In Covid-19 crisis, those businesses that could remain in operation had to undergo wide-ranging changes in their business operation which had to be adopted fast. It has been an actual operational transformation. In this rapid adaptation challenge, a key driver has been Knowledge Management (KM). Knowledge Management practices are currently being applied in all businesses still in operation, even if they are not aware that their practices are actually KM practices. In this second part of Faye Orfanou’s article she offers her suggestions for a potentially effective corporate Knowledge Management.
Table of Contents
Seven Tips for Effective Knowledge Management
- Ask Questions
- Knowledge fit for purpose: clear and actionable.
- Mitigate reliability risk with multiplicity
- Don’t seek for exhaustiveness
- Sustainable knowledge: codification and accessibility
- Engaging employees to offer their knowledge
- Ensure the flow of knowledge
Seven Tips for Effective Knowledge Management
Currently, there are businesses which are in the process of setting up their operational transformation, while other businesses are finetuning such transformation. As indicated above, all these businesses have been applying Knowledge Management, whether consciously or not. Knowledge has been critical in their transformation, irrespective of how they have managed it.
To assist such businesses, we set out below our suggestions for a potentially effective management of the necessary valuable knowledge:
1. Ask Questions
What is the knowledge the business needs? What is the knowledge the knowledge has? It all starts with these 2 “pillar” questions.
How do you answer those questions? By asking questions…, ideally by asking the right questions to the right people within the organization.
The most effective way to “define” and “identify” is asking questions. Corporate knowledge is about the “how”s, and the “why”s of each operation and each operational action. Often it is also about the “who”(should do what) and when it comes to new operations, it is also about the “what”.It all comes back to questions.
(a) Defining the necessary knowledge
Defining the knowledge that you need is based on how you define your problem. Start by asking questions about your problems, your challenges, your gaps. The more detailed and targeted the questions, the more aspects of your problems-challenges-gaps will arise. The more effective the definition of the problem, the easier it will be to define the knowledge that you need.
Once you have defined your problem, there follow 2 types of questions “what kind of knowledge is necessary to resolve the problem (its A or B aspect)?” “who might have such knowledge?”
(b) Identifying the available knowledge & the learning needs
The available knowledge within the corporation may be explicit and easy-to-reach (ie a manual, a database) or it may be tacit, “within the minds” of your employees. In the first case, where do you find it? Who possesses and/or manages the knowledge source? In the second case, how do you extract and capture knowledge available “in the minds” of your people? Again, it is about questions.
The biggest challenge is tacit knowledge. There may be available knowledge in the corporation that most managers didn’t even know existed. It is a challenge how to extract it. Questions are the first step (see below about further useful means), suitable questions. The smarter and more attractive the questions, the more the knowledge you “extract” out of people. At the same time, quantitavely the more the questions, the more the information, the know-how but also the various insights that will be produced.
Moreover, such “extracting” questions will also highlight the knowledge gaps (a) unexpected gaps (knowledge that was expected to be available and simply isn’t) and (b) predicted (or “feared”) gaps, which again require immediate learning actions. In both cases, the gaps indicate the “learning needs” of the corporation.
2. Knowledge fit for purpose: clear and actionable
As mentioned above, questions are critical. Asking the right questions will lead you more easily to the knowledge which is suitable for each specific issue. Which answers will be useful in the end? What kind of information, know-how, experience and/or insights, whether extracted by questions or find otherwise, will offer you the knowledge that you need?
Well, again, the baseline is the “problem”. The problem was the purpose and you need knowledge that is fit-for purpose. The corporation has been seeking knowledge to (define and) resolve problems. Which knowledge (information, know-how, experience, insights) a c t u a l l y help the corporation resolve the problem(s)?
If you approach it this way, the answer is easy:
(a) Clear knowledge
You need specific and analytic data, explicit guidelines, well-explained views of those who describe their experience. Again, questions are the means to define clarity. You need knowledge that does not require further questions.
