MANAGING PROFESSIONAL INTELLECT - MAKING THE MOST OF THE BEST

A corporation's success today lies more in its intellectual and system s capabilities than in its physical assets. Managing human intellect - and converting it into useful products and services - is fast becomin g the critical executive skill of the age. It is therefore surprising that so little attention has been given to that endeavor. This oversig ht is especially surprising because professional intellect creates mos t of the value in the new economy, in service and manufacturing indust ries alike. But few managers have systematic answers to even these bas ic questions: What is professional intellect? How can we develop it? H ow can we leverage it? According to Tames Brian Quinn and his coauthor s, an organization's professional intellect operates on four levels: c ognitive knowledge, advanced skills, systems understanding, and self-m otivated creativity. They argue that organizations that nurture self-m otivated creativity are more likely to thrive in the face of today's r apid changes. The authors offer best practices for developing professi onal intellect: recruiting the best people, forcing development and in creasing challenges, and evaluating and weeding. And they illustrate h ow organizations as diverse as Merrill Lynch and NovaCare have leverag ed professional intellect by linking new software tools, incentive sys tems, and organizational designs. The authors contend that organizatio ns can tailor themselves to the particular way their professional inte llect creates value by inverting the traditional hierarchical structur e and by creating self-organizing networks.