Fallacies about Knowledge Management
Today, knowledge is probably the highest valued asset of companies. Since the time Peter Drucker used the expression “knowledge workers” to refer to the profile of the majority of modern employees, a good deal of research and consultancy has centered on the phenomenon of how in companies, knowledge is generated, shared and exploited and diffused to society at large.
A first conceptual clarification is necessary. Knowledge is not equivalent to aggregated information. Collecting information is necessary, but not sufficient, in growing organizational knowledge. A company may compile tons of data on its customers through CRM (Customer relationship Management) programs but if that information is not adequately processed and applicable for decision-making, then that CRM may be a waste of resources. Indeed, effective knowledge management requires that the relevant operating processes and routines be embedded in the organization’s culture. A good example of effective knowledge management is the case of successful family businesses. There, the gathering, transfer and use of relevant information is institutionalized and produces its desired effects as long as the members of the family maintain their bonds. Here, as in other management areas, large corporations may learn many lessons from family businesses.
A second clarification about knowledge management is also pertinent. Systems that process information from multifarious sources (like CRMs, supply-chain management frameworks, performance scorecards and the like) have become integral to managerial activity and have expanded amazingly over the past decades, necessitating a core presence in business education, including MBA programs. The sheer volume of available information of all sorts and its multiple sources -is unprecedented and growing exponentially- has given birth to new phenomena like Big Data. Many maintain that we are witnessing just the very beginning of the age of information society, including being at the advent of the Internet of Things.
However, as I′ve already said, knowledge management goes beyond the accumulation of data and is intimately related to the exercise of leadership. While managers may be in charge of IT, creating original organizational knowledge is intrinsic to a company’s culture and mission, and involves the CEO and the top leaders (please see my recent article here in LinkedIn about the difference between managers and leaders).
One way to learn more about what is knowledge management and its uses is to comment on some fallacies on the subject that are sometimes passed as valid. These are:
- Overemphasizing the idea that organizations possess knowledge –and not the persons belonging to them. The development of the social sciences, and Institutional Theory in particular, has helped us to understand better the nature of organizations. The “personification” of organizations allow us to talk about their resilience, their subsistence independent of their managers, or about corporate responsibility, as if companies had a soul. We also refer to organizations possessing knowledge, given that information and knowledge can be codified and used in systematic ways by all company members. This is plausible, but do not forget that knowledge is generated and applied by persons. In fact, in the hypothetical case that an entire commercial team leaves a company it is doubtful whether its remaining CRM will be enough to retain its clients.
- The best way to capitalize knowledge is to cultivate secrecy. In a previous post I showed that secrecy is one of the least trusted options to protect innovations. It is much more effective to exploit time-to-market and pioneering advantages. At the same time, keeping secrecy is really difficult today, when intranets and social networks are closely intertwined and the latest news is virtually known worldwide in real time. We know that Steve Jobs was very eager to guard confidentiality about Apple's new products, particularly when their launch was approaching, but that was probably more linked to a marketing mis en scène than to a culture of secrecy per se.
- The channels for external and internal communication are different. Very closely linked to the previous fallacy, nowadays it is difficult, if not inconvenient, to separate sharply internal and external communication. A better approach may be the choice for a viral communication targeted at the different stakeholder groups, to whom the information and knowledge conveyed may vary in content and extension.
- Sound decisions are based on complete knowledge and perfect information. Even if proper knowledge management contributes to improved and sounder decision-making, we all know that very rarely, if ever, we have complete certainty or full data prior to our decisions. Paradoxically, one of the challenges for business school educators, in a world where knowledge grows faster than ever, is to prepare leaders capable of managing under uncertainty and ambiguity.
- Innovation and new knowledge is generated in R+D departments. New ideas, services and products; revitalised uses or applications, may emerge from many different places across companies and at all levels. Experience shows that in particular good sales teams, being close to customers and attentive to their feedback, may be a key source of innovation.
- Knowledge management requires sophisticated, costly IT systems. Let me refer again to family businesses, where knowledge is shared and effectively used for business, without the need of heavy investments in technology. Technology systems do not solve management nor process problems, by themselves. Managers need to understand the purpose and uses of IT applications, the expected result and their advantages and shortcomings, and do not leave those decisions only in the hands of the IT team.
- Optimal knowledge management requires the appointment of Chief Knowledge Officers (CKO). The appointment of a CKO may be understandable when organizations are in emerging stages as regards the codification and distribution of information and knowledge. However, in true knowledge organizations, knowledge is generated and flows freely, but in a coordinated way, among the various divisions and units. Again, the use of information technologies, social networks and communities may foster a knowledge culture in unexpected ways.
