Re: Is there really “nothing positive” about ADD?

[Anonymous]

There’s one other asset that ADDers bring to the table. James Surowiecki wrote a book called the Wisdom of Crowds. The thesis of the book was that a group of random lay people, by averaging their answers, could more accurately determine an answer or predict an outcome than a team of experts. The theory is that the lay people all have randomized errors, which cancel out, while the experts suffer from groupthink and confirmation bias. (I’m simplifying, but please read the book, it’s fascinating).

Anyway, as an employer, the way to use this information is to have intellectual diversity (and people who speak their mind), so that the company is not exposed to blind spots and groupthink. The other thing that helps is a devil’s advocate effect (the Solomon Asch conformity experiment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_experiments), where one person who disagrees with the majority opinion, just by speaking up, allows others to speak up as well. This relieves the peer pressure to agree, even if the devil’s advocate is intentionally wrong, the effect is the same.

I can’t think of a better employee in this sense than someone with ADD. The blurting out, the differing perspective and the creative problem solving allow people with ADD to contribute in ways others cannot. It’s like having a designated “No man.” In this sense, our not fitting in is what makes us so valuable.

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