(b) Knowledge which is action-oriented (actionable)
You need knowledge that can be applied in practice. It must be related with the actual conditions of the corporation and the socio-economic environment and be potentially immediately usesable. Most times, such knowledge would be information about past operations of the corporation, about good practices of other businesses or it may be arising out of past experience of the individual employes. The knowledge must be useable. Actionability[1] is key in corporate knowledge management.
3. Mitigate reliability risk with multiplicity
Reliability of information is a significant challenge in Knowledge Μanagement, particularly when information must be collected (or “extracted”) rapidly. Speed must not undermine reliability. The need for fast answers does not mean that any answer is accepted and must be immediately applied. A reliability test should be ideally applied to all information. Still this is not always feasible, particularly in times of urgency. The reliability risk becomes stronger in times of urgency.
The way to mitigate such reliability risk is multiplicity. Very often the unreliability of one piece of information is revealed simply by other information. Information more well-founded, better analysed or potentially data-based could highlight the lack of reliability of other relevant information.
“Multiplicity” is key. We stress “multiplicity” and not quantity, because it is important to draw information from multiple sources and not insist to draw as much information from particular sources considered “experts”. A valuable source of knowledge will always be the people within the corporation as well as of collaboration stakeholders. Particularly in times of urgency, where multiplicity is mostly required, it is critical to extract as much possible knowledge from all potential “knowledge holders” within the corporation and close to the corporation.
What is suggested here is that Multiple information from multiple sources could to some extent contribute to a (rudimentary) mutual self-verification of information.
4. Don’t seek for exhaustiveness
Asking many questions (as indicated in (1) above) and requiring multiplicity of knowledge sources (as indicated in (3) above) does not necessary mean that the corporation should look for exhaustiveness. Exhaustiveness is almost never feasible and it much less so in times of urgency where time matters and speed if of essence.
Seeking exhaustiveness might turn out a trap, undermining efficient knowledge management. The seek for exhaustiveness could turn out as a relentless hunt for the unfeasible, undermining other more important aspects of knowledge management such as codification [(see below in (6)] and knowledge sharing (see below in (7)].
Our main suggestions are:
- A “First Come-First Process” approach: Don’t wait to collect all potentially necessary knowledge. Once critical information (from potential multiple sources) has been collected start processing it. -**Start by activating this rudimentary “self-verification” of information deriving from multiple sources, indicated in (3) above. This should be an essential step before acknowledging a knowledge element as useable.
- Orientation to action: when a knowledge element arises as useable, just start using it.
5. Sustainable knowledge: codification and accessibility
Once the management (or the “knowledge manager” appointed for each task) collects the necessary knowledge, such knowledge has to be available to all and most significantly, it has to be useable by all.
Useability means that each employee who is required to use new knowledge has an understanding of such knowledge and can apply it in practice. Moreover, useability has to a collective corporate useability: all people in the corporation have to be enabled to use such knowledge.
Thus, an essential requirement for the knowledge managers is to set up a codification of all crucial elements of knowledge (information, advice, guidelines), which will be common to all. The corporation has to introduce and abide by its own terminology, its own understanding of notions and meanings. It has to develop and use its own language.
Further on, corporate knowledge has to be accessible to all. In practice, accessibility means that knowledge is made available through the communication channels used in the corporation and if those are not sufficient, then the corporation may introduce new methods of dissemination. Most certainly, accessibility requires storing and a smart use of available technology solutions for knowledge storage. A wide range of solutions are available for storing and sharing information and each corporation selects the most suitable.
What is critical is to ensure the essence of accessibility. Technology solutions that enable sharing are not sufficient to ensure accessibility. Accessibility means that each employee knows how to find the right information, can easily find it as well as that he/she actually perceives the meaning of such information and can actually use it. When he/she has no previous knowledge, it might also mean learning. The knowledge manager has to tackle with and resolve all these aspects of accessibility. Accessibility requires mobilization, communication, feedback and processing of feedback. Accessibility is what can make available knowledge to be actually collective corporate knowledge.
