Trapped Genius: Why Smart Organizations Can't Access Their Smartest People

Introducing "Unlocking Distributed Genius" - A series for leaders who know there's more intelligence in their organization than they're accessing. 

As a Captain in the military, I had a bigger contribution to make than my company-grade rank allowed. My superiors were phenomenal; they recognized and pulled the best out of me, creating opportunities within their power. But outside my immediate chain of command, there wasn't an outlet. The system itself couldn't access what I had to offer. 

It wasn't anyone's fault. Hierarchy isn't bad—it's actually essential for creating decision rights, clarity of direction and execution. The military's hierarchical structure exists for good reasons and works brilliantly for what it's designed to do. But it also meant that I could only contribute to the top of my rank. As a Captain, there was a certain scope of contribution I could make, and that was it. 

I realized I was going to have to wait 10-15 years before I'd be able to contribute systemically and strategically in the ways I knew I could. So I got out. 

Here's the part that's bothered me ever since: Soon after leaving, I started consulting for the same military organization. Suddenly, I could make a much more widespread impact from outside the system than I ever could from within it. Same person. Same insights. Same commitment. But the system could finally access what I had to offer—because I was no longer trapped by its necessary structures. 

I loved my life in the military, and I think I would have really enjoyed staying in. But the system—despite being well-designed for its primary purposes—couldn't unlock the distributed genius within its own ranks. I encounter people like this all the time: talented individuals with big contributions to make, trapped in pockets of excellence by systems that can't access their full potential. 

That experience launched nearly 20 years of work helping organizations unlock the hidden genius already in their systems. I've spent my career teaching executives how to recognize the intelligence that exists throughout their organizations and create conditions that enable it to flow. I know this stuff works because I've seen it transform companies. 

So when two key people on my own team decided to move on recently, I had to face an uncomfortable truth: Even after two decades of studying this problem, I had fallen into the same trap. 

The irony wasn't lost on me. Here I was, teaching other leaders how to access distributed intelligence, while somehow failing to fully access the intelligence of my own people. The very expertise that I brought to client organizations had created a blind spot in my own leadership. 

In a virtual company like mine, you don't have the luxury of hallway conversations or chance encounters in the break room. The informal networks that carry so much of an organization's real-time intelligence are harder to see and easier to miss. My focus on client work and the structured nature of virtual communication created a perfect storm for this kind of blind spot. 

The Contradiction Nobody Talks About 

Here's the reality unfolding in organizations right now: Companies are investing record amounts in innovation programs, engagement initiatives, and artificial intelligence—while simultaneously running systems that suppress the human intelligence they already have. 

Your organization probably has multiple channels for capturing intelligence: innovation workstreams, engagement surveys, town halls, skip-level meetings, brainstorming sessions, teams or slack channels, etc. You've invested in these systems because you genuinely want to hear from people. 

But after nearly 20 years of working with organizations to unlock distributed genius, I've seen a consistent pattern: Critical insights take weeks to reach decision-makers—if they reach them at all. Breakthrough innovations come from the same predictable sources, not because others lack ideas, but because the system can't access them. Your frontline manager knows exactly which process is creating bottlenecks, but raising it requires building a business case that takes more time than just working around it. Your customer service team can predict which clients are about to churn based on subtle shifts in tone, but your retention metrics only track explicit complaints. Your high-potential employee has an idea that could reshape your business model, but she's learned that "strategic thinking" is reserved for people two levels above her. 

The intelligence is there. The channels exist. But the system, through a thousand small signals about what's valued, what's risky, and what's worth the political capital, is filtering it out. 

This is an intelligence problem with a measurable cost. 

Research from the DevOps Research and Assessment (DORA) program shows high-information-flow environments where intelligence can move freely are roughly twice as likely to meet or exceed their organizational goals in profitability, productivity and market share. The difference isn’t just cultural, it’s measurable advantage.  

And profit aside, it’s also about preventing accidents, defects, and in some cases, preventable harm. Gallup’s longitudinal research across thousands of organizations shows that when people don’t feel their opinions count, safety incidents rise by 64% and quality defects increase by 41%. In healthcare, over 70% of serious patient harm events are failures of communicating the available intelligence.  

The Middle Ground Most Organizations Live In 

I learn something new and am awed by every single client I’ve ever worked with. When we start our work, in fact, most things are going right. Most leaders do want ideas, and most have channels for it. Most have engagement scores that really aren't terrible. They all have smart people doing good work. 

But somewhere between having the intelligence and channeling it in such a way that it can be considered and acted on, something gets lost. Ideas surface but don't reach their full potential. People share insights but the really valuable stuff—the uncomfortable truths, the early warning signals, the innovations that challenge assumptions—those stay underground. 

It's likely that your system does not completely block intelligence. Rather, it is optimized for a certain kind of intelligence—the kind that's understandable, repeatable, easily actionable, and fits neatly into existing frameworks and surveys. Meanwhile, the intelligence that could give you breakthrough advantage (the kind that challenges assumptions, reveals uncomfortable truths, or emerges from unexpected places), learns to stay quiet. 

