Humour as an intelligence marker.

Several participants linked wit to intelligence, though the group split on which kind. One framed the ability to deploy humour well and appropriately as a longstanding sign of high general intelligence — the capacity, as it was put, to see the funny side of any situation, even if you don’t always say what you see. Others pushed back, arguing the real driver is emotional intelligence (EQ) rather than raw IQ: the skill lies less in the joke itself than in reading the room, sensing when levity will land and when it won’t, and knowing when to hold back. This distinction mattered because it fed directly into the teachability question — if humour is fundamentally a technical craft (timing, structure, repetition), it can be taught like storytelling; if it’s fundamentally a form of social perception, training has much less to offer, since perception of a room is not easily drilled.

A later observation complicated the picture further, rather than settling it: the kind of humour that lands with a room of PhD students is different from what works in mainstream entertainment, suggesting the relationship between intelligence and humour isn’t a straight line at all. Cleverness may shape the *style* of humour a group favours without making that group better, individually, at using humour well. The two claims — humour signals intelligence, and intelligence doesn’t reliably predict good humour — were never quite reconciled, which is part of why the group felt this was worth returning to.

Humour in team-bonding

Shared humour was described as constitutive of team identity: its own in-jokes, its own register, a shorthand that signals who belongs. Several participants recognised this from experience — the sense that a team’s humour is inseparable from how it operates and how it sees itself. But the same dynamic has a clear shadow side. What feels like harmless shared banter to those inside it can quietly exclude anyone outside the joke, and the people doing the excluding are often the last to notice — it typically takes someone stepping outside the dynamic to name what’s happening. One useful frame raised here was a simple team archetype — hero, victim, joker — as a way of noticing when humour has become a fixed role in a group rather than a spontaneous response to a moment, and when the “joker” role is being used to avoid rather than defuse tension.

Humour as message clarification — and its opposite.

In a business setting, humour was seen as something that can open a room and make an idea easier to absorb, provided it stays subordinate to the point being made rather than competing with it. Several concrete uses came up: humour as a way of lowering hierarchy, so a senior figure’s joke gives more junior people permission to speak; and humour as an icebreaker, making a difficult topic easier to start discussing. But the group was equally clear about the failure mode. Handled badly, humour doesn’t just blur the message — it can tip into laughing *at* rather than *with* someone, particularly across language or cultural lines, where intent and effect can diverge sharply. And it can become a way of avoiding a hard conversation altogether rather than opening one — deflection dressed as levity.

Teachability

Running beneath all three threads was that open question of teachability. There was real disagreement: one view held that certain technical elements — structure, timing, restraint in repetition — genuinely can be learned, much as storytelling can; another held that the deeper skill, reading a room and calibrating in real time, resists formal training almost by definition. Nobody claimed the matter was settled, and the group agreed these threads deserved more time than a single session allowed.

The discussion opened with an attempt to define cognitive diversity — not the DEI kind, but differences in how people think, process information, and see problems. An early framing proposed it as the resolution of an organizational paradox: businesses need both standardization and innovation, and cognitive diversity — including the “uncomfortable advantage” of neuro-divergent perspectives that notice anomalies others miss — is how a system stays both stable and adaptive.

A challenge was raised: is cognitive diversity a property of teams, of individuals, or of a homogeneous team that simply tolerates dissent?

Beyond the cognitive: personality and lived experience

The conversation broadened to include personality typing (Myers-Briggs was discussed at length), emotional disposition, and depth vs. breadth of experience (generalists vs. deep specialists) as additional dimensions of diversity. One participant uses Myers-Briggs actively in team composition and recruitment, deliberately balancing extroverts against quieter, structurally-minded types. A caution was raised that personality tests are unreliable over time (one participant reported getting three different results across five years) and shouldn’t substitute for developing genuine skill in reading and understanding people.

Cultural, national, and religious background was proposed as another driver of cognitive/behavioural diversity — affecting how people interact, whether they’re reactive or proactive, and how they’re perceived

Diversity, conflict, and conformity — the central thread

This became the spine of the discussion. One position: diversity is only functional if it’s allowed to produce open conflict — teams that are too “cozy” (e.g., built from homogeneous personality types) avoid friction and become conflict-avoiding, which is a liability. A more provocative extension: real organizational value comes from allowing outright, wasteful-looking internal conflict — competing factions pursuing incompatible approaches — because what survives the conflict has proven itself.

This connected to a related idea: conflict avoidance and conformity are two sides of the same coin, and conformity is often what happens when diversity is not actually tolerated. Recruitment practices (standardized, homogenized job descriptions) were cited as a structural driver of this conformity, with “diversity” language in hiring often reducing to demographic categories rather than genuine cognitive difference.

Making conflict productive: culture and guardrails

Several participants described how they operationalize this in practice: fostering “creative friction” or “respectful conflict” — encouraging team members to challenge each other and their manager, while maintaining an underlying culture of mutual support and psychological safety. The distinction drawn was between disrespectful conflict (which needs correcting) and productive disagreement, which prepares people for the harder conflicts they’ll face with external stakeholders.

