Our book Collective Wisdom: Together We Can Know More is a culmination of our past six years leading the Collective Wisdom Initiative. Funded by The Fetzer Institute, it has been a labor of love, making visible a growing field of scholarship and practices engaged with knowledge, learning, and insight through group and community.

Here are some of the key messages from our research:

“We Are All Connected And Interdependent”

Collective wisdom is a mindset and orientation, a turning toward the reality of interdependence, intricacy, and connectivity that is fundamental to living systems.

“Together We Can Know More”

Collective wisdom takes us a step further from the “wisdom of crowds,” suggesting a latent wisdom exists in groups when authenticity, respect, and genuine engagement are promoted.

“Collective Wisdom Involves A Different Way Of Knowing” 

Collective wisdom involves intuition, sensation, and spirit. One of the foundational concepts of collective wisdom is that along with literal, linear, and rational ways of understanding, wisdom arises from a different kind of awareness. From this alternative awareness we are far more capable as individuals and in groups to recognize patterns, cultivate positive emotions, and perceive “pinch points” that might disrupt the movement toward new insights and creative resolution of conflicts.

“Safety for Reflection, Inquiry, and Deep Listening Are Essential For Developing Collective Wisdom”

Central to collective wisdom is the ability for individuals and groups to hold in mind apparently opposing ideas, to resolve deep seated conflicts, and to arrive at new ideas that are nourished from within each individual and arise from the group itself. Safety for reflection, inquiry, and deep listening are examples of key conditions that foster the possibility for collective wisdom to arise.

KEY MESSAGES ABOUT LEADING & FOLLOWING

“Digression To Stupidity”

We cannot talk long about collective wisdom without acknowledging the long and painful history of aggression, war, and oppressive behavior in groups. Collective stupidity can be a result of individuals giving up or deferring their own internal sensing of what is right, true, and of lasting value. We do this for many reasons including fear of not really knowing our own thoughts and fear of others, especially those who have power over us. Inversely, collective wisdom is the power of generating answers from within, allowing individuals the space to make best use of their own reflections and the groupís capacity to make best use of its members.

“Changing How We Think About Leading and Following”

Groups are inclined toward stupidity the more they believe an answer lies outside themselves, including a belief that an answer lies with the leader. This form of ìprojectionî carries penalties whether the projection is positive or negative. We defer our own wisdom at great cost, becoming dependent on an outside figure for answers and increasingly divided in our opposition or loyalty.

Inversely, when a leader brings attention to the challenges and complexity that are inherent to the circumstances a group faces together, group members can begin to bring their own unique talents and special qualities. The group as a whole can become more sophisticated as the reflective capacity deepens and new possibilities are surfaced. We return to the world with insights grounded in spirit and aided by perceiving a larger whole.

“Highlighting The Role For Leaders Who Care About Collective Wisdom”

Reframing the question as one of how we oscillate back and forth between collective stupidity and collective wisdom, leaders can consciously encourage the wisdom of their members as well as groups. We do this, for example, by practicing the power of listening, by creating safe spaces for debate and dialogue, and by modeling that leaders can have answers and also need others to arrive at the best solutions. Neither standing back and “letting others do it” nor taking control and “dictating the action” creates the conditions for collective wisdom. We foster wisdom when we turn our attention to the needs of the group as a whole and seek to unleash strengths and capabilities latent in each other.

“Exploring the Social Technologies That Help Create The Conditions For Deeper Wisdom To Flourish”

From experiments with World Café to Appreciative Inquiry to opportunities for reflective practice, the “knowing together” of collective wisdom is the basis for sustainable change and the missing ingredient for groups to be adaptive in their ever changing environment.