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A Recipe for Failure
One's perception of a culture is hugely dependent on point of view. Outside looking in, a culture doesn't appear the same
as if you're living within it, day to day. Perception also depends on one's rank and position. An organizational culture may look very different from a cubicle than from the boardroom. And that leads to
a common mode of failure for Knowledge Management programs: call it the Rose-Colored Glasses Effect.
Practitioners understand that the seeds of KM need to fall on fertile ground. In organizations
that already appreciate the importance of mutual trust, provide employee support systems, value individual initiative and make lenient judgments (the hallmarks of what Georg von Krogh calls a
"high-care" environment), KM programs are likely to do very well. An identical program deployed in a "low-care" environment is likely to fail.
Unfortunately, managers have a
natural tendency to see high-care cultures, even when they're not there. The reality is that lots of organizations are characterized by back-stabbing, information hoarding and fear. People are rewarded
for political connections rather than actual contributions, and heads always roll when a project fails. That may be understood by the rank and file, but probably not acknowledged by management. In our
experience, this is the root cause for many KM problems. It's not that the programs weren't intelligently designed or well managed. It's that they were expected to draw fruit from barren and rocky soil.
And that's a recipe for failure.
The Self-Flushing Urinal
So, you may ask... what does Knowledge Management have in common with a self-flushing urinal? Maybe not enough.
Self-flushing valves have a pretty clear value proposition. At Touch Free Concepts,
they point out that a self-flushing urinal is always "clean, odor-free and presentable." And yet, the first time you heard about it, you might have thought a self-flushing bathroom fixture was
some kind of a joke. Even so, they've become so popular over the past 10 years, that self-flushers are now the norm in public rest rooms. But those first few sales calls must have been tough. "Dear
Customer, have you ever considered how wonderful it would be if..."
KM has a pretty clear value proposition, too, but hasn't done nearly as well in getting the word out. Maybe it's because
the delivered value of the flusher is instant and obvious -- no leap of faith required. Maybe it's the perceived cost. Or maybe KM practitioners need to work harder on selling the benefits. Maybe KM
needs to develop a sharper story about "the sizzle" instead of focusing on the steak.
Of the Process, For the Process
There's a lot of talk in KM about "capturing knowledge," something that
suggests a kind of big-game hunt. It implies that knowledge is elusive, and that things would be better if we could throw a net over it and keep it one place. That might be true in some cases, but
systems that are essentially knowledge cages rarely deliver the expected value. Once it's taken out of the wild (so to speak), the value of captured knowledge tends to fade quickly.
However,
there's a place where knowledge connects to know how, in the territory of process and procedure. A well-defined process is a kind of knowledge container, embodying the choices and understanding of
experts past. We generally don't think of procedures as a form of explicit knowledge, but they certainly are. Even a simple checklist is a knowledge artifact, and can actually be a great tool for
transitioning job responsibility. A good checklist captures the essentials of "what must be done," without being explicit about the how. That opens the door for evolutionary change, when the
list is passed to a new person.
Given the imminent retirement of the baby boomers, this might be a good initiative for KM practitioners everywhere. If
you have the budget for video interviews and alumni programs and transitional mentoring, great! If you don't, maybe you should start making checklists...
So Close, and Yet So Far
We generally see the increase in human connectedness as one of the good things that's come to us
in the Age of the Blackberry. That is, we seem to be plugged into the world like never before, instantly aware of what we need to know, wherever we may be.
Depending on your age and point of view,
this will appear to be either natural and empowering or creepily Borg-like. However, it might also be a kind of consensual illusion. It may be true that we are technically connected to hundreds (or
even thousands) of people, thanks to our blogs and social network sites. But the time it takes to interact with them leaves us less time for old-fashioned forms of communication. How many instant
messages must be exchanged to reach the level of understanding you can get with 10 minutes shared over a cup of coffee?
This is the other side of the Web. Certainly it can do grand things when it
comes to building a framework for social interaction, but at the same time, it may be eroding the social fabric by replacing live interactions with virtual ones. It offers the seductive possibility of
having superficial relationships with lots and lots of people. Is that better or worse than having close relationships with a few? Of course, it's not an either/or situation. But it's worth a pause for
consideration.
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