One key to successful group decisions is getting people to pay much less attention to what everyone else is saying. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
In part because individual judgement is not accurate enough or consistent enough, cognitive diversity is essential to good decision making. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
The value of a currency is, ultimately, what someone will give you for it - whether in food, fuel, assets, or labor.… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromise. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Bubbles and crashes are textbook examples of collective decision making gone wrong. In a bubble, all of the conditions that make groups… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
All things being equal, letting people make decisions for themselves will produce smarter outcomes, collectively, than relying on government planners. — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
If someone really wants my company's business, why shouldn't he be able to do everything he can - including paying me off… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
I started in business journalism from the outside, so when I started writing about markets and business, I was struck by the… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
“No decision-making system is going to guarantee corporate success. The strategic decisions that corporations have to make are of mind-numbing complexity. But… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
If small groups are included in the decision-making process, then they should be allowed to make decisions. If an organization sets up… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
The fact that cognitive diversity matters does not mean that if you assemble a group of diverse but thoroughly uninformed people, their… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Auto repair, piloting, skiing, perhaps even management: these are skills that yield to application, hard work, and native talent. But forecasting an… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Diversity and independence are important because the best collective decisions are the product of disagreement and contest, not consensus or compromising. An… — James Surowiecki Copy Share Image
Lack of confidence, sometimes alternating with unrealistic dreams of heroic success, often leads to procrastination, and many studies suggest that procrastinators are self-handicappers: rather… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
Downsizing itself is an inevitable part of any creatively destructive economy. — James Surowiecki Copy Share
In the business world, bad news is usually good news - for somebody else. — James Surowiecki Copy Share
You might think of consumption as a fairly passive activity, but buying new products and services is actually pretty risky, at least if you… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
Corporations hope that the right concept will turn things around overnight. This is what you might call the crash-diet approach: starve yourself for a… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
Instead of mindlessly tossing billions at or taking billions from the Net as such, investors should be spending their time making sure that it's… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
If you thought the advent of the Internet, the spread of cheap and efficient information technology, and the growing fragmentation of the consumer market… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
The financial crisis of 2008 was not caused by investment banks betting against the housing market in 2007. It was caused by the fact… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
A consumer-finance agency is a good thing, but it would do well to teach consumers a simple lesson: if you don't understand the deal… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
What corporations fear is the phenomenon now known, rather inelegantly, as 'commoditization.' What the term means is simply the conversion of the market for… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
Making loans and fighting poverty are normally two of the least glamorous pursuits around, but put the two together and you have an economic… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
Unfortunately, there is something of a flaw in this idealized picture of the way the scientific community discovers truth. And the flaw is that… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
Markets work best when there's lots of information available and a historical track record to go on; they excel at predicting things like horse… — James Surowiecki Copy Share
The profit motive, indecorous though it may seem, may represent the best chance the poor have to reap some of globalization's benefits. — James Surowiecki Copy Share
