A Discussion on Super Chickens (Pro-tip: It is a Metaphor!)

Today, I am here to talk about this lady:

And why I love what she is saying.
For those who haven't seen the TED talk here it is:

For those who don't have time to watch in its entirety...find time. It is important.
But to summate:

• There once was a chicken farmer (read evolutionary biologist) and he wanted to know what made productivity happen (chickens are easy, you just count the eggs):
• So he made a control of average chickens and left them to their own devices for six generations.

• And then he made a super flock of super chickens composed of only the most productive

• And every generation that flock was weaned of only the best and most productive chickens
• In six generations, the average flock was doing well, better than it had in previous generations.

• In six generations, the super flock of super chickens...they pecked each other to extinction

Do you see any parallels?
Do you?
No?
Hm...there must be some:

The two shaking hands are saying they will eat each other

What we learned: Productivity does not come from superstars or super-geniuses, but from the group.

So they took these studies and went further and found that the most productive/creative groups:

Do NOT:

1. Contain a single person with a remarkable IQ
2. Or contain a group of people with the highest aggregate IQ

What they found was that the most productive/creative think groups:

DO:

1. Show high degrees of social sensitivity to each other (empathy)
2. Give roughly equal time to each other (no leaders no followers)
3. Have more women (....)

(I love the Ms. Heffernen because she acknowledges we have no idea why that third bit of data popped up; most likely it has to do with diversity of opinion.)

The point is, the more successful groups have nothing to do with individuals and always had more to do with the collective, of being heard, of really listening, and building a community.

What does this have to do with theatre and life?

If you know me, then you may have an idea on why I love this talk so damn much.

Corporations do not have ideas...only people do.

If brevity is the soul of wit, this woman beats Shakespeare to a pulp.
That in a nut shell.
We have operated under the star system for too long. In corporate America, in theatre, in film, in art.
We look to the superstars for our answers and if the research is telling us anything, they are incapable of telling us; they are too busy competing with one another.

We have to start building a community of professionals who work and create collaboratively, where everyone stands together and has an equal say and voice in the process.
We need to radically rethink what it means to be a leader, in theatre, I would say, a director.
No longer can answers be expected to come from the few, those who are 'most qualified' because it is through building something together that we are able to flourish.
Diversity is the greatest resource that we can use and our entire culture is based on reducing it.
Don't believe me?
Three words.
Sixth Mass Extinction. 
It literally means the diversity is being reduced.

So how do we do this?
I love this talk because the answer is everything I preach: TIME.
You need Time to build trust, to build community, to build social capital.
We need to start making Time in theatre in our communities in our corporations because without it, there is no trust, no breakthroughs, no new ideas.

No idea comes into this world fully formed. It is much like a baby, stumbling, messy, and confused. It is only with time and care that it is able to grow and become the best that it can be.

This isn't my usual preaching (or maybe more so, I can never tell) because I watched this talk and went...yeah.
That's it.
Watch the talk.
I have no other words.
I think the subject of my next post will be my ideas on how to help build that sense of Time, how we are already doing it, and how we can improve or change the model.