On 11 October 2024, Émile Servan-Schreiber reshared Rafaële Gevrey’s account of discovering Supercollectif at an EY seminar to which he had been invited. Her reaction focused on women’s participation in organizational decisions. Her account placed the book’s argument about collective intelligence in a workplace discussion about whose perspectives enter decisions.
Gevrey described inclusion as both a question of equity and a contribution to how organizations think. She associated the integration of women’s perspectives with more creative and durable solutions, and recommended the book to people who wanted organizations to hear every voice. These were her conclusions. Servan-Schreiber’s brief response expressed pleasure at the endorsement.
What the research actually measures
Anita Woolley and colleagues’ 2010 paper, Evidence for a collective intelligence factor in the performance of human groups, studied 699 people in groups of two to five. Group performance correlated with social sensitivity, more equal conversational turn-taking and the proportion of women. These were associations in the studied groups.
Those findings concern observed relationships in the studied groups. They do not establish that every organization becomes more accurate simply by changing its composition, or that women invariably contribute a particular kind of thinking. For managers, the study directs attention to how people interact as well as who is present. Participation has to reach the discussion itself.
From a book discussion to better judgement
The publisher presents Supercollectif as an exploration of organized collective intelligence, drawing on research and practical experience. Gevrey’s account shows how that argument travelled into a workplace conversation about inclusion. It gives no attendance total, seminar date, venue or measured change in EY’s decision-making.
The connection to forecasting is a question of process: whose information gets heard, and how is it combined? The journal’s discussion of expertise and diversity develops that broader theme. Gevrey’s response brings inclusion into that question. An invitation to contribute needs to become an opportunity to speak, be heard and have an argument considered. Managers can then examine the decision process itself: which perspectives entered it, where disagreement remained, and how the group reached its conclusion.
