Wisdom of Crowds

Wisdom of crowds: Why many are more intelligent than a few. Together, we can come to conclusions that are more accurate & how groups must be diverse to ensure all-inclusive viewpoints to reach the best decisions.

I always thought the word 'crowd' had a strangely negative connotation for what essentially meant a group of people just like us. Why doesn't the word emit the warmth of a word like 'company' or the sophistication of a word like 'club'? There's no explicit reason for us to associate crowds with a rioting mob or a colorful carnival. But we do. And at the risk of reducing a good century of crowd work theories by notable sociologists, I'd like to posit that crowds are too suggestive of volatility and unpredictability. It has no root; it can shapeshift into anything it wants. Just how many cheerful football fans have descended to manic behavior after their team won or lost a match? Groupthink isn't the first strategy executives depend on for this very reason: the more the number of people, the tougher they are to control. James Surowiecki's groundbreaking work The Wisdom of Crowds begs to differ, and he has a point.?

To illustrate this, I shall venture back in time to borrow two vital strands of thought from Gustave le Bon, the fascinating French thinker and globetrotter who wrote another seminal work on crowds called Psychologie des Foules (The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind) in 1895. To simply quote him, "Without a doubt criminal crowds exist, but virtuous and heroic crowds, and crowds of many other kinds, are also to be met with." He explains this idea in a later chapter on the Morality of Crowds: "Personal interest is very rarely a powerful motive force with crowds, while it is almost the exclusive motive of the conduct of the isolated individual." But what do the crusades and long-forgotten wars have to do with twenty-first century industry? This one is simple: people.?

If we stare at a modern crowd for a long time, chances are we begin noticing how different each face is from the other. The executive rushing to his next meeting is impatient with the two elderly women sauntering around in front of him; the pizza delivery guy is searching for an address that clearly never existed; the soon-to-be famous standup comedian searches for material in every person he encounters. All the while these people wonder what a young person holding a camcorder finds worth recording in this bustling scene. And I, the lens of the camcorder, find value in this multicultural painting because each of them are 'same, same but different'. When the street corner has such a diversity of perspectives to offer a passer-by, imagine what the carefully curated diversity of the office space might have for us.

And I know none of you are here for the magical stats, but here they go. 800 villagers were asked by the British statistician Francis Galton to guess how much an about-to-be slaughtered ox weighed. The median of the guesses, 1207 pounds, was within 1% of the actual weight of the ox. This anecdote (with which Surowiecki begins his book) has long been an accepted example for the superiority of groupthink. Before I move on to weightier terms like risk assessment or prediction markets, let's think about our first experience of crowd wisdom - the dinner table. Throughout history and across cultures, this has been the safest space for discussing future events, possible investments, and finances. Everyone sitting at the table gets a say. As far as the boardroom is an analogy for the dinner table (don't forget the donuts), different backgrounds and experiences enrich conversations. I?don't necessarily believe that diversity leads to more innovation since creativity can't always be measured on a scale, but it tends to quicken and streamline problem-solving. Old problems need fresh solutions; new problems can have traditional solutions. Research shows that greater diversity of every kind contributes to increased revenue. Around five years ago, Quantopian studied twelve years of Fortune 500 companies' data and calculated that women-led enterprises perform better than Standard & Poor companies steered by men. The 2015 McKinsey report 'Why Diversity Matters' found that top 25 racially diverse executive teams were 33% more likely to have greater financial returns.?

Easier said than done, as it is with various company strategies. The focus on diversity needs to be maintained by leadership teams. The company at the top of my mind and near the top of the DiversityInc's 2018 Top 50 Companies for Diversity list is Accenture. It was among the first to make its inclusivity approach public, so it has the added burden of being a trailblazer. It's a responsibility they have shouldered admirably. Their website celebrates their 100% pay equity for women and people of every racial background. They make it possible to bring in changes that allow the LGBTIQ community, veterans, military spouses, and people with disabilities to make a difference to everyday work. I personally believe this kind of diversity matters not because they make the brand 'look good' but because they make the workplace a safe environment to express hugely divergent opinions. Inclusivity celebrates this gap between two, or more, people who come together to share their thoughts on a certain subject. The decision-making process begins with the tacit understanding that people from such widely different walks of life cannot seamlessly agree about everything.?

This wonderful plurality indicates the best median point, which is the best decision for all parties involved. Why else would Lenovo decide on 'Different is Better' as a tagline for their company? They got a 100% on the Corporate Index for LGBTIQ inclusion because their growth strategies implant diversity in hitherto unnoticed areas. Very often it's an instinct that makes a good thinker (not specialization) and instinct is something we're born with. We might be tempted to depend on 'the crowd' for increased profits, but the quality of our diversity-inducing techniques plays a major role. Employee engagement is crucial to ensuring that the techniques do, indeed, create a more humane workspace that values trust and personal growth. Diversity on paper means less than nothing. The policies need to be implemented and employee feedback on the policies has to be taken into account. In Norway, for example, all boards of all public and private companies need 40% female representation. Does this trickle down to more teams giving their two cents during corporate meetings at all levels? I certainly hope so, but I cannot be entirely sure.

Depending on a broader base of perspectives might not give us a consensus, but it's a good method of showcasing how both low-stakes and high-stakes decisions affect every team. One need not call upon their entire workforce to discuss future-changing issues, but the board can open the doors to those in more senior management positions. If inclusivity has been taken care of, there can be no major fallouts to these baby steps. If we can depend on unknown crowds of soldiers defending us on borders, what stops us from trusting experienced professionals to weigh in on issues that will, ultimately, involve their futures?

Key takeaways:

Crowds are necessary. For every 'Too many cooks spoil the broth', we have a 'The more, the merrier. The collective wisdom of crowds can be invaluable in the industry because, as le Bon points out, groups can rise above self-interest.

A diverse workplace is a safe workplace. Bowing to the majority is passé. Having an equal and equitable work environment makes it easier to voice strong opinions.

Employee engagement is key to celebrating this multiplicity of voices. Beauty mogul L'Oreal pairs employees with multicultural students in the Netherlands as a part of its global initiative to drive inclusivity among its employees.?

A diverse workforce best serves a diverse customer base. In the powerful words of Lenovo Chief Diversity Officer, "It's a hundred different boxes. A million different boxes. It takes every dimension of our diversity. All our diverse mindsets, skills, and cultural backgrounds, to deliver such a wide array of technology."

At the risk of sounding too trite, I'd like to conclude with the suggestion that such inclusivity of diverse crowds at workplaces is the best way to fight the divisive forces of a broken, xenophobic world. It is impossible for us to identify with people millions of miles away if we aren't awake to the tiny ways we're different from our neighbors, our relatives, and our siblings. We are ourselves, bundles of contradicting yet precious ideas. Finding and recognizing the value in everyone begins with the realization that they, too, are looking for something to value in us.?