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I approach the internal assessment from a simple perspective: “What can I learn?” and “What’s in it for me?” The purpose of conducting an internal assessment is to help people or organizations focus on the aspects of a partnership that will help them attain their goals. The assessment looks at the past and present in order to understand the strengths, weaknesses, assets, and needs of the organization. It presents the organization with a systematic approach to collecting information from many sources.

Inclusion is a guideline that can never steer you wrong. Anyone who might be affected should join in the assessment process, and those most affected should participate from the beginning. If you can’t determine whether someone should be left out of this process, invite him or her in. Not including someone may lead to serious consequences later. A person who’s left out may think the worst: “Are they trying to eliminate me? What’s this all about? Why am I not being included?”Not only do people need to present their own wish lists, but they may well be sources of potential partners for the organization.

An internal assessment must be a voluntary activity. Unless the owners of the assessment want the information, good or bad, they’ll discount the results. They may ignore any information that’s hard for them to accept. When people are threatened by an assessment, they’ll quibble about the methodology, the timing, or the questions. Discrediting the assessment is a common tactic used by management in organizations with a past orientation. They can’t bear the thought of shaking up the status quo, so they tear up the message and usually shoot the messenger.

The patient who refuses to have checkups runs the risk of minor problems becoming unmanageable. The driver who ignores the auto mechanic’s dire diagnosis does so at the risk of breaking down later in heavy traffic—likewise do organizations that refuse to conduct internal assessments. Without leadership’s support from the outset, an assessment is likely to fail in such organizations.

Various occasions trigger assessments. The challenges inherent in new working arrangements, partnerships, mergers, or layoffs often necessitate self-examination. Changes in markets, personnel, and even sales patterns force companies to take a look at where they’ve been, where they are, and where they want to go.

An internal assessment can be threatening. Senior managers have nearly begged me not to pursue an internal assessment. One vice president of quality told me she couldn’t support a quality assessment in her business. She asked what other way I could get the information I needed without “upsetting” the employees. Her attitude sent up a red flag that more groundwork would need to be done before the assessment could be helpful to her. An internal assessment is often threatening to people because their job performance will be examined and their ego is invested in past achievements. As manager of a department, you may feel that you’ve done a pretty good job.Now others are suddenly suggesting new directions, new requirements, and possibly other changes. And they are asking questions and poking around. Even though you think you’ve done a good job, you feel defensive. In an organization with a closed culture or a past orientation, protecting the status quo is the order of the day.You feel threatened by the assessment because you’re not sold on the idea of change—and it’s change that is prompting the assessment.

If you answered no to three or more of these questions, that demonstrates a tendency to be closed and to cling to a past orientation. You may want to reconsider your organization’s readiness to form partnerships. The leadership should seriously think about and discuss the implications of the organizational culture and whether the organization is missing opportunities for growth and profit by being so closed.

The discussion should investigate the desirability and potential benefits of creating partnerships with employees, departments, vendors, suppliers, or customers. If you answered yes to five or more of these questions, your organization is ready for an internal assessment as part of the first Stage of Partnership Development: Assess. An internal assessment is a voyage of discovery, not an exercise in passing judgment. It’s a chance to step back and, using a formal approach, take an objective look at the organization.

It’s an opportunity to update your mental maps and be objective about what you want. It can be a renewing exercise—
reminding you that you’re on the right track. It can also serve as a tool to discover gaps between where you think you are and what the assessment reveals. The realization may shake you up.Whether it confirms you’re on the right track or redirects your energies, you win because you’re smarter. You’ve just increased your PQ.

“Organisational learning” is presented as a powerful technique to improve performance, especially in turbulent times. In business, “learning” is generally used in the context of organisations’ attempts to improve efficiency and effectiveness and to be more innovative in uncertain market conditions. The greater the uncertainty, the greater is the need for learning. Arie De Geus who worked for Shell for many years before becoming a business academic, suggests that in the long run survival depends on decisions displaying a sensitivity to the environment and flexibility. This is embodied in an organisation’s ability to learn, to experiment, to continually explore new opportunities to create new sources of wealth and value, and to change its behaviour to fit what is happening around it.

The view of David Kolb, a management writer, is that the learning process consists of four stages: concrete experiences, reflective observation, abstract conceptualisation and active experimentation. Furthermore, the process is an iterative one. Learning begins with observing what has occurred, reflecting on what has been observed and assessing the underlying structures that drive the behaviour we observe.

From this we develop a theory about what is happening, and this theory influences the development of a decision. These actions set an expectation. However, invariably reality will deviate, drawing our attention to what is different from our expectation. This initiates the next iteration of the learning cycle: reflection, conceptualisation and mental model building. This learning is not an episodic event: it is a continuous process. Reflection and action combine to produce learning.

