#152 Smarter transformation with Rod Collins

Collective intelligence is the most important intelligent asset an organization has.

The conventional wisdom of “command and control” in leadership is crumbling. A rapidly changing world demands a different management model, one built on “power with” rather than “power over.”

Rod and I dig into why nobody is smarter than everyone and explore the power of collective intelligence in organisations. In a fast-moving world, a top-down hierarchy stymies progress and innovation; networks require different leadership that is not based on levels or departments, i.e. not horizontal or vertical in structure. In fact, networks are the lever for effecting lasting change, and harnessing the potential of an organisation.

Rod vividly recalls a pivotal moment at Blue Cross Blue Shield: “The world moves faster than any CEO can think.” He realized no single leader, no matter how brilliant, could keep pace with rapid change. This insight sparked a shift from traditional hierarchy to a networked approach. This led to the unlocking of collective genius. In an AI world, how can we keep that human creative genius ?

We explore extending the principles of collective intelligence to the development of artificial intelligence and integrating the learning from human and crowd sourced wisdom.

Rod shares his insights, experience and research from working inside and with organisations on building a more collective and distributed leadership and decision making structure.

Are you inadvertently stifling your team’s collective genius?

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

1. Culture-building meetings with external parties are often more productive - having internal leaders act as facilitators off-site and bringing together a microcosm of the business gives everyone the same voice.
2. Success depends on seeking first to understand then to be understood; asking clarifying questions; engaging in small mixed-group discussions; ensuring diversity of opinion; no censorship; and participation over disruption.
3. Debate often gives rise to ‘lowest common denominator’ solutions; preferable is looking at the outcome regardless of agreement and disagreement, always having group decisions and avoiding polarisation.
4. Uncovering what we didn’t know we knew as well as what we didn’t know we didn’t know is very important in a rapidly changing world - networks are better at this; successful companies know that it drives efficiency and leads to growth.
5. Mining and leveraging collective intelligence (CI) is based on four attributes that work together: diversity of opinion, independent thinking, local knowledge, and an aggregation mechanism.
6. Bosses who become facilitators make growth, adaptability, innovativeness, and the ability to pivot more likely - intentional design for CI busts leadership myths and creates conditions for sustainable growth.
7. Senior leaders must accept divergent thinking, which is traditionally sorely lacking in the West, and companies must be free markets of ideas (with a decision-making structure).
8. In a network, miscreants become contributors and leadership is about facilitating constructive conversations where everyone is heard and diversity is welcome - everyone has an obligation to speak up in a safe space.
9. Slowing down to move fast under pressure reduces resistance - leaders ideally keep their opinions to themselves to allow CI to run its course and come to a (different) solution.
10. If everyone’s voice is heard, everyone is accountable – in a network, accountability is to peers, and is an effective mechanism for experimenting, keeping what’s working and discarding what’s not.
11. CI principles are critical for AI as they will determine whether we build a tyrannical AI on an enormous scale (enemy of the state) or evolve human intelligence (accelerator of humanity).
12. Fast thinking (biases, false confidence) vs. slow thinking (rational, deliberative, doubtful): AI could enable the former at the speed of the latter, thereby playing a constructive rather than destructive role.

Find out more about Rod and his work here :

https://rodcollins.net/