A standard blunder that is made when projects for implementing change are regarded as is to equate the intelligence of the individual members of an organization with the overall intelligence of the organization itself. It would seem the more clever members that an organization has the more clever the organization would be in an addition or exponential sense. Frequently, though, the case turns out to be opposite from the expectancy. The emergent intelligence of an organization of folk tends to be less than that of the individual members. This does not bode well for implementing change.
The irony of the problem is that for more basic forms of life, there is an addition principle for the overall intelligence of organizations. Take, as an example, the activity of ants and ant colonies. An individual ant is able only of an intensely limited set of actions. However [*COMMA] an ant colony is capable of very complicated sets of activities such as building or defense. In spite of the lack of individual intelligence, when placed into a group situation, ants will naturally fall into organized and regimented activities. The emergent intelligence of the ant colony is greater than that of an individual ant.
When placed into groups that are implementing change, humans do not adopt networked activity. Likewise, the more smart the people involved, the harder it becomes to get them to engage in networked behavior. Perhaps this is due to the avowal of individuality, but the final result is that setups of humans have a tendency to reply slowly and ineffectively without the presences of a powerful, organizing intelligence.
in essence, implementing change in setups crammed with smart folks is about making more effective networked behaviors. The individuals need to be brought onboard with the change, often thru the intervention of a high ranking executive. This allows the change professional or change team to better manage the comparatively low emergent intelligence of the organization in such a fashion that it will implement the changes required by the project or situation.
For more information, please see our website: Implementing Change