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Has a committee ever achieved world domination in anything?
I was pondering this question tonight, whilst thinking about a business challenge. I couldn’t come up with any convincing examples of long-term, far-reaching dominance by committee in any sphere of human endeavour.
Perhaps China will prove the exception. Maybe the Soviet Politburo was a pretty good try. What about the senate of ancient Rome…?
“That’s good,” I concluded. It reinforces my theory that somewhere on the path to success you have to meet a leader. Or be a leader. Markets led by committees tend to mediocrity.
Satisfied with my reasoning I put aside my laptop and picked up the newspaper. The result of the X-factor final dominated the first few pages.
Damn.
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Alex's Blog 
Monetary policy perhaps? Which may not feel like world domination in the James-Bond-villain-operating-from-a-defunct-volcano-with-20,000-orange-clad-henchmen sense, but is probably even more influential.
There was an interesting item in New Scientist about the ideal size of a committee to achieve world domination. It concluded the number had to be less than 20 and within that, eight was the worst possible number. See http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126901.300-explaining-the-curse-of-work.html
I think that to suggest that x-factor is anything other than an autocracy led by simon cowell is, at best, optimistic…
Drew – I guess that rules out the Politburo and the Roman Senate as well then?
was Simon Cowell in the Politburo? ;¬)