A caution followed: even genuinely diverse teams tend to converge/meld over time (the “flat-share” phenomenon), and there’s a risk that people unconsciously recruit others who think like themselves while believing they’re selecting for diversity — plus a risk that visibly diverse-looking teams (self-selected for adventurous team-building activities, for example) may in fact be homogeneous in temperament, masking a lack of real cognitive diversity. A related boundary question was raised: how far should managers push people out of their comfort zone (e.g. through adventurous team-building) before it becomes personally intrusive rather than professionally developmental — with consensus that any single objection should be respected and the activity dropped rather than risk excluding or stigmatizing that person.

Conformity as a broader social/political phenomenon

The discussion extended the conformity theme beyond organizations into politics and history — using examples of political appointees adopting positions they’d previously opposed in order to advance their careers, and drawing a historical parallel to conformity under authoritarian regimes (including a direct comparison to 1930s Germany) as an illustration of how self-interested conformity can operate at scale, often without participants perceiving themselves as compromised. This led to a broader question of whether “culture” — even ostensibly healthy organizational culture — is inherently a soft form of enforced conformity, and whether that is inevitable or manageable.

The Pareto angle

A closing observation applied the Pareto principle (variously 70/30 or 90/10) to human behaviour generally: a small minority of people genuinely think independently and drive divergence, while the majority default to conformity — reinforcing the episode’s through-line that healthy diversity requires deliberately protecting and channeling the contributions of that minority, rather than assuming diversity emerges naturally from demographic mix.

Closing framing device

The episode closed with a live analogy — using the World Cup final and the idea of national team vs. club team loyalty — to probe what “the system” or relevant boundary of a team’s culture actually is (the team itself? the league? the sport? the country?), left deliberately open as a question for reflection rather than resolved.

The session explored how decisions can actually form in organizations, using the “hive mind” instead of formal processes. Discussion opened by questioning whether human organizations can truly mirror bee colonies, given people’s needs for recognition and status. One view held that executive decisions are largely theatre — ratifying choices the organization has already made — while another separated “diagnosis” (idea generation, often distributed among invisible influencers) from “binding decision-making” (concentrated in accountable leaders who bear liability). A recurring tension was whether hive-style collective decisions dilute accountability and get silently sabotaged if the “collective consciousness” disagrees. The group distinguished leaders (who take responsibility) from influencers (who build buy-in), debating what motivates influencers — money, intrinsic belief, or organizational culture — and whether “leadership” is now corporate code for wanting influencers rather than executors, partly driven by AI replacing execution roles. The conversation closed on cognitive diversity and neurodiversity as strengtheners of collective intelligence, with debate over whether organizational tolerance and structured push-back are prerequisites for diverse ideas to thrive.

SWISSUES participants choose what aspects of the topic they want to address and this episode cover the following.

Credentials are not experience

Credentials and experience are routinely conflated, but they’re not the same thing — and the gap matters most where credentialing culture is light (Switzerland was raised as a case in point, against markets where degrees are the norm). A useful reframe: experience isn’t a credential at all, it’s an engine — the mechanism by which learning, adaptation, and leadership happen. Translating experience into a new context (a CV line, an interview, a lateral career move) is its own separate skill.

Experience doesn’t protect against AI-driven mistakes — it may increase the risk

A central claim of the discussion: experienced people tend to overtrust AI output more than less experienced people, because they scrutinise it less. The Air France Rio–Paris crash came up as a real-world parallel — experienced pilots over-trusting an automated system. Familiarity makes a wrong answer feel right. One proposed counter-measure: deliberately withhold the polished conclusion in decision-support tools and force users to check the underlying numbers themselves, to keep the analytical muscle alive — especially for juniors who’d otherwise never build it.

The “borrowed slide deck” problem

A vivid analogy for using AI without understanding it: presenting someone else’s slide deck, and only realising on slide three that the underlying logic can’t be explained. Most people only need that experience once before changing how they use AI.

What AI still can’t capture

A recurring theme: AI has no access to organisational culture, atmosphere, or “the room” — things only available through physical presence. AI was framed as a data engine: useful for synthesis, but entirely shaped by what humans feed into it. Humans remain the validating layer, and AI may end up freeing time for more human interaction rather than less.

A live governance question

A relayed example: someone coding extensively with AI agents who admitted he can no longer fully track what those agents are doing — raising an open question about where human oversight sits once AI-assisted work outpaces a person’s ability to review it.

Passing experience on: coach, don’t tell

Strong convergence on this point — mentoring works by walking someone through a problem so they reach their own conclusion, not by handing them the answer. (A parenting parallel: telling a child what to do rarely works as well as letting them live it.) Experience only transfers if it’s translated into terms the other person can actually use — a lawyer’s experience doesn’t help a mechanic without deliberate translation.

Closing note

Despite real enthusiasm for AI’s usefulness, the overall sense was that accumulated human judgement and wisdom aren’t replaceable yet — and may never be.

