orgintelligence

Co-Production of Data and Knowledge

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Here’s an analogy for the so-called hierarchy of Data, Information, Knowledge and Wisdom DIKW).

  • Data = Flour
  • Information = Bread
  • Knowledge = A Recipe for Bread-and-Butter Pudding
  • Wisdom = Only Eating A Small Portion

Note that Information isn’t made solely from Data, Knowledge isn’t made solely from Information, and Wisdom isn’t made solely from Knowledge. See also my post on the Wisdom of the Tomato.

That’s enough analogies. Let me now explain what I think is wrong with this so-called hierarchy.

Firstly, the term “hierarchy” seems to imply that there are three similar relationships.

  • between Data and Information
  • between Information and Knowledge
  • and between Knowledge and Wisdom

 as well as implying some logical or chronological sequence

  • Data before Information
  • Information before Knowledge
  • Knowledge before Wisdom

and quantitative relationships

  • Much more data than information
  • Much more information than knowledge
  • Tiny amounts of wisdom

    But my objection to DIKW is not just that it isn’t a valid hierarchy or pyramid, but it isn’t even a valid schema. It encourages people to regard Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom as a fairly rigid classification scheme, and to enter into debates as to whether something counts as “information” or “knowledge”. For example, people often argue that something only counts as “knowledge” if it is in someone’s head. I regard these debates as unhelpful and unproductive.

    A number of writers attack the hierarchical DIKW schema, and propose alternative ways of configuring the four elements. For example, Dave Snowden says that “knowledge is the means by which we create information out of data”. Meanwhile Tom Graves suggests we regard DIKW not as ‘layers’, but as distinct dimensions in a concept-space.

    But I don’t see how any of these DIKW remixes escapes the most fundamental difficulty of DIKW, which is a naive epistemology that has been discredited since the Enlightenment. You don’t simply build knowledge out of data. Knowledge develops through Judgement (Kant), Circular Epistemology and Dialectic (Hegel), Assimilation and Accommodation (Piaget), Conjecture and Refutation (Popper), Proof and Refutation (Lakatos), Languaging and Orientation (Maturana), and/or Mind (Bateson).

    What all of these thinkers share is the rejection of the Aristotelian idea of “one-way traffic” from data to knowledge, and an insistance that data must be framed by knowledge. Thus we may validate knowledge by appealing to empirical evidence (data), but we only pick up data in the first place in accordance with our preconceptions and observation practices (knowledge). Among other things, this explains why organizations struggle to accommodate (and respond effectively to) weak signals, and why they persistently fail to “connect the dots”.

    And if architects and engineers persist in trying to build information systems and knowledge management systems according to the DIKW schema, they will continue to fall short of supporting organizational intelligence properly.

    References

    Updated 8 December 2012

    Learning Lessons Learned

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    #orgintelligence Adapted from my contribution to a Linked-In discussion on “Lessons Learned”.There are several strands of learning from experience, and it may be useful to call these out explicitly.1. Signals. What signals (that turned out to be import…

    Delusion and Diversity

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    @VenessaMiemis asks “If most people are self delusional, what’s the point of qualitative research?” @CoCreatr retorts “What if we are all self-delusional and need proof by qualitative research to become more accepting of it?”Of course organizations are…

    Intelligence Failures at Barclays Bank

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    #orgintelligence @larryhirschhorn has produced a very detailed analysis of Barclays Bank, Robert Diamond and the LIBOR scandal (July 2012). He asks why Marcus Agius (Barclays Chair) and Bob Diamond (Barclays CEO) were stunned at the Bank of England’s demand for Diamond’s resignation, and suggests it was because they lacked something he calls a “political imagination”.

    There is a lot of interesting material in Larry’s blog from the perspective of organizational psychology, and I don’t want to reproduce it all here. What I do want to explore is whether what Larry calls “political imagination” is an aspect of what I call organizational intelligence.

    Central to Larry’s narrative is a cryptic note, written by Bob Diamond after a telephone conversation with Paul Tucker, the Bank of England’s executive director for markets. This note appears to have been interpreted by one of Diamond’s subordinates as an coded instruction from the Bank of England to lower its LIBOR submissions. However, Diamond later denied that this was the meaning of the note. As Larry points out, this kind of deniability is all too common in and between organizations.

    What is more complicated is the decision by Barclays to include this note in its published account of the LIBOR affair. Why was this note relevant to the LIBOR affair, if it didn’t mean what it appeared to mean? Diamond’s self-justification and repudiation looks like what Freud called Kettle Logic – “we didn’t fix the LIBOR rate … and anyway you hinted we should fix it … and anyway it wasn’t a hint”.

