In the last two months at work and school (in a masters program in communication and technology), I’ve discussed the value of enterprise-level KM with classmates, colleagues and experts; reviewed recent research and opinion-makers on KM; and just plain thought about what KM offers that other disciplines don’t.
For those interested in the literature, KM follows what seems like a linear trajectory that mirrors, in many respects, shifts from mechanistic organizational structures to organic ones, from the industrial age to the information age and the knowledge age, and from positivism and postpositivism theories to constructivism and critical theory. These broad movements must surely paint a more detailed picture within organizations as employees leverage what they know on behalf of their employers, as we renegotiate the employer-employee relationship and as organizational culture is recognized as a key driver of organizational success.
The Evolution of KM
The first stage of KM focused on technology, data collection and information management, although its stated mission was to capture all knowledge.
The second stage quickly realized that such an approach was limited and it could not “manage” less tangible forms of knowledge. Nonaka and Takeuchi, for example, identified a KM cycle that accounted for how the intangible, hard-to-articulate knowledge in people’s brains – their tacit knowledge – could be shared with others and eventually made explicit. They felt that the only real way to enable this cycle was through socialization and conversation, i.e., knowledge was socially constructed. Critical theory also addressed issues of organizational structures and discourse that favored management perspectives, priorities and direction over a more desirable state of organizational democracy.
The third stage of KM, which is arguably still at play, focuses on the complex interplay of forces that occur in fast-paced, constantly changing environments, such as those created by globalization and intense competition. Knowledge, as described in this evolutionary stage, is fleeting, especially tacit knowledge, which is often outdated by the time it becomes explicit, if it becomes explicit at all. Influenced by complexity theory and organizational learning, 3rd-gen KM examines the processes by which we engage in and can encourage adaptive learning.
Knowledge Management vs Knowledge Worker
But this evolution still seems to have left unresolved a critical tension at the heart of KM: Why should I, as an employee, share what I know (what’s in it for me) and why does the organization want to “manage” knowledge (what’s in it for them)?
As employees, and people, we are generally so jaded by stories of corporate greed that our understanding of corporate motives is largely negative. That understanding makes it difficult to believe that what we give organizations in exchange for a salary or career won’t somehow be used against us if we don’t carefully state the terms of the exchange (think of reasons for the rise of labor unions). The literature is full of discussion about employees’ inherent distrust of KM systems and management attempts to specify how people share what they know.
Why is that?
KM was founded on the belief that knowledge – important knowledge – could be separated from its knowers. KM may dismiss that characterization today, but its history continues to plague discussions about the purpose and direction of KM.
What knowers have figured out about that history is this: the first inspiration for the discipline of KM – the separation of knowledge from knowers – makes knowers much more dispensible. Employees know that; employers know that; it’s the elephant in the room. That recognition leads to a very clear, tacit, collective understanding that knowledge sharing is always a negotiation that has the potential to net each side certain benefits, and there may be winners and losers.
Add to that KM’s track record of expensive implementations with few results, and it is not difficult to conclude that employers have been unable to address employees’ fundamental concern: Why, in a relationship based on explicit reciprocity (labor for pay) should I give up my knowledge to the organization, with no articulation of the terms of the exchange, when doing so may reduce my position of relative advantage?
Joining forces
To me, the answer must lie in organizational culture – only there does an organization lay the groundwork for trust, for collective, collaborative enterprise that produces clear benefits for everyone, and not just the corporate engine.
You can put the tools in place. They might be databases or CMSs or social media tools. But organizational culture will ultimately determine whether anyone plays.
With its 10,000 employees scattered all over the world, the World Bank faces a challenge — building a knowledge management program that works. Realizing that this system is vital in helping its clients fight poverty, the World Bank invested around 53 million dollars in its knowledge management initiative by upgrading its technological capabilities and launching its employee training program. Yet the process is not easy and the obstacles are numerous. One issue is developing soft and hard knowledge. Can they harmoniously co-exist after the rebirth process takes place?
What academics say
Jasimuddin (2008) conducted a study that covered several British companies and included 100,000 employees. The goal of the study was to determine which is better for organizations — soft knowledge or hard knowledge? Though some employees believed that staff expertise is indispensible for any knowledge sharing process, others argued that without technological infrastructure, knowledge management is unachievable. However, all employees agreed that soft and hard knowledge should be used according to the situation.
On the other hand examining the various factors that impact knowledge sharing through soft or hard systems can help the organization choose which one to capitalize on to reach its goals for a particular period. For instance, the human factor–with all its internal complexities, such as fear of humiliation, ambition, and greed, or the external complexities, such as culture and traditions–can dramatically affect one’s decision to participate in the knowledge sharing process through either system. Conversely, technology can facilitate knowledge transfer, but it can not monitor the quality of this knowledge or its credibility, according to Edwards, Shaw, and Collier (2005). Trying to “push” any technological tool that stores predetermined knowledge to employees can lead to failure of the whole process, according to Malhotra (2005).
