The dynamic between an individual's power and that of a group is an interesting power paradox, where the individual is the spark that is required and the group is the breadth that is needed for long-term change. The individual has the tremendous benefit of creativity and agility, being able to make impulse decisions, defy convention, and bring forth a revolutionary idea without the burden of consensus, as history and game-changing innovators have taught us. But such individual actions are always restricted in their range; they need the giant energy of collective action to bring about systemic and mass-scale change on issues like global warming or social injustice. Teams magnify effect by concentrating a variety of skills, knowledge, and resources, developing a multiplier effect that can solve elaborate problems too huge for an individual. While a group is susceptible to such pitfalls as the diffusion of responsibility or groupthink, the long-run success of any great movement hinges on this dynamic synergy: the courageous initiative of the individual to set the change in motion, and the concerted effort of the group to take up and institutionalize it, to achieve actual impact when the "I" mobilizes the "We."

Most events that shape the world are never the doing of one person working in complete isolation. Instead, they begin with the faith of one person—a vision so compelling that it attracts others to follow. Take the student who rallies the very first demonstration against an unjust policy, or the engineer who develops the very first outline of a new invention. This person possesses the vision and the unwavering single-mindedness of purpose, which is hard to maintain in a large organization. But once that vision must go beyond locally being an event and become a national or global movement, it requires the resources, manpower, and credibility only an organization can provide. For instance, it requires scientists, governments, enterprises, and millions of citizens to all collaborate to act on an environmental emergency. A person can preach recycling, but a whole army must be called in to build the recycling facilities. Most productive action, therefore, accepts that both are required. The individual is the bolt of lightning, the explosion of clean, dense energy, and the group is the steady, driving engine that is able to convert that energy into a sustained, unquenchable force. They cannot be without each other, and the best recipe for change is always to infuse the innovative spark of the individual upon igniting the huge potential of the group.