Should the Wisdom of Crowds Influence Our Thinking About Leadership?

Blogged earlier about Jim Surowiecki's book The Wisdom of Crowds and I'm fascinated to see the variety of responses to Jim Haslett's orginal column on the implications for leadership. Note that Surowiecki has some criteria for wise crowds incuding "being reasonably informed and motivated, have diversity of points of view, independence from each other’s opinions, and be decentralized with access to and the ability to draw on “local knowledge”. And they have to have some kind of mechanism for aggregating “private judgments into a collective decision.”

Some respondents to the column are noting which decisions would be suitable for wise crowds with one person specifically EXcluding visioning. Another wonders where these "crowds" might be. Put your AI hat on - believing is seeing and take a look - let me know what you think.

HBS Working Knowledge: What Do YOU Think?: Readers Respond: Should the Wisdom of Crowds Influence Our Thinking About Leadership?