The World Bank experience
Because it’s a multicultural organization, the World Bank had no option but to create a knowledge management system that promotes the use of both processes — the soft and the hard.
What the World Bank did (check out baselinemag.com for more information on how the World Bank developed its knowledge management system):
–Create an infrastructure that allows people in developing countries to make a videoconference with World Bank employees
–Translate documents and reports into different languages and make them available for its clients
–Train employees to use the newly installed technological tools
–Meet with employees to promote the knowledge management initiative
–Enhance its internet potential
Results
Suffice it to say that a doctor in Zaire can access the World Bank website or its affiliates, such as CDC, to take a look at the treatments available for Malaria or HIV and take the necessary measures to protect human life.
Forgetting Is Only Acceptable for Charming Little Puppets
My grandmother used to say to me that I’ve forgotten more than she’d ever known. (She was just trying to be kind, boost my confidence. ) What’s curious from a KM perspective is that that statement – that one may forget more than another ever knows – isn’t just applicable to much-loved grandchildren… but, of course, to organizations.
Over 5 years ago, Andy Seidl (2004) wrote a great blog post about corporate amnesia – or organizational memory leak – which he argued was the result of “numerous, seemingly insignificant, day-to-day forgetting events”. The act of forgetting is a critical issue for KM in large organizations in particular, especially those with higher turnover rates.
What happens when knowledge walks out the door for the last time? What steps can an org take to avoid organizational memory leak?
I guess the bigger question is, Why would knowledge walk out the door for the last time in an enterprise-sized organization? In a small one with a few employees, sure – but in a large corporation with 250+ employees, there must be one or two who have similar jobs, use the same databases or shared drives, etc. No? So why then might an enterprise suffer from corporate amnesia?
Recent job cuts are a problem – especially when a corporation decides to cut a whole group, such as engineering/development, HR or Creative Services, in favour of outsourcing.
But what’s more interesting than that (because I’m sooooo tired of hearing about the tough economy) is the idea of social capital and tie-formation. More specifically, the idea that strong and weak ties can help people share knowledge across organizational boundaries. Check out this great article (1999) by Morten T. Hansen for more about search-transfer and weak ties The short story is that creating opportunities for people to network within an organization – for the third floor to mingle with the second – can actually help to prevent corporate memory loss.
Can technology help to avoid the loss of at least some organizational knowledge?
Seidl made a decent case for knowledge capture by means of internal blogging and fitting those intra-blogs into a federation of blogs (which he called a channel). He also offered an example of the success that this sort of knowledge capture achieved at a certain unnamed company, where the CEO insisted that everyone get involved in the “project blogsite”.
Today (yes, I know it’s just 5 years later), I think a lot of KM folks & employees alike would argue that being forced to contribute to a blog is… just… not… going… to… work. Further, with failed intra-blogging attempts abounding and the ongoing rhetoric of blogs as time-wasters doomed to failure, you’d be hard-pressed to find an enterprise-sized organization with a strong blogging community — a blogging community that’s able to effectively capture knowledge and a blogging culture that’s willing to visit said blogs to ascertain knowledge.
It seems there’s no affirmative response to the KM question: Can technology effectively capture both implicit & explicit knowledge? (Urgh! I so wish someone could build an app that would actually do this!)
But what, then, can we do about memory leak, about knowledge walking out the door? Pei-Wen Huang (n.d.) suggested a few solutions:
Create more apprenticeship programs
Debrief at the end of a project so people in & out of the project are brought into the loop about wins, failures, etc.
Establish a “corporate history”
Build “knowledge profiles” so you know whom to go to in an org for certain subjects
Apprenticeship programs are, of course, potentially expensive (but more expensive than losing a seasoned employee with high institutional knowledge?). The others seem simply time-consuming.
…There’s always an excuse, isn’t there? But I’m pretty sure shareholders wouldn’t want to hear that the corps they’ve invested in are “unable to commit the time” to holding 30-minute power-debriefs at the end of projects to avoid repeating mistakes & wasting money………
Well, if anyone has a better idea or wants to chime in on the above ideas – or simply wants to post a link to a blog on the topic – feel free. Looking forward to it…
I’ve always wondered how enterprise-level organizations know when they have “arrived” or “achieved” their KM initiatives. Is it even possible to get a handle on KM? Is there some gold standard that everyone is aiming for? Or are each organization’s KM goals specific to them?
As well, I wonder what is to be done about the poor organization that has failed at its KM initiatives. Does their failure mean that the organization should not try KM at another time? How can an enterprise-level organization get back on the KM bandwagon confidently and effectively?
…But what do you do when the solution is called “knowledge management” (KM)… and you know nothing about that?