Next SWISSUES Forvm: Thursday 2 July — “Hive-Mind,” on how decisions emerge in organizations without ever being formally made.

Authority vs. leadership. A key distinction emerged between positional authority (given by a role or title) and personal authority (earned through trust, respect, and demonstrated competence). This is framed as the difference between authority that is “given” and leadership that is “taken” or deserved. Several participants noted the gap between the two as a core source of dysfunction — people are granted authority without having developed the leadership to wield it well.

Situational leadership. The later part of the conversation focused on how good leaders adapt their style to context — more directive in crises, more democratic with experienced teams. The experience of a formative week-long training in exactly this was shared, and the group agreed that the ability to read a situation and shift style fluidly, drawing on experience and empathy, is what distinguishes truly effective leadership from mere positional authority.

Participants in the Forvm were: Aimilia Vasilakou, Amandine Ranciére, Fiona Revell, Gemma Masachs, Lawrence Daeppen, Lily Koslowska, Mariann Safni, Nadia Stoykovska, Ovidiu Slimavic, Pramod Prasanth and Bill Young

Background music is ‘Cinematic’ by Aylex through freetouse.com

In summary, Europe stands at a digital crossroads — and the clock is ticking. Its hospitals, banks, and businesses run on infrastructure owned, governed, and ultimately controlled from 6,000 miles away. One political decision, one geopolitical shock, could bring it all down. The debate is stark: build sovereignty now, or sleepwalk into permanent dependency. The homework is overdue. But agreement ends there. Should Europe build its own hyperscalers from scratch, at trillion-dollar cost? Regulate its way to safety? Or deepen transatlantic partnership rather than risk becoming a fragmented, high-friction tech island left behind by global capital? Nobody agrees — but everyone knows something has to give.

The motion was carried, with 65% voting for it.

There are already ideas for the next debate - feel free to add to them.

The secrets are out. Platforms like Spotify do everything except the speaking and, in truth, AI writes and speaks most of what is on YouTube these days.

But that is not the point.

SWISSUES is community - the same root as the word communicate - and the tech is, well, convenient.

Is there any room for creativity and fun? Listen to Any and Bill to find out.

Howard Price and Lily Kozlowska join Bill Young to discuss critical thinking.

Any SWISSUES subscriber is welcome to join our podcast panel and to suggest topics for discussion. You may have noticed that we are neither celebrities nor experts - we do this to get better at thinking and communicating ‘on our feet’, and we don’t expect a massive audience. Thank you for your indulgence.

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SWISSUES subscribers are invited to submit articles, and to join open discussions and podcast panels

Episode Overview

In this episode, Bob Dignen, Amy Jones, Lilia Kozlowska, Nadia Stroykov and Bill Young explore how social media exploits our most primitive neurological functions. From the “race to the bottom” of the brainstem to the erosion of personal agency, we discuss how digital platforms fuel tribalism and how we can reclaim our cognitive sovereignty.

Key Takeaways

• The Brainstem Trap: Modern tech has evolved from lowering economic standards to lowering neurological ones, targeting the ventral striatum (reward) and amygdala (fear).

• The Cost of “Always On”: High cognitive load and increased beta waves lead to heightened anxiety and a loss of reasoned decision-making.

• Weaponized Tribalism: Algorithms prioritize moralistic outrage over nuance, creating “us vs. them” environments ripe for populist manipulation.

• Reclaiming Agency: True freedom exists in the “pause” between a digital stimulus and our response.

• SWISSUES Evolution: Why the move to Substack marks a shift toward long-form business philosophy and “human-centric” operations.

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If you would like to join our podcast panels in 2026, contact me at bill.young@forvm.ch

Featuring Daniela Dollinger, Martin Eisenhut, Chris Holmes and Bill Young, this episode is about new forms of organization; how they encourage ideas, motivate staff and build self-reliance.

Listen and all will be revealed.

What is your ‘Colour’? Which Star Wars character are you? If you are unamiliar with these questions, then we apologise if this episode could be a little puzzling.

In this episode, Bob Dignen and Bill Young try to get their heads around Systems Thinking and to understand why it has had practically no influence on business management.

We apologise for some audio problems in the recording of this episode

One of my take-aways was that an organization’s management of risk is enhanced by a culture of openness and challenge. That, dear SWISSUES-Follower, could take us to another place altogether.

In this episode, Thierry Fausten and Bill Young are joined by David Jones. Instead of our usual loose discussion, we invited David to give us a broad overview of the whole field of non-executive directorship, which he does brilliantly. You’ll learn what the role involves in shareholder corporations, private equity firms and start-ups.

We have no doubt that some listeners will see an intriguing and fulfilling opportunity to use their career experience to help companies and other indivituals.

* Charles is the founder of Trusted Advisor Associates and co-author of ‘The Trusted Advisor’, its follow-up ‘The Trusted Advisor Fieldbook’; and author of Trust-Based Selling

In this special episode of the SWISSUES PodCast, Armin Scharlach, Bob Dognen, Thierry Fausten and Bill Young consider its significance.