Without action there can be no learning, as all that we can then reflect on is our previous reflections

New ideas are essential to improving organisations. They may come from flashes of creative brilliance, from other industries or from a simple analysis of new information. Whatever their source, new ideas are the essence of improvement. Ideas are central to making the right decisions, solving problems and adding value for customers. The way that organisations can achieve this is by efficiently applying knowledge and information. Those that do are learning organisations, defined as: An organisation skilled at creating, acquiring and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behaviour to reflect new knowledge and insights.

It is in this last part of the definition, the need to modify behaviour, that so many organisations fail. Those that do manage to live up to the whole definition have shown huge improvements in overall performance, largely by transforming the way in which knowledge is used. They include Honda, General Electric, Corning and General Motors’ Saturn Division.

SkandiaBanken created a model for online business that has been profitable and has surpassed larger institutional competitors in customer service and value. The managers of SkandiaBanken, a pure internet and telephone bank, attribute their success to a business model that integrates simple IT infrastructure and web solutions, easy information access for customers and employees, and a company culture stressing transparency, personal responsibility and a bias for action.

Cemex transformed its small commodity business in Monterey, Mexico, into the third largest cement company in the world. It has outperformed Holcim and LaFarge, its international rivals, in share price, operating margins and return on assets.

Cemex has a reputation for building satellite networks and using IT to monitor and control kiln temperatures in any plant in the world from its headquarters in Mexico. Furthermore, it uses GPS technology to guarantee delivery of ready-mix cement within a 20-minute window. Cemex managers admit that its success was based on a cultural change that emphasised a proactive approach to meeting commitments, using information to develop new ways of serving customers, and developing information-centric processes that provided more efficient operations.

Managing information so that decisions are as effective as possible depends upon people: how they use available information and systems, how they share their knowledge with others and how motivated they are to use information to innovate and create value. It also depends on the processes used to manage information and knowledge. The technology itself, although essential for success, is just a tool that as to be used intelligently and skillfully if it is to do the job required. The IO measure, with its broader, rigorous assessment of the information capabilities in an organisation, provides a transparent and tangible framework for managing all aspects of information effectively.

Several companies have successfully implemented major IT projects including Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA), Spain’s second largest and Latin America’s largest bank, SkandiaBanken, Sweden’s first branchless bank, and Cemex, a Mexican cement producer that has become the third largest in the world.

BBVA transformed its failing branch-based retail banking business into one of the most successful banks in Spain in 1,000 days. This was accomplished by getting the right information to people in the branches, enabling them to successfully crosssell their products. BBVA kept its new customer relationship project simple by providing its customer representatives with:

An easy-to-use and intuitive IT interface.
Clear information about customer segmentation, product selling targets and company performance information.
Team-building incentives, to create an open culture emphasising teamwork and action.

Statistical research involving over 1,000 senior managers from 98 companies in 22 countries demonstrated the existence of three information capabilities: the organisation’s information behaviours and values, information management practices and it practices. These three capabilities contain 15 specific competencies (see Figure 10.1).

The three information capabilities combine to determine how effectively information is used for decision-making. _ Information behaviours and values. This is the capability of an organisation to instil and promote behaviours and values for effective use of information. Managers should promote integrity, formality, control, transparency and sharing, removing barriers to information flow and promoting information use.

Information management practices. Managing information involves sensing, collecting, organising, processing and maintaining information. Managers set up processes, train their employees and take responsibility for the management of information, thus focusing their organisations on the right information. They take care to avoid (or at least minimise) information overload, improve the quality of information available to employees and enhance decision-making.

Information technology practices. it applications and infrastructure should support decision-making. Consequently, business strategy needs to be linked to it strategy so that the it infrastructure and applications really do support operations, business processes, innovation and decisions.

Interestingly, Marchand and Kettinger found that companies with multiple business units do not always build the same levels of io across the entire company. The new io measure is being used by an increasingnumber of international corporations and governmental organisations, and provides a useful framework for managers in building strategic it capabilities.

Given that many billions of dollars are invested each year in it software and hardware, you would expect managers to know how information technology and their information systems improve their organisation’s performance. However, research indicates that managers are largely unaware of what they need to do to ensure that investments in information and knowledge deliver bottom-line improvements in performance.

Donald Marchand, of imd in Lausanne, and William Kettinger, director of the Centre of Information Management and Technology Research and information systems professor at the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, conducted research at imd business school that identified three critical factors driving successful information use. These factors combine to provide an overall measure of information orientation (io).1 It is often said that you cannot manage what you cannot measure. Marchand emphasises that you cannot measure what you cannot see, and how managers see the world defines their actions and what they are able to achieve. Unfortunately, many managers see the use of information only within the narrow context of technology.

However, technology and information in isolation do not create sustainable competitive advantage.