If you rely only on your own knowledge and experience when tasked with making a decision, you are missing an opportunity to get to an optimal outcome. As smart as you may be, you can only gain by getting information, opinions, and experience from multiple sources with meaningful diverse perspectives.
While there are some decisions that must be made in the heat of the moment, at work and in other parts of your life you have the time to consider multiple facts, opinions and feelings. The more impactful the decision, the more you want to combine analysis and intuition to come to the right choice.
In making these decisions you can operate on your own by doing research and applying methods like Edward de Bono's Six Thinking Hats approach, which guides you in looking at the issue from multiple perspectives. For example considering data and feelings with optimism, caution, and creativity, while managing the process.
However, if you have access to knowledgeable people willing and able to give you the benefit of their intelligence, you can augment your own intelligence to arrive at an optimal decision.
Collaborative and Collective Intelligence
Collaborative and collective intelligence are about the way sharing the intelligence of multiple people enhances the power of individual intelligence. A bit of web research will uncover complex and detailed views on these topics with scientific research results. In this article we focus on how to make use of group intelligence in organizations by working with co-development.
For example, Mindful Life Mindful Work's Co-Development Programs bring people together in facilitated sessions to tap into the intelligence of the group. Groups may be made up of members of an operational or functional team with a variety of roles, across different departments, and levels of experience. They might also be members of a practice group, for example project managers or business analysts.
The facilitator assembles the group to address a member's issue by discussing their perspectives. The purpose is to enhance each team members' ability to address their issues, goals, or challenges. The group is not making the decision, that is the individual's job. The group discussion and various perspectives of the other team members helps to inform the decision maker.
Hedy Caplan explains Mindful Co-Development Groups on YouTube
Check out Mindful Life, Mindful Work's program:
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George Pitagorsky’s mission is to guide people to create healthy, happy, and highly effective teams, organizations, and communities. He has decades of experience as a globally recognized project, program and process management expert, teacher, and technology executive. His experience includes six years as CIO for a multi-billion-dollar government agency, and as a principle in a technology start-up. As Director of Program Development George brings over ten years of experience in that role for an international learning organization.