The author of an article on the management-issues.com website was once asked to help persuade voters in Colorado to adopt a statewide universal health care programme. The representatives of the initiative had heard about an innovative meeting format he had used, plus his impressive track record of bringing together people with very diverse perspectives on matters.
The representatives wanted to use collective intelligence workshops so as better to meet the healthcare needs of the citizens of Colorado. This format of discussion tends to be successful because it incorporates the four conditions described by James Surowiecki as requirements for accessing collective intelligence in his book The Wisdom of Crowd. These requirements will be described in the next article.
Unlock the wisdom of the crowd
The author of the article therefore suggested setting up a workshop for a diverse group of 50 people. The desired result was to be some innovative solutions to the given issue.
But things were not so simple. One of the three people who had approached the author was a professor at a local university. He insisted they already knew the right solution and had academic research to support it. Thus they would refuse to accept any alternative solutions the collective wisdom might bring. That was no surprise: people are very often convinced they already have the correct solution.
Sessions should not be a vehicle for persuading
The professor argued they did not want to explore new options; they just had to persuade participants their solution was the correct one and therefore should be accepted. But such an approach is clearly wrong.
The whole point of trusting the wisdom of the crowd enables you to find solutions which are very likely to be the best ones. Furthermore, such solutions will be agreed to by a majority of the people involved.
-jk-
Book: Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economics, Society and Nations. 2005. 320 pages