The Future of Leadership: Collective Group Intelligence
“Hear one side and you will be in the dark. Hear both and all will be clear.”
Thomas C. Haliburton
The New Reality for Groups
In today’s volatile, uncertain world, groups are expected to solve challenges that cut across functions, move fast, and come with high stakes. Often the path forward isn’t clear, trust is fragile, and time is short.
Traditional models of “forming, storming, norming, performing” are too slow for this reality. Groups need to come together quickly, face complexity head-on, and reach high performance almost immediately.
At Living Systems, we’ve developed a way to help groups do just that. We call it Collective Group Intelligence — a step-by-step process that enables any group to think, feel, and act together.
The Four Phases of Collective Group Intelligence
1. Collective Inquiry – Seeing the System Clearly
The first step is slowing down. Before jumping into solutions, groups pause to surface every perspective in the room.
The goal: understand before being understood.
This means listening beyond our inner monologue, suspending assumptions, and staying open to viewpoints that challenge us. When this is done well, the group sees the challenge with fresh eyes and develops a shared understanding of the system it’s working in.
2. Relational Dialogue – Facing the Real Issues
Once everyone’s voice is heard, relational tensions inevitably surface — between functions, levels, or individuals.
Instead of avoiding the “elephants in the room,” the group learns to work with them productively. Conflict becomes a source of insight rather than energy drain. This requires courage, mutual respect, and a willingness to “cook the conflict” long enough for breakthrough understanding to emerge.
When groups reach this stage, trust deepens, hidden issues dissolve, and the group becomes able to think and act as a cohesive whole.
3. Co-Creating – Generating New Possibilities
With full-system insight and relational trust in place, creativity opens up.
This is where breakthrough thinking happens. The group explores what a shared picture of success might look like — moving beyond incremental improvements to generate bold, fresh solutions that no one could have created alone.
4. Collective Action – Turning Insight into Impact
Finally, insight becomes action. The group identifies high-leverage opportunities, prototypes them, and self-organises around initiatives that can move the system forward.
Progress is reviewed collectively at regular intervals, so the group can learn and adapt as conditions change.
Why It Works
Collective Group Intelligence is not just another workshop method — it’s a capability-building process.
It requires courage, strong facilitation, and a step-change in how people relate, listen, and collaborate. But the payoff is huge:
- Breakthrough solutions to stuck challenges
- Stronger trust and alignment across the system
- Faster decision-making and execution
- A flywheel of performance improvement as better results reinforce better collaboration
This is how groups become more than the sum of their parts — and how organisations start to transform themselves from within.
Want to see what this could unlock in your organisation?
Let’s start the conversation about your most complex challenge — and what it would mean to solve it together