tham, david. (2005, mar) "the need for knowledge leaders". in david gurteen (ed.), global knowledge...

7/29/2019 Tham, David. (2005, Mar) "The need for Knowledge Leaders". In David Gurteen (ed.), Global Knowledge Review.

1/18

Have you ever read any of the self-help books that tell you

that if you wish to succeed or get something done to just

start doing it? My favourite quote in this matter is from

the bookThe Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity

by Julie Cameron where she says, "leap, and the net will

appear".

For a year or more before I started my k-cafs, I had had

the idea but could not figure out how I might find suitable

venues in central London. I also wanted suitable rooms.

Ones ideally with round tables and I also wanted to provide

free coffee. But there was a catch. I did not want to charge

for the events nor be out of pocket myself!

So I hesitated, I kept putting it off. Then one day I just

decided to "do it".

I phoned a central London hotel and to cut a long story

short got a room for free. It was a small business loungethat was ideal. I had to pay and charge for coffee but as

long as we drank in the hotel bar afterwards the room was

free.

Brilliant! I ran the first k-caf and it was a great success.

So a month later I phoned to arrange the room again. What

rotten luck the person I had the agreement with had left

and I had to speak to the new manager. She wanted 400

for the room for the evening. I was shattered. How was I

going to find another room quickly?

Well I had committed myself there was no going back

I had to find one. Surprisingly it was not difficult - as

soon as I explained what I was doing and asked people

suggestions and offers came forth.I have now been running the k-cafs for well over two

years. I never have a problem finding a room. I even usua

get the coffee and biscuits for free, even sometimes win

and sandwiches. Better still, this summer I will be runnin

the third "Knowledge Barbeque" courtesy of the Londo

Knowledge Network and Greenwich Business School.

Recently Deian Hopkin, Vice Chancellor of the Londo

South Bank University, not only provided great facilities an

a tremendous spread of refreshments but also facilitat

one of the most dynamic k-cafs to date. I could never ha

expected all of this before I started!

The k-cafs have gone so well that I am now starting

run them in different regions and ultimately oth

countries.

I think W.H Murray sums up the power of the commitme

to an idea in his book The Scottish Himalayan Expeditio

1951."This may sound too simple, but is great in consequenc

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance

draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts

initiative (and creation), there is one elementary truth t

ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plan

that the moment one definitely commits oneself, the

providence moves too. A whole stream of events issu

from the decision, raising in one's favor all manner

unforeseen incidents, meetings and material assistanc

which no man could have dreamt would have come h

way."

So what have you been hesitating over? Why not ju

"do it"! And see if providence moves for you too.David Gurteen

EVIEW

GLOBALKNOWLE

DGE

G

Leap, and the net will appear

IN THIS ISSU

GLOBAL KNOWLEDGE REVIEW March 200

Leap, and the net will appear 1

Answers on the back of apostcard please... 2

Participation and choice 3Observe people and then learn 4

Diversity, a complicated debate 7

Knowledge sharing anddistribution 8

The need for Knowledge Leaders 12

Break-through innovationsand big corporations-

a contradiction? 1

The foundation ofeffective KM and Strategy 1

Hitotsubashi on KnowledgeManagement 1

Making knowledge work 1

Global Knowledge review is supported bthe London Knowledge Network

A strange andforeign land

For this issue of GKR David and I had some help.

Kyle Worrall,14, joined the staff on a temporary

basis as part of a work experience scheme. Kyle

was great: enthusiastic and resourceful. One of

his first tasks was to look at this issue of GKR.

He read the articles, corrected the few

typographical errors the authors had made and

produced the headlines and introductory

words. He was a big help. We then asked what

he thought about the subject of KM.

This is what he wrote; "I have read all the articles

in this months GKR magazine. To be honest I

am not sure that I really understand any of the

articles in great detail. I found them quite hardto grasp because I have never studied this

before. If I were to go into this field I would

understand this topic more and would be able

to go into this subject in more depth. "

His answer quite took me back. Kyle was literate

and had good IT skills. I did not expect him to

have a perfect grasp of KM, but it worried me

that he felt the topic was so alien to him. And

all this made me wonder: is KM so alien and

foreign to the vast majority of our co-workers.

Because if it is, it is no wonder we struggle

sometimes to explain what seems so obvious to

us and share our enthusiasm.Peter Williams


2/182 Global Knowledge Review March 2005 www.globalknowledgereview.com

A few months ago, I was given a golden opportunity to

engage Centricas executives in the topic of knowledge

management. I had a two-hour slot at one of their twice

yearly top management events, to educate, inspire and

gain the support of 60 of their top directors. How could

I maximise my chance to engage this diverse group?

In the 80s, psychologist and author Howard Gardner

pioneered the idea of multiple intelligences. Gardner

identified seven different kinds of intelligence, each one

lending itself to a different learning style, and hence a

potential executive hot-button.

Linguistic, Logical-mathematical, Musical, Visual-spatial,

Kinaesthetic, Interpersonal and Intrapersonal.

We each possess all seven of the above intelligences to

a greater or lesser degree. In principle, a well-designed

learning event will address several of these intelligences

to maximise the overall levels of engagement in a group.

It seemed like a good theory now to put in into practice

although achieving all seven would be a bridge too far!

Designing a multi-faceted executive event

For those with linguistic orientation, I provided an exhibition

of KM-related quotes drawn from business leaders,

philosophers and writers, and asked them to walk around,

reflect on and discuss which ones were most meaningful

for them.

For the logical and mathematically-minded, I provided

the statistical outputs from a survey of Centricas top

1,000 senior managers, including their assessment of thepotential value available to the company if we shared and

applied knowledge more effectively.

The visual-spatial thinkers were in their element with

the wax-crayon exercise draw a large (A2) picture which

illustrates the state of knowledge-sharing in the company

today. This activity yielded pictures of silos, barriers,

mazes, walls, hot air balloons and even flying pigs!

For those with well developed interpersonal and intrapersonal

intelligence, I had prepared some video recordings of young

children describing how they feel when asked to share toys

with their friends, and with people they dont know. Th

fact that the video included some of their own childre

heightened the interest! Hannah, my three-year old provide

the cute-factor with the line I dont like sharing with Lil

because she bes bossy with me!

Having stimulated the multiple intelligences of the grou

for 90 minutes, they used the remaining time to agre

some actions. I have to confess, I was feeling prett

pleased with myself at this point, Howard Gardner wa

right! However, Id forgotten the power of the practica

Tell me what I need to do differently

tomorrow morning.

