Knowledge Nuggets: Dealing with resistance to KM

A dozen more takeaways I want to share from the Knowledge Management course I completed at GIZ - this time on dealing with resistance to KM:

1. However sophisticated the "content" or "computer system", KM won't succeed unless it has the "community" dimension.
2. Some people resist KM because they are threatened that it will make them irrelevant (especially in today's economy).
3. Commitment from top management - and them demonstrating positive knowledge sharing attitude - is crucial for KM to succeed.
4. When starting a huge KM implementation, communicate quick and early wins from smaller pilots to placate nay-sayers.
5. Resistance to KM is a useful source of information. It shows people's real interests, which the KM strategy could address.
6. Types of KM resistance: open, projection, introjection (idea welcomed, but isolated), and confluence (swayed by dominant tide).
7. For knowledge hoarders, small group or one-on-one discussions may just do the convincing on the benefits of sharing.
8. Avoid the Field of Dreams trap - don't assume that once a KM system is built, people would just come.
9. A KM initiative must relate knowledge to people's day jobs - it's the best way to sustain support.
10. Be doubly careful with your choice of KM technology - if it's too painful to use, people would avoid it like the plague.
11. Organizational culture makes or breaks people's motivation to share and communicate what they know.
12. To manage people's expectations, start by understanding the organization's willingness to change.

Other topics covered during the five-week training include key KM concepts and implementing a KM strategy.

By Raymond Calbay

Knowledge Nuggets: Implementing a KM strategy

A dozen more takeaways I want to share from the Knowledge Management course I completed at GIZ - this time on KM strategy and implementation:

1. Knowledge management must be aligned to strategic objectives of the organization – which makes every implementation unique.
2. Establishing a KM system can't be a goal in itself: it needs to be linked to the organization's strategic objectives.
3. 8-step KM process – Set objectives > Identify needs > Acquire > Develop > Distribute > Utilize > Conserve > Evaluate knowledge.
4. 3 simple questions to jumpstart your KM strategy: Where are you now? Where do you want to go? How you will get there?
5. A Knowledge Portfolio describes strategic, normative and operational knowledge needed by an organization to achieve objectives.
6. Suggestion boxes are old. Open the space for innovation groups to develop new ideas – without penalizing failures.
7. Knowledge flows may be top-down (push strategy) or by-demand (pull) – what matters is people adopt "better" practices.
8. An important KM evaluation point for innovation to happen: "Time is allowed for creative thinking" (Iftikhar).
9. When employees retrieve information, they bring in context - which is basis for organizational knowledge.
10. Sometimes, not readily sharing knowledge to the whole organization has strategic importance (think product secrecy in tech sector).
11. A KM strategy should involve people early on and provide an operational framework for sustained implementation.
12. KM tools and processes should follow these principles: easy-to- use, just-in-time, and ready-to-connect.

Other topics covered during the five-week training include key KM concepts and dealing with resistance to KM.

By Raymond Calbay

Knowledge Nuggets: Understanding KM

I'm happy to have successfully completed my Knowledge Management certificate from GIZ. Here are some takeaways on KM concepts that I want to share from the GIZ course:

1. Knowledge management facilitates the process of creating, sharing, and using knowledge within an organization.
2. But there are so many definitions of KM that it's easier to say it's *not* about managing people, technology, or even knowledge itself.
3. Think of KM in terms of knowledge sharing, organizational learning and information systems.
4. The knowledge life cycle: [Data] + understanding relationships = [Information] + patterns = [Knowledge] + principles = [Wisdom]
5. Polanyi: "All knowledge is either tacit or rooted in tacit knowledge." It's a combination of information, skills, attitude and experience.
6. Knowledge sharing is at the heart of KM, and it starts at the individual level before it could impact organizations.
7. Knowledge is power - but only when it's shared, adopted, and put into use.
8. Complexity areas to consider in KM programs: People, Content, Process, and Technology.
9. KM activities could derive concrete learning outputs, which could either apply at individual, team or organisational levels.
10. New technology or reengineered processes don't drive collaboration: it's organizational culture that makes it happen.
11. KM must be attuned to the broader context of an organization's vision, mission, infrastructure and "ways of doing things".
12. Knowledge is context-related, re-created, and re-invented - leading to innovation!

Other topics covered during the five-week training include implementing a KM strategy and dealing with resistance to KM.

By Raymond Calbay

External communications: a knowledge management blind spot?

Ultimately, your company's services and products are the sum of its organizational knowledge. To persuade current and prospective clients that your company's offerings are better than its market competitors, external communications should be considered in your KM program.

This is the premise of a chat session I moderated on the subject of External Communications as Knowledge Transfer for KMers.org. Highlights include:

• Communicate knowledge products and services to clients besides official "marketing"
• Incorporate a KM process for developing external communications (instructional, promotional, and sociable content)
• Establish a system for cross-functional teams to provide input in communication campaigns
• Evaluate (customer) feedback from external communications to assess innovation opportunities

Referring to Mediamiser.com's definition, external communications are "controlled and uncontrolled messages disseminated in the mass media as well as other communications." In most discussions of KM, it seems that its importance has been mostly overlooked, along with the role of professional communicators (including technical writers) in supporting R&D efforts. The process of external communications contributes to explicitly defining and contextualizing the company's products or services. This is especially true as it concerns capturing, sharing, and packaging knowledge from the corporate level down to the consumer.

Sadly, there's still a wide gap in synthesizing concepts from KM and from the communication field. A comment from the session even says that KM makes those in communications nervous due to technologies and techniques such as web 2.0 and communities of practice. Odd because these are already basics too in the toolkit of professional communicators! On a similar vein, Harvard Business Review published an article that pits KM against social media. The article contends that company-mandated KM coerces knowledge sharing, whereas social media allows for knowledge exchange that's free and volunteered. If those in KM have strongly acknowledged the primacy of communication in knowledge environments, then misconceptions such as these would be prevented.

I believe that KM and communication mutually enrich each other. In KM, communication may be understood as "knowledge communication" or "knowledge translation", apart from its many tools-related aspects (collaborative software, knowledge bases, and more). On the other hand, the idea of KM may be brought up in such commonly discussed theories as organizational communication, diffusion of innovation, or information systems in the communications discipline. As a professional communicator myself, I apply KM concepts as a framework for doing my tasks – from content planning, information sourcing, to medium development. There more syncs than splits between these allied fields, don't you agree?

By Raymond Calbay