Would your team win a pub trivia quiz?

Winning? (hopefully that woman isn’t on Google).

I love trivia.

By that I mean that I love both random bits of information as well as trivia quizzes. For a while, I have had a theory about the ultimate trivia team. I reckon that, ideally, there are a bunch of people who:

• are known to each other but not necessarily close friends (e.g. connected through mutual friends)

• that love trivia independently

• each knows a lot about certain (different) things

• each know what topic the other people know about.

Here’s what I imagine happens in that scenario:

1. People like each other, but come for the trivia as well as the company

2. Collectively, the team knows far more than they do individually

3. They don’t argue over what the capital of Kazakhstan is because they trust that Joanne is their geography person

Here’s how it might differ from a teams that is made up of people with similar interests, similar backgrounds and with strong friendships. These teams tend to:

1. Come to catch up with each other (the trivia is an added bonus)

2. Have deep knowledge in the same topic areas

3. Have the same things that they don’t know about

4. Develop patterns where the dominant personalities (or those who put together better arguments) tend to have the casting vote

I think that you know where I am heading here.

Diversity of thought, background and world views are important to pub trivia teams as well as your business. In trivia, you only need one person to know each answer – you don’t get bonus points if you all know David Bowie’s neighbour’s name! It’s not just the diversity, it’s also creating the environment where that diversity can be utilised and applied. For leaders, this is where the ability to attract, retain the right combination of people and then create the conditions where your team can bring their best is crucial.

In Australia, our politicians are fond of “the pub test”, which is supposed to test how the public would really respond to an issue. Not sure how well that works, but I think that there might be some merit in teams considering a “pub trivia test”.

So here are a few questions to consider:

1. How would your team do at pub trivia? (Bonus points if you actually find out!)

2. Who could you invite along that would make your team stronger? (i.e. can you connect to someone that will make both them and your team collectively smarter?)

Look forward to hearing what you think,

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