Collective Intelligence

Businesses need to be smart to succeed, but it’s not enough to make yourself smarter as the leader or to fill the company with smart people. Businesses full of smart people (and led by them) make stupid decisions all the time. Instead, in today’s rapidly changing, uncertain world you need to design your business itself to be intelligent, to harness the collective abilities of its people by systematically addressing critical thinking, communication and focus. The real lesson from Amazon, Google and the like – that enables them to keep winning year after year – is that they do business intelligently. Business is complex, which is why it requires a deep, practical intelligence to survive, let alone thrive. This book shows why businesses that act smartest, and display an organizational capacity for critical thinking, underpinned with clear and effective communication, allowing them to develop razor-sharp focus, are the ones that really stand out and achieve sustained success.

Jennifer Sundberg and Pippa Begg are the co-CEOs of Board Intelligence, which has advised over 35,000 company boards and executives on communication and performance. They are based in the UK.