The Wisdom of Crowds (Part 2)

Last week , we debunked the myth of the wisdom of crowds. Simple organisms, like ants, can benefit from flocking – individuals follow simple rules, but a complex behavior emerges. Kind of like how you get your McChicken meal at McDonald’s. Or the assembly line that Henry Ford put together.

Unfortunately, when we apply the theory of “many hands make light work” to ideation and creativity, the opposite occurs. More interactions = dumber behaviour. We we come together as a group seeking consensus in ideas, we lose sophistication and intelligence.

Then where does the wisdom of crowds come from? The wisdom of crowds does NOT come from a consensus, but from the aggregation of the ideas of each individual in the group. In fact, the ideas spawned on an individual basis will often be greater than those born in a group environment.

That’s because groups tend to gravitate toward a handful of similar ideas and eliminate the outliers. In addition, as a group gets bigger, it becomes more difficult for people to express their ideas. People begin to censor themselves for fear of sounding stupid. People dominate the conversation in an attempt to appear intelligent. Less ideas get explored.

But let’s get back to where the wisdom of crowds comes from – the aggregation of the ideas of individuals. The number and quality of unique ideas born by each individual will exceed that of those ideas thought up by the group.

Diversity increases the quality of aggregated wisdom of the group. People are now able to branch out in their thoughts without gravitating towards a “group” answer. People can think up crazy solutions and let their creativity run free. And when you add up all of those ideas, they are better than the ideas that would be put forth by the group.

So how do you put this into practice? Pretty simple. Dedicate one brainstorming session to individual thought. You can have people think on the problem (and have a couple of ideas) before they arrive. Or you can dedicate the first 15 minutes of the meeting to individual brainstorming. Whatever.

The next step is to take the time to go through each and every thought that each participant had on the topic. People will expand on each other’s ideas and the solutions will grow organically. However, since you are always moving from idea to idea, the group is less likely to get stuck on one train of thought. It’s a simple way to assert the creativity of the individuals and benefit from the wisdom of crowds.

- Christian