As he was leaving the room, a finance director turned t

me and said You know Chris, this is good stuff, bu

what I really need is something simple to challenge an

remind me tomorrow morning what I need to do differentl

Something which fits on the back of a postcard.

With the help of my team, I proposed a set of person

challenges below for that director to stand on his des

the next day they have since been shared with the enti

senior community.

When encountering a business problem, I reinforce th

importance of learning from others - rather tha

simply providing an answer.

I personally demonstrate that asking for help is a sig

of strength rather than weakness

When reviewing a project proposal, I challenge to ensu

that it brings to bear knowledge from other project Does my team see failure as something to learn from

or something to hide?

How much time this week will I spend thinking an

learning, rather than just reacting?

Creating these simple, practical challenges for leade

proved to be a highly effective way of describing a visio

for knowledge management in Centrica, and engagin

the senior team in a more sustainable way.

So if you could send a postcard to your board o

directors, what challenges would you identify?

Answers on the back of a postcardplease

Chris CollisonDIRECTOR OF CHANGE & KNOWLEDGE

MANAGEMENT, CENTRICA

WINDSOR, UNITED KINGDOM

Chris is Director of Change and

Knowledge Management at Centrica

plc, responsible for building capability

in the areas of change management,

knowledge management and e-

learning across the company. Prior to

joining Centrica, Chris was at the

heart of BP's knowledge management

and operational excellence activities.

He is co-author of the best-selling

KM fieldbook Learning to Fly. During

recent years, he has advised a range

of business leaders, government and

non-government organisations

ranging from the DTI to the United

Nations. Chris is based at Centrica's

head office in Windsor.

We need something quick and simple to remind us what todo differently

United Kingdom


3/18www.globalknowledgereview.com Global Knowledge Review March 2005

I am frequently surprised by how creative thinking becomes

a strong facet of some peoples personality. In some of

them, such creative attitude is a constant behavior rather

than an eventual circumstance or mood. After working

with diverse kinds of people, I have noticed that creativity

knows no boundaries. Neither age or sex, nor educational

level or cultural background limits or obstructs its way. Its

just diverse creative styles that becomes apparent.

It has become evident to me, and certainly to many

others, that this creative spirit, in its whole range of styles,

has the power to drive new and exciting visions to make

individuals, organizations and communities as successful

as they could be.

The need for new working environments.

That means organizations, which encourage and support

individuals development and self-esteem, and sets the

stage where every collaborator can contribute. Spaces

where people would feel not only impelled to think creatively

and share their ideas, but also stimulated to undertake

the responsibility to put them into practice. Where

workers become part of the decision making process.

Sensible structures that rather than forcing people to fit

patterns and meet deadlines, trust them to decide and

meet the obligations upon their own decisions and

improvement plans. Places which foster and disseminate

its culture and values.

There is no doubt that the decision to transform

business structures from products and services providerstowards effective cultural workspaces represents a challenge

that stirs excitement and dread.

We are watching new forms of organizations emerge,

whose common ground is that they are built upon a

strong sense of identity, usually small, flexible, interactive,

participative, innovative, technologically oriented and they

share, as one of its core values, the sense that common

wealth is as important as the individuals.

It is not enough for the will of an organization to

change. For active participation in such organizations

demands the development of strong individual competencies

and skills to efficiently communicate, learn, adapt and

dexterity in the deliberate use of its creative potential into

focused innovation. Both internal and external

A successful industrial manufacturer of banking furniture

and equipment, sponsored creativity workshops for all its

employees, including senior management levels, looking

forward to develop teamwork practices where leadership

skills and creativity tools and techniques would stimulate

a cross-fertilization environment.

For every workshop participants were selected from

various cultural backgrounds, heterogeneous lifestyles, and

diverse competencies and skills. Plastic artists, psychologists,

musicians, historians, writers and other members of the

community were invited, to bring diversity and enlarge

the scope.

Useful lessons and practices.

As a natural consequence, the influence of peoples

participation and choice replaced most organizational

structural and operational practices for decentralized,

dynamic, multi-task oriented practices. Hierarchical structures

gave place to organic ones. Interactive creative cells

started operating at different levels within the organization

and finally, new dynamic participative practices substituted

existing work patterns, inappropriate for teamwork.

Expect initial resistance to change.

Changes in attitudes and behavior do not happen overnight.However, when you finally implement them, results are

outstanding.

As there is a strong emphasis to evaluate success from

measurable outcomes, the company raised its market share

to 60% becoming a reference in its market. However, its

major asset is a critical factor that goes beyond

technology, products and sales. That is values and identity.

Creative and inclusive organizations build strong values.

In addition, values have the power to modify behavior in

many different and unexpected ways.

Participation and choice

A creative spirit helps you to see things in a differentperspective. This makes us all original able to perceivedifferently.

KG

Federico HessFOUNDER AND PRINCIPAL

HOK INOVAO

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL

Federico is a native of Mxico and a

founder and principal of HOK

Inovao, a Rio de Janeiro-based

Design consultancy. With a bachelor

degree in Industrial Design from the

UNAM-Mxico and a Master in

Design from the Royal College of

Art- London. In addition to his

design work, he is a consultant in

Design, Creativity and innovation

management. Before founding HOK,

Federico has collaborated as a

consultant for the Design Centre of

Bilbao-Spain and was founder and

Executive director of the Design

promotion Institute of Curitiba-

Brazil. Has lectured in Design

management and Creativity forseveral universities in Mxico, Spain,

Colombia, Cuba, and Brasil.

South America



As we know, there are known knowns; there are things

we know we know. We also know there are known

unknowns; that is to say we know there are some

things we do not know. But there are also unknown

unknowns the ones we dont know we dont know.

Donald Rumsfeld

One of the things I learned from ten years as a CKO is

that you shouldnt make assumptions about what people

know. Recently Ive been doing a bit of what Dave

Snowden calls cultural anthropology: Observing people in

the workplace, and, in particular, observing their knowledge

behaviours, the way they acquire, create, process,

organize and transfer what they know. Ive always been

charitable about workers motivations, and believed that

when people were unable to do knowledge work effectively,

it was probably either our fault (those of us in the Knowledge

Centres who presume to own knowledge content and

processes), or managements fault. What I learned from

my anthropological observations is that there are seven

reasons for ineffective knowledge work seven barriers

to knowledge and that theres lots of blame to go

around for erecting, and failing to break down, those

barriers.