    The Bank of England was undoubtedly sensitive to the allegation that it had been complicit in the LIBOR affair, and seems to have reacted angrily to the publication of this note. Diamond and his colleagues may have decided to include the note as a coded message to other banks, but failed to anticipate the reaction of the Bank of England. And as one of the highest paid bankers in London, Diamond may also have failed to appreciate the extent to which the Bank of England disapproved of overpaid London bankers.

    According to the Wall Street Journal, there were differences of opinion within Barclays as to whether it was a good idea to include this note in its report, and there were some who worried about the reaction. However, the decision was taken to include it. At the time, this might have seemed like a fairly small detail, but such details can sometimes have very significant consequences.

    (Of course, we cannot know for sure that it was this detail that triggered the Bank of England’s demand for Diamond’s resignation, but it is a highly plausible interpretation of events.)

    One of the most common limitations of organizational intelligence is that all decisions are taken within a fixed frame of reference – which I regard as a failure of sensemaking. Larry suggests that Bob Diamond was operating within a frame of reference based on “technical rationality”, within which the publication of the controversial note seemed perfectly reasonable, and that he lacked the imagination to move outside this frame of reference. Larry also indicates some of the organizational mechanisms that may have helped to reinforce Diamond’s limited worldview, including his experience of being protected by his subordinates.

    In that regard, there are some strong parallels with the Murdoch empire and its recent troubles. When Diamond said (speaking to the House of Commons Treasury Committee), “When I read the e-mails from those traders I got physically ill” (BBC News, 4 July 2012), I was convinced I had heard either Rupert or James Murdoch saying much the same thing a few weeks earlier. They are obviously using the same scriptwriter.

    Doubtless there will be a stage play at the Royal Court before long, showing us the tragic fall of these doomed heros.

    Leadership and Organizational Intelligence

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    Chief Knowledge Officer

    Joseph Goedert, Expert says it’s time for Health Care to create ‘Chief Knowledge Officer’ position. Health Data Management, Oct 2011

    Chief Learning Officer

    CLO Magazine

    Josh Bersin, Today’s Chief Learning Officer (November 2010)

    “A few years ago I wrote an article about how the CLO is really three people:  A Chief Culture Officer (driving engagement, learning, and collaboration), A Chief Performance Officer (driving employee performance, alignment, and skills);  and a Chief Change Officer
    (vigilantly driving change, seeing the future, and helping the CEO and
    other leaders transform the workforce as the business and workforce
    changes).  Today, more than ever, the CLO must be all three.”

    Chief Sensemaking Officer

    Peter Flemming Teunissen Sjoelin, Making Sense: One of the Components of Achieving Holistic Management (Jan 2011); Holistic Management in a Context of Enterprise IT Management and Organizational Leadership (May 2011)

    Chief Collaboration Officer

    Morten T. Hansen, Scott Tapp, Who Should be Your Chief Collaboration Officer? HBR Oct 2010

    Lydia Dishman, Why Your Company Needs A Chief Collaboration Officer. Fast Company, May 2012

    Is this several different (but overlapping) positions, or several labels for the same position?  I believe these are all aspects of Organizational Intelligence, and call for coordinated leadership. That doesn’t necessarily mean a single position, but certainly not a set of disconnected or rival initiatives.

    And who will take such positions? Hansen and Tapp suggest that the responsibilities should be added to one of the existing C-level roles – probably one of the following five.

    • The current CIO. 
    • The current HR head. 
    • The current COO. 
    • The current CFO.
    • The current head of strategy.

    I agree that organizational intelligence might reasonably be added to any of these disciplines, but it would undoubtedly represent a radical shift for the traditional disciplines that dominate these functions. Leadership indeed.

    OrgIntelligence in Iran

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    In my previous post, I reviewed Karl Albrecht’s model of Organizational Intelligence. For some reason, this model is popular in Iran, and I have found numerous academic studies using Albrecht’s assessment questionnaire as a research tool. Here are some…

    OrgIntelligence in Iran

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    In my previous post, I reviewed Karl Albrecht’s model of Organizational Intelligence. For some reason, this model is popular in Iran, and I have found numerous academic studies using Albrecht’s assessment questionnaire as a research tool. Here are some of the findings.

