Remembering a brilliant book - The Wisdom of Crowds

I've been working with a group of senior PMs in the oil industry this week, exploring how to improve risk-based decision making in practice.

It has reminded me that we often get confused about where 'wisdom' comes from in our decision-making, especially in country and organisational cultures where individuals are somehow expected to be superior in their wisdom and judgements.

If you've never read 'The Wisdom of Crowds' by James Surowiecki, I highly recommend it as both an entertaining and informative book - completely brilliant.

So this week, I reminded myself again that collective decision-making isn't about consensus that it biased by group dynamics; nor is democracy about discussion and agreement.  We need diversity and independent input, suitably aggregated, to make sense of the trickiest business and societal decisions that need to be made.

Why not put The Wisdom of Crowds on your Christmas list?