When Peter Drucker said that helping front-line knowledge

workers become more productive was the greatest

management challenge of the 21st century, he was

talking in part about finding ways to vault these seven

barriers.

Let me use an example from my own experience to

illustrate the seven barriers, depicted on the chart above.I have always wanted to start what is called an

Intentional Community: A self-selected group of people

of like minds who live together, and make a living

together, on their own terms. I once lived in a condominium

that had a dictatorial and repressive managing council,

and have known other people who have horror stories

about despotic local governments and community councils.

But Intentional Communities would be different, I told

myself. Self-selecting communities would be able to

work without rules and without tyranny. I was

deliberately ignorant I didnt want to know, in case

was disillusioned.

Running the race of the Knowledge

CentreEventually, however, I was motivated to learn more abou

Intentional Communities by readers of my environment

weblog, How to Save the World. That overcame the fir

hurdle. Having run a Knowledge Centre I knew what t

learn, so the second hurdle was easy. The challenge o

finding out who to learn from was tougher. Ive come t

appreciate the limitations of secondary (online and boo

research, and the importance of primary research (first

hand interviews with experts and experienced people)

drew on my networks and was referred to a member o

an Intentional Community near where I live, who not on

agreed to talk to me, but invited me to visit h

Community so I could do some hands-on learning. I

preparation for meeting with him I returned to seconda

sources, reading newspaper reports about some of th

challenges of Intentional Communities, and reading a boo

that provided a framework for starting, operating an

troubleshooting such communities, based on the experience

of seven US communities that had been operating for

decade or more.

The lessons learned stories in the book, like most authent

stories, provided valuable context, an ability to real

understand how these communities worked, and wh

sometimes they didnt. I got even richer context from m

visit to the nearby community. This context watransformational I now had a completely differen

understanding of the dynamics of Intentional Communitie

and their challenges and rewards, from what my onlin

research had given me. I was now informed I had advance

far enough along in the process that I was no longe

dangerous, and would actually be valuable in discussion

with others interested in forming Intentional Communitie

I could now competently write articles on the subject o

my weblog.

The sixth hurdle knowing how to archive, find an

Observe people and then learn

Dave PollardFOUNDER

MEETING OF MINDS

TORONTO, CANADA

Dave was the Canadian CKO and

Global Director of Knowledge

Innovation at Ernst & Young from

1994-2003, following twenty years as

an Entrepreneurial Services leader. His

new business, Meeting of Minds,

offers Knowledge Management,

Business Innovation and

Entrepreneurship advisory services.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/

One of the things Dave Pollard learned from ten years as CKO is that you shouldnt make assumptions about whapeople know

Canada



retrieve information was easy for me thanks to both my

training in Knowledge Management and my use of two

recently-acquired tools: Google Desktop (which finds

content on your hard drive) and David Allens Getting

Things Done process (which teaches you how to organize

personal content effectively). I think I know how to apply

what Ive learned to the actual formation of an

Intentional Community, and helping others create theirs.

But until I actually do so I wont know, and I wont be

truly knowledgeable. I have one final hurdle to go.

I am unusually blessed in jumping these hurdles: I have

had the opportunity to learn how to do research and

analysis, and to observe others who do it exceedingly well.

I have a lot of experience acquiring and creating knowledge

and applying it to solve business problems. Ive also

studied the process and the techniques involved in doing

it competently techniques like Barbara Mintos PyramidPrinciple and Peter Senges Systems Thinking.

What is needed for a business?

I was recently asked to help a group of young people launch

a new high-tech business, and at the inaugural meeting

on the Business Plan I showed them what they needed

to do for the market research part of the project. In this

case the first hurdle didnt exist they were motivated to

do whatever it took to make their new business

successful. But hurdles 2-6 were very intimidating to

them they needed a lot of hand-holding and

confidence-building. I never realized how challenging these

hurdles are for people. These young men and women are

very tech-savvy, and searching is second-nature to them,

but researching is something else again. It would appear

that both universities and business just assume, perhaps

dangerously, that people know how to do these things:

How to ascertain what to look for,

Who to ask for help,

Where to look,

How to find the right information,

How to get context for this information through interviews

and other primary research, and

cHow to aggregate, organize, relocate and convey what

theyve learned.

When I talked to business executives about this, their

response was quite harsh: If our employees dont knowhow to do these things, maybe we should fire them and

bring in people who can. I believe this represents a

fundamental misunderstanding of the real problem of

knowledge management, and a huge missed opportunity:

Spend less time pushing content and technology tools at

front-line workers and more showing them how to do

these six critical knowledge activities. Front-line workers

I spoke too say they would love to learn these skills (but,

tellingly, asked that I didnt tell their boss they said so).

I would go even further, and suggest that this

misunderstanding of the real problem and real opportunit

in knowledge worker productivity is exposing corporation

and public organizations to a huge risk the cost of no

knowing:

Not knowing who didnt have the critical relationship

needed to bring in a key customer.

Not knowing who the key decision makers are a

clients, at suppliers, at competitors, at regulators

or what criteria they use to make their decisions.

Not knowing about rapidly evolving market trends, o

about your organizations or your countrys critica

vulnerabilities vulnerabilities to supply shortages, t

sabotage, to theft, to system failure, to terrorist attac

to obsolescence, to attack by competitors, to new

regulations, and to disruptive innovations.

Could it have been prevented?

Is it possible that the major crises of the past decade

the 9/11 attacks, the devastation caused by SARS, Ma

Cow, Avian Flu, the Great Power Blackout of 2003, th

collapse of Enron, and even the unanticipated impact o

online file sharing, are all, at root, Knowledge Managemen

failures that could have been prevented if the guys at th

front lines were more skilled at hurdling the seven barrie

to knowledge? Maureen Baginski, the expert brought i

to reform the FBI in light of its massive recent intelligenc

failures, said in a recent interview in The New Yorker:

DeliberatelyIgnorant

NaivePreparedto learn

LearningFactuallyAware

Informed Competent Knowledgeable

1.Don'twantto

kno

w

2.Don'tkn

owwhat

to

learn

3.Don'tkn

owwh

o

tolearnfrom

4.Don'tkn

owhow/

whe

retole

arn

5.Don'tha

veenough

cont

extt

oun

ders

tand

6.Can'tfin

d,retrieve

,

organize

,convey

7.Don'tkn

ow

how

toapply

Figure 1: The seven hurdles

Canada



You need something, you go get raw material and you

add value to it. You put out a product and you keep adjusting,

based on the feedback that you get. Thats really all it is.

