Using Intranets: To Implement Strategy, Build Teamwork and Manage Change

By D. Keith Denton

This book is a condensed and updated version of my paperback book originally published by Praeger Publishers. The day to day grind can make you easily lose site of the big picture. We hope that our activities contribute to corporate objectives, but we quickly lose sight of the connection between what we do and what is critical to the group or organizations success. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can use the corporate Intranet to improve strategic decision making, create effective teams and implement change.
This book provides an innovative solution that identifies, integrates and displays your critical information in real time using Intranet technology. It can help you condense all the reports received from finance, operations, marketing, and other divisions into a single interactive report that’s always up to date. Intranet used this way can help create two-way communication that allows managers and workers at all levels of the company to participate. Combine outcomes and processes, then visually integrate and display the results in a user-friendly format, in real time. This book’s solution helps organizations, teams, departments and groups keep their focus on their true purpose, so you can implement strategies, increase teamwork and help manage change.
Technologically driven information overloads corporate leaders, managers, and employees alike, forcing them into a reactive mode with little time for strategic thinking. When the survey is completed, the teleconference over, and the weekend retreat a distant memory, we go back to our jobs unchanged. We hope that our activities make a difference, but we quickly lose sight of the connection between our work and critical outcomes. It doesn't have to be that way. Denton explains how to combine new interactive Intranet based technology with new data visualization software to focus on strategic decision making, effective team management, and the big picture.
This book provides an innovative solution that integrates and displays your critical information in real time. Condense all the reports received from finance, operations, marketing and other divisions into a single interactive report that's always up to date. Establish a two-way communication that allows managers and workers at all levels of the company to participate. This is the first system to explain how to graphically display-on your desktop the status of your key organizational and group performance measures. Understand how to combine and process measures. Fuse subjective and objective information. Integrate and display the results in a user friendly format, in real time. This book's solution allows organizational members to focus on their purpose, vision and direction and then transmit it to daily decision makers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: D. Keith Denton
• Release date: Jun 9, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301107292

D. Keith Denton

D. Keith Denton, Ph.D., is the author of fourteen books and over 190 management articles. He has written extensively about improving process inefficiencies and decision-making in both the service and manufacturing sectors. Many of his books have been translated into over a half-dozen languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Indian, Dutch, German and Korean. Over two dozen universities use his management simulations to teach graduate and undergraduate students how to better manage an organizationHe has also been international consultant and seminar leader in the United States, Great Britain, New Zealand and Australia. He has conducted numerous workforce management workshops and seminars in employee involvement and empowerment, team building, managing change, and customer service. Among his honors is inclusion in numerous editions of “Who’s Who in America.” and previously designated as a Distinguished Scholar of Management.He has provided consulting and workshops for, among others: J.B. Hunt Transport, Inc.; The Upjohn Company; Pacific Northwest Laboratories; Mobil Oil Corporation; Building and Land Development Division of Parks; The Durham Company; University of Michigan Medical Center; and Kraft General Foods among others.He participated as an international speaker for clients including Price-Waterhouse (Australia); Mobil Oil Australia, Ltd.; General Motors-Holden’s Automotive Ltd.; AT&T Network Systems (Great Britain); Peak Gold Mines Pty. Limited (Australia); London Air Traffic Control Centre (Great Britain); and the Ministry of Commerce, Energy and Resources (New Zealand). He has also conducted a management seminar for the top 100 governmental and business leaders in the Philippines.

Book preview

Using Intranets:

To Implement Strategy, Build Teamwork

and Manage Change

D. Keith Denton

Copyright 2013 D. Keith Denton

Smashwords Edition

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of the author.

About The Book

This book is a condensed and updated version of my paperback book originally published by Praeger Publishers. The day to day grind can make you easily lose site of the big picture. We hope that our activities contribute to corporate objectives, but we quickly lose sight of the connection between what we do and what is critical to the group or organizations success. But it doesn’t have to be that way. You can use the corporate Intranet to improve strategic decision making, create effective teams and implement change.

