|
Intelligence Multipliers
Effective leadership is the single most important success factor for a Knowledge Management program, something that's
equally true for most organizational change initiatives. If people believe something is really supported from the top, they'll get on the bandwagon. If not, they're more likely to wait for developments.
So KM practitioners need to consider the nature of leadership, starting with their own.
Multipliers is a new book from leadership consultant Liz Wiseman, which explores the fact that the best leaders are able to leverage the collective intelligence of an entire organization. After a two-year study of 150 leaders in 35 companies, she concluded that some people are promoted because of their savvy and intelligence, but are then unable to see beyond their own abilities. They tend to drain the intelligence from the room, and diminish group performance. Others create an environment that encourages new ideas to be heard. These are the leaders she calls “multipliers.” They make everyone smarter and more capable.
If you find these thoughts intriguing, you can get more information in a number of ways. You can read it in short form as a ChangeThis manifesto, you can listen to an NPR radio interview from early July, or you can just go to Amazon and buy the book!
Another Social Networking Tie-In
We've come across an imaginative mash-up of social networking and old-fashioned commerce.
It's something called Groupon, and it's designed to connect local businesses with new customers. It's clearly aimed at a younger demographic, with its
promise of "cool" and "awesome" things to do, but the idea is interesting.
Merchants (restaurants, shops, theaters, and the like) agree to offer some kind of discounted
service. Groupon users register for a particular geographic area, and are offered one such discount each day. What's different is that the discount is only activated if a predefined number of people buy.
So the merchant can set a minimum number of customers and knows in advance how much new business it will bring in. Groupon users who see a good deal are motivated to promote it themselves, in order to
reach the minimum. If it works, the users are emailed a coupon; if not the deal expires at midnight.
It's also interesting that while most Web businesses seem to have a global audience in mind,
this one is decidedly local in nature. It's a good example of the new ideas that come bubbling to the surface with wireless Web technology.
Flow Charts as Knowledge Maps
We always tell people that Knowledge Management systems don't need to be complicated, and in
many cases complexity does more harm than good. Given that we're awash in choices these days, something that's simple and immediate is more effective than something that's complex and time-consuming.
Something as simple as a checklist can capture the essence of a process and make it easily repeatable. That's a great way to pass key knowledge from the expert to the novice, or to be sure that the same understanding is shared by everyone on a team.
To take it up a level, you can move from checklists to flow charts, thereby allowing for decision points and conditional paths. You'd be surprised how well a simple flow chart works if you want
to reveal inefficent or redundant process steps. We've had lots of whiteboard sessions with clients, aimed at process improvement. And when people see it broken down in a logical way, they often have the
same question: "Why are we still doing this step? It doesn't lead anywhere!"
The power of a flow chart also means it's a potential platform for humor, and since this is a mid-summer
issue of Directions, we're offering a few examples. They're good flow charts, but they're funny too. They can help you decide what to eat, choose a career and whether to get a tattoo.
PowerPoint: Pro or Con?
Like Apple vs. Microsoft, or Star Wars vs Star Trek, there's an ongoing conversation about the
relative evil of PowerPoint. By putting the ability to create "professional" presentation materials in the hands of rank amateurs, PowerPoint changed the game of business communications. On
some level then, PowerPoint is to blame for millions of tedious, mind-numbing hours of poorly-conceived, badly-executed, self-important presentations. It's contributed to the erosion of thoughtful
documentation, by encouraging people to reduce their ideas to bullets. One of our heroes, designer Edward Tufte, would love to see the end of PowerPoint. But another, writer David Weinberger, thinks PowerPoint bashing is over done.
Writing in KM World, Weinberger notes that while
PowerPoint is certainly not without its flaws, it does help "bring order to unruly thoughts." Before it became the norm, lots of presenters would just stand up and improvise, so the quality of
information transfer was no better. He thinks PowerPoint has forced presenters to become more analytic, simply by making them to follow a predefined sequence, in which one point follows another, together
with supporting information.
We come down on Weinberger's side of this argument. A well executed presentation, delivered by a skilled presenter, is one of the most powerful communications tools in
your arsenal. Even if it's built in PowerPoint.
Subscribe | Unsubscribe | Change your profile
|
