Building Collective Intelligence faces a certain number of obstacles. Here are some examples:
- The Ego. Traditionally, our ego feeds off of a capacity to dominate others, whether it is through knowledge, strength, a hierarchical position, etc. Unfortunately, this personal construction can only promote the emergence of cliques, rivalries, stress, or inhibition in those who feel less strong. Further, in such a social construction, the competence of the group is limited to that of the person leading the group, with the pyramid resting on its point.
Our work will be to encourage people to think in other ways and to find personal fulfillment on other grounds. The main idea is to learn to satisfy the ego first and foremost through a personal capacity to contribute to the collective. A huge endeavor, you might say! Yes, but perfectly achievable based on our experience, especially because the effectiveness of this alternative model does not take long to have an impact. The collective approach delivers more results due to increased ease of interaction between very different people – those so called “difficult personalities” – and more peace of mind (it is stressful to have to constantly show that we are the best).
Maintaining a “teacher-student” relationship between the manager and colleagues. In most companies, the relationships between managers and employees resembles teacher-student interactions in many ways.
In this model, there is an absence of critical thinking, an excessively submissive attitude (good student) or a rebellious one (bad student), an absence of initiative and suggestions, hiring only in one’s own likeness, an insufficient level of accountability, and, once again, the competence of the group is limited to the competence of the person leading it.
HPC will guide the company through the individual and collective development of a results-focused approach by developing a culture of ongoing feedback and reflection on each person’s impact on the group. Ultimately, we see considerable progress in responsibility and objective assessment at all levels.
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Overly technical managers who do not know how to engage interpersonally. This crucial difficulty is very common. These managers only manage when a problem arises, and often only ever solve it themselves, and fail to motivate their teams. Their super-technical behavior leads to a lack of accountability in teams and an inability to propose alternative approaches to those of the “boss.”
HPC will coach these people about relationships in a technical, specific way that mirrors their approach. The idea is to make relational issues as tangible as possible, using concrete tools to help them to grasp the solutions. Very often, these people do not acquire the necessary relational dimension because they do not see how it can be useful. Our job is also to make them understand the benefit of a management approach that is not just technical.
- Projecting a personal mindset onto others. The underlying idea can be summed up by the common statement: “If it’s obvious to me, then it must also be obvious to others.” Remarkably, although everyone knows the limits of such a belief, it is still a very common idea! This result in misunderstandings, struggles, and rivalries – “because it’s obvious, I must be right!” – with hiring profiles that tend toward uniformity.
The focus here is to help people to better understand the diversity of temperaments and mindsets: what is this diversity composed of? Where do I fit in? How can I communicate with personalities that do not perceive everything the same way that I do?
This work encourages better knowledge of self and others, reflection on the types of personalities that are missing, and a better understanding of the needs related to certain positions or objectives such as what kind of temperament does a person need for a given position or objective?
- An internal spirit of competition.
Contrary to popular belief, this is very bad!
When two forwards on the same team are competing against one another, they use their talents against each other; when two drivers fight for the same spot on a circuit, they get in each other’s way, and both of their times suffer. In a company, it is the same thing, and competition between “internals” readily leads to the following problems: poor circulation of information, not very achievable projects, conflicts, stress and a bad atmosphere, etc. Ultimately, it leads to creating cliques, or even worse, isolated silos. Competition should occur between competitors, not internally.
To deal with this, HPC will help you to develop more interdisciplinary methods of working. These interdisciplinary methods foster the emergence of a new spirit of collaboration: working in project mode, sharing winning strategies, developing relay-leaders, etc.
- A feeling of individual or collective injustice.
It is imperative to struggle against this feeling, which often results in a lack of engagement and not achieving commitments. We must fight against what we call the dictatorship of opinions in favor of objectivity and facts.
Working on the systematic search for objectivity is, in our opinion, one of the best defenses against the feeling of injustice. How do we do this? Different relational tools encourage the emergence of objectivity: feedback, asking questions, etc.
Impenetrable infrastructure.
By this, we mean the structures and relationship in the company that promote the emergence of silos, most often in rivalry with one another: marketing against regulation, engineering against production, head office against the field, etc. The effects are devastating: no interdisciplinary collaboration, poor circulation of information, cliques, no objectivity due to the assumption of bad faith, etc.
HPC will guide the client through two levels of action:
- Increasing interdisciplinary missions, with a “functional mix” in group projects, as well as a continuous assessment of the impact of all decisions/actions on internal clients.
- Decompartmentalizing structures.
- An excessively specific vision.
The impact is irrefutable: no stepping back for perspective, prioritizing a culture of putting out fires instead of anticipating them, and, in growing SMEs, little anticipation and difficulty planning for the long term.
It is important to work more on a “high-level vision” translated by following action plans and road maps. This encourages more global approaches (useful for communicating, especially with investors or financial bodies), more anticipation of impacts, and a better analysis of the dangers and opportunities inherent to certain contexts.
There are major obstacles to developing Collective Intelligence, including a considerable loss of efficiency and a real crisis of work value in a company. Our experience shows that changing each of these points is far from being simple and preferably requires support from external specialists. As it happens, HPC’s strength and focus is to quickly show the parties involved that efficiency and happiness come along with the transformation.
Soon after our interventions begin, significant changes occur: the collective becomes more successful in how it operates; working together is stimulating, efficient, and inspires happiness on the individual and collective levels; we observe a growing connection between the work value and the emergent pride in collaborating with a talented, unique collective. Another inevitable side-effect is that talent is more easily attracted because the company is able to demonstrate that it is concerned about collective efficiency. Better yet, these improvements help retain this talent. Developing a range of concrete practices for Collective Intelligence makes it possible to ensure that the company can carry out one of its primary obligations: teaching the leaders of tomorrow in its own, unique way.