So why isnt the FBI doing this? According to Ms.

Baginski, most FBI agents were trained and instructed to

take intelligence gathering too literally. They aggregated

data just in case it was useful or needed, often without

doing anything with it. Her motto for reform: Hunt, Dont

Gather; Disseminate, Dont Just Aggregate. Clearly, the

worlds intelligence agencies are struggling with the same

barriers to knowledge that the rest of us are facing

except for them, the cost of not knowing is much higher.

Not wanting to know

The first barrier not wanting to know is worth special

mention. Two factors of modern life information overload

and the increasing complexity of society and its systems

have give rise to what Malcolm Gladwell calls a sense

oflearned helplessness. Because of the difficulty of coping

with these factors, we are at once discomfited and prone

to seek reassurance. When you feel helpless and overwhelmed,

its not surprising that you want someone to tell you

everythings going to be all right. So when someone comes

along with even a vaguely plausible refutation for those

who are describing or predicting crisis or catastrophe, we

bend over backwards to accept it. We want to believe. We

see evidence of this in the growing popularity of

fundamentalist religions and our propensity to believe

pundits who deny that anything is wrong. It has alwaysbeen so no one wanted to believe that the Earth was

just one planet in an infinite universe, that slaves had real

feelings, that women should be able to vote, that Jews

were tortured and slaughtered by the Nazis, that children

in the Third World are shackled to sewing machines, that

global warming threatens the continuation of civilization,

that animals in factory farms suffer incredible agony

every day of their lives, that 800,000 people in Rwanda

would be butchered by countrymen with machetes, that

whole tribes are being brutally exterminated in Darfur. We

all want to be told it isnt so. And there is always someon

there to offer that false comfort. The danger of course

that we end up choosing deliberate ignorance, stuck behin

the first barrier to knowledge.

Our descendents, stuck with the consequences of inactio

that such a choice leads to, may well curse us for not eve

trying to jump that hurdle, not having the courage, a

least, to know what we dont know.

Even in business, this propensity to not want to hea

bad news exposes corporations to risks of inaction o

untimely action, constrains innovation, discourages whistle

blowers, and inhibits organizational resiliency. While it

human nature, it is important that those of us in knowledg

management roles acknowledge this propensity, an

show how it increases the cost of not knowing.

When you compare the meagre costs no more tha

1% of revenue that most organizations incur to acqui

and promote the use of knowledge, there is little doub

that, for most, the cost of not knowing is infinitely highe

than the cost of knowing. And perhaps the unwillingne

of most organizations to invest more to reduce that co

is the greatest knowledge barrier of all.

Canada

K



Diversity in the market place and the workplace has come

a long way since Henry Ford is reputed to have said, Any

colour as long as its black! Diversity is very much part of

our corporate, social and political language and thought,

although sadly the reality is still often far from ideal.

However, the debate around diversity and equality, is, I

think, about to get more complicated.

In order to understand a situation well, to be able to

make sensible decisions and wise judgements, we need

different perspectives; we need to bring together

different inputs. One analogy is that we cannot judge speed

and distance accurately if we only use one eye we need

binocular vision, two sets of inputs to create the accurate

judgement that allows us to hit a squash ball, cross the

road safely, even put a coffee cup safely onto the table

each time. And yet in the corporate world we still tend to

have a rather mono-cultural worldview.

Research some years ago showed that teams made up

of both men and women performed better than teams

either of all men or of all women. Diversity of approach

paid off. Teams are more diverse now, but to paraphrase

the words of George Orwell some are still more equal

than others. How many boards and senior management

teams, for example, are still all male? Use other conventional

measures of diversity the problem gets even bigger.

Then there is aptitude. Most HR departments use a

range of tools to assess a whole raft of skills, aptitudes,

competences etc. And rightly so. We want people doing

accounts who are accurate and good with numbers.And this is where it starts to get complicated again. To

what extent are the differences in job and subject preferences

in school and work the result of nature or nurture, genetic

or social factors. (And here I ought to make a confession.

I am a reformed1970s feminist and still hold the rather

cynical view that we will not have true equality in the

workplace until I see as many incompetent women in

high places as I see and have seen incompetent men!)

Larry Summers, president of Harvard University, has

surmised that the reason fewer women than men are

successful in science is that women are less well suited to

it; and that this is because there are biological differences

between men and women and that these rather than

other factors such as work conditions, prejudice, education,

lack of opportunity or role models account for some of

the differences. A major debate is now raging. (The

genetic differences between men and women are about

the same as those between humans and chimpanzees: i.e.

significant.)

The question is to what extent he may be right. Here,

another area of research by Simon Baron Cohen, a leading

expert on autism, comes into play. He recently published

a book called The essential difference: men women and

the extreme male brain. In it, he reviewed and built on a

huge body of research examining skills, competences and

preferences of men and women. Men emerged as much

more competent at systematising, women at empathising.

Systematising included the ability to work with abstract

concepts, organising and categorising sets, working with

technical systems/ machines. Empathising included the

ability to understand non verbal communication e.g.

recognise emotion from pictures of peoples eyes,

understanding other peoples perspectives, valuing altruistic

relationships with people.

This is not to say that women could not systematise or

that men could not empathise: just that each group, on

average, showed far greater competence and performed

better in those respective areas.

But, as we are able to understand more and moreabout our genetic predisposition to things, to examine

the way our brains function in real time, the question

is to what extent this new understanding of predisposition

and preference is then used to counter prejudice, to

redesign tests that are not biased towards one or other

group. The extent to which we genuinely value

different forms of knowledge and bring these together

effectively, that we do not set up organisations as models

and systems that automatically favour certain skills and

preferences.

Diversity, a complicated debate

Believe it or not, mixed teams work better thansingle-sex teams

Sheila MoorcroftFUTURES CONSULTANT

RESEARCH FOR TOMORROW, TODAY

LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM

Sheila is a futures research

consultant with over 15 years

experience, specialising in scanning,

identification of issues and their

assessment, and scenario

development, especially the business

implications of changing values and

lifestyles. Previously, she was a

Director of Applied Futures where

she worked with clients in retailing,

financial services, healthcare and

travel, looking at new product

development and business strategy.

Prior to that she spent ten years at

SRI International providing strategic

research services to clients

throughout Europe. She regularly

talks at conferences and contributes

to management training courses.