Photo: solarseven / shutterstock Remix: LinkedIn
Director, Strategic Relations
9 年With the note of caution to not forget that knowledge is generated and applied by (people), comes along the thought to not forget the other group who are needed - those data people that are required to plan for, collect, organize, generate and push out the data. Do organizations have the right proactive and responsive match between data collectors and the data users/decision makers, and are these sets of people resources, with their own perspectives, truly aligned to optimize outcomes and leverage knowledge management?
Consulting | Technology | Project Management
10 年The consideration of how knowledge is collected, maintained, and managed gets entangled with complexity. Knowledge comes in a variety of flavors and forms. A company process is a method that strives to bring formality and consistently to actions that people use regularly. The formal process comes from refining knowledge to a form that a large number of people can routinely apply. We have similar knowledge collections in the form of standards for accounting, law, technology, etc. In the early days of military airplane production, the government had multiple suppliers build the same design. Drawings, parts lists, material specifications, procedures, instructions, analysis, reports were used to share the design and build body of knowledge. The goal is to create a package that is self-sufficient. However, there was still a need for people to learn, understand and validate this documentation before it was used in each production facility. You see, not everything can be written down so the meaning is complete to all other individuals. The individuals still have to take the available information in, apply their understanding, sometimes develop new understanding, and then act on the information. The environment in which the original information was developed may have changed also. This is an involved, time consuming, and tedious step with less than certain results. Tools that aid in storing and retrieving information assists in the knowledge base extraction. These tools cannot presently replace the dynamic nature of interpreting the meaning or application of the knowledge. Tools can only “see” what is before them in the way they are told to look. How do we extend knowledge? How do we bridge the communication of the ideas embedded in the knowledge? What makes the spark of an idea? When people succeed in new areas that are predicted to fail based on the knowledge base, how do we write that down? We supplant these knowledge conundrums with the discussion of knowledge management and people knowledge assets because they are easier topics.
CEO @ AREVA INTEGRATED RESOURCES | The Intentional Leadership Journey Creator AREVA ??
10 年Any corporation that simply lets knowledge walk out of the door based on aged, retired or otherwise disengaged workers is not fully managing knowledge as a asset that it is. There are many times that a disgruntled employee my use knowledge to cause disruption or dismantle years of intelligence. My primary point in response to such a thought provoking dialogue is that knowledge is a learned and cumulative asset which must be managed, transferrable and harnessed. The mitigation as such no source of that knowledge can be used in a way that imposes a threat or breach to your critical resources or systems, i.e. sensitive data, authority and control of privileges, intellectual property of the corporation. Furthermore knowledge management needs to be viewed not just based on knowledge of a single source but the collective resources of a team and diverse and co-mingled disciplines and attributes of a structured dynamic group based on innovation and technology, used as needed on one or many components through a given process specific for that outcome. Innovative leadership drives toward development of functional requirements of knowledge management in alignment with that strategy, meaning knowledge isn't necessarily owned and brought to the scene of the crime but developed in the iterative process of innovation with a dynamic structure all feeding the team drawing out knowledge and thus mitigated and owned by the corporation. For its leadership that's defining the strategy and iterative processes by which knowledge is built for achieving that end there is no single individual source of such knowledge even if a coder or systems individual develops the code or process to answer the strategic goal defined. Because the source of the generated innovation principal of development was set therein by leadership as a corporate asset.
Global Head of Privacy (CPO, DPO) @ Servify, Senior Director
10 年Inanimate data cannot be knowledge. Knowledge and understanding is accumulated by sentient beings through experimentation. How many companies truly experiment with the data they hold? How many simply use the data to manage the overall business process and attempt to increase revenue through CRM?
IT->Banking IT->Financial Services IT->FinTech | Armchair Economist
10 年Overemphasizing the idea that organizations possess knowledge –and not the persons belonging to them This, in my view, is the source of many failed knowledge management program. The process of creating knowledge is 1. The knowledge needs to be gained (by Person A) 2. The knowledge needs to be elicited (from Person A) 3. The knowledge needs to be documented 4. The knowledge needs to be transferred (to Person B) 5. The knowledge needs to be understood (by Person B) While there is huge organisation incentive for knowledge to be shared between Person A and B, there is very little personal / professional incentive for Person A to participate in the process as it will (1) diminish his relative value and (2) might result in specialised knowledge becoming a commodity. In addition, step (2) and (3) of the process require a specialised skill set to create documentation of a quality that is sufficient. Plus in step (5), the ability for Person B to understand is also a factor. Abstraction of knowledge management into a system without considering the human factor is a fallacy.