Increasing creativity

Jonah Lehrer has written an interesting article in the New Yorker titled Groupthink. He first debunks the myth that brainstorming aids creativity. Instead he argues that people are more creative when they are brought together as a group and allowed to argue and debate. He cites a study by Brian Uzzi "a sociologist at Northwestern, has spent his career trying to find what the ideal composition of a team would look like". He then goes on to look at the success of Building 20 at MIT:

The fatal misconception behind brainstorming is that there is a particular script we should all follow in group interactions. The lesson of Building 20 is that when the composition of the group is right—enough people with different perspectives running into one another in unpredictable ways—the group dynamic will take care of itself. All these errant discussions add up. In fact, they may even be the most essential part of the creative process. Although such conversations will occasionally be unpleasant—not everyone is always in the mood for small talk or criticism—that doesn’t mean that they can be avoided. The most creative spaces are those which hurl us together. It is the human friction that makes the sparks.

Edit 13/6/2012:  Isaac Chotiner writes a less than complementary review of Lehrer's book Imagine.