The Welch Company
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I n t e l l i g e n c e
Research on the brain and in Cognitive Science suggest an
intelligence
role can strengthen management to make
leadership effective.
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Communication Metrics is a management science
for using
technology
to develop intelligence.
The work improves understanding
and follow up on daily details from
meetings
and other communications that otherwise overwhelm managers due to
information overload. Intelligence
improves
earnings by reducing errors, stress and conflict caused by
limited span of attention
due to
limited time.
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Understanding begins with experience, i.e., seeing and listening. New
information from sight and sound is integrated in the mind for alignment with
what is already known. Mental maps form patterns of chronology over time that
impart cause and effect.
Follow up
ensures things get done despite the
fragility
of mental maps. These key components of
intelligence
can be accomplished faster and more accurately
using technology to link chains of information, organize, align and summarize
details for decision support.
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A large part of intelligence
is the continual accumulation of experience from
which the mind extrapolates lessons learned. The technology, skills and
practice of Communication Metrics inherently support an effective
continual learning business process.
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The human mind applies its vast reservoir of experience in the form of
stories, that enable people to exercise judgement in making decisions,
which is the dominant task of management. However, as time passes the mind is
less able to assemble an accurate story. To solve this weakness management
experts suggest using the
Internet
as a "data repository," also, a "repository
of experience." The
repository idea applies the mental process of relying on experience.
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IBM's
announcement on Feb 26, 1998 of plans to market "business intelligence"
shows growing recognition of the need for this new kind of support to improve
earnings.
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The need for an alternative way to store experience arises because mental
errors are hidden when the conscious mind is busy getting information. Andy
Grove, Chairman of Intel Corporation, writes in his book Only the
Paranoid Survive, that "...mental maps are awfully forgiving of ambiguity."
This general problem is called limited
span of attention. When there is not enough time to
think,
because of
constant meetings, calls and email, mistakes and missed opportunities
escalate. This general problem is called
"information overload" that forces management into constant problem
handling to fix one crisis after another. Fixing mistakes is called "rework."
When rework reaches critical mass, failure is attributed to Murphy's
Law because the true cause lies outside span of attention, making
it a mystery. Solving the mystery of Murphy requires "intelligence."
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The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued a report dated October 7, 1997 on a
case study using Communication Metrics to
solve the
rework problem. Since
meetings
are a major cause of poor
productivity, adding an intelligence effort
improves
meetings and management effectiveness.
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POIMS
technology supports the "intelligence" process by making it fast and
easy to accumulate chains of related information that preserve chronology so
that cause and effect can be retrieved when needed for decision support. This
greatly expands span of attention, and so reduces mistakes and the cost of
rework. The technology assembles related information accurately, so that even a
busy mind can align the work with requirements to avoid mistakes that otherwise
cause extra expense, delay and hurt feelings. Cost
savings are significant, because the technology applies the basic
mental process of alignment to the full range of complex information managers
encounter dealing with people, contracts, policies, laws, regulations, plans,
budgets and so on.
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Since the human brain is an organic structure, it should not be surprising that
it uses an "organic" method to assemble and relate information structures by
building larger meanings from smaller ones. This reflects the fact that in the
human mind, the "big picture" is actually an accumulation of a lot of small
detailed patterns.
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Intelligence has two major organic processes:
- Summarize meaning linked to detail
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- Summarize category or classification, also called "subjects"
If you attend a meeting for an hour or two and discuss twenty subjects, when
someone asks what happened at the meeting, you will describe it in one or two
sentences. If you attend several meetings, have several phone calls and
receive email, faxes and have a number of discussions, if someone asks what
happened at the office today, you will explain it in a few sentences.
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This is your mind at work using an organic process that
links summary to detail.
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If someone asks for more information, you can say a few more sentences about a
particular subject. If pressed, depending upon the length of time since the
event, the mind can recall still more detail. However, the mind is weak in
connecting summary to detail. As time passes, the mind recalls information
from different events as being from the same event. Eventually summary
understanding is completely disconnected from original details. Some people
can remember better than others, but forgetting is an endemic weakness of the
mind that causes people, groups, organizations and entire nations to drift off
course, as noted by Henry
Kissinger. This makes maintaining alignment a critical task of
leadership, which requires "intelligence." Communication Metrics uses
technology to provide faster, better, cheaper "intelligence."
