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Karl Albrecht. The Power of Minds at Work: Organizational Intelligence in Action. New York: AMACOM, 2003, 260 pages, $24.95 hardcover.
"Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity." That's Albrecht's Law. Karl Albrecht should know. He's had a 25-year career as a management consultant, futurist, speaker, and author dedicated to helping companies nurture talent rather than waste it.
And so starts this lively, interesting, fun, and yes, useful, book. It is a practical book written for organizational leaders and is an "intellectual whack on the head." Albrecht's data is his wealth of stories, examples, short cases, and experiences with organizations and top management all over the world. He reports his analysis through storytelling in which he draws together his knowledge, readings, and meetings with other well-respected management experts.
As Albrecht says in his preface, "I shall make very little effort to spare the feelings of those who might feel singled out if they see themselves mirrored in the syndromes of organizational craziness and failure that I will describe. Some names will be named, at least the names of some enterprises that deserve an intellectual spanking." He then names 17 syndromes of dysfunction, which I found blunt, realistic, and hilarious-here are a few: Anemia: Only the Deadwood Survives; Caste System: The Anointed and the Untouchables; Fat, Dumb, and Happy: If It Ain't broke . . .; Geriatric Leadership: Retired on the Job; and Testosterone Poisoning: Men Will Be Boys.
Fortunately, Albrecht has seen the opposite of these syndromes as well, which is the target of this book-he believes smartness can be learned, just as dumbness is learned. He defines organizational intelligence (OI) as "the capacity of an organization to mobilize all of its brain power,...