In 1999, when Frito-Lay first considered KM as a solution to its core productivity challenges, KM was still a relatively new concept in business. The Harvard Business Review had only recently published its review on knowledge management, and the Complete Idiot’s Guide to Knowledge Management (not necessarily a great work, but an indicator that “you’ve arrived”) was not yet published. Neither David Snowden nor Mark Koenig had yet published their seminal works on the three theories of change in KM. Suffice it to say, in 1999, the concept of KM was decidedly esoteric.
So, What Is KM?
Simply put, knowledge management is about knowing what you know… and making money from it. You can also understand KM as:
A business strategy that enables new insights & experiences by identifying, creating, representing, organizing and distributing knowledge assets
Practices of managing data/explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge, usually by means of a technology
A synergy of information technologies and human innovation
Knowledge management is a new branch of management for achieving breakthrough business performance through the synergy of people, processes, and technology. Its focus is on the management of change, uncertainty, and complexity.
Proponents of knowledge management argue that KM works best when it aligns with business strategies and that it can lead to such results as improved productivity, improved financial growth, cost reductions, and increased customer satisfaction (Ekionea & Swain, 2008). Over the course of the next several weeks, this blog will expand on that list of results – and offer counter-arguments from those who suggest that KM is not only poor for employee productivity in enterprises but that it “is dead”.
From Dollars Down the Drain to Improved Productivity: KM in Enterprises
Enterprises as large as Frito-Lay are often geographically dispersed, with different tech systems for different internal business units and, in turn, significant challenges sharing & managing knowledge effectively. Frito-Lay experienced such knowledge-related challenges as (Shien, 2001):
Multiple salespeople contacting staff in various groups (e.g., corporate sales, marketing, operations) for the same data… again & again
Support staff performing the same searches and sending out the same communications… again & again
Inconsistent methods of capturing & formatting information among individuals
Staff storing valuable knowledge on their desktops rather than in a central, accessible spaces
“Silos” preventing sharing of knowledge and cross-team collaboration
The solution for Frito-Lay was a knowledge management portal housed on the corporate intranet, allowing personalized access for all employees & protection of intellectual property behind the corporate firewall. To offer the KM solution a better chance of success, the team at Frito-Lay and their consultancy set 3 goals for the portal:
To streamline knowledge across the business units
To understand, share & use customer-specific data
To facilitate & encourage team collaboration in spite of geography
The results of the portal speak for themselves: Sales nearly doubled for the sales team using the portal and accessing the stores of information they could use to persuade their clients to buy. Travel between the 10 different cities that members of the sales team called home was cut – leading to savings for the business. Employee retention improved, as did productivity. And surprising extra benefits, like fewer faxes, added up to further savings.
What We Can Take Away
The Frito-Lay KM initiative took place a decade ago – which nearly spans the entire timeline of enterprise KM. So there are definitely differences we can see between their KM approach and what might happen today. For example, a small team at Frito-Lay populated the portal with employee details, including their areas of expertise; today, with social networking and user-generated content, it’s likely that both leadership & employees would opt to encourage each employee to describe his/her own job duties & areas of expertise. Simply, the knowledge transfer process would (or so I idealistically believe) be more collaborative.
We can also see the shapings of a KM maturity process in the Frito-Lay case study. Frito-Lay started in what Hsieh (2009) would describe as a “knowledge chaotic” stage with no formal KM processes and moved rapidly to knowledge management, complete with formal, stable and practiced KM programs, to full knowledge management integration – where the culture changed so dramatically that, on seeing the results at Frito-Lay, all of PepsiCo adopted the knowledge portal (Shein, 2001).
~joanna
Read more about KM and the Frito-Lay case study…
Ekionea, J., & Swain, D. (2008, January). Developing and aligning a knowledge management strategy: Towards a taxonomy and a framework. International Journal of Knowledge Management, 4(1), 29-45. Retrieved September 23, 2009, from Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts with Full Text database.
Hsieh, P. (2009, May). A knowledge navigator model (KNMR) to navigate the knowledge management implementation journey. Proceedings of World Academy of Science: Engineering & Technology, 41, 1202-1221. Retrieved September 25, 2009, from Academic Search Complete database.
Shein, E. (2001, May). Case study: Frito-Lay sales force sells more through information collaboration. CIO. Retrieved October 7, 2009 from http://www.cio.com/article/30167/Case_Study_Frito_Lay_Sales_Force_Sells_More_Through_Information_Collaboration.
we discuss knowledge management (KM) in large organizations. In addition to leveraging case studies and academic scholarship on this issue, we invite conversations with KM practitioners, consultants, managers, executives and anyone who would like to share experiences, research, links and findings. Please join the conversation!
In the last two months at work and school (in a masters program in communication and technology), I’ve discussed the value of enterprise-level KM with classmates, colleagues and experts; reviewed recent research and opinion-makers on KM; and just plain thought about what KM offers that other disciplines don’t.
) What’s curious from a KM perspective is that that statement – that one may forget more than another ever knows – isn’t just applicable to much-loved grandchildren… but, of course, to organizations.
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