“The IQ of a group depends more on the quality of the relationships and connections between its members than on the height of the individual IQs.” At a time when the responsiveness of companies and people is essential in the face of rapid changes in the world and its decisions, collective work is struggling to assert its letters of nobility.

Resisting the discomfort of the apparent loss of control

“The more the world evolves, the more complex organizations become […] the more we tend to centralize decisions and increase controls […] We are going against the aspirations of people who work for the same goal, we are going against their desire for autonomy and responsibility.” At least that’s what Jean-Dominique Senard, chairman of Michelin’s management team, tells us.

Overcoming the myth of the providential leader

To let people know that they know, to be followed. This definition of the providential leader refers to the idea that, in order to lead, a single entity must manage and guide the others to move forward. However, the environmental and societal changes due to the globalization of the economy show that a pooling of opinions is necessary to cope with these developments. This is also what the American economist James Surowiecki said in 2004 in “The wisdom of crowd”: “No one is smarter than everyone else”.

The conditions for being smarter together

Collective intelligence is a work, an evolution of relationships between several people that will result in effective alchemy. However, for the latter to work, three conditions are necessary:

A common management
A clear and shared framework
An authority recognized by all

By accompanying this alchemy with a step back and a better knowledge of others, the greater the freedom of expression of each person and the better the results.

The right leader

The collective leader strives to establish from the beginning and together, the way in which the group will function in order to prevent the collective from turning into a masquerade, while ensuring that everyone has full powers. However, this leader should not hesitate to take a step back and send the group back to what is happening in a negative way. It is up to him to find the right cursor between speed and depth, short term and medium-long term, process and initiative so that the collective finds its way and moves towards a resolution of the problem.

To find the full article: https://www.hbrfrance.fr/chroniques-experts/2019/05/25797-le-pouvoir-du-collectif/