Why, when wise, experienced leaders make collective decisions, do they often make really bad decisions? In his new paper “A theory of collective stupidity in organisations - and possible remedies,” @geoffmulgan challenges conventional wisdom about leadership failure. He says that “collective stupidity” emerges not from incompetent individuals, but from behaviours that are rational & co-operative but resulting in destructive outcomes. He identifies a key factor as “the tendency to conserve cognitive energy”. Intelligent thought is costly & requires energy & attention. So we save it by adopting narrow habitual thinking & routines. In addition, we are social animals who seek acceptance & approval from others. This causes us to align our thinking with the group, copy behaviours & conform—often at the expense of independent judgement. Excessive respect for overconfidence also plays a part. Lack of diversity in the group makes us even more prone to collective stupidity because there is more pressure to conform, reducing the chance of challenging flawed assumptions. Remedies for collective stupidity: 1) Divide roles & tasks among different people or groups to encourage multiple perspectives & reduce the risk of groupthink. 2) Orchestrate triangulation & doubt to provide alternative perspectives; how would I know if this wasn’t true? What would someone else think? 3) Organise loops – looping back repeatedly to question, think, debate, challenge. 4) Slow down decision-making processes to allow time for reflection & critical thinking. 5) Expose people to a variety of viewpoints & help them understand how others think, countering the tendency to assume everyone shares the same perspective. 6) Seek to achieve a healthy balance of diversity and integration; a variety of views, backgrounds & cognitive styles AND a capacity to integrate with shared languages, frames & ways of thinking. 7) Listen to unwelcome information & unwelcome ideas, creating routines for honest reporting & for mavericks, dissenters & whistleblowers to have a voice. discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprin…. With thanks to Stella O'Brien for an accessible link.

Yesterday I led a session on "building a sense of belonging" as a key capability for leaders of change. Psychologists say people have a fundamental need to belong - on a par with our need to feel loved. A sense of belonging makes us more likely to collaborate, share ideas, innovate & support change at work. A sense of belonging isn't just a feeling of "fitting in". It's also about being recognised for the unique things that each of us brings. Here's a piece I wrote with @goranhenriks for @BMJLeader: blogs.bmj.com/bmjleader/2021… Here are some recent practical resources to build belonging from @CCLdotORG: ccl.org/articles/leading-eff… Plus a graphic that describes how people often feel when they don't belong.

What is the difference between cooperation, coordination & collaboration? 1) Cooperation - making sure our respective activities don't conflict; doesn't require high levels of trust, we just need to respect each other's space & activity. 2) Coordination - moving together towards a known shared outcome; requires greater trust as we rely on one another to do the work to achieve the common goal. 3) Collaboration - uniting people to create something new together that we couldn't accomplish alone; needs strong interpersonal trust. We need all three in different contexts. When it comes to leading across systems, we get the best outcomes when we invest in the strong trusting relationships that enable us to collaborate: linkedin.com/posts/efmorriso…. By Ed Morrison @Strategic_Doing. Deeper dive: doi.org/10.1177/014920632090…

When we take part in an unproductive meeting, the effect isn't just the immediate impact of a waste of our time. The effect can go on for hours or even days. It's called a "meeting hangover": a period of diminished focus, motivation or productivity following a bad meeting. Researchers found that more than a quarter of meetings produced meeting hangovers. Five insights from meeting science to prevent meeting hangovers: 1) More active, thoughtful facilitation 2) Cut the guest list ruthlessly 3) Turn agendas into action plans 4) Make every minute count & don’t run over 5) Demand accountability, every time hbr.org/2025/02/the-hidden-t…. Via @brentnreed