Europe

KG



The sharing and distribution of knowledge within an

organisation is a vital precondition for turning isolated

information or experiences into knowledge that the

whole organisation can use. The challenge, as I have seen,

in trying to manage and create and knowledge is to develop

the processes and infrastructures that enable dynamic,

value-added interaction between seekers and holders of

knowledge, through (a) collection, using the Intranet,

Extranet and Internet to give people access to databases,

hard information people can be confident in, and allow

people to acquire sets of leads for further research, and

(b) connection, a set of contacts to pursue for further

information, connecting with other people with similar

interests or on similar projects people networks, making

explicit mental models and the subconscious of individuals,

foster relationships and enabling cultures. Over the years,

I have been asked, by many, the question: Given that I

am convinced of the power of KM, what processes do I

begin with in my own organization. I have found the

following to be useful to share with folk:

Figure 1 shows the practical application levels of the

spiral of knowledge complexity

Document management refers to the storage, retrieval,

tracking, and administration of documents within an

organisation. In earlier years, manual filing cabinets were

and still are used to store paper-based documents in

alphabetised categories based on the documents contents;

more recently, also electronic documents and paper-

based documents that have been converted to electronic

form, in a variety of formats to include word-processingfiles, spreadsheets, graphics, videos, audio material, bit-

mapped images and compound documents incorporating

multiple formats. Now, automated tools for document

management are required to provide users with services

to access electronic documents. Document management

systems generally include the following components: (1)

an optical scanner and OCR system to convert paper

documents into an electronic form, (2) a database system

to organise stored documents, and (3) a search

mechanism to quickly find specific documents.

Imaging is the production of images by photograph

filming, videotaping, or scanning of documents/book

Imaging often means not only preserving an image, bu

putting it into a form readable by computers. Normall

imaging makes up part of a straight-through-processin

environment in an organisation (in which, on first ent

into the organisation, information is either captured i

or translated into, electronic form for further processin

in various parts of the organisation thus avoiding th

need for paper files).

Individual workflow: Workflowrefers to the schedulin

of jobs or each part of a project, including passing it fro

an individual employee to another individual and/o

department. A number of companies have installed individu

workflow systems on individual employees desktops, t

monitor the amount of value-adding work completed

a work day or work week, to monitor the time it takes fo

an employee to complete specific tasks, and to monito

the efficiency and effectiveness of that work. Line manage

normally use such data as part of the incentive schem

within an organisation, and/or for developmental purpos

e.g., to train individual employees in areas they seem t

be struggling with.

Mentoring: Mentors offer protgs informatio

perspective and sage counsel, an informed ear, and usef

contacts, based on their successful experiences an

careers as professionals and leaders. Mentoring is a time

based, trusting, confidential, mutually-beneficial relationsh

between an experienced leader and a less experience

employee, aimed at promoting the latters developmenand advancement within his or her chosen profession. Th

mentor (often a role model and opportunity-enhancer fo

the protgs) demonstrates such attributes as patienc

accurate and sympathetic listening; needs-relate

counsel and/or sharing of related experience (wa

stories; behaviour modelling); and introductions t

and/or strategically timed and agreed interventions wit

people, networks and organisations that might facilitat

the protgs achievement of leadership and profession

goals. It is also the case that mentors benefit from th

Knowledge sharing and distribution

Kurt AprilSENIOR LECTURER & SAINSBURY FELLOW AT

THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

UNIVERSITY OF CAPE TOWN

CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA

Kurt is a Sainsbury Fellow and

Academic Director (CLPV) at the

Graduate School of Business of the

University of Cape Town (SA). He also

is a regular Guest Professor at: Oxford

University, Erasmus University, and

the University of Amsterdam. With

training in Engineering and Business

Studies, he has worked around the

globe in multiple roles, including as a

Managing Partner of two consulting

firms, and has published a number of

books and articles on both KM and

Leadership.

We all have knowledge to some extent but we need to learnhow to share and learn

South Africa



relationship with their protgs. Their thinking may be

challenged and extended, their sense of self and of leadership

deepened, and their own support network could even be

enriched through the interaction and relationship with

protgs. On average, mentors are usually from inside

organisations the focus being mainly on business and/or

organisational competencies.

Coaching: Coaches, who are trained professionals in

the discipline of coaching, are specially trained to offer

coachees/clients (who typically have chosen their

coaches) structured opportunities for sustained, trusting

and confidential relationships to explore and alter their

personal attitudes, beliefs and behaviours that relate to

development as professionals and leaders. Coaching, the

object of which is the coachees/clients long-term, excellent

personal performance, is typically outcome-based and

tends to enhance an individual s business and/or

organisational competenciesby embedding in an individual

the capability to self-correct and to be self-generative (i.e.,

there is no long-term reliance on a coach). This is achieved

through a number of means some of which are, the

ability to tease out with coaches/clients those personal

attitudes and behaviours that work for, and those that

work against,the achievement of excellence as professionals

and leaders; and assistance in figuring out practical routines

for suppressing self-defeating/self-limiting habits and

optimising self-generating ones (in all, to build their skills

and confidence in doing these things on their own).

Coaches/clients tend to report new ways of viewing their

circumstances in the pursuit of new possibilities and choices;

to report the identification of the barriers that may stand

in the way of these possibilities; and to report on self-

designing pathways to navigate through these barriers to

achieve the desired outcomes. On average, coaches tendto be sourced from outside organizations the focus

being mainly on personal and relational competencies.

Individual search and retrieval: Search engines for

the general Web do not really search the World Wide Web

directly. Each one searches a database of the full text of

web pages selected from the billions of web pages residing

out there on servers. When you search the Web using a

search engine, you are always searching a somewhat stale

copy of the real web page. When you click on linksprovided

in a search engines search results, you retrieve from the

server the current version of the page. Search engine

databases are selected and built by computer robot programs

called spiders.

