How to build a business that’s smarter than you: lessons from five transformative leaders

It’s easy to think of great managers as being gifted individuals who’ve channelled their genius into an organisation and shared it with the world. But you may be relieved to learn that leadership doesn’t tend to work like that.  

As Jennifer Sundberg’s and Pippa Begg’s new book explains, the best companies systematically empower everyone to think well, and are set up to convert that intelligence into action fast. 

This is what’s known as ‘collective intelligence’. 

Here, everyone is using their brains – rigorously and consistently – and acting on the insights that they generate. Because they don’t have to keep coming back to senior management, people are able to make decisions with greater speed and closer to the problem, removing frustrating bottlenecks. Because they make use of everyone’s minds, they produce better thinking and make better decisions.

Here are five ways that successful companies have harnessed collective intelligence, and the leadership lessons that we can take from it…