Your company hired your boss because he was THE subject matter expert to get your department out of this rut. Company leadership paid him big bucks because he was the ONLY person with the right knowledge and experience. Whose smarter, your new boss or all the people working for him?
When measuring past performance, average is far from spectacular. However when harnessing the same power of average collective wisdom for decision-making, results can be remarkable. In “the wisdom of crowds” James Surowiecki argues that in the right conditions the crowds always come up with the best results. For crowds to be successful decision makers, the following circumstances must exists:
- Diversity of Opinion
- Independence
- Decentralization
- Aggregation (finding a means to collect the groups data)
Interestingly enough, the larger the crowd (sample size), the more accurate the group seems to be.
“The wisdom of crowds” is a statistical book without the math. James Surowiecki presents his hypothesis, that groups can do better than individuals, in a very well organized and easy to read manner. I would recommend this book to anyone who has the slightest inkling on analyzing how crowds work.
References:
The Wisdom of Crowds (2005) Surowiecki, James. Anchor Books: New York. 306 Pages
