The perception of leadership often carries with it the assumption that the leader must be the best, the most knowledgeable, the one who always has the answers. This traditional view of leadership, however, is outdated, wrong, and detrimental to the leader and the organization.
In 1906, Sir Francis Galton was visiting a livestock fair, when he came across an interesting game. The fair goers were invited to guess an ox’s weight after it was slaughtered and dressed. Around 800 guesses were made. Sir Gulton, being intrigued by this game, he collected all of the guesses that were made, and analyzed them. He found that not one person had the correct guess, and the overall average guess was only one pound off from the real weight of this ox. This really shows how the collective intelligence from a large group of people is powerful. […]
A few days ago I highlighted the DARPA Network Challenge where a team from MIT used social media to locate ten giant