This book provides an innovative solution that identifies, integrates and displays your critical information in real time using Intranet technology. It can help you condense all the reports received from finance, operations, marketing, and other divisions into a single interactive report that’s always up to date. Intranet used this way can help create two-way communication that allows managers and workers at all levels of the company to participate. Combine outcomes and processes, then visually integrate and display the results in a user-friendly format, in real time. This book’s solution helps organizations, teams, departments and groups keep their focus on their true purpose, so you can implement strategies, increase teamwork and help manage change.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 The Purpose of Information Technology

Information Overload

Surplus Information

Pareto Principle

Technological Solutions

Overview

Chapter 2 Finding Your Focal Points

Details, Details, Details

Typical Mack

The Reality Is...

The Missing Link

Rewarding the Right Things

Overview

Chapter 3 The Untapped Potential

Strategic Webs

Integrating Critical Information

Overview

Chapter 4 The One Critical Thing

Be Unique

Strategy, Objectives, and Tactical Issues

Developing Strategy Through Insights

Scenario Analysis

Focused Feedback

The Folly of Mission Statements

The Mirror Test: Identifying Your Core Values

Overview

Chapter 5 How to Clarify Your Purpose

Be Specific

Measure Reality

Overview

Chapter 6 The Second Critical Thing: Directions and Destination

Visualizing Your Destination

Making Course Corrections

Be S.M.A.R.T.

Overview

Chapter 7 The Last Critical Thing: Tracking Changes

Interactions and Cross-Referencing

Finding Your True Position

Graph the Critical Few

Overview

Chapter 8 Measuring Relevant Things

A History Lesson

O.K., I Know Where to Go, So How Do I Get There?

The Balanced Scorecard

Integrating Measures

Smoke, Mirrors, and Instruments

Looking at What's Going On

Those Fuzzy Subjective Processes

Overview

Chapter 9 Prioritizing Critical Measures

Capturing What Matters Most

Recognizing Tradeoffs

Camouflaging Tradeoffs

Critical Cockpit Instruments

Be Smart About Your Measures

What's Important?

Overview

Chapter 10 Creating Real-Time Feedback

Real-Time Feedback

Southwest Airlines Benchmarks

Departments Do It To

Overview

Chapter 11 A Nine A Step-by-Step Approach

The Problem with Technology

Get Your Driver's License

Creating a Management-By-Exception Console

Mirrors, Speedometers, and Status Lights

Cross-Indexing Outcomes and Processes

Change Agents Take No Prisoners

Three Ways to Measure

Start Now—Pick the Low-Hanging Fruit

Start Tracking

A New View

The Nine-Step Process

Overview

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

About the Author

Chapter 1

The Purpose of Information Technology

Peter Drucker once stated that there is an information revolution under way. The revolution questions the meaning of information, and its purpose. He believed that information management has centered on the collection, storage, transmission, analysis, and representation of information. He thought that the information technology establishment has a history of largely ignored a potential information revolution. He reasoned that computer and information technology has had barely any impact on strategic decisions. Current use of information technology does not affect management decisions because it has little to do with executives deciding whether to build a new office building, school, hospital, and so forth. He felt the normal approach to information and computer technology has had no noticeable impact on the decision of an equipment manufacturer to enter a particular market. It does not help banks decide issues involving mergers. Drucker noted that the information technology revolution has been a producer of data rather than a producer of information (1).Those insights still remains true.

The information technology personnel and other computer literates tend to blame old school executives who are unfamiliar with or afraid of the technology. But the fact is that executives have not made use of the new technology because it has not provided the information they need to make strategic decisions. There are reams of detailed data, but little that helps them keep strategic decisions clearly in focus. Internets, faxes, e-mails, and Intranet technologies provide more data, but little direction. Business success is based on creating value and wealth. The degree of success departments contribute depends on how well they support their organization’s reason for being.

Drucker foresaw the future when he emphasized that information technology had a near-zero impact on management decision making. He asked, What has it done to help preserve assets and control cost? Clearly, the answer to this question can be important because a serious cost disadvantage can destroy a business, but information technology's strategic value continues to be extremely limited. Controlling cost helps you survive, but success will depend on carving out a successful strategy and sticking to it. Managing strategy is essential to finding innovative ways to add value, wealth, and even meaning to the lives of the employees. People need a sense of purpose, a focus for their energies. They normally do not need more data, technology, or speed. What is needed is technology that helps make sense of endless data so it can be turned into useful knowledge and work. Data needs to be refined so it can help focus our efforts. Refining data can ultimately help us make the correct choices and act in a unified way. None of this can come from unstructured data. Refining data so it becomes useful information requires tools that help organizations and/or groups keep focused on what they are really about, their mission, and where they should be going. Only when this occurs can you add true value, wealth, and meaning to work.

