Collective Ability Demands Quality Collaboration

It is appreciated that better collective thinking and working, viz., ability, offer the only means to cope with the rapid pace of change. In particular, the knowledge processes and practices that raise collective ability are well understood today:

• The pursuit of excellence. ‘In Search Of Excellence’ (1981) by Peters & Waterman and ‘The Fifth Discipline’ (1995) by Peter Senge provide handsome detail on best practices and the importance of trust and teamwork. They need channeled but free flow of knowledge.
• Superior execution: Converting Strategy Into Results. The acclaimed book ‘Execution–The Discipline Of Getting Things Done’ (2002) by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan is devoted to this topic. Needs robust dialogue in specific areas.
• Collective Intelligence. Delivers superior response to events. The turnaround of Microsoft in 1995 is an example. Needs extensive focused participation.
• Competent Culture. It arrests chain mistakes. ‘How to Avoid the Chain of Mistakes that Can Break Your Company’ by Robert E. Mittelstaedt Jr. states the case. Published 2004 by s+b. Needs a culture for listening internally.
• Preparation For Change. Peter Drucker has discussed it in depth in ‘Managing For The Future’ (1991). Needs flexibility in structure and mindset.

Studies by Tom Davenport have established that companies have no reliable strategy to improve the delivery of their knowledge work, viz., collective ability. The reason is revealed by an insight into the components of quality knowledge work:

• Organization of context and focusing of interaction content
• Free flow of knowledge with continuity of thought
• Knowledge of responses in similar situations
• An understanding of the opinion owner
• An understanding of the case history
• Clarity on goals, etc.
• Systematic and total capture of opinion
• Follow up by expectations, groups, role, etc.
• Means to define security
• Means to study the trend of emerging opinion, influence responses and work towards a consensus 24x7.

For reasons of time, energy, self-interest, etc., personnel rarely serve support systems to deliver quality knowledge work. The organization is required to instil culture to sustain discipline for the required investment of time and energy. However, collaboration per se does not deliver the required free flow of knowledge. Discussion does not fit the bill as the ego can intervene to switch off its free flow any time. Constructive dialogue or purposeful free flow of opinion across boundries is an established means for the required collective thinking or quality of knowledge work and interaction.

IT supports knowledge interactions in the virtual space. IT can conceivably supply the energy to conduct constructive dialogue in the Enterprise Virtual Space (EVS). In this sense the virtual space is a possible repository of the collective mind. The EVS that exists today is weak in its support of collective ability:

• Web tools with just 0.01% participation within the enterprise (% of internet users that impart meaning to Wikipedia) cannot establish any truth.
• Today IT at best offers tools for interactions and creating content. The ‘IT is a tool’ paradigm is unreliable because of inconsistent adoption, limited participation, poor query response and discontinuities created by time spent away from the network.
• It does not deliver most of the requirements for better collective ability.

Making IT indispensable for constructive dialogue, viz., focused, purposeful and free knowledge flow, on each decision event, can converge the virtual space with the collective mind to offer a powerful means for raising collective ability. It requires transformation of IT from a tool to intelligent energy.