Desire and Collective Intelligence – Marie Paillard & Bruno Chaintron for the book “To envy or to have desire”

NEW COLLECTIVE WORK FROM THE LEADERSHIP CIRCLE “To envy or to have desire”

“I am what I am thanks to what we are.”
Ubuntu, African wisdom

On June 24, 1995, at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg, South Africa won the Rugby World Cup final by defeating New Zealand 15 to 12.

François Pienaar, the captain, was able to unite a multiracial team in a country still divided by apartheid.

On June 22, 2010, in the Bloemfontein stadium, France was eliminated from the Football World Cup. They had just lost 2 to 1 against the “Bafana Bafana” of South Africa. The outcome of a sad saga marked by a strike during training and the division of players, who even refused to get off their bus.
THE DOUBLE NATURE OF DESIRE
In the first case, a given losing team against a collective of Neo-Zealand champions reputedly stronger managed to raise its collective game level to win the victory.
In the second case, a group of players, although world vice-champions, failed to channel the ambitions of its members, became divided, and left the competition without even having won a single match.

A story of desire and collective intelligence… Divided by desires, the French showed little collective desire that day. The South Africans, on the other hand, were able to put the “I” at the service of the “we” to organize the collective “game.”
Desire has a double nature. “Malicious” desire is the feeling of separation, which eats away at the person envious of the “superiority” of desire. “Benign” desire, on the other hand, is a driving force that pushes for self-improvement.
The South Africans managed to overcome their feelings to triumph over the “mythical” New Zealander Lomu – 1.96m, 125 kilos and author of 4 tries in the semifinal against England – that none of them could have beaten individually.

TRANSMUTING DESIRE
When we are in a collective, inevitably, our mechanisms of social comparison are activated. Either to lift us, through healthy emulation, toward collective victory: “He is not afraid to launch at Lomu, so I can do it too!” Or to lock us in malicious desire, divide us through the multiplicity of destructive feelings, and inevitably lead us to failure…
How to “transmute” desire to produce intelligence and collective play?
A major challenge, at a time when our societies and companies more than ever need to overcome their divisions, to unite individual energies and solve problems of unparalleled complexity.
But let us return to this mechanism of social comparison, which is triggered more or less unconsciously, almost despite ourselves, when we are in a collective. Occasionally, this comparison gives us a feeling of our own “inferiority,” or what we perceive as such… This is the beginning of an inner drama, in which nothing is yet decided and which can still lead to the worst or the best.

NEGATIVE SPIRAL
The person who compares themselves may feel inferior. Yet they ignore the real extent of the supposed “superiority” of the other but judge that this other “has more” (money, power, prestige…) or “is more” (extroverted, attractive, favored…). The envious person sometimes reacts by focusing on themselves, rejecting the other, fueling their anger or frustration. Ignore-Judge-React: the negative spiral is triggered!
Frustrations take over, the envious person no longer listens. They ruminate endlessly. More or less consciously, they devalue themselves… Until criticizing others and, if necessary, minimizing their successes. This allows maintaining a sufficient level of unconsciousness not to question themselves, or even to justify conscious sabotage.
Unfortunately, in this process, the person has lost sight of the essential, the real stake of the game, the meeting, or the battle. What will be the consequences for the group? What impact will desire have on collective intelligence?

COLLECTIVE INTELLIGENCE
“Collective intelligence manifests itself in the fact that a team can solve problems more efficiently than when these people work in isolation.”
To define collective intelligence, we will rely on the work of James Surowiecki, who asserts that collective intelligence emerges from a group of diverse people who provide varied information, drawing on their localized field knowledge or specialized expertise, and are consulted without being unduly influenced by others.
An objective mechanism for aggregating the data provided by each must then combine them into information and knowledge to determine the opinion or action of the group.
The work we have been conducting for more than twelve years within our own consulting activity in transformation support and development of collective intelligence has led us to add two other necessary conditions for the development of collective intelligence:
The emotional intelligence of each group member is essential for everyone to dare to express themselves and be able to listen;
There must be a clear framework beforehand reminding the goal and stakes and specifying the rules of the game.
Desire and collective intelligence
Malicious desire undermines collective intelligence in several ways. The envious person is no longer capable of listening. Sometimes they are also not able to express themselves in a way that is heard: they speak poorly or stop speaking. They isolate themselves.
Sometimes even, the envious person or persons withhold information that would be useful for problem-solving.
Everyone is negatively influenced by others. Reactions are contagious. The decision-making mechanism becomes irrational.
The most communicative seeks to impose their opinion on others… And/or the last speaker is right… And/or the “boss” imposes their point of view in a dictatorial manner.
The collective has lost intelligence (collective). It has lost sight of the framework, the goal, and sometimes even the rules of the game.

