When it's our intention to be smarter together, we interact in specific ways that sustain the space of trust that makes possible being smarter together. The idea of being smarter together is the idea that what we create together is smarter than anything any one of us could create. No one of us is smarter than all of us.
This is a normative shift for some groups used to tolerating where someone dominates or people compete for the prize of being right. In the domination dynamic, people tolerate a two class system where people with superior hierarchical positions are assumed to know more and know better than everyone together. On the informal side of equation, some people dominate simply because they're used to getting their way by being rigid and aggressive.
Groups are either smarter together or not. The vicious cycle is the less a group is smarter together, the more apt someone tries to dominate, which makes the group less likely to be smarter together and on it goes in a downward spiral.
Groups are smarter have two characteristics. People build on each other's contributions. And people welcome and value each other's feelings. All of this builds the kind of trust that fosters any group's ability to be smarter together.