Although it is said that they crawl the Web in their hunt

for pages to include, in truth they stay in one place. They

find the pages for potential inclusion by following the

links in the pages they already have in their database (i.e.,

already know about). They cannot think, or type a URL,

or use their judgement to decide to go and look

something up and see what is on the Web about it. If a

web page is never linked to in any other page, search

engine spiders cannot find it. The only way a brand new

page one that no other page has ever linked to can

get into a search engine is for its URL to be sent by some

human to the search engine companies as a request that

the new page be included. All search engine companies

offer ways to do this. After spiders find pages, they pass

them on to another computer program for indexing. This

program identifies the text, links and other content in the

page and stores it in the search engine databases files so

that the database can be searched by keyword and whatever

more advanced approaches are offered, and the page will

be found if your search matches its content. For mo

basic searches in visible areas of the Web (what I ter

individual search and retrieval), Google is the best pla

to start. However, Google alone is not sufficient. Less tha

half the searchable Web is fully indexed in Google. Overl

studies show that about half of the pages in any searc

engine database exist only in that database. Getting

second opinion is thus often worthwhile, and ma

people use Teoma, Vivisimo (a metasearch engine th

indirectly searches three huge search engine database

or AllTheWeb (Barker, 2003:12).

Intelligent agentsare stand-alone programs or progra

fragments that, on request by a user (by entering a question

or term/s, or phrase/s), operate independently from t

user to search out information and/or databases relat

to the search topic, e.g., Copernic Agent leaves a user wi

search results, it is also loaded with advanced manageme

features like filtering, grouping and summarising, an

even allows users to get e-mail alerts when websites chan

or when new pages relevant to users searches are foun

South Africa

A Road Map to Knowledge Management

TacitExplicit

Spiral of Knowledge Complexity

ExternalisationDoc Mgmt, CRMImaging, Workflow

Mentoring

and coaching

InternalisationSearch & Retrieval,

Agents, PortalsApprenticeship

and In-Service Training

IntermediationIntranets, Email,Grpware, Mapping,Search & Retrieval, VC

ommunities of Practice

Centres of Excellence

CognitionExpert systemsInteractive CBT

ialogue, Storytelling,

720Feedback, IntuitionKnowledgeManagementapplication

Figure 1: A Road map to Knowledge Management

page 1


10/18

South Africa

10 Global Knowledge Review March 2005 www.globalknowledgereview.com

Portals are gateways or entrances, i.e. gateways to the

Internet, which may be a search engine or directory web

page, e.g. Infoseek, Excite, Yahoo, Lycos, AOL. In other words,

they are web pages that are the starting point for web

surfing. Many organisations develop organisation-

specific portals that enhance web surfing for both

internal employees (to assist with the representation and

customisation of their specific interest areas) and external

customers/clients/citizens. They do this by customising web

pages to customer-specific needs and interests, or to

represent specific grouped areas of interest within the

company that may be of interest to the customer.

Apprenticeship: Apprentices are individuals bound by

legal agreement to work for another individual or

organisation, for a specific amount of time in return for

guided instruction in a trade, art or business. Generally,

apprentices are individuals who are learning a trade or

occupation, and are in the early part of their career.

In-service training is any training programme drawn

from the curriculum of the basic training course or part

of the personal development plan for an employee, which

is generally offered for the purposes of updating or refreshing

an employees knowledge and skills level. Many organisations

use a rotation method for in-service training, so as to

enhance both the rich, diverse experience opportunities

that the employee might experience, as well as expand

the social/work network of the employee in doing so.

However, in-service training can also be offered to

experienced individuals who want to perfect or become

highly competent/skilled in a particular part of a discipline

later in life; or who want to refresh a skill that has not

been used over time; and/or who want to learn a

particular new competency or capability in a business/publicinstitution that has become necessary as a result of a

change in job function and/or the development of a new

strategic direction of the organisation.

Intranets: An intranet is a network that uses TCP/IP

protocols and other Internet technology within an

organisation, especially applied to the use of World Wide

Web technology for internal applications. An intranet is a

network of networks that is contained within an enterprise.

It may consist of many interlinked LANs and also use

leased lines in the WAN. Typically, an intranet includes

connections through one or more gateway computers to

the outside Internet. The main purpose of an intranet is

to share company information and computing resources

among employees. An intranet can also be used to

facilitate working in groups and for teleconferences. An

intranet generally looks like a private version of the Internet.

Groupware workflow:Groupware is software for people

working together on a project. Groupware makes it possible

for several people to work on the same file at once, via a

network. It also helps with scheduling meetings and other

kinds of group planning. Lotus Notes is a popular groupware

package. Workflow refers to the scheduling of jobs or the

organisation of each part of a project, including passing

it from one department or individual to another. Groupware

workflow (or workflow management) is the automatic

routing of a project from one department or individual to

another as each step of the project is completed, and

monitoring the time such a department or person takes

to complete his/her/their part of the project.

E-mail is a service that sends messages on computers

via local or global networks. An e-mail address gives one

the source and/or destination of an email.

Videoconferencing:Videoconferencing is a special case

of teleconferencing involving a video stream and is an

example of a multimedia application, i.e., one involving at

least two different media, sound and image, in digital

formand includes different variants such as: (a) videophony

transmission of a facial image in conjunction with a

telephone call), (b) white-boarding (the electronic exchange

and/or common editing of documents on two or more

computers, (c) desktop videoconferencing (transmission

of images captured by a camera attached to PCs, with or

without whiteboarding), (d) studio or room videoconferencing

(where two or more studios are linked together by videoand audio), and (e) multilingual videoconferencing (is room

videoconferencing in more than one language with

interpretation remote interpretation is simultaneous

interpretation where the interpreter is not in the same

room as the speaker or his/her audience, or both)

(Mouzourakis, 1996:223)

Group search and retrieval: I differentiate individual

search and retrieval from group search and retrieval by

the fact that the group version is able to search the invisible

parts of the Web. Some types of web pages and links are

excluded from most search engines by policy. Others ar

excluded because search engine spiders cannot acces

them. Pages that are excluded are referred to as the invisib

Web i.e., what one does not see in search engine result

The visible Web is what one sees in the results pages fro

general Web search engines. The invisible Web

estimated to be two to three or more times bigger tha

the visible Web, and includes: (1) Searchable database

Most of the invisible Web is made up of the contents o

thousands of specialised searchable databases that on

can search via the Web. The search results from many o

these databases are delivered to one in web pages tha

just relate to ones search. Such pages, very often, are no

stored anywhere: it is easier and cheaper to dynamical

generate the answer page for each query than to store a

the possible pages containing all the possible answers t

all the possible queries people could make to th

database. Search engines cannot find or create these page

and (2) Excluded pages: There are some types of page

that search engine companies exclude by policy.

