However well you perform, you’ll only be successful if you do it correctly.
The Difference of Twenty Five Percent
The majority of companies leave 25 percent of their knowledge in the dust. They don’t just do not use it, but they don’t be aware that it’s available. They are paying for great minds, but they are wasting 25% of the resource. Any kind of waste obviously affects our bottom line. If the economy is in a slump, companies cannot be able to afford the expense of garbage.
But what about the brain … loss on the capability to swiftly restart and capitalize on opportunities that competitors do not? This could be crippling.
The key to that extra twenty percent lies in the development of inspiring collective intelligence. Boosting collective intelligence is to the way that people can think and communicate, what lean means to the methods that the Japanese implemented to manufacture. Anyone who has been familiar with manufacturing techniques that are lean recognizes the exponential rise in costs that are incurred as the process of removing defects moves along the manufacturing process. They also comprehend the transformation in the quality as Toyota as well as Honda has brought about because of. The Japanese have invested in process improvements in the midst of being deemed not competitive in the global automotive market. In the exact moment that they were facing the walls, they made an investment instead of making a change.
Similar to manufacturing that is lean, “defects” in collective intelligence can be easily overlooked. Also, defects in a thinking process can be much more damaging to a business’s survival than one that only calls for the replacement of parts.
Inspiring collective intelligence can close the gap of twenty percent. This allows companies to access the full range of talents in intelligence, knowledge expertise, and the ability to think that exists within their organization and tap into it constantly. This results in a level of collective intelligence that is greater than what any individual could have created on their own. With that 25%, they are surrounded … at the time they are most in need of it … through other people who share the same range of thoughts that allows them to be successful the first time.
To squeeze out the extra 25 percent, individuals become proficient at creating an inspiring common sense that they can apply to any issue that is important, from strategies to essential decision-making. The difference of twenty-five percent allows firms to continually develop subtle shifts in strategy that help them stay on the right track regardless of the state of the economy.
Invaluable? We’re in agreement. Impossible? True. Check it out.
There are two kinds of research that help clarify what generates an inspired collective intelligence. The first is Jack Treynor’s jelly-beans-in-the-jar experiment. The second one, we’ll be calling the trivial pursuit test.
Begin with the Potential of Collective Intelligence
Jack Treynor, the investment expert, conducted a famous experiment where he challenged his students to determine the number of jelly beans that were in the Jar. When they added them all up and averaged, the class’s estimation was 871. In reality, there were 851 beans in the container. One student was the only one to have come up with a better estimate. The now-famous jelly-beans-in-the-jar experiment has been replicated countless times with similar results. The collective intelligence of the majority is superior to the collective intelligence of all. However, there are some rogue geniuses.
Incorporate an additional trigger for the Power of Competence
The second study was conducted by Dutch social researchers. The most challenging forty-six Trivial Pursuit questions were asked by two classes of students. One group was required to consider the concept of a college professor some time prior to beginning the game. The other group was focused on soccer gangs prior to playing. The group that concentrated on a professor at a college scored more than 57% correct. The ones who were focused on soccer hooligans got around 42% accurate. There’s a gap of 26% in the final result due to nothing more than an altered concentration!
Students did not realize they were being affected. They didn’t know how their performances were affected due to their attention. This is the effect of triggers on collective intelligence. We continually send these triggers to our friends and to ourselves via our thoughts.
Use those triggers to focus on people’s best instincts.
What differentiates an inspired social network is a fact that members are able to trigger each other’s best instincts. What are your best instincts? They’re our best version of ourselves – pure and straightforward. That’s the secret to inspiring collective intelligence. It begins by triggering … the moments of inspiration that bring us closer to the best of ourselves … at times, the most deficient … but usually to somewhere in between. Best instinct and competence triggers play a significant role in our personal and collective ability to tackle problems and create inspiring results.
The concept of inspired collective intelligence is the result of a team of people working together in a way that allows them to draw on the strengths that each brings to the discussion. When individuals trigger the expertise and best intuition of one another, they produce collective results which are far more superior than what each of them would create on their own.
Lewis E. Frees, Ph.D., is the president of Harmony, Inc., a company that provides consulting services for organizational development. Lew has been a consultant, trainer, and corporate coach for more than twenty-five years. He has written numerous articles about management, leadership, and organizational transformation. This article is an excerpt from the book he’s currently writing: Inspired Collective Intelligence: Making the most of the best thinking within Your Organisation. The services provided are intellectual value stream mapping, social network mapping pull analysis 360o feedback surveys, and collaborative software applications to help implement the five essential competencies required for creating an organization that is inspired.