    • A positive correlation between organizational
      intelligence and knowledge management (Marjani and Arabi, Mooghali and Azizi, Yaghoubi et al 2011, Yaghoubi et al 2012)
    • A positive correlation between organizational
      intelligence and staff performance (Marjani and Soheilipour)
    • A positive correlation between organizational intelligence and creativity (Mehrara et al) 
    • A positive correlation between organizational intelligence and organizational excellence (Ahadinezhad et al)

    Zarbakhsh et al raise doubts about the robustness of the Albrecht questionnaire as a research tool. Using a self-assessment questionnaire to investigate differences between organizations requires careful interpretation, so that we don’t simply measure the self-delusion of the organizations in question.

    This is of course particularly problematic with organizational intelligence, because intelligence is often associated with a degree of self-criticism. An organization that perceives its own intelligence shortcomings may well be more intelligent than an organization that believes its intelligence is perfectly fit-for-purpose thank-you-very-much.

    But there is a larger question. Albrecht’s questionnaire is based on a list of characteristics that he thinks to be associated with organizational intelligence. Most of these researchers have merely run statistical tests to compare Albrecht’s lists of characteristics with each other, and with lists of characteristics from other sources, supposed to be associated with things like knowledge management and creativity. What we are mostly missing is a critical investigation of whether Albrecht’s model offers a reasonable measure of the strategic value that we might expect to follow from organizational intelligence.

      I have also developed a self-assessment questionnaire for organizational intelligence, which I have used in consulting exercises but which has not yet been comprehensively tested. I should be most interested in any research that would help me callibrate this questionnaire against objective outcomes, and I invite these and any other researchers to contact me for a copy of the questionnaire.

      Massoumeh Ahadinezhad, Rokhsareh Badami, Mina Mostahfezian, Organizational Intelligence and Excellence Based on EFQM Model Among the Isfahan Boards are Related (pdf) World Journal of Sports Science 6(4): 328-330 (2012) ISSN 2078-4724

      Amir Babak Marjani, Parvin Arabi, The Role of Organizational Intelligence in Organizational Knowledge Management (The Case of The Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran) (pdf). European Journal of Social Sciences (EJSS) Vol.25 No.3 (2011), pp.49-58 ISSN 1450-2267

      Amir Babak Marjani, Mojdeh Soheilipour, The Relationship between Organizational Intelligence and Staff Performance Based on the Model of Karl Albrecht (pdf) (The case of Iran Branch, China National Petroleum Company) International Journal of Business and Social Science Vol. 3 No. 4 (February 2012) [Abstract]

      Hassan Zarei Matin, Golamreza Jandaghi, Ali Hamidizadeh, Fateme Haj Karimi, Studying Status of Organizational Intelligence in Selected Public Offices of Qom (pdf) European Journal of Social Sciences – Volume 14, Number 4 (2010)

      Asadollah Mehrara, Sonbollah Azami Saroklaei, Mojtaba Sadeghi, Afsaneh Fatthi, Relation between Organizational Intelligence and Creativity of Managers in Public Junior High Schools of East of Gilan Province (pdf) J. Basic. Appl. Sci. Res., 2(4)3311-3315, (2012) ISSN 2090-4304

      A.R Mooghali, A.R. Azizi, Relation between Organizational Intelligence and Organizational Knowledge Management Development (pdf) World Applied Sciences Journal, Volume 4 Number 1, (2008)

      Narjes Al-Sadat Nasabi, Ali Reza Safarpour, Key Factors in Achieving to an Intelligent Organization in the View of Employee in Shiraz University of Medical Science in 2008 (pdf) Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 3(4): 3492-3499 (2009) ISSN 1991-8178 [Abstract]

      Nour-Mohammad Yaghoubi, Elham Behtarinejad, Saeed Gholami, Hamed Armesh, The relationship between strategic processes of knowledge management and organizational intelligence (pdf) African Journal of Business Management Vol. 6 (7), pp. 2626-2633, 22 February, 2012 
      DOI: 10.5897/AJBM11.1398
      ISSN 1993-8233

      Nour-Mohammad Yaghoubi, Mahdi Salehi, Elham Behtari Nezhad, A Relationship Between Tactical Processes of Knowledge Management and Organizational Intelligence: Iranian Evidence (pdf) World Applied Sciences Journal 12 (9): 1413-1421 (2011) ISSN 1818-4952.

      Mohammadreza Zarbakhsh, Hamidreza Alipour, Karim Dawabin Zahra, Mahrabi Taleghani, Standardization of Albrecht’s Organizational Intelligence of the Personnel and Principals of the Junior High Schools of the West of Mazandaran Province (pdf). Australian Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, 5(10): 990-995, (2011)
      ISSN 1991-8178

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