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The mental strength to draw summary from detail, that also causes meaning
drift, is recognized in management standards like ISO and the
Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK), as requiring a dedicated
process to avoid the malady of false knowledge that results from the disconnect
(forgetting) that eventually occurs in the human mind, and affects all human
organizations. The solution to this problem is generally called...
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traceability to original sources
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Some authorities call this...
root cause analysis
... but the objective is the same: to "understand" cause and effect by tracing
the chronology of events that led to a particular event or decision.
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About 5,000 years ago humans began developing technology to help remember
important details. They drew pictures to represent sounds and connected them
into larger blocks of meaning derived from discussions and thinking. This
method emulates the mind's process of building larger meaning by connecting
smaller blocks of information. Today, after much trial and error, the English
speaking world has settled on 26 pictures called the "alphabet." People spend
12 years or so learning how to connect these pictures of small details into
larger patterns of meaning so that the full range of human experience,
knowledge and wisdom can be accurately remembered despite the passage of time.
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Of course this is reading and writing, the core competency of knowledge work.
Managers like to work by
conversation because it seems fast and easy, and it seems at any given
moment to have greater potential for avoiding accountability for mistakes, than
does the alternative of investing time for analysis to avoid making mistakes
that require accountability. This self-interest dynamic overwhelms policies
and standards that "stress"
accountability. After 5,000 years reading and writing seems old
fashioned, bureaucratic and slow. Most people
cannot read their notes of meetings, and it takes time to prepare
useful analysis, so the practice of writing things down to understand and
remember important information that impacts earnings has fallen into disuse. It
seems like
overkill. Very few people these days believe analysis is worth the
investment of time and energy. Andy Grove at Intel Corporation is one who does.
Mr. Grove says that analysis is not easy and it is not fun. He says it takes
diligence; but, analysis
is necessary to carry out responsibilities to employees and
shareholders who hold him accountable for success at Intel.
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Intelligence is an investment strategy in making connections that generate
knowledge and ideas essential to be successful. POIMS technology provides a
key advance in using the alphabet by integrating time management with
information management. Whereas, the alphabet connects meaning into
information, POIMS emulates the human mental process that connects information
into chronology; and, it permits custom connections as a matter of volition to
capture cause and effect.
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Since the human mind
reasons by experience,
i.e., chronology not logic, POIMS
adds a powerful new dimension to using the alphabet for knowledge work.
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POIMS technology supports the "intelligence" process that...
links summary to detail
... so that busy people can absorb a lot of information quickly, and can select
particular details that require deeper consideration when needed -- click here
for an
example.
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This gives managers the power of
clear,
concise
and
complete
communications
without being overwhelmed by information overload. Automated connections
maintain alignment between cause and effect, so that managers can stay on
course rather than succumb to the drift caused by the natural disconnect that
occurs in the human mind with the passage of time between cause and effect,
and between action and objectives.
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POIMS uses an...
organic subject structure
... to reflect the mind's method of summarizing category or classification.
While implementation of the organic structure is automated, creation of the
structure requires careful attention. This is an investment of time in
organizing knowledge, similar to creating an organization chart, a chart of
financial accounts, or a Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), except it has far
wider application than these traditional structures, because the "meaning" of
communication is complex.
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The science of Communication Metrics includes expertise to develop and maintain
the organic subject structure needed for effective "intelligence," akin
to...
tending the garden of knowledge
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A common structure and dynamic methodology for organizing information
consistently facilitates gathering and using "intelligence." The SDS program
supports this requirement, and so it significantly leverages personal skills to
craft content and "summary" that is managed by the technology. As a result,
Internet
access and the organic subject structure of POIMS technology make the
"garden" a powerful...
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Knowledge Space
...that controls management details in the way that ordinary dimensional space
allows engineers and architects to control construction details. This enables
Knowledge Space to support the executive
mindset that must wrestle with the new realities of a global economy in a faster paced world, i.e., a
New World Order.
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On Dec 2, 1997 the advantages of intelligence in relation to
conventional management practice, were reviewed by the U.S. Army Corps
of Engineers in Washington D.C.
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On Apr 5, 1998, advantages were identified
of intelligence in relation to
traditional use of documentation,
and attendant fear of accountability.
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Obtaining good
intelligence
requires another key ingredient to meet the
challenge of a new reality in the practice of management. Leaders with courage
to act and strength to preserver are essential to overcome fear of change so
that people can discover the power of POIMS -- automated integration of people,
process and time -- to implement the science of Communication Metrics. This
takes leadership
with a broader vision.
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Updated: Aug 14, 1998