"Intelligence Wins", The Gartner Group, Wentworth Research Publications, February 1999
Intelligence and the right information can make the difference between failure and success, between prosperity and poverty - and sometimes between life and death. Consider why the Titanic sank. Was it really all the iceberg's fault or was the ship sent to the bottom of the sea by a combination of misunderstanding, mis-information and mis-communication on board ?
The Titanic's first problem was that the people in charge simply had the wrong mental models - they believed that it was an unsinkable ship. They had the wrong priorities - the captain and crew catered mostly for first class passengers. The information sensors of the ship were not properly activated - the radio was busy sending passengers' personal messages. The ship's information relays malfunctioned - because of hierarchical barriers, time was lost passing on and transmitting vital information. There was a lack of training and knowledge - trying to avoid the iceberg resulted in more damage than a frontal hit. There were insufficient lifeboats, which were only half-loaded on evacuation. And finally, there was a tragic lack of tools - the crew could not find the binoculars.
Many of today's corporations may feel that they are equally unsinkable, but a breakdown of information, or lack of it, at a critical moment could spell disaster. They also face many hazards, ranging from aggressive new competitors, to dangerous paradigm shifts in markets, technologies or customer buying patterns.
Businesses have built vast computer networks over the last few years but most senior decision makers do not really get involved in understanding what they are used for and how. The result : despite all the investment, most businesses still have few strategic information flows. Organizations must take information sharing more seriously. There are 12 information sharing laws that may help.
... Follows a detailed discussion of cognitive, process and relational laws of sharing information ...
Putting people in touch with people is one of the most valuable information strategies for 1999. It helps to build a community within and around the business that can share information, respond to change, create new ideas and improve performance.
As any naturalist knows, an individual ant may be stupid, but an ant colony is a powerful example of collective intelligence.