EA Voices

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…

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

---

NOW AVAILABLE The draft of my book on Organizational Intelligence is now available on LeanPub http://leanpub.com/orgintelligence. Please support this development by subscribing and commenting. Thanks. 

Karl Albrecht has defined seven characteristic features of an
intelligent organization, and has designed a self-assessment
questionnaire for creating a profile of the intelligence of an
organization.

1. Strategic Vision: do we know where w…

Karl Albrecht has defined seven characteristic features of an
intelligent organization, and has designed a self-assessment
questionnaire for creating a profile of the intelligence of an
organization.

1. Strategic Vision: do we know where we’re going?
2. Shared Fate: are we all in the same boat?
3. Appetite for Change: can we face the unexpected challenges?
4. Heart: do we have the spirit and energy to succeed?
5. Alignment and Congruence: do the organization’s “rules and tools”
help us succeed?
6. Knowledge Deployment: do we share our information, knowledge, and
wisdom?
7. Performance Pressure: are we serious about getting things done?

Some of his questions are useful, but I don’t think they provide a
rounded view of the intelligence of an organization.

1. By strategic vision, Albrecht is referring to the capacity to
create, evolve, and express the purpose of the enterprise. This is
certainly an important aspect of sense-making, but overlooks an
equally important aspect of sense-making, which is to understand the
evolving demands of the environment and to align vision and purpose
to these demands. In Albrecht’s model of organizational
intelligence, there is no explicit connection between vision and
reality, and no mention of the extent to which organizations (and
their leaders) understand and anticipate the present and future.

2. A stupid organization can still have a sense of community, and a
strong collective affiliation to an outdated or unrealistic vision,
leading to a collective refusal to face facts.

3. An appetite for change is important, but profound change also
requires a degree of patience and a willingness to tolerate
uncertainty and inconsistency. Albrecht talks about discomfort, but
many organizations try to avoid discomfort by rushing through
changes as quickly as possible, often resulting in a series of
failed initiatives.

4.  Heart. This may well be a consequence of organizational
intelligence – an organization that values and engages the
intelligence and creativity of its employees should end up with more
satisfied and engaged and committed employees. But this is also strongly connected to trust.

5. Alignment and congruence. This is to do with the architecture of
collaboration, which is perhaps the most difficult aspect of
organizational intelligence. The most intelligent organizations
typically don’t display complete congruence, but manage with a degree of
creative tension and conflict between different functions or positions.

6. Knowledge deployment. Albrecht concentrates on generating and sharing
knowledge (flow of knowledge, conservation of sensitive information,
the availability of information at key points of need) but I see the key
capability for organizational intelligence in terms of linking
knowledge to action. How has this knowledge helped us do things better,
or to do better things?

7. Performance pressure – a preoccupation with the performance of the enterprise, in terms of the achievement of identified strategic objectives and tactical outcomes. This preoccupation is found
in many bureaucratic organizations, especially those dominated by the
so-called target culture which often militates against organizational
intelligence. I therefore cannot see any necessary correlation between
performance pressure and organizational intelligence.

A company like Enron would probably have scored fairly high on
Albrecht’s questionnaire, but it also provided a spectacular illustration of
Albrecht’s Law, namely that “intelligent people, when assembled into
an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity”.

Albrecht identifies two kinds of stupidity, which he calls the
learned kind and the designed-in kind.

• The learned kind prevails when people are not authorized to
  think, or don’t believe they are.
• The designed-in kind prevails when the rules and systems make
  it difficult or impossible for people to think creatively,
  constructively, or independently.

I believe there is a third kind of stupidity, which I call the
disconnected kind. This is where there are many talented people, but
they don’t talk to each other; where the feedback and learning loops are
broken; and where management fails to connect the dots. This is the
Enron model of organizational stupidity, and in my view it is the most
powerful explanation for the kind of organizational stupidity that
Albrecht identifies in his eponymous
law. But Albrecht’s questionnaire is not designed to detect this
kind of stupidity.

---

Karl Albrecht, The Power of Minds at Work: Organizational
Intelligence in Action (2002)

Karl Albrecht, Organizational
Intelligence & Knowledge Management: Thinking Outside the
Silos. The Executive Perspective (pdf)

Karl Albrecht, Organizational
Intelligence Profile: Preliminary Assessment Questionnaire
(pdf 2002)

See also OrgIntelligence in Iran