A big part of self-discipline comes from social pressure. This is how people in the military can become very disciplined, particularly in special forces. They don’t want to hold their team back, so they have to do their best.
The trope that the likelihood of an accurate group decision increases with the abundance of brains involved might not hold up when a collective faces a variety of factors -- as often happens in life and nature.
Conventional wisdom tells us that in the business world, "you are who you know" -- your social background and professional networks outweigh talent when it comes to career success.