Knowledge Management
“Why won’t they share their know-how?”
We may need to work on one or two workplace beliefs or attitudes, which sooner or later can undermine an otherwise healthy business. They often bring with them an extra intervention challenge, being so ‘corporately incorrect’ as never to be openly discussed. For example:
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“Knowledge is power”
Sounds familiar? Still quoted after 400 years, it has to be at least partly true. So if you are planning changes and people feel their jobs are insecure, it is at least prudent to expect many to treat their knowledge as the source of their own individual power – and to hoard it.
Do you have a knowledge sharing plan or project? How many participants privately fear its success would threaten their status or job security?
So... can usually help HR and IR solve that strategic problem. It’s a start.
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“What’s in it for me?”
Entrepreneurs prize the competitive edge that well-applied knowledge can give them. Such success stories (e.g. from Buckman Laboratories) fed the ‘nineties Knowledge Management boom. IT salespeople promoted information systems as the ideal channel and repository for ‘knowledge’. But their more cautious prospects reflected on the human aspects of the KM success stories and their own prior experience; and they began to ask what the operators and knowledge ‘donors’ in these systems would get out of their involvement.
Are you planning a knowledge management system? Remembering the old ‘Garbage In, Garbage Out’ rule, whose behaviour will be critical to its sustainable success? and how will existing performance measurement and incentive schemes need to change, to pull in the same direction?
So... can help by (e.g.) assessing team culture and work motivation, and creating alternative scenarios for comparative payback assessment.
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“Not my problem”
Teamwork turns sour when people get so bound together by shared technology or process that it creates barriers around them. This is when analysts lament ‘information silos’. A review can identify where and how such knots can be untangled. Only then can the workforce respond effectively to any motivating acts of leadership.
Can you identify groups who will need to work together to achieve your strategic goals, yet are held apart by technology and processes?
So... can help by (e.g.) finding the potential for effective collaboration and knowledge sharing within IT and work organisation proposals.
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Ready to go deeper?
In practice, your organisation may use ‘Knowledge Management’ as a generic name for a technology-plus-process tool that supports a particular function such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM). However, blue chip experience indicates that it can provide a powerful basis for a comprehensive Organisational Learning programme.
So... we’re here to help you do it
Last reviewed on: 30-Apr-2007
