A Theory of Collective Stupidity in Organisations – and Possible Remedies
定义集体愚蠢为集体智能的反面，即个体智能组合后反而产生更愚蠢的思维和行动，并基于作者在政府、公民社会和学术界的经验，论证这种愚蠢常源于社会动态的涌现特性，而非个体愚蠢或道德缺陷。
Collective stupidity is fairly common in organisations.Firms full of very smart individuals who act in reckless ways that destroy them.Governments and nations that engage in acts of self-harm, descending into economic decline or civil war.Armies that repeat failed tactics.It's easy to see collective stupidity as something others slip into because of their own idiocy or moral failings.But this perspective misses much.We are all party to such follies.Here I define collective stupidity as the mirror of collective intelligence.Collective intelligence emerges when the combination of individual intelligences produces thought and actions that are more intelligent than individuals alone.Collective stupidity is the opposite, emerging when thoughts and actions are less intelligent than those of individuals alone (and are seen as such in retrospect).I draw on my experience working in many governments, civil society and now in academia, to argue that often collective stupidity in organisations is in part an emergent property of social dynamics.Adam Smith's theory of the invisible hand showed how self-interested actions aggregated into an effect that benefitted all.The pursuit of individual interest contributed to the common interest.The patterns I describe are opposite in nature: they aggregate rational, pro-social individual actions into results that work against the common interest.The reasons why we are so often part of collective stupidities is not that we are stupid, but rather that we are well intentioned.