This intelligence is fragile, unconventional and sometimes uncomfortable. It lives in hallway conversations, informal networks, and the space between what people are supposed to say and what they actually think. When people sense that their real insights aren't valued or that sharing what they truly see might be politically risky, that intelligence goes underground. 

The cruel irony is that the smarter your people are, the faster they learn what not to share. They figure out which insights are welcome and which ones aren't. They learn to read the room, to sense what leadership wants to hear, and to filter their intelligence accordingly.  

Just like the military system couldn't access my full contribution as a Captain, my own system wasn't accessing the full contribution of my people. Different context, same dynamic. 

If you're like most leaders I work with, you're dealing with some version of these challenges. Our leadership systems are intentionally designed to filter rather than amplify. 

The Operating System Problem 

Every organization runs on what amounts to a Leadership Operating System—the combination of strategy, culture, leadership practices, and operating structures that determines how intelligence flows and decisions get made. Most of us are running Industrial Revolution software in an exponential world. 

When we realize our system isn't working, we typically add more features to the existing infrastructure rather than upgrading the foundation. We layer engagement surveys on top of disengaging practices. We create innovation labs while maintaining approval processes that kill innovation. We launch "speak up" campaigns while keeping the hierarchical structures that taught people to stay quiet in the first place. 

The intent is always good. But when the foundation is faulty, adding more sophisticated tools just creates more sophisticated dysfunction. It's like installing a state-of-the-art navigation system in a car with a broken engine—you'll know exactly where you're stuck, but you still won't be moving. 

These legacy systems were designed for predictable work where intelligence could be centralized and decisions could be made at the top. They worked brilliantly when change was slow and work was routine. But they're badly mismatched for today's reality, where the most valuable intelligence often lives at the edges of your organization and the best solutions emerge from unexpected connections. 

Most leadership systems are optimized for scale and execution, not intelligence and adaptation. This design enabled the remarkable growth and operational excellence we've achieved over the past century. But systems optimized for one thing inevitably create trade-offs. As an unintended consequence of that design, they filter out dissent, suppress experimentation, and reward compliance over insight. The very people whose intelligence could give you competitive advantage learn that sharing their real insights is risky or pointless— not because leaders don't want to hear it, but because the system wasn't built to receive it. 

What's Coming in This Series 

Over the next several weeks, I'll be exploring how to upgrade your Leadership Operating System to unlock the human intelligence your organization needs to thrive. We'll cover: 

• The Intelligence Already in Your Building - How to see and access the distributed genius that's hiding in plain sight, and why "beta" matters more than big data 

• Why Your Best Ideas Die in Middle Management - Understanding the system dynamics that trap intelligence and how to transform bottlenecks into amplification hubs 

• The Constraint Paradox - Why unlimited freedom kills creativity and how to design enabling boundaries that channel intelligence toward breakthrough results 

• When Surveys Conceal Lived Truth - Moving beyond reported experience to access what people actually experience, and why the gap between them contains your most valuable intelligence 

• Navigating the VUCA Nexus - How to lead when the world feels volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous, and how to find clarity in the chaos 

• The Coherence Advantage - How to integrate everything into a Leadership Operating System that enables human and artificial intelligence to work together 

A Simple Question to Ask to Open the Conversation 

Moving forward, I'm committing to regularly asking my team a simple but powerful question: "What is it like to be you right now?" Not "How satisfied are you?" or "What do you need from me?" but "What is it like to be you in this organization, doing this work, at this moment?" 

I suspect the answers will surprise me. They'll show me the difference between what I think I'm creating and what people are actually experiencing. They'll reveal intelligence about our own system that I can't see from my vantage point. 

More than anything, they'll help me practice what I teach: that the intelligence we need most is often the intelligence we're least likely to hear unless we create specific conditions for it to emerge. Research shows when leaders create such conditions, information is able to flow to leaders with actual decision rights. Such properly routed intelligence improves unit performance, while intelligence that only circulates among peers without agency dissipates into noise.  

A Different Kind of Upgrade 

You have a choice that will define your organization's next decade: You can continue optimizing Industrial Revolution systems while investing in AI, hoping technology will compensate for suppressed human intelligence. Or you can upgrade to a Leadership Operating System designed to unlock both human and artificial intelligence working together. 

It’s the same story across industries: when systems dampen voice, results suffer. When systems enable intelligence to flow (especially to those with decision rights) performance follows. The choice isn’t whether to have structure. It’s whether your structure enables or suppresses the intelligence that could give you breakthrough advantage. I'm fully diving into articulating what we have learned to address this challenge starting with this series.  

Next: "The Intelligence Already in Your Building" - How to see the genius that's been there all along 

What intelligence might be hiding in plain sight in your organization? Hit reply and share your thoughts—I read every response and often explore these insights in future articles.