Collaboration to Susan Cain

“Solitude is out, collaboration is in.” This first bold statement sets off the start of Susan Cain’s essay The Rise of the New Groupthink, and marks the beginning of a controversial debate questioning the value of collaboration, to which Ms. Cain believes, our society greatly advocates. In her opinion, private working conditions are essential to the productivity and quality of a person’s work, and collaboration, aka the “New Groupthink”, has overtaken the current workplace defecting the level of efficiency. Although she acknowledges how collaboration fosters exchanges of ideas individuals cannot achieve alone, her ultimate claim is for society to accept and value solitude, for it is what truly provides productive, creative and qualitative work. However, collaboration cannot just be defined as “Groupthink,” for groupthink by definition means brainstorming ideas as a group whereas collaboration’s drive comes from individuals developing an idea of their own then sharing with a group to carry it further. Collaboration and solitude are both needed to satisfy different purposes.

With the negative connotations Ms. Cain has given, it’s certainly questionable whether the term “Groupthink” she used defines what collaboration actually is. Groupthink by Cain’s definition in essence is thinking as a group, a conformity and sacrifice of innovation and individuality. Yet this assertion of “Groupthink” is by no means collaboration. Collaboration as practiced in THIS is about helping each another and developing upon individual ideas. Last year in Mr. Ramsay’s English class, we experienced various collaborative works that did not portray Cain’s “Groupthink”. One particular experience I truly benefitted from was the graded Fishbowl Discussion on writing the essay for the book Things Fall Apart. Upon having thorough independent preparation before the discussion, we came together to an one-group- converse, one- group- observe state that allowed us to note down important points and obtain additional information from each other that developed our average written claims into forming significant thesis statements. With the complete list compiled of thoughts and quotes discussed, I was able to transform the essay I thought would be mediocre to the stunning “A level” paper I ended up with. Clearly, unlike what Ms. Cain claimed as “defecting productivity” or “creativity”, this collaboration between classmates not only boosted everyone’s productivity and quality of work, but also brought our individual peculiar thinking to a whole new level.

To be more exact, collaboration and solitude are both needed in producing qualitative works, although they are used in different circumstances. In the article, Cain herself develops her arguments against the new Groupthink based on that “solitude” is what “associates with creativity and transcendence.” She includes in her article that many “inventors, artists