6. Engaging employees to offer their knowledge
Questions is the means and multiplicity the catalyst. But for useable knowledge to be produced (and for knowledge value to be created), the corporation needs engaged employees. Engagement is key. Clear and actionable knowledge is offered only when employees are motivated to give precise and complete answers, when they are willing to actually “offer” their knowledge.
In knowledge management terms, the challenge is engaging people to “externalizing” useable knowledge. People may have possess knowledge but this knowledge is useable when they externalize it in a clear and well explained form. However, people may be reluctant to do so because (a) it often requires effort and (b) it may also require exposure to seniors and peers. The fear of exposure is related with the fear of “making errors”, of offering irrelevant or inaccurate information and being criticized for that.
People do get engaged when:
- They are motivated,
- Engagement is made “easy” (particularly when people feel “safe” to expose to seniors and peers)
In the COVID-19 circumstances, there was a significant part of people which were motivated to contribute to the operational changes of the corporation, in an effort to assist in its “survival”.
However, very often, there have been difficulties in motivating and engaging people. A significant part of corporation people lacked motivation out of their own worry and their insecurity for their future in work (a “distancing feeling”). At the same time, engagement could not always be achieved through the use of the “traditional” corporate communication means (mostly through e-mails or by notifications by the corporate intranet), again due to people’s distancing feeling.
In those hard times (and in other potential times of change), the key to motivation and engagement is “community” building, setting up the whole corporation as a community (for small businesses) or setting up thematic or local communities within a corporation.
Setting up communities is making people feel “peer” and “active”. Communities nurture a feeling of “belonging” among “peers” while at the same time each one’s individual contribution matters, each one is a unit belonging in a team with a common purpose.
Setting up and maintaining such communities within a corporation, particularly in traditional corporations is a challenge, particularly because it requires a change of approach for business managers. Technology offers the tools that could make such alternative community-setting approach smoother. Specific Intranet Groups, Social Media Groups, Mobile Apps which require active participation of all could help build up communities.
7. Ensure the flow of knowledge
Knowledge may be required and collected for specific purposes, particularly during an ongoing operational transformation, but it has to remain useable and offer corporate value over time. Corporate collective knowledge could be required and retrieved at various instances.
Furthermore, corporate knowledge is constantly “nurtured” since new knowledge is constantly being built upon the available knowledge from time to time. Every corporation creates (or should be creating) constantly new knowledge. However, knowledge creation can produce the highest possible corporate value when it is made consciously, and when the right conditions are set up. The key condition for creating and/or “nurturing” knowledge is the flow of knowledge.
Flow of knowledge requires knowledge accessibility and knowledge sharing. As pointed out above, this is not ensured only through technology solutions for information sharing. It requires mobiliziation, motivation and the right mindset by the corporation people.
The flow of knowledge is not even about processes. A corporation may impose processes but knowledge creation requires willing and motivated individuals.
This is where communities matter. Setting up corporate communities, as indicated above, would be valuable. Communities can contribute to an efficient flow of knowledge and knowledge sharing.
Furthermore, some practices that can enhance –or at least- the flow of knowledge would be:
- Encouraging and promoting peer-to-peer mentoring,
- Encouraging knowledge exchange meetings or digital forums,
- Rewarding new ideas by employees (so that come to terms with the potential fear of “exposure”),
- or simply Seeking frequently feedback from employees
In any event, the flow of knowledge indicates the corporate approach to knowledge. It in itself an approach. It involves openness, trust towards corporation people and embracing learning.
Ensuring knowledge flow is invaluable. It can lead to a consolidation and a constant growth of the collective corporate knowledge
[1] In any event, KM accepts as “knowledge” only information, know-how, experience and insights which can be actually exploited in practice, which are “actionable”