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About Collective IQ 0

Overview 1

Doug Engelbart coined the term Collective IQ as a measure of how well people can work together on important challenges – how quickly and intelligently they can anticipate or respond to a situation, leveraging their collective perception, memory, insight, vision, planning, reasoning, foresight, and experience into applicable knowledge. Collective IQ is ultimately a measure of effectiveness. 1a

Whether developing a new product or service, researching a topic of interest, seeking a cure for cancer, or improving conditions in underserved communities, a group's Collective IQ is a key determinant of how effectively it will respond to the challenges presented. The more complex and urgent the mission, the more critically a group depends on this Collective IQ capability. 1b

Thus it becomes increasingly important to understand what raises or lowers a group's Collective IQ, how to raise it, and how high is high enough to meet the challenges ahead. 1c

What Raises or Lowers Collective IQ? 2

Regardless of the end goals, Collective IQ comes down to how quickly and intelligently the group can iteratively assess a situation, identify needs and opportunities, realize desired outcomes, and incorporate lessons learned, while continuously adapting to changing conditions until the goals are met. Whereas an individual's IQ is based largely on the brain one is born with, a group's IQ is based largely on how the individuals engage:

  (1) in the group process for 'concurrently developing, integrating, and applying its knowledge' toward its mission, for which Doug affectionately coined the term CoDIAK,

  (2) in the shared memory of swirling knowledge gained, captured, retained, and accessed within a shared 'dynamic knowledge repository', or DKR.

Collective IQ can thus be either impaired or boosted to a significant degree, simply by ignoring, obstructing, or proactively enhancing elements of this dynamic knowledge ecosystem in which they work; in fact there is no known limit to how high a group's Collective IQ can be increased. => Learn more.

How to Raise It 3

Organizations with a higher Collective IQ will see the benefit of proactively raising their Collective IQ to its highest potential, and will soon surpass those that don't. 3a

Boosting our Collective IQ begins with employing best practices and tools to facilitate these collective capabilities within a dynamic knowledge ecosystem, and then evolving that ecosystem with better and better tools and practices. 3b

Bootstrapping Brilliance is a powerful five-point strategy you can use for boosting Collective IQ and innovation capacity in your team, community, or organization. 3c

Collective IQ Indicators 4

Higher Collective IQ: How a group shows us that it is collectively smarter: 4a

  • It learns more quickly;
  • It remembers its past experiences and actions better;
  • It integrates the innovative and cognitive capabilities of its members faster, more effectively;
  • It understands its own makeup and capabilities better;
  • It sees and understands more about what is going on in its environment;
  • It recognizes more quickly, and understands more perceptively, and external threats and opportunities;
  • In responding to threat or opportunity, it can generate a new plan of action more cleverly and comprehensively;
  • It can apply and continuously coordinate its resources more smoothly and effectively.

Lower Collective IQ: Signs of inadequate collective IQ of a group: 4a

  • It is slow to sense, learn, pivot;
  • It lacks situational awareness, fails to see potential threats and opportunities;
  • It is aware of threats and opportunities, but fails to act;
  • It is aware, but rises to the cause too little, too late;
  • It is aware, and rises to the cause, but is no match for adverse or opposing forces;

How High is High Enough? 5

As the rate and scale of change around the world increases exponentially, so must our collective ability to increase our Collective IQ in business and society to stay ahead of the curve and thrive. Creating brilliant businesses, initiatives, and institutions, yielding increasingly brilliant outcomes, will lead to more brilliant societies and a brilliant world. 5a

  • The opportunities, problems, challenges we face are increasing exponentially on a global scale, so finding exponentially more powerful ways to collectively address important challenges is critical;
  • This is both a dire threat and a golden opportunity – companies, initiatives, regions, nations that kick into gear on this will likely surpass those that don’t in leaps and bounds.
  • The sooner we reach critical mass as a planet, the better off we all are, and thus there is tremendous value in sharing best practices, and in addressing this collectively as a Grand Challenge.

Learn More 6

  Helpful Resources 6a

  Press 6b

  Papers 6c