Wiser: Getting Beyond Groupthink to Make Groups Smarter

All around us, we see the impact of group decisions – ones that have worked, and others that have not. This book is for anyone involved in the decision making process. In Wiser, public intellectual, legal scholar and former White House executive Cass Sunstein, along with Reid Hastie of the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business, make a provocative and intelligent critical assessment of our current state of group decision making. And they offer better mechanisms for problem solving in the future. Sunstein and Hastie show how groups can more effectively use information their members have to display increased creativity, rather than falling into groupthink. They outline the reasons why groups fail; and go on to provide effective new mechanisms for collective problem-solving and decision-making. Mixing ideas from management and the social sciences, the authors address the widespread use of non-deliberative decision making methods both in business and the public sector. With examples from organizations as varied as Google and the CIA. A clever and witty read.