average is excellence
"With most things, the average is mediocrity. With decision making, it's often exellence." the quote is from Wisdom of Crowds, by James Surowiecki, stating that under the right circumstances a group of people is wiser than any individual.
Surowiecki starts out with examples of misbelief during time about that any wisdom could come out of a crowd, and a fear of collecticve madness. A fear I can recognice from parents horrified that their teenager will be a part of a youth gang. A crowd, a group of people, no indication that it would be any kind of criminal gang.
A group can have the right dynamics to extract more energy than the sum of its parts, to encourage and inspire each other. Sometimes in a bad way, as a lynch mob, sometimes with great results, as the non-profit cultural sector is able to provide many good examples of. Howewer, anonymity and lack of individual responsibility allows us to as part of a group behave more stupid and ignorant than we are as individuals.
Surowiecki points out that for a group to come to its right, and be wiser than its most intelligent members, it is required that the group is large enough, diverse, and that the members are autonomous.
The law often use the jury system so that people's common sense should have their say. In Sweden it is in the district court politically appointed Lay Judges (nämndemän) who fills that function. But when it comes to diversification among this Lay Judges is lacking badly. SvD reports that the average age is 57 years old, and more than half are over 50 years old (figures from 2007). The group's ability to adjudicate in a manner that reflects the ideals of the society at large, especially in cases where traditional norms are broken, or when modern technology is involved, are questioned.
For the decision making process to be successful, the individuals have to act autonomous, - to take on personal responsibility for their decisions and not hide behind the group. It is important that they speak their opinion, not what they think other wants to hear. Too excessive desire to reach a consensus may prohibit individuals to bring uncomfortable viewpoints to the table, and will lead to group think. Group think is a process making the group a lot dumber then its most stupid individual, by ignoring to critically evaluate and analyze the consequences the desicion will have. Se also cover-your-ass security.
As human beings we have a tendency to belive that if lots of people does something or belives in a certain thing, this is right or good for something. Sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. The tendency to belive so howewer is called "Social proof" and may lead to cascade effects, when everybody is just following everybody elses example without critically evaluate their actions. The banking crises that we now see the consequences of can be said to be caused by caskading effects in the way it seemed wise to be lending out money.
I have to agree with Wombat, that Surowiecki often leave to his readers to create a structure of all the information that he is handing out, often several examples stocked on top of each other. It's easy to loose track a bit and not always be sure what a certain example is an example of. Many are informative, several are entertaining, it's just a bit to much of the good stuff, some stringency, cutting and editing, would make a better book. When avilable in a "Wisdom for Dummies" - edition, I wont hesitate to recomend it to anyone, cause there are some inspiring toughts and thoughtful examples in there.
Surowiecki, J. (2004). Wisdom of Crowds - Why the Many Are Smarter Then the Few. London: Abacus.
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