White's Observations of Committee Operation
1) People very rarely think in groups;
they talk together, they exchange information, they
adjudicate, they make compromises. But they do not
think; they do not create.
2) A really new idea affronts current agreement.
3) A meeting cannot be productive unless certain
premises are so shared that they do not need to be
discussed, and the argument can be confined to areas
of disagreement. But while this kind of consensus
makes a group more effective in its legitimate
functions, it does not make the group a creative
vehicle -- it would not be a new idea if it didn't
-- and the group, impelled as it is to agree, is
instinctively hostile to that which is divisive.
