How to Become Immediately Smarter
In 1906, an Englishman named Francis Galton attended a country fair. He was a scientist and he had a low regard for most people, particularly at this county fair. He noticed that there was a raffle taking place to guess the weight of the meat on a grown ox after the ox had been a butchered and dressed.
In 1906, an Englishman named Francis Galton attended a country fair. He was a scientist and he had a low regard for most people, particularly at this county fair. He noticed that there was a raffle taking place to guess the weight of the meat on a grown ox after the ox had been a butchered and dressed.
We’re conditioned in our society to rely on experts, which we do in business all the time. The old man or the old lady at the top of the organization is the expert and we all go to the expert for advice. But really, that’s not such a good idea. In fact, someone studied many different experts, and specifically doctors, nurses, lawyers, engineers, entrepreneurs, and investment bankers, and all were dramatically overconfident when it came to their ability to be right on a given issue, even in their field of expertise. All thought they knew way more than they actually did. They were overconfident.
And of course, that happens in business, too. We look to the experts to always have the answers. But they don’t. In fact, one of the things that makes business and other types of decisions better is dissent and disagreement and robust debate over ideas. This is what you’re looking for. This is why, instead of only involving your top people in your decision-making process, you should introduce a wildcard, somebody that maybe doesn’t have as much experience as the rest of you. Somebody with a different background, with a different perspective, because until our ideas are challenged and we have to defend them, we don’t always make the best decisions.
Everybody’s heard the old cliché “Two heads are better than one.” When it comes to decision making in your business, involve more people. If two heads are better than one, then five heads are better than two. Almost immediately, the quality of your decisions and ideas are going to go up, especially if you can have the freedom in your organization to participate in robust debate, and contest the potential decisions that you’re about to make. Consensus doesn’t work. Disagreement and debate actually work better.
