Thursday, October 12, 2006

Albrecht's Law: Examples of Successful Organizational Intelligence and Collective Stupidity (5)

An example of an organization that suffered from 'collective stupidity':
Karl Albrecht: "One of the most legendary episodes of collective stupidity was with Ford Motor Company in Detroit. In the early 1980s, they launched a new advertising program with the slogan "No unhappy owners." The TV ads promised that every Ford owner would have a car he or she was happy with, and if there was anything wrong, the company would make it right. The only problem was that they neglected to tell several thousand dealers about the ads. The dealers were swamped with unhappy owners, who became more unhappy when the dealers couldn't handle the volume of traffic.
This is the quintessential case of what I call "ballistic podiatry," otherwise known as shooting one's self in the foot."

An example of an organization that successfully utilized Organizational Intelligence:
Karl Albrecht: "On the opposite side, one of the legendary examples of collective intelligence, which has been going on for many years, is the remarkable orchestration of the daily experience of magic in the Disney theme parks. From the recruitment, indoctrination, training, placement, and supervision of the employees, all the way to the design and maintenance of the facilities, the delivery of customer value expresses the Disney business model, which is "fun and fantasy in a theatrical setting." Disney designers and managers are some of the world's best experts at eliminating the contradictions to the core proposition of value."