Idiots, liars and thieves have torched billions of dollars in this financial crisis. But it is a safe bet that at least as many billions were lost by smart people trying to do good, honest work on behalf of others -- usually as part of a committee.

Examples are so abundant it isn't hard to trip over them:

Compensation committees on Wall Street awarded multimillion-dollar bonuses to the very people who ended up nearly eviscerating the global financial system.

The investment committees at leading universities embraced hedge funds, private equity and real estate so unquestioningly that many ended up with 75% or more of their endowment in these illiquid assets.

Investment committees at charities fell as badly under Bernard Madoff's spell as lone investors did, often losing millions of dollars at a pop.

Boards of directors at mutual funds looked the other way as managers loaded up on toxic mortgage securities.

State boards of trustees approved risky investment menus for the '529' plans designed to help families save for their children's college costs. Not just dollars but dreams were destroyed.

So much for the wisdom of crowds. 'The best groups will be better than their best individual members,' says Robert Sutton, an organizational psychologist at Stanford University, 'and the worst groups will be worse than the worst individual.' That is because committees and other groups tend either to follow the leader in a rush of conformity or to polarize into warring camps.

For committees and other boards to work well, they must be made up of people with differing perspectives and experience who are unafraid to speak their minds, says Richard Larrick, a psychologist at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business. They must also select and process information effectively and seek to learn systematically from their mistakes.

All too often, however, committees don't work well at all -- resulting in a relentlessly short-term outlook, an inability to stick to strategic plans, a slap-dash pursuit of the latest fad and a tendency to blame mistakes on somebody else. In short, for all their power and prestige, investment committees and boards of trustees are only human.

Fortunately, there are proven approaches that committees and other groups can use to improve their decisions. Some can even be adapted by individual investors, too. Here are a few ideas.

Measure what makes success. When selecting an outside money manager, a committee should decide, based on research and its own experience, which factors predict success. The most likely candidates: low expenses, tight risk controls, long investment horizons and managers with long tenure. Each of these factors can be measured with objective data.

Neuter the numbers. Gather data on these success factors for a short list of managers. Rank the managers on a numerical scale (say, 1 to 5) for each of the factors. Only after recording these scores from neutral evidence should anyone meet with a money manager in person. Investors should then rank, on the same scale, their overall impression of the manager from the meeting. Finally, take the average of all the scores on all the factors; the manager with the highest score gets the nod. This step alone would have prevented anyone from writing a big check to Bernard Madoff, since he rarely shared data with outsiders.

Reframe the question. Committees considering an important decision should break into a 'pro' and 'con' group, each developing the best arguments supporting its side. Individuals can do something similar by asking not only how much they will make if they are right but also how much they could lose if they turn out to be wrong. Try coming up with three reasons against an investment as well as three for it.

Use 'the five whys.' Rather than asking questions that have 'yes' or 'no' answers, ask 'how' and 'why' questions. Don't ask if someone deserves a bonus or whether an adviser is confident that an idea will generate superior returns. Ask, instead, why the bonus is deserved or why the idea is superior. Then ask why the person knows that answer is right. If you ask five such 'why' questions in a row, you are likely to expose any weak points in the advice.

Define the default position. Max Bazerman, an expert on decision-making at Harvard Business School, suggests that investors start with the assumption that the ideal portfolio is a diversified basket of low-cost index funds. Any deviation from that strategy should require extraordinarily compelling evidence.

If you look up 'oversight' in the dictionary, you will find the word can mean either scrutiny or omission. If committees, and the rest of us, developed the habit of employing the right kind of oversight, we would all be better off.

在當前的金融危機中，白癡、騙子和小偷令數十億美元毀之一炬。不過我敢保證，至少有與此相當的錢在聰明人試圖為別人做好事實事的過程中損失掉了，這些人通常是某個委員會的一部分。

例子太多了，找到幾個并不難：

華爾街公司的薪酬委員會給那些幾乎摧毀了全球金融體系的人發放了數百萬美元的獎金。

知名大學的投資委員會毫不懷疑地接受了對沖基金、私人資本運營基金和房地產，很多都把75%甚至更多的捐贈投入了這類流動性不良的資產。

慈善機構的投資委員會也和個人投資者一樣，在馬多夫(Bernard Madoff)的魔咒下摔的很慘，常常是頃刻之間損失了數百萬美元。

共同基金的董事會對基金經理們大量買進問題抵押貸款證券視而不見。

州理事會批準了用旨在幫助家庭為孩子教育經費攢錢的“529計劃”進行高風險投資。這樣以來，損失的不只是錢，夢想也隨之破滅了。

群眾的智慧也不過如此。史坦福大學組織心理學家薩頓(Robert Sutton)說，最好的團隊比其中最好的成員還要好，而最差的團隊則比其中最差的成員還要差。這是因為委員會等組織往往要么就意見統一地跟著領導跑，要么就分化成兩個對抗的陣營。

杜克大學商學院的心理學家拉里克(Richard Larrick)說，要想讓委員會等組織發揮良好作用，它們必須由觀點和經歷各異的人組成，這些人還要勇于發表自己的看法。他們還必須能夠有效地選擇和處理信息，并努力從錯誤中吸取教訓。

不過，委員會往往沒有發揮絲毫作用，導致持續的目光短淺、無法堅持戰略性計劃、一味追逐潮流、并且有推脫責任的傾向。簡單講，盡管投資委員會和理事會有權有名，他們也只是凡人。

幸運的是，委員會等組織可以利用一些已經過實際檢驗的手段來改進決策。有些手段甚至個人投資者也可以使用。下面就是其中幾種方法：

對成功的因素進行衡量。當選擇一位外部投資經理時，委員會應該根據研究和經驗，確定哪些因素可以預示成功。最有可能的因素包括：低成本、嚴格的風險控制、長遠的投資計劃、任期較長的經理。這些因素中每一個都可以用客觀的數據加以衡量。

分析數據。收集幾位基金經理在這些成功因素方面的數據。對于每個因素，將經理們分級（比如按從1到5分級）。只有從客觀證據中紀錄這些分數后，你才可以與投資經理見面。投資者然后應該按照同樣的標準給會面后的印象打分。最后，將全部因素的總分進行平均，分數最高的經理就是你的人選。僅憑這個步驟就可以防止給馬多夫這樣的人開張巨額支票，原因是馬多夫很少與外部人士分享數據。

重新組織問題。委員會在考慮作出一項重大決策時，應該被分為“支持”和“反對”兩派，每派提出支持己方觀點的最佳論據。個人投資者也可以采取類似的做法，不僅要問經理在決策正確時能賺多少，還要問他們在決策失誤時可能會損失多少。爭取對每項投資想出3個支持的理由和3個反對的理由。

使用“5個為什么”。不要問那些答案是“是”或“不是”的問題，而是問“如何”和“為什么”這樣的問題。不要問某人是否理應拿獎金，或是一個顧問是否對一個想法將產生巨額回報有信心。而是問，某人為何應該拿獎金，或是為什么這個想法非常好。然后，問問為什么這個人知道那個答案是正確的。如果你連續問了5個這類“為什么”的問題，很可能會令建議中的任何弱點暴露出來。

定義默認頭寸。哈佛大學商學院決策專家貝瑟曼(Max Bazerman)建議，投資者可以先假定理想的投資組合是分散化的一籃子低成本指數基金。任何背離這個戰略的投資都應該有非常有說服力的證據。

如果你看看字典里“oversight”的定義，你就會發現這個詞可以是監督的意思也可以是失察的意思。假如委員會和我們其余的人養成了正確監管的習慣，我們的經濟狀況都會好的多。