Harvard Business Essentials, Decision Making

When Groups Make Better Decisions

Despite the periodic madness of crowds described by Charles

Mackay and the more subtle influences that groups have over indi-

viduals, a group is usually more likely to make a better decision or

find a better solution than is an individual acting alone. There is no

denying the fact of individual genius. All the great works of sym-

phonic music, for example, are the products of individual composers.

There was no Mozart Collaborative.

Guernica is not the work of a

committee but of a single painter.

David Copperfield did not emerge

from the London Writers Forum but from the solitary labors of

Charles Dickens. Nevertheless, many ...