Knowledge mapping: It is an ongoing quest with

any organisation (including its suppliers, partners, vendo

and customer/citizen chain) to help discover the locatio

ownership, value and use of knowledge artefacts; to lear

the roles and expertise of people; to identify constraint

on the flow of knowledge; and to highlight opportunitie

to leverage existing knowledge. Knowledge mapping is

important practice consisting of survey, audit and synthes

It aims to track the acquisition and loss of informatio

and knowledge. It explores personal and group competencie

and proficiencies, and illustrates or maps how knowledg

flows throughout an organisation. Knowledge mappin

helps an organisation to appreciate how the loss of sta

influences intellectual capital, to assist with the selectioof teams, and to match technology to knowledge need

and processes. Simple knowledge maps are electronic yello

pages, but can range from proto ontologies an

people/systems/process knowledge structures, t

dependencies and quite complex network nodes an

patterns.

Communities of practice (CoP) emanate fro

communities of interest (CoI). Most of us belong to som

form of community of interest, whether that be fans o

Feyenoord football team, our church cell group, ou

9


11/18www.globalknowledgereview.com Global Knowledge Review March 2005 1

friends who are collectors of antiques, or common

interests in car engines, hobbies, etc. CoI are defined by

their world views and mental models, and whenever a

community of interest rigorously exposes its world view

in a fashion that permits its knowledge to be federated

with the world views and knowledge of other communities,

the whole of society is enriched. Organisations have realised

this, and have begun creating opportunities for CoI to

become CoP in the workplace, e.g., drilling experts within

Shell International form a CoP, turnaround specialists within

BP-Amoco form a CoP, etc.. There is therefore a clear

realisation that even when people work for large organisations,

they learn through their participation in more specific

communities made up of people with whom they interact

on a regular basis. Individuals are core members of some

of these communities, and they belong to others more

peripherally. These CoP are mostly informal and distinct

from organisational units or charts. However, they are an

organisations or companys most versatile and dynamic

knowledge resource and form the basis of an organisations

ability to know and learn.

Centres of excellenceare institutions possessing special

knowledge/expertise in a particular area, and incorporated

into the collaborative environment to facilitate development

of the products and services supporting the strategic

functions and operations of an organisation, e.g., academia,

industry, banking. Since some big organisations normally

have more than one centre of excellence, in order to both

improve the effectiveness and efficiency of such centres

as well as reduce overlap and streamline functions,

organisations define the roles and responsibilities for each

centre (some companies, however, choose not to place

any management restrictions over these centres) and

establish areas of excellence for each one. Each centrerepresents a focused, organisation-wide leadership

responsibility in a specific area of technology or

knowledge. Centres of excellence are chartered with a

clear definition of their capabilities and boundaries, and

are usually charged with being pre-eminent within the

organisation, if not worldwide, with respect to the human

resources, facilities and other critical capabilities associated

with the particular area of excellence.

Expert systems:The term is usually reserved for computer

programs that achieve expert-level performance in a specific

substantive domain using artificial intelligence programming

techniques such as symbolic representation, inference

and heuristic search to perform sophisticated tasks once

thought possible only for human experts. Expert systems

differ from earlier artificial intelligence programs based

on general problem-solving strategies such as the general

problem solver. In contrast, expert systems are knowledge-

basedand/orconcept-based systems that rely on domain-

specific knowledge or concepts. It is that/those specific

knowledge and/or concepts, as well as their capacity to

reason about it, that permits expert systems to provide

useful advice about real world problems. A knowledge

base and/or concept base differ(s) from a database in that

the knowledge base and/or concept base include(s) both

explicit knowledge and implicit knowledge. Much of the

knowledge and/or concepts in the knowledge and/or concept

base is/are not stated explicitly, but are inferred by the

inference engine from explicit statements in the knowledge

and/or concept base. This means that knowledge bases

and/or concept bases have more efficient data storage than

databases, and this gives them the power to exhaustively

represent all the knowledge and/or concepts implied by

explicit statements of knowledge and/or concepts. There

are several important ways in which knowledge and/or

concepts are represented in a knowledge base or concept

base, e.g., in a Bayesian network.

Interactive computer-based training: Basically CBT

is training through the use of a computer. In the

interactive version of this training FORM, a user normally

downloads a portion of training s/he is interested in, and

then completes predetermined levels of competency within

the software program (the user is prompted by the computer

to make certain choices, is corrected when making mistakes,

is offered different scenarios and directions for action andthinking, and is sometimes directed to offline information

to complement the computer-based training).

Dialogue: One cannot speak of in-company learning,

communication and conversation without mentioning

dialogue (a skill that builds critical and independent thinking,

openness and insight), which is about insight as the

source of action and dialogue as vital to self-governance.

Dialogue allows for the emergence of collective insight,

collective wisdom and in a non-confrontational way of

solving problems. Organisations around the globe are

beginning to train people in the art of dialogue an

judgement-suspended listening, and allowing employe

to go deeper in order to transcend individual views an

self-interest.

Storytelling is the oral tradition of passing learnin

and experience onward. The use of narrative, anecdote

urban myths and personal stories in organisations tod

is used to achieve a practical outcome with an individu

community or company. Private, public and not-for-pro

organisations are rediscovering this human tradition

value-adding business processes companies such

Namdeb (De Beers Namibia), Kao, Standard Chartered Ban

Chemical Bank, Armstrong International, Semco and SA

Miller all use the creative power of storytelling to ta

about and make sense of stories about other peop

stories about life itself, stories about the work itself, stori

about the organisation, stories as social bonding/soc

identity and about self esteem, stories as signals, stori

about the past and the future, stories about fears, hop

and dreams, and stories about stories. These organisatio

actually make time in the work week (sometimes, as muc

as 20% of the working week) to participate in organisation

storytelling as a business process.

720 feedback:Sometimes known as multirater, circu

appraisal, this form organisational feedback is the 360

feedback done twice (every six months) as follows: in t

first round, an individual employee is rated on workpla

performance by superiors, peers and co-workers, as w

as subordinates (multiple sources). In fact, some organisatio

also include the feedback of suppliers, vendors and partne

as well as family, spouses and friends. The feedback

generally given according to a prescribed set of valu

and/or behaviours for a certain position in an organisatio

or against a job specification or development matrix torganisation normally does so in order to facilita

cultural change (such as to accelerate a shift to teamwo

and employee empowerment), as an input to th

organisations appraisal system, for developmental purpose

as part of its succession planning, for executive and care

development, and/or to reinforce the organisations desir

core values and business strategies. The feedback the

makes explicit areas of weak or even unsatisfacto

performance, provides negative feedback an employ

would not ordinarily receive from the people with who

South Africa



Why are some organisations better at managing change

than others? What do organisations need to maintain

their relevance and competitive edge in a fast-paced

Knowledge Economy?

