TightWind is written by Kyle Baxter. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Susan Cain on the “rise of the new groupthink”:

To harness the energy that fuels both these drives, we need to move beyond the New Groupthink and embrace a more nuanced approach to creativity and learning. Our offices should encourage casual, cafe-style interactions, but allow people to disappear into personalized, private spaces when they want to be alone. Our schools should teach children to work with others, but also to work on their own for sustained periods of time. And we must recognize that introverts like Steve Wozniak need extra quiet and privacy to do their best work.

She points out that American businesses, classrooms and religious organizations are moving toward open, “collaborative” set-ups, where individuals work in public areas exposed to everyone else, and students work almost entirely in groups. She argues that not only is this ineffective in increasing productivity and creativity, but it’s worse than the much-derided cubicle set-up.

Being exposed to your co-workers and their different ideas certainly is a good thing for creativity, but that doesn’t mean locking everyone up in public is a good idea. In this case, because a little is good doesn’t mean a lot is even better. Cain links introvert personalities to creativity, and argues that introverts need solitude to produce great work, but we all need it. Everyone needs their own space, where they know they’re alone and can focus on what they need to without interruption, a place they can always go to when they need it.

Cain’s suggestion—for private spaces along with public spaces—is precisely right. When Pixar built their new building, they gave ample room for each person to have their own space, that they controlled and could do what they wanted with. But Steve Jobs also insisted that the building be designed in such a way that people have no choice but to bump into each other:

“The philosophy behind this design is that it’s good to put the most important function at the heart of the building,” Catmull said. “Well, what’s our most important function? It’s the interaction of our employees. That’s why Steve put a big empty space there. He wanted to create an open area for people to always be talking to each other.”

Jobs realized, however, that it wasn’t enough to simply create a space: he needed to make people go there. As he saw it, the main challenge for Pixar was getting its different cultures to work together, forcing the computer geeks and cartoonists to collaborate. (John Lasseter, the chief creative officer at Pixar, describes the equation this way: “Technology inspires art, and art challenges the technology.”) In typical fashion, Jobs saw this as a design problem. He began with the mailboxes, which he shifted to the atrium. Then he moved the meeting rooms to the center of the building, followed by the cafeteria and the coffee bar and the gift shop. But that still wasn’t enough; Jobs insisted that the architects locate the only set of bathrooms in the atrium. (He was later forced to compromise on this detail.)

In a 2008 conversation, Brad Bird, the director of “The Incredibles” and “Ratatouille,” said, “The atrium initially might seem like a waste of space…. But Steve realized that when people run into each other, when they make eye contact, things happen.”

That’s the ideal, where people have their own space, but naturally run into different people they would otherwise never talk to.

(Via Tyler Cowen.)