On 4 July 2019, Émile Servan-Schreiber reported speaking that morning to about a hundred human-resources professionals at the Plaza Athénée in Paris. He credited Christian Boghos of Manpower with organising the conference. Two attendee recaps describe the principles of collective intelligence discussed there.
The latest share, dated 27 July, returns to an account of the same appearance. It does not establish a second conference. Together, the posts document a talk about the design of a useful collective, with forecasting presented as one of its central applications.
Decentralise, preserve differences, then aggregate
Camille Barthelemy’s recap sets out four ingredients: decentralise sources of intelligence, encourage diversity of opinion, cultivate independent thinking and combine the contributions objectively. She linked the presentation to Servan-Schreiber’s book Supercollectif and described the argument as relevant to the collective programmes she had observed.
CA Consulting Group’s account put special emphasis on disagreement. It recalled a call to seek contrary views rather than aim automatically for consensus, connecting this with the danger of confirmation bias. It also reported that organisational design makes a difference to group performance, and that active open-mindedness matters to forecasting.
The attendee summaries place organisational design at the centre of the talk. Their accounts suggest a practical question for HR leaders: how can a team hear what its members know without making agreement the entry price for participation? Independent opinions have little opportunity to contribute if contrary views are excluded before the group assesses them.
A new school in the same conversation
Servan-Schreiber’s own same-day post adds another purpose. He said he used the occasion to promote the master’s and doctoral programme at UM6P’s newly inaugurated School of Collective Intelligence in Morocco. He dated the inauguration to the preceding weekend and expressed confidence in its students. That was an educational invitation and a personal hope, not evidence of graduates’ later outcomes.
ManpowerGroup’s subsequent September 2019 announcement confirms that Supercollectif was among the books selected for that year’s ManpowerGroup–HEC Paris HR prize. It supplies context for the organisation’s interest in the book, while remaining separate from the July conference.
Our account of Servan-Schreiber’s forecasting teaching follows the educational connection. The July appearance records an earlier practical argument for HR leaders: organise independent information and constructive dissent, then give the group a clear way to turn its differences into a collective assessment.
