Louis B. Rosenberg Quotes

The market turns out to be just one special case of collective decision-making.

Muddle is the extra unknown personality in any committee.

When like-minded people deliberate as an organized group, the general opinion shifts towards extreme versions of their common beliefs.

Deliberation is the work of many men. Action of one alone.

… when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an Assembly can a perfect production be expected?

As you get larger, it is harder to have focused discussions. Because one of the things I've learned about Congress over the past four years that I've been in is there's no shortage of opinions about how things should be done on any particular subject.

A swarm finds the solution people best agree upon. It optimizes collective support, whereas a poll tells us how we disagree.

Reaching consensus in a group is often confused with finding the right answer.

Any time people come together in a meeting, we're not necessarily getting the best ideas; we're just getting the ideas of the best talkers.

You can't get any movement larger than five people without including at least one flippin idiot.

A committee is a group of people who individually can do nothing, but who, as a group, can meet and decide that nothing can be done.

When you have more than two people working together, it gets a bit unfocused as an idea.

One man alone can be pretty dumb sometimes, but for real bona fide stupidity, there ain't nothin' can beat teamwork.

Groupthink can become a serious issue - old ideas stay around after they're useful, and new ideas too often don't get a fair hearing.

We always carry out by committee anything in which any one of us alone would be too reasonable to persist.

If in the first group of people who have gathered, unanimity is not achieved, new people shall be added, after which a group equal in number to the Greatest Name or fewer or greater shall be chosen from their midst by lots; whereupon the consultation shall be renewed; whatever is the result shall be obeyed. If the second time opinions again differ, repeat the process a third time. This time obey the majority vote.

If three come together let them pick a leader.

Group action -- yes; group thinking -- no.

Whenever we had a serious question to decide, we had a conference with the groups involved.

I don't like the five-person group dynamic. I just never have. It doesn't make sense to me that six people would just sit in a circle and say, 'Now I want approval,' 'Now I want approval,' 'Now I want approval.' 'I have something funny to say,' 'No, I have something funny to say, me!' It's hard to make plans.

The minute somebody joins a committee... they immediately suffer from committee brain. They become wildly over-enthusiastic, over-optimistic, over-pessimistic. Committees turn people into idiots, and politics is a committee.

There's a momentum to being committed to a group that you think is good, and there's a certain amount of cognitive dissonance to make your choice a good choice.

The thing that can happen in a TV room is you can get 'teamthink': you can all go down a crazy path together.

Research shows that the deciscions of a group as a whole are more thoughtful and creative when there is minority dissent than when it is absent.

There is no name for all who participate in group decision-making or the organization which they form. I propose to call this organization the Technostructure.