Page 186 - The Power to Change Anything

Find Strength in Numbers 175

When 787 local residents who visited a regional livestock
fair guessed the weight of a slaughtered and dressed ox, Galton
calculated the average score of the locals who predicted the
weight to be 1,197 pounds. The ox eventually weighed in at
1,198 pounds. The group average hadn’t merely come close to
the correct weight, it had been almost exactly correct. The
point Surowiecki makes about crowds is: “Under the right cir-
cumstances, groups are remarkably intelligent, and are often
smarter than the smartest people in them.”
Long before Surowiecki popularized the idea that groups
can do better than the smartest individuals, Dr. Yunus put this
notion to work in his microcredit enterprises. Consider the five
housewives who had never held jobs as they were brainstorm-
ing ways to leverage Tanika’s scheme. No one person came up
with the final plan, but, by playing off each other’s suggestions,
they jointly came up with a method that succeeded. They were
able to do so because they weren’t merely pooling ignorance;
they were inventing products and services that would sell in
their own village, and they all knew their village.

WHEN AND HOW TO INVEST IN SOCIAL CAPITAL

Sometimes it’s obvious that a profound change in behavior will
require help from others. For example, if Dr. Don Berwick and
his team want to save 100,000 patients from accidental death
in U.S. hospitals, it’s clear that they’ll need to involve doctors,
nurses, administrators, housekeepers, and others. The same is
true with Dr. Silbert’s work with ex-cons. She doesn’t merely
rely on a village to help her; she actually creates a village.
Sometimes it’s not so obvious that your change strategy
requires anyone other than yourself. For example, you might
think that sticking with a diet is a matter of individual will. In
the solitary moments when you’re deciding between a deep-
fried apple turnover and an apple, it’s all up to you. But you’d
be wrong to make the assumption that you’re alone. While all