The Best Leaders Scan For Information

Balancing the active and passive scanning methods

Organizational leaders are bombarded by a massive amount of information. They are constantly caught in a deluge of data—some of it valuable, some of it less valuable, some of it worthless, and some that may be valuable down the road. Organizational leaders must take the time to actively analyze the data they come across. They must explore by scanning information sources to identify signals that suggest potential areas of innovation. George S. Day and Paul J.H. Schoemaker suggest that there are two types of scanning—passive scanning and active scanning.  Leaders who help their organizations break inertia can effectively balance both scanning methods.

Passive scanning is the mundane, undirected, and largely automatic scanning of everyday information. Passive scanning implies the gathering of information from the usual sources, such as popular magazines or internal financial reports. Passive scanning is undirected in the sense that the leaders may not be looking for anything specific or seeking an answer to an identifiable question. Almost on autopilot, leaders engaged in passive scanning comb through their usual sources of information as they look for anything out of the ordinary.
 
Leaders in myopic organizations, such as BlackBerry, primarily rely on passive scanning. They are consumed with analyzing information emanating from the same sources, which leads to enhanced focus yet predictable results. Passive scanning may bolster the sense that the organization is following and will not deviate from a pre-plotted direction. It may allow leaders to spot opportunities and threats, albeit in an undirected and haphazard manner. In and of itself, passive scanning is not ideal for identifying and analysing incoming signals. Simply put, the poor focus and lack of breadth of passive scanning make it likely that valuable intelligence will be missed.

Active scanning can be either directed to address an explicit question or undirected with a wider and more ambiguous scope. While passive scanning is often haphazard, active scanning is deliberate, methodical, and forward-looking. Active scanning analyzes information from a wide variety of unorthodox sources, which may range from comments overheard on the street to Internet rants posted by dissatisfied customers.  Active scanning implies a continuous, active focus. Leaders who practice active scanning take the initiative to assemble teams that can troll various networks and comb through the seemingly disparate information to identify relevant signals.

Active scanners need to develop the talent to uncover the information and insights that the organization’s employees may have. A key to active scanning is not simply possessing bits of information, but having the cognitive discipline to understand its importance and relevance. Another method of active scanning is to move outside of one’s comfort zone. That is, diversify the content that one consumes every day. Active scanners often seek out new skills and use their newfound knowledge to inform their decision-making. Or they may attend a conference or seminar in an adjacent field. More than one entrepreneur has discovered that developments in seemingly unrelated fields are connected and valuable.

Active scanning of the market voice is improved through systematic analysis of specific client networks. Instead of looking at the behavior of every single customer, it is much more expedient to concentrate on the most important networks.  For example, early adopters are the forward thinkers who immediately accept and purchase cutting-edge products. Early adopters eagerly purchase the newest technology not because of its novelty, but because of its inherent usefulness to their specialized needs.

For an organization to break the inertia, its leaders must succeed in balancing both passive and active scanning. On the one hand, they need to understand that they cannot rely on the constant analysis of routine information sources, which leads to a shallow understanding of the environment. On the other hand, too much active scanning may drill down too deeply, resulting in a lack of focus and direction, continuous reflection, hesitation, and organizational paralysis. Therefore, contextual competence depends not only on scanning but the ability to interpret signals, whether picked up actively or passively.