What is organizational intelligence?

Towards An intelligent organization is characterized by the following collective

abilities:

Organizational •
•
an ability to make sense of complex situations and act effectively
an ability to interpret and act upon relevant events and signals in the

Intelligence
environment
• an ability to develop, share and use knowledge relevant to its
business purpose.
• an ability to reflect and learn from experience

Any new way of looking at your organization may produce new

insights about strengths and weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
Organizational intelligence is a new “lens” for understanding and
improving the way your organization uses information and intelligence
for strategic advantage, business improvement and survival.

Next Practice
Research Initiative
Is your organization achieving its Do you recognize any of these
potential? symptoms in your organization?

Are you able to anticipate the future demands of your customers and
Choke Inability to access capability when it is needed.
other stakeholders?
Denial "The problem doesn't exist, and anyway it isn't a
Are you developing the collective intelligence you will need to compete
problem for us, and anyway we're already
effectively in increasingly turbulent conditions?
dealing with it."
Does this development utilize the talents and energies of everyone in
Guesswork Acting in the dark.
the organization? Does everyone have the opportunity to contribute to
the collective intelligence of their unit or the whole organization?
Meddle Tinkering and management interference without
real understanding.

Muddle Confused and bewildered by many overlapping

and conflicting narratives.

Panic Taken by surprise, responding in haste.

Policy-based Finding data to support or justify an existing

evidence decision or state, while ignoring any data that
might contradict.

Repetition / Repeating the same mistakes without learning.

Oscillation

Short-Sighted / Narrow focus on short-term goals, inability to

Tunnel Vision consider broader or longer-term vision.
Is there a people fix?
An organization can be packed with brainy people, but if they don’t
communicate and collaborate effectively, the intelligence of the
organization as a whole will be impaired.
The management literature is full of strange and wonderful ideas for
transforming organizational structure and culture.
• Asymmetric Leadership
• Edge Organization
• Fractal Self-Organization
• Theory Y, Theory Z
These radical changes may help to improve organizational intelligence
over the longer term. They cannot be achieved by quick fix solutions –
whether technical or top-down management. However, our approach
can support a broader organizational change initiative, as well as
enabling incremental improvements within your existing organization.
If radical change is necessary, we will work with partner organizations
to help you with integrating this kind of change.
Is there a technology fix?
People and technology have complementary forms of intelligence, and
an intelligent organization these abilities are coordinated and mobilized
to best advantage. Perhaps you expect some innovative software
technology platform to boost your organization’s ability to collaborate,
innovate and share learning?
• Business Intelligence & Analytics
• Collaboration and Communication
• Enterprise 2.0 & Social Networking
• Knowledge Management
• Process Management & Job Training
Each of these technologies can help if implemented wisely, properly
integrated with each other as well as with working practices and
organizational culture. However, many organizations have expended
large amounts of time and money on fancy solutions, often with
muddled objectives and poor planning, and therefore no prospect of any
genuine return on investment. In fact, poor deployment of technology
may just make things worse.
The more enlightened software vendors will advise their customers how
to align their systems and services with business objectives and
organization culture, and we are happy to collaborate with such
vendors, while maintaining an independent perspective.
Balancing the Elements of Where to start?
Intelligence
To achieve and enhance organizational intelligence typically requires
both organizational change and technological change.

Sense-Making • assessment - what is the overall strengths and weaknesses of your

organization, what are the process and structural and technological
roadblocks to organizational intelligence
• opportunity planning - what are the priorities for improving
Perception / Reasoning / organizational intelligence, and how can these best be implemented,
Monitoring Action what is the business case to support any necessary investment
• organizational development – what working practices are needed,
how can the organization use the available tools and platforms more
coherently and effectively
WIGO
The assessment is carried out in three stages.
(what is going on)
A quick review of each capability separately, to assess whether it is
1 broadly fit-for-purpose.

Knowledge / Learning / Modelling how the capabilities are joined up (integrated) across the
2 enterprise.
Memory Development
Evaluating the actual and potential contribution of well-balanced
3 intelligence to the performance and viability of the organization as
a whole.
Communication
More information

http://organizational-intelligence.wikispaces.com/

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