I have a professor this semester who really likes groupwork. He frequently devotes 5-8 minutes of class time (it seems much longer) to discuss one issue or another with classmates nearby. Later in the semester, we all have to form groups of 2-3 to give joint oral presentations to the rest of class.

But I don't like groupwork. I like working alone. For a lot of reasons. Partly because obviously, I'm a megalomaniacal autocrat, but mainly because a) I can control the quality of the output and b) I can work faster.

That's part of what appealed to me about the law: even in big firms, even if you're part of a larger project, much of the work you're doing day-to-day is just you. It's less about groupwork than a bunch of solo workers flying in formation.

When my prof announces "let's talk about this in groups", he might as well be saying "let's all dissect this sheep's brain I brought in today". Dude, that's not what I came to law school for.

But aside from this personal bias, I blame groupwork for many of America's problems. And in particular, I blame America's business schools, which I think have done the most to unleash this destructive trend on our culture.

I haven't been to business school, but my sources tell me that many classes are built around group projects, on the premise that building consensus and distributing tasks are important skills for future executives. Ugh.

I consider groupwork to be a method of mollifying a generation of grad students who never got anything lower than an A- in their lives. Their self-esteem is fragile and must be preserved. By putting them in groups, everyone can congratulate each other on how smart they are.

But that also gives rise to the main problem with groups, which is that they dilute accountability. When everyone makes a decision together, nobody has to stand behind it. Consequently, any success has many parents (as everyone jockeys to take credit) but any failure is an orphan (and a perfect time to use the passive voice — "Decisions were made that did not translate into timely delivery of strategic objectives...")

So when I see this technique being imported to law school, I get anxious. Groups are an engine of mediocrity. Low achievers can coast by, letting everyone else do the work. High achievers have no incentive to perform at their peak level — since it's so far beyond what anyone else is willing to do — so they dumb down their work to match the median skill level.

15 Feb 07