Our whole society is actually based on the magic premise that one plus one can become more than two. Two individuals become three when starting a family. Four people founding a company that will soon become 75. Many students on strike become a climate movement when they join up around a common idea.
Something extra always appears when individuals choose to collaborate rather than keep to themselves. Why is this the case?
If you take a theoretical point of view, you could say that the overhead costs are reduced when you share them with others. That leaves more energy to build with. On the downside one could argue that each individual is forced to compromise and therefore will not be as satisfied with the outcome, but this could at the same time be regarded as an unexpected benefit if the individual vision is adjusted by the input of others.
If you take a more philosophical view, it is a fact that we don’t have a lot of alternatives to collaborating with others. There are other individuals around us and it is probably easier to try to exist together than to set out to abolish all the others. So we can’t really choose if we should collaborate, but we can choose how we want to collaborate.
Most forms of life benefit from this magic equation, 1+1>2. Trees grow safer protected by the forest they constitute and fish survive better in shoals, to use two simple examples. But as Yuval Noah Harari shows in his book Sapiens, our species is exceptionally good at it. As an example we have a unique ability to engage with ideas and visions about what “more than two” could be. This ability to make 1+1 in fact become much more than 2, is the reason why mankind has been able to take giant leaps and still continue to strive for improvement.
In times of pandemics and political polarisation, however, we seem to spend a lot of time and effort on the exact opposite. Instead of seeking mutual grounds, we assert borders and distances and we make sure that each individual doesn’t get less than what is rightfully theirs. It is a pity because mankind and its planet, in fact, need our magic superpower more than ever.
In the research community, everybody knows that collaboration is the key to new, groundbreaking discoveries. A genius idea never just pops up just like that in one brilliant researcher’s head. Firstly, it is always based on other genius ideas, that, in turn, followed on other genius thoughts. Secondly, because it was based on other people’s previous ideas and thoughts, that also had the possibility to reach other geniuses, it is very likely that the genius idea pops up in hundreds of brilliant minds all over the world around the same time. A good example are Nobel prize winners that almost never win on their own, but often share the glory with researchers from other countries that have been working on the same topic.
Similarly, we see for example different disciplines in sports develop because individual athletes choose to compete together and thereby exchange and get inspired by each other’s progress. In school the best teaching happens in groups where students motivate both themselves and each other. In music and theatre, it becomes art only when more roles and band members give up their solo spotlight and act together in a mutual play or funky hit.
But in couple relationships, it probably becomes the most obvious. It is after all the perfect example of 1+1 and thereby also, you could say, the smallest representation of a society (that is more than one person). In a couple relationship, 1+1 can become more than 2, if both individuals are prepared to compromise with themselves for the benefit of the mutual goal. Except for the fact that you can become a family and be a role model to them, you also get the opportunity to be a better person from each other.
To use the power in 1+1>2 when we collaborate, we need to do two things. We need to agree on what we want to achieve together. A solution to a challenge, a change of behaviour, a new community or why not a new human being. It really helps collaboration if you can be clear about the goal you agree upon. The more you can concretise and quantify, the more 1+1 can become. The second thing we need to do is to understand what our potential partners can contribute with. What skills do they have that you don’t and what does it take to make them engage, what makes them “tick”?
When we help organisations collaborate to take on grand challenges in climate change or social sustainability, it is indeed when adding their abilities and incentives together, that the unexpected solutions materialise. It is always exciting to see different stakeholders around a table get a glimpse of each others’ motivations. Sometimes even their own actually.
What are your favourite examples of when 1 plus 1 becomes more than 2?