VIRTUOUS SPIRAL
Conversely, when a person is fortunate enough to be part of a performing and benevolent collective, they can give their best.
They dare to express themselves because they know they will not be judged but supported. It becomes easy to listen to the other for what they bring us.
Desire has become emulation, joy of the game, and shared pleasure. Exchanges are rich and nourishing.
Self-confidence grows. As does interpersonal trust, key to organizational trust.
In the collective intelligence seminars we lead, we very regularly see groups, allowed to build on each other’s ideas, become capable of collectively unfolding a strategic thread and managing a complex situation, then constructing a new solution that seemed otherwise out of reach.

A group work is truly successful when everyone, at the end, can tell others: “Wow, I could never have done this alone!” Collective intelligence is the key that allows everyone to grow.

UBUNTU
In Africa, Ubuntu, an ancient Bantu wisdom, is expressed in these words which everyone can then notice and feel – almost physically in their body – at the end of a group work: “I am what I am thanks to what we are.”
On July 19, 1995, less than a month after South Africa’s victory over the All Blacks, Nelson Mandela created the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Mgr Desmond Tutu, to heal the wounds of apartheid and unite the forces of the country.
Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu were two strong advocates of South Africa’s reconciliation and great supporters of Ubuntu. On December 10, 2013, at Madiba’s funeral, Barack Obama spoke the following words: “Nelson Mandela understood the bonds that unite the human spirit. There is a word in South Africa – Ubuntu – (applause) –, a word that embodies Mandela’s greatest gift, that of having recognized that we are all connected by invisible ties, that humanity rests on a common foundation, that we realize ourselves by giving of ourselves to others and looking after their needs.”

WHAT TO DO IN PRACTICE?
Benign desire builds collective intelligence. Malicious desire destroys collective intelligence. What can be done in practice to trigger the positive spiral?
It all starts, of course, within oneself, through personal awareness. It also depends on the level of benevolence of the collective to which you belong. For example, in a united and “supportive” collective, during a sales meeting in which you feel challenged, it is possible to:
Identify what is happening in me: “I am in a collective, my numbers are not at the level. I don’t feel good”;
Verbalize and share my state of mind with the team: “This morning, I don’t feel at my best and I don’t feel comfortable with my numbers regarding you”;
Express my need to the collective: “I need your help to secure this deal.”
That is to say, becoming aware of what is happening within oneself at that moment, verbalizing one’s emotion, and expressing one’s need. The degree of sharing of the emotion and need will depend, of course, on your assessment of the group’s openness and its capacity to welcome the message.
In summary, emotional intelligence is one of the essential factors determining the level of collective intelligence of a group – much more than the individual performance or IQ of its members taken individually.

Remember July 12, 1998. It had become a ritual. Before each match of the French team during the Football World Cup. Laurent Blanc kissed Fabien Barthez’s skull, as if to bring luck to the team. A lasting image in collective memory: that day, France won the final 3 to 0.

S.M. Reia, A.C. Amada, J.F. Fontanai, “Agent-based models of collective intelligence,” Physics of Life Reviews, Physics of Mind, 2019.
J. Surowiecki, The Wisdom of Crowds, JC Lattès, 2007.
J. Survowiecki, cited by E. Servan-Schreiber, La Nouvelle Puissance de nos intelligences, Supercollectif, Fayard, 2018.
Work conducted by Grant Alexander – HR & Organisation Transformation, consulting activity in supporting transformations, with clients, to scan and develop collective intelligence of a group, using the digital tools Role Crafting.
Speech by Barack Obama on December 10, 2013 at Soccer City Stadium in Soweto in front of 91 heads of state.

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