Madanmohan Rao: Profiles in Knowledge
This is the 59th article in the?Profiles in Knowledge?series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. Madanmohan Rao is an author and consultant in knowledge management and new media based in Bangalore, India. He is research director at YourStory Media, India’s number 1 platform for startups and investors and co-founder of the Bangalore K-Community. Madan’s specialties include entrepreneurship, knowledge management, innovation, digital (Internet/mobile/social), ICT4D (Information and Communications Technologies for Development),?and content management.
Madan is a charter member of TiE Bangalore and research advisor at the Asian Media Information and Communication center (AMIC). He is the editor of five book series: The Asia Pacific Internet Handbook, The Knowledge Management Chronicles, AfricaDotEdu, Global Citizen and World of Proverbs. He was editor-at-large of DestinationKM and contributor to the Poynter Institute blog on new media trends. Madan was on the international editorial board of the book, Transforming e-Knowledge. Madan was formerly the communications director at the United Nations Inter Press Service bureau in New York, and vice president at IndiaWorld Communications in Bombay.
Madan is a frequent speaker on the international conference circuit, and has given talks and lectures in over 90 countries around the world. He has worked with online services in the U.S., Brazil, and India. His articles have appeared in DestinationKM, The Economic Times, Electronic Markets magazine, Economic and Political Weekly, and the Bangkok Post. Madan is on the board of directors/advisors of a range of content and wireless services firms in Asia. He also participates in consultations at UNESCO, IDRC, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) in India and Nepal. Madan is an editor and DJ in world music and jazz and writes for World Music Central and Jazzuality. He produced channels on jazz and world music for RadioWalla.in, and was previously world music editor at Rave magazine and RJ at Worldspace Satellite Radio.
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Organizational conversational capacity involves mastering the following 10 components of knowledge communication, which may well be regarded as The Conversation Manifesto in 21st century organizations:
Tempering Knowledge: India's Tata Steel has reinvented its KM program more than once
At Tata Steel, one incident more than any other drove home the point that they had to find a way to combining intellectual and technological assets via knowledge management. In 1999, a foreign technical consultant was summoned to the Indian steel giant to solve a problem. He replied that he had already been engaged and solved it the year before.
In other words, the company, despite having a sophisticated IT infrastructure, did not seem to systematically "know" what its problems were and how it had been solving them, explains Ravi Arora, head of Knowledge Management.
With 48,000 employees, an asset base of US$2.3 billion, and annual turnover of US$1.5 billion, the steel manufacturer sells long and flat steel products to over 5,000 customers around the world.
The company aggressively embraced IT-enabled processes in the late 1990s, and by 1999 had installed a corporate Intranet, SAP ERP system, employee portal and established special interest groups focusing on various operational and manufacturing issues. The company's mission statement in 1998 was even re-drafted to include: "Tata Steel enters the new millennium with the confidence of a learning and knowledge-based organization."
And yet, says Arora, there was no effort being made to capture experts' knowledge into intellectual assets, and no systematic way of aligning the employee portals with solving business problems.
In April 1999, a concerted effort was made to launch a KM practice. Over the next year, through April 2000, a core team of five members studied best practices, devised knowledge taxonomies, created knowledge repositories, formed knowledge communities, and drilled employees launched on KM behaviors.
"Though this was a good textbook beginning, connectivity was still poor and access technology was not standardized. We noticed a lot of irrelevant and superfluous contributions coming into the knowledge repositories," Arora recalls. Worse, there were cultural problems with technology phobias and attitudes such as, "This is another method to downsize" and "Why should I share my precious knowledge?"
A new, refined strategy was adopted and put into place in May, 2000, which included a seminar on KM, consulting on communities of practice by an external firm (McKinsey), and identification as well as recognition of successful KM efforts.
Communities of practice aligned with business processes and strategy were formally launched in 21 areas, including iron making, steel making, rolling, maintenance, mining, waste management, cost engineering, energy management, HR, IT and KM. Care was taken to ensure that each CoP had a champion, convener and senior manager.
However, some problems still remained. "There was no easy way to cull out the referable, usable contributions. Irrelevant and unsolicited contributions contributed to pour in," says Arora.
Beginning in January, 2001 benchmarking steps were introduced, a composite KM index was created, and KM activity was included in performance evaluation. A directory of experts and skills was devised, a formal rewards and recognition system was put in place and seminars on KM were conducted.
Then a new problems arose. Management realized that they had not adequately planned budgetary outlays for KM community support, or devised ways of summarizing knowledge contributions and identifying which were the similar and redundant ones.
"Key questions facing us were: Is this KM approach really encouraging innovation? and How can we involve the grassroots levels as well?" Arora recalls.
So in February 2002, the company began to formally focus on promotion of innovation by encouraging more active experimentation, and rewarding intelligent failures as well. KM activity was more closely monitored. It was learnt that the number of KM users had grown from about 1,000 in early 2001 to over 3,000 by late 2002; in the same period, page views of the body of knowledge grew from barely 200 to almost 2,000 per day.
The number of new products manufactured has significantly increased, downtime has decreased, and costs have come down, Arora claims. In monetary terms, savings of about $725,000 were realized from the KM system.
At a cultural level, employee attitudes shifted from one of "I am an expert, I do not need new knowledge" to one of a continuous quest for knowledge; from just "I need help" to "I can also help." The extent of organizational knowledge changed from narrow and shallow silos to wider and more permeable silos, says Arora.
Funds have now been allocated to enhance knowledge activities, and Tata Steel is even providing KM guidance to sister companies of the vast Tata group in India. Arora is regularly invited to speak at KM conferences around the world, including the recent KM Asia 2002 summit.
Other steel plants are also requesting Tata Steel's assistance in KM implementation, and the company is sharing its experiences with other Indian organizations.
Future plans for KM at Tata Steel include linking e-learning with the KM repository and KM communities, devising an intellectual capital index, networking with retired employees, employee skill development for better externalization of knowledge and integration with customer's knowledge.
Key lessons from this KM journey, according to Arora, include the importance of avoiding the creation of silos among communities, providing communities with detailed structures, and keeping databases current.
"The most important challenge in this economy is creating conversations," Arora sums up. "The key to business modernization in the 21st century is not just through the expenditure of huge sums of money to create physical assets, but orienting people -- the greatest asset -- towards meeting the opportunities and challenges of the future."
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4 年Hi Madan, great to reconnect! Let's keep in touch
Head-Program Management & Corporate Relation SWOT Consultancy & Management Pvt Ltd., ( WE BELIEVE in QUALITY )
4 年Very nice Madan!
Sustainability | Knowledge Management | ESG | Gamification | Large Change Initiatives| Alumni - Swedish Institute; Said Business School| Chair- KM Global Network, 2019 & 2020;
4 年Stan Garfield you have selected one of the most versatile KMMERS in Madanmohan Rao . He effortlessly straddles different worlds and brings them together in his inimitable ( and humble) style. Always so much to learn from him.