1. Developing the Intellectual
Assets of the Executive Team
A Program to Develop and Exploit
“Collective Intelligence”

2. What is It?
A format that combines customized education on
the latest management thinking, together with
a process that converts relevant material into
actionable strategies for the company.

3. What Problems are We
Trying to Address?
1. The difficulty and importance of trying to keep up with the
overwhelming amount of new information and knowledge.

4. “We now accept the fact that learning is a
lifelong process of keeping abreast of change.
And the most pressing task is to teach people
how to learn.”
Peter Drucker

5. “…given the acceleration of change, companies,
individuals and governments base many of their
daily decisions on ‘obsoledge’.”
Alvin Toffler
__________________________________________________
“obsoledge” --- ideas and assumptions that have been falsified
and obsoleted by change.

6. What Problems are We
Trying to Address?
1. The difficulty of trying to keep up with the overwhelming
amount of new information and knowledge. Some of this
change is potentially “life-threatening.” And much of it
comes outside of our field of vision.

7. Examples From History
• Railroads --- “Marketing Myopia”
• Transistor, Internet --- Technology
• Fed Ex, Southwest Air, Wal Mart --- New
Business Models
• Automotive Industry --- Process Innovation
• Travel Agents --- IT & Disintermediation
• Minicomputers --- Market Shifts, Discontinuities
• Outsourcing --- Economic Theory
• Social Networks --- Value Shifts
• DEC, Home Depot --- Culture

8. What Problems are We
Trying to Address?
1. The difficulty of trying to keep up with the overwhelming
amount of new information and knowledge. Some of this is
potentially “life-threatening.” And much of it comes
outside of our field of vision.
2. Even if we could keep up with it, there is no effective
process for determining its relevance for the organization.
3. Most knowledge in corporations is individual and “stove-
piped” knowledge and is not converted into enterprise-
wide organizational learning. There is a need for greater
“collective intelligence.”
4. Most acquired knowledge decays exponentially before it is
ever converted into actionable strategies for the company.

9. A Learning Culture
"A learning culture is one where collaborative creativity in all contexts,
relationships, and experiences is a basic purpose of the culture. It is a culture
where the measure of success is the combined wisdom of groups and the
synergy, leadership, and service of the organization as a whole. Up to now,
individuals have done the learning, but in a learning culture with multiple
interactions among learning groups, the whole culture learns in a self-aware,
self-reflective, and creative way. The groups become cells in the body
of the organization, which itself becomes a new learning individual in the
emergent global culture."
Gus Jaccaci

10. Some Topical Areas That
Might Be Addressed
• Strategy
– Innovation
– New Business Models
– Execution
– Sense & Respond
– Discontinuity Theory
• Economic Theory
• Leadership and Neuroscience

11. Areas (Cont.)
• Information Technology & Its Future
• Systems Thinking & Its Impact
• An In-depth Look at Organizational Culture
• The Future of Process Innovation
• New Organizational Structures
• An Update on Management Systems

12. An Example of the Process
• Innovation
– What are the leading management thinkers
saying? A distillation of the main points from
the literature, academia, consultants, etc. A
systemic look. (30 Mins.)
– Is it relevant for us? (30-60 Mins.)
– How do we develop an innovation strategy?
(60-120 Mins.)

13. A Comprehensive
Innovation Strategy
• Desired outcomes (Goals & Objectives)
• Strategies to achieve the outcomes.
• The major interdependencies & enablers
– A culture of innovation
– Innovation processes
– Structuring the organization
– IT systems
– Management systems --- metrics,
accountability
– The people factor (skills, incentives, etc.)

14. Summary
• An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
• An Effective Way for the Entire Executive
Team to Learn?
• A Way for Companies to Make Sense of the
Major Changes and to Act Upon Them?
• A Way for Companies to Learn Faster Than
Competition?