Stockholm University

1
The Attentive Organisation Business Intelligence
for Intelligent Business

• Stockholm University
• 2003-03-13
• Sven Hamrefors, SSE
• sven.hamrefors_at_hhs.se

2
There are two sides of the coin
Threat
Opportunity
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Prerequisites for opportunity attention

• Confirming information
• Enactment
• Organisational context

4
Statement No 1
An organisation must be attentive to
opportunities in order to be attentive at all!
5
How smart are we?
To say that people are more stupid than you can
imagine, is more stupid than you can imagine.
People are more stupid than you can imagine
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Maintenance of Memories
Present Past
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Sensory deprivation
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Charles Environment
Enacted environment (Task Environment)
Remote environment
Contextual environment
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Charlie Reads the Game
Attention
Perceive events
See the whole
Stimulus
Memory
Make sense of perceived whole and perceived
events
Feeling of understanding
Enactment
Room for superstition
Feedback
Prediction of future events
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Perspectives
Conservative Constructive Superstitious
Novel
-
Previous enactment
-
Present enactment

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The Organisational Influence
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Organisational Influence on Scanning
General situation
Work situation Co-ordinating logic
Content Transparency Knowledge
transfer Intrinsic motivation
Directing Factors
Narrowing
Expanding
Motivating Factor
Focus Intensity
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Types of Scanning

Anarchistic Scanning
Intrinsic Motivation
Private Scanning
-
None Work situation General
situation
Directing factors
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The Task Environment
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Types of Scanning

Anarchistic Scanning
Intrinsic Motivation
Private Scanning
Scanning in principle
-
None Work situation General
situation
Directing factors
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The Task Environments
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Types of Scanning

Anarchistic Scanning
Targeted Scanning
Intrinsic Motivation
Private Scanning
Scanning in principle
-
None Work situation General
situation
Directing factors
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The Task Environments
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Statement No 2
Targeted attention is the foundation of efficient
organisational attention
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The Challenge
Probability to catch the task relevant
Probability to catch the unexpected
Monitoring
Undirected Scanning
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Case Post-it Notes
20 latitude Network
Champions
Engineer Pastor
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What can we do to optimise the prerequisites for
spontaneous scanning?

• Co-ordinating logic
• Transparency
• Knowledge Transfer
• Work Situation

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• Improve the processes
• Flow

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Perceived co-ordinating logic
Expectations on internal processes Perspective
of external processes
Process flow
Bottle-necks
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• Improve the processes
• Flow
• Levels

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The centralistic paradox of decentralisation
Fragmentation
Rectifying
Diverse perspectives
Common perspectives
Process influence
Decentralisation
Centralisation
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What can we do to optimise the prerequisites for
spontaneous scanning?

• Co-ordinating logic
• Transparency
• Knowledge Transfer
• Work Situation

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• Increase transparency
• Physical

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Physical Transparency

• Necessary but not sufficient condition for
  transparency
• To get information is not the same to get to know
  what it is all about
• Fog causes problems - the Macheavellian leader
  does not realise that

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• Increase transparency
• Physical
• Message

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Awareness of Policy

• Formulation of policy
• Policy related to what to do creates focus on
  core business
• Policy related to the role to fulfill creates
  focus on core competence
• Communication of policy
• Awareness of policy decreases drastically lower
  down

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• Increase transparency
• Physical
• Message
• Social

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Social Transparency

• Technical imprisonment
• Un-comprehencible decision-making

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What can we do to optimise the prerequisites for
spontaneous scanning?

• Co-ordinating logic
• Transparency
• Knowledge Transfer
• Work Situation

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• Increase Knowledge Transfer
• Increase contact possibilities

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The Information System
Tools for the active information searcher
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Compensate Limitations
Find sources
Pull, not push!
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• Increase Knowledge Transfer
• Increase contact possibilities
• Improve arenas

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The Human Moment

• Differentiate the discussions
• Develop the dialogue. Kill the debate

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What can we do to optimise the prerequisites for
spontaneous scanning?

• Co-ordinating logic
• Transparency
• Knowledge Transfer
• Work Situation

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Cognitive Flow
Perceived demands
Increased attention and creativity
Flow channel
Perceived proficiency
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Cognitive Flow
Perceived demands
Anxiety
Flow channel
Boredom
Perceived proficiency
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Spontaneous Scanning is the foundation to
alertness, but

• It will not cover the blind spots
• The remote environment will not be attended to
• Threats will not be attended to as good as
  opportunities.

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Organised environmental scanning is needed to
challenge the internaltruths
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Organising Business Intelligence
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Prerequisites for attention to threats

• Opportunity attention
• Organised scanning analysis (BI- operation
• Well implemented
• Knowing its context
• Turning signal of threat into perceived
  opportunity

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Organising Principle
Integration but not captivity
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Case 1 IBM
Intel
Microsoft
IBM
Inventors Customers Suppliers

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Case 2 SEB
S-E-Banken EU-bank
Big Banks
HQ
No problem!
List
Branch office
Routine matter
OK
Credit Report
Local office
Customer
OK
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Pitfalls
Organised Scanning Separated from the
Spontaneous Scanning
Organised and Spontaneous Scanning Mixed
More of the Same
Incompatible Perspectives
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Ideal
Organised Scanning in exchange with Spontaneous
Scanning
Compatible Perspectives
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Scan the un-scanned
Lisa
Pierre
Blind Spot
Jenny
Blind Spot
John
Eva
George
Klaus
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Make the Un-comprehensive Comprehensible
Information
Aggregated enacted environment
Choice
Perspective-Making Difficulty
Perspective- Making
Information
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KeraRakkastapellittääOY Finland
Chop Soy Inc
Taiwan
ProdAgent BV
Jaan van Hulk
Distributor BV
CeraTech BV
Holland
What do you do now?
Productor AG
Germany
Ceramica S.A. KeramImport AB Supermen AB
Mr. Money
France
Sweden