The I's have it; the teams do not -- unless you add women

Ayn Rand would have loved this. In "Why a Great Individual Is Better Than a Good Team" Jeffrey Stibel is Chairman and CEO of Dun & Bradstreet Credibility Corp. and author of Wired for Thought  declares, s a brain scientist, I know that great individuals are not only more valuable than legions of mediocrity, they are often more valuable than groups that include great individuals." He  argues that the best work is done by individuals working independently, not in collaboration with others, as in the case of programmers, designers, and artists.  Consequently, he contends,  "when an activity can be performed sufficiently by one person with adequate skills, doing the activity as a group should be avoided." 

Based on how the brain works, he says, "Our intelligence is incredibly complex and as a result, a great individual can far exceed the value of many mediocre minds." 

Moreover, "Mediocre minds can also destroy the value or contribution of a great mind." It would seem to follow that the saying, "there is no I in team" could be taken in a very negative way.
A counterpoint on the same site, though, had an interesting finding. Adding women to the team improves results:

Professors Woolley and Malone, along with Christopher Chabris, Sandy Pentland, and Nada Hashmi, gave subjects aged 18 to 60 standard intelligence tests and assigned them randomly to teams. Each team was asked to complete several tasks—including brainstorming, decision making, and visual puzzles—and to solve one complex problem. Teams were given intelligence scores based on their performance. Though the teams that had members with higher IQs didn’t earn much higher scores, those that had more women did.[my emphasis]

Though the professors admit this is a preliminary finding, they confirm, "so far, the data show, the more women, the better." 

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