Youve probably heard a few stories about seemingly

successful companies that suddenly go bust. And as a

knowledge worker, it probably came as no surprise

because pervasive changes in the global business environment

have made organisational development a complicated

yet top priority for companies hoping to achieve success

in the Knowledge Economy. The ability to adapt and the

capability to lead people to adapt quickly are fast

becoming the hallmarks of a high-performance organisation.

The competitive advantage to staying relevant in this

new state of affairs is driven by High-Impact Leadership,

and we can take a cue from renowned Harvard professor

and leadership expert John Kotter, who describes aneight-step process to Leading Change:

Kotter, best-selling author of Leading Change, has observed

that organisations which were flexible and ready to implement

change were usually facilitated by a sense of urgency

throughout the organisation. As the business environment

grows more complex, organisations actually need more

knowledge leadership than knowledge management. And

it is in the context of a highly dynamic and changing

landscape that high-impact leadership becomes critical

to the future of a business.

The problem is that all too often, knowledge leaders a

a rare breed. Kotter tells us that the amount of leadersh

needed has grown dramatically in tandem with the spee

of change in the business environment. However, th

increase in the supply of such leaders hasnt bee

proportionate. The key lies in creating a need for urgenc

Kotter suggests that measures that create urgency t

change include eliminating complacency, soliciting feedbac

from key stakeholders, and envisioning opportunities an

then capitalising on them effectively.

The long-term benefit is that knowledge workers ar

better able to cope with frequent change.

Knowledge leaders need to stay in touch with the busines

environment and the social reality in order to achiev

success for their organisation. The challenge is to not ge

distracted by what has previously been achieved and no

get stuck in routine practices and habits. From my experiencthe more successful the organisation, the more challengin

it is for that organisation to stay in touch with reality an

not get complacent.

So the reality to remember is this: It takes a High-Impa

Leader to recognise that little bits of knowledge for

together the building blocks that help us see the Bigge

Picture and it is by investing in the development of knowledg

leaders that organisations build their capability for high

performance and ultimately, success.

The need for knowledge leaders

David ThamFOUNDER, NANOKNOWLEDGE

SINGAPORE CITY, SINGAPORE

David specialises in mass

communications, human capital

development and knowledge

management consultancy. His diverse

experience in HR and communication

has made him one of Asia's preferredstrategists for implementing human

capital and knowledge management

initiatives.

he or she works, and can give an employee a good

understanding of his or her abilities. In the second round,

over the ensuing six months after the first round, the

employee is encouraged to work on areas of weakness,

and only these are re-assessed by the first round s

multiple sources after another six months (hence, completing

two 3600 feedback cycles).

Intuition: The right brain, from which our intuition

emanates, is an ignored part of our intelligence

particularly in the West. It is an aspect of our capacity to

grasp reality, and that is why we have so much difficulty

talking about our intelligence because in organisations,

we have only chosen to focus on the logical side, the cause-

and-effect side. We therefore operate only through partial

information and intuition is the route for making humans

whole. It gives us a holistic overview, a whole sense of

things. Many a manager knows that on a daily basis he oshe has to make decisions based on partial information (non

complete information), and then normally draws on his o

her gut assessment of the situation (i.e., intuition). Organisation

have realised this, and are trying to cultivate that creativ

holistic part of their employees and management team

through workshops and training in intuition (sometime

wrapped up in organisational jargon such as emotion

intelligence and spiritual intelligence). The tough work

organisations, though, is to shed light upon thos

situations where ignorance, fear and prejudice regardin

holistic human functioning existparticularly in the domain

of education, science and religion (thus banishing thes

insights to the fringes of Western culture). By confrontin

ignorance, fear and prejudice regarding these abilities, the

hope to help people feel encouraged to cultivate and app

their inner, creative, intuitive abilities.

Singapore11



Most technology companies try to continually come up

with good ideas for fancy new products that provide state

of the art technology and will be a big market success.

We all know these inventions and I have bought many

things I had never used before and now cant think about

a life without them any more

But the interesting thing about it is how can a company

ensure that it comes up with ideas that might be the basis

for a market success and especially how can they manage

to develop a product out of ideas?

This was the challenge of one of our last projects. We

started out interviewing people across the organization

and it did not take us long until we all agreed that we

had enough good ideas in the company, but they often

didnt find the acceptance to be realized. Innovations usually

need some investment and time before they deliver cash

and thus are often not on the priority list of management,

which instead tends to invest in incremental improvements

to existing products. So we decided to implement a

process that would allow ideas to become an innovation

project and eventually a real product; and to establish a

central function, the Innovation Team, to drive this

process.

Idea Detection

The first step in the process is all about generating ideas.

There are various methods that try to enhance the idea

detection. We set up regular creativity workshops with

both employees from all kind of functions and external

people with various backgrounds. The intention was to

establish an atmosphere that encouraged "thinking out

of the box", sharing ideas and experiences and propose

ideas for innovation projects.

Break-through innovations and bigcorporations a contradiction?

Have you ever purchased something thinking it would be anice to have? If so, has that nice to have ever turned into ahow did we manage without it item?

Janina KugelVice President Strategy,

Siemens Communications, Munich,

Germany

Within Siemens Com we are driving

Strategy and Business

Transformation projects. They cover

different topics that address the

current strategic requirements of

our company, such as Innovation

Management, Partnering Strategy or

Customer Relationship

Management. Previous to working

with Siemens, I worked several years

in Management Consulting. During

this period I worked for major

companies throughout Europe,

mainly focussing on process re-

engineering, restructuring and

organizational design.

Customer Benefit/Market

Disruption

PotentialStrategy

Ability to

Execute

Makes you go!

InnovativeStrength


DisruptionPotential

Strategy

Ability toExecute

InnovativeStrength


DisruptionPotential

Strategy

Ability toExecute

InnovativeStrength


DisruptionPotential

Strategy

Ability toExecute

InnovativeStrength


DisruptionPotential

Strategy

Ability toExecute

InnovativeStrength


DisruptionPotential

Strategy

Ability toExecute

InnovativeStrength

Makes you learn/acquire/merge

Makes you catch-up

Makes you continuedevelopment

Makes you watch Makes you think