INFORMATION OVERLOAD

Using technology without specific strategies has resulted in some rather odd facts of the electronic age. For decades upon decades, computer manufacturers had promised the paperless office. Instead, what companies received were shipments of office paper, which has risen 51 percent since 1983. This paper chase is just the tip of the information overload. Americans now possess millions upon millions of e-mail communications, cell phones, pagers, fax machines, voice mails and almost endless stream of data. Meanwhile, technology continues to grow at an enormous rate. A study once showed that the average business person in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom sends or receives 190 messages a day. Ah, remember the good old days. Now information, endless date constantly comes at you (2).

Managers can feel a wave of panic if they forget to check one an e-mail. Such attitudes though are a kiss of death when it comes to managing information. Trying to manage every detail only ensures a mismanagement of information. But that is what many try to do.

There’s just so much out there that it is difficult to keep track of it all to do my job, says Joseph De Walt, a network engineer for a mid-size, mid-western city. He observes that Information Technology (IT) people, like him, are all complaining that it’s worse than ever. Everyone is on Internet time. Compressed time for decision making is puts more demands than ever on our time. "The World Wide Web produces huge amounts of data and unfortunately many feel they will miss some important detail if they do not review all available data before making a decision. Technology, without some strategic driver, is causing information overload and producing poor decisions. Sharing of data without a clear strategy makes things worse.

Indiscriminate knowledge sharing isn’t confined strictly to electronic information. Employees are regularly bombarded with innumerable documents including performance improvements, booklets, manuals, employee directories, corporate resource directories, and so much more. The typical Fortune 500 company will publish thousands of such documents annually. Reducing this type of information overload not only increases productivity, it can also save enormously in terms of overhead. A Wells Fargo Bank in San Francisco cut its printing cost for small training manuals by almost half, saving at least $100,000, and Vice President of retail staff development Roger Addison says they are saving an unknown amount of trees (3).

But Drucker long ago call for technology that addresses the meaning and purpose of information seems to be lost in the normal process of acquiring information. Psychologist David Lewis notes, in a report commissioned by Reuters, that people remain in a frenzy to acquire ever-increasing amounts of information. They firmly believe that the more information you possess, the more powerful you become. Lewis said, The exact opposite is proving to be the case (4). The problem is information overload. Research has consistently shown that when faced with vast amounts of information and forced to make decisions quickly, humans can be overcome by stress. Telephone surveys of business executives in the United Kingdom, the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, and Singapore discovered almost half (49 percent) of the respondents feel they are quite often unable to handle the enormous volumes of information they receive (4).

Terry Alan Beehr, professor of psychology at Central Michigan University in Mount Pleasant, Michigan, says job stress has too often been treated with medication or counseling rather than by making changes in the workplace and in workloads. Beehr believe managers make the mistake of resisting organizational change and don’t think of altering the source of job stress, such as long workdays, technological advances, work, and role conflict (5).

Psychologist David Lewis tells of working with CEOs and talks about many of them being tense, irritable, and overwhelmed. He called it Information Fatigue Syndrome and showed one side effect included a shortened attention span. Forty-nine percent of these executives say they are unable to handle the vast amounts of information, 62 percent admitted their business relationships suffer and 43 percent of managers think that important decisions are delayed, and their ability to make decisions is affected as a result of having too much information (5). Forty percent of those surveyed by Pitney Bowes say they are interrupted at least six times an hour. Such disruptions make it hard to be reflective (6). Other side effects of Information Fatigue Syndrome include constantly being in a reactive mode, whereby you merely react to external stimuli like e-mails, voice mail, and faxes. Only responding to information means there is little time for proactive decisions. Information overload can leave you either paralyzed by the sheer amount of data you’ve collected or worried that the answer lies beyond the next Web site or report. You just can’t stop gathering information. The details, details, details that become the driving force.

Individuals are not the only ones affected by this information overload. Organizations, departments, and work groups, too, can become crippled by too much data. Nobody has the time or inclination to think long-term anymore (6). Although that may be