobble a group made up of people who, on their own, were all exceptionally bright.
