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.

在当前的金融危机中，白痴、骗子和小偷令数十亿美元毁之一炬。不过我敢保证，至少有与此相当的钱在聪明人试图为别人做好事实事的过程中损失掉了，这些人通常是某个委员会的一部分。

例子太多了，找到几个并不难：

华尔街公司的薪酬委员会给那些几乎摧毁了全球金融体系的人发放了数百万美元的奖金。

知名大学的投资委员会毫不怀疑地接受了对冲基金、私人资本运营基金和房地产，很多都把75%甚至更多的捐赠投入了这类流动性不良的资产。

慈善机构的投资委员会也和个人投资者一样，在马多夫(Bernard Madoff)的魔咒下摔的很惨，常常是顷刻之间损失了数百万美元。

共同基金的董事会对基金经理们大量买进问题抵押贷款证券视而不见。

州理事会批准了用旨在帮助家庭为孩子教育经费攒钱的“529计划”进行高风险投资。这样以来，损失的不只是钱，梦想也随之破灭了。

群众的智慧也不过如此。史坦福大学组织心理学家萨顿(Robert Sutton)说，最好的团队比其中最好的成员还要好，而最差的团队则比其中最差的成员还要差。这是因为委员会等组织往往要么就意见统一地跟着领导跑，要么就分化成两个对抗的阵营。

杜克大学商学院的心理学家拉里克(Richard Larrick)说，要想让委员会等组织发挥良好作用，它们必须由观点和经历各异的人组成，这些人还要勇于发表自己的看法。他们还必须能够有效地选择和处理信息，并努力从错误中吸取教训。

不过，委员会往往没有发挥丝毫作用，导致持续的目光短浅、无法坚持战略性计划、一味追逐潮流、并且有推脱责任的倾向。简单讲，尽管投资委员会和理事会有权有名，他们也只是凡人。

幸运的是，委员会等组织可以利用一些已经过实际检验的手段来改进决策。有些手段甚至个人投资者也可以使用。下面就是其中几种方法：

对成功的因素进行衡量。当选择一位外部投资经理时，委员会应该根据研究和经验，确定哪些因素可以预示成功。最有可能的因素包括：低成本、严格的风险控制、长远的投资计划、任期较长的经理。这些因素中每一个都可以用客观的数据加以衡量。

分析数据。收集几位基金经理在这些成功因素方面的数据。对于每个因素，将经理们分级（比如按从1到5分级）。只有从客观证据中纪录这些分数后，你才可以与投资经理见面。投资者然后应该按照同样的标准给会面后的印象打分。最后，将全部因素的总分进行平均，分数最高的经理就是你的人选。仅凭这个步骤就可以防止给马多夫这样的人开张巨额支票，原因是马多夫很少与外部人士分享数据。

重新组织问题。委员会在考虑作出一项重大决策时，应该被分为“支持”和“反对”两派，每派提出支持己方观点的最佳论据。个人投资者也可以采取类似的做法，不仅要问经理在决策正确时能赚多少，还要问他们在决策失误时可能会损失多少。争取对每项投资想出3个支持的理由和3个反对的理由。

使用“5个为什么”。不要问那些答案是“是”或“不是”的问题，而是问“如何”和“为什么”这样的问题。不要问某人是否理应拿奖金，或是一个顾问是否对一个想法将产生巨额回报有信心。而是问，某人为何应该拿奖金，或是为什么这个想法非常好。然后，问问为什么这个人知道那个答案是正确的。如果你连续问了5个这类“为什么”的问题，很可能会令建议中的任何弱点暴露出来。

定义默认头寸。哈佛大学商学院决策专家贝瑟曼(Max Bazerman)建议，投资者可以先假定理想的投资组合是分散化的一篮子低成本指数基金。任何背离这个战略的投资都应该有非常有说服力的证据。

如果你看看字典里“oversight”的定义，你就会发现这个词可以是监督的意思也可以是失察的意思。假如委员会和我们其余的人养成了正确监管的习惯，我们的经济状况都会好的多。