with Liam Fahey
Insight is where the game is won and lost notes that "Intelligence as an influence on decision making has not yet fully bloomed in many companies," listing a number of reasons why.
What an intelligence organization looks like notes that "...today’s most successful intelligence teams have adopted a post-industrial, networked model, co-creating insights with decision makers..."
These lead to a series of observations gained over several decades working with some of the world's leading organizations:
1. If insights are critical to success, then responsibility belongs with a member of the executive team.
2. Intelligence efforts should be limited to those issues and decisions that can significantly impact the business. Precious resources should be focused on critical decision-maker needs, such as these expressed by the head of a multi-$billion business:
4. Executives should use insights should drive collective commitments to action. Effective intelligence helps facilitate organizational “change insight” faster than rivals, identifying where the marketplace opportunities may be, where the risks or vulnerabilities may be and, importantly, what to do. "We understand the market, our competitors and — most importantly — how our competitors think," says John Chambers. "I have a pretty good idea what their next two moves will be. When you compete against us, you will lose,"* he says. In other words, Cisco has created a shared understanding across the organization, a competitive culture.
5. Intelligence should focus on dialogue, not documents. An insight is new understanding. And that can be created only in the mind of the decision-maker, which means that insights can be facilitated, but not produced or delivered. As Ben Franklin wrote, "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."
Insight is where the game is won and lost notes that "Intelligence as an influence on decision making has not yet fully bloomed in many companies," listing a number of reasons why.
What an intelligence organization looks like notes that "...today’s most successful intelligence teams have adopted a post-industrial, networked model, co-creating insights with decision makers..."
These lead to a series of observations gained over several decades working with some of the world's leading organizations:
1. If insights are critical to success, then responsibility belongs with a member of the executive team.
2. Intelligence efforts should be limited to those issues and decisions that can significantly impact the business. Precious resources should be focused on critical decision-maker needs, such as these expressed by the head of a multi-$billion business:
- Which new business models are likely to be successful? Why?
- How long can emerging competitors sustain their current business models?
- What are competitor X’s motives? How will it play?
- Customer Y appears to be taking a disproportionate share of customer spending? How?
- Who’s in trouble with their customers?
4. Executives should use insights should drive collective commitments to action. Effective intelligence helps facilitate organizational “change insight” faster than rivals, identifying where the marketplace opportunities may be, where the risks or vulnerabilities may be and, importantly, what to do. "We understand the market, our competitors and — most importantly — how our competitors think," says John Chambers. "I have a pretty good idea what their next two moves will be. When you compete against us, you will lose,"* he says. In other words, Cisco has created a shared understanding across the organization, a competitive culture.
5. Intelligence should focus on dialogue, not documents. An insight is new understanding. And that can be created only in the mind of the decision-maker, which means that insights can be facilitated, but not produced or delivered. As Ben Franklin wrote, "Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn."
Next post: The path to generating meaningful insights
*"Cisco's Chambers: 2 days on a man with a mission at CES," USA Today, January 9, 2013
*"Cisco's Chambers: 2 days on a man with a mission at CES," USA Today, January 9, 2013
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