The Financial Reporting Committee's (FRC) latest Corporate Governance Code, released at the start of the summer, made explicit reference to the need for boards to take action on boardroom diversity—especially with an eye on the balance of male and female directors. This sparked another round of discussions about the role of women in British business.

This discussion tends to take a similar pattern every time. At one extreme the so-called "boardroom feminists" call for the quotas system implemented in Norway, France and Spain. This, they say, is the only way to force predominantly male boardrooms to make changes. At the other end, those in favour of the status quo claim there is a lack of suitable female candidates and insist the best and brightest people should be appointed, regardless of gender. This, they say, is the only way businesses will thrive.

These discussions have got stale. It's time to park gender politics and focus on what really matters, which is how to maximise board effectiveness. Here, recent evidence points in favour of diversity—in its broadest context—as a driver of high performance. One piece of evidence is James Surowiecki's book The Wisdom of Crowds. In it Surowiecki famously argues that a collection of average individuals will collectively make better decisions than the smartest individuals. The implications for the boardroom are that a board forced to be more diverse, even if they aren't able to select the brightest candidates, might do better than a less diverse board. This anomaly makes more sense because decisions always involve knowledge and error. By pooling thinking, a crowd draws on its combined knowledge and this diversity of knowledge accumulates and cancels out errors. Surowiecki presents countless examples of how narrow groups of the very smart are beaten every time by more diverse groups.

Another writer to explore this area is Scott Page. In The Difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies, Page cites no less an authority than Aristotle. It would appear Aristotle joined the debate some 1,600 years ago when he wrote in Politics that: "Each individual among the many has a share of excellence and practical wisdom and when they meet together, just as they become in a manner one man, who has many hands, feet and senses, so too with regard to their character and thought."

This is all very capably summarised—and added to—in a fascinating new book by Peter Miller. In Smart Swarm Miller, who is senior editor at National Geographic, adds a new dimension to the discussion, drawing on lessons from nature, including research into the behaviours of everything from ants and bees to termites and fish. His chapter on the honeybees assessing options for where to locate a new nest, for example, is a textbook example of the wisdom of crowds at work. Without hierarchy, every bee in the group has an equal say and the collective decision is more often than not the right one.

Whether we look to learn from Miller's bees and ants or the human-based examples cited by Page and Surowiecki, the evidence seems to be building that conventional thinking about always appointing the brightest candidates for a post should be ditched in favour of making sure that a board represents a wide diversity of backgrounds, experience and thinking. That means much more than counting the men and women at the table.

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