Diversity is key to Collective Intelligence
Why is it that large groups of people are able to make better predictions than even the best experts in the field? And how is it that even individuals with only a small fraction of the whole picture are able to improve the group prediction?
The answer lies in diversity.
Not racial diversity, but cognitive diversity. When we make decisions in groups, our collective intelligence has the potential to exceed the sum of all the intelligence of the individual members. This is a profound concept.
Experts in one field tend to all think alike. They edit their colleagues’ articles, attend the same conferences, and have a tendency to exert social pressures on each other. As a result, they fall victim to groupthink. It is important to differentiate between the concepts of groupthink and collective intelligence, as they are mutually exclusive ideas.
Groupthink is a consequence of group members who try to reach consensus while minimizing the conflict of differing ideas. Conversely, collective intelligence promotes the conflict of ideas, in order to incentivize the gathering of unique information.
Good decisions are achieved through conflict, not conformity. It’s a simple idea that yields profound results.
But since the concept of diversity is fairly obscure and not immediately intuitive, most groups fail to realize any benefits from it. In addition, typical corporate hierarchy and social boundaries counteract any hope of promoting cognitive diversity.
However, the groups of people that are able to overcome the social oddities due to continuous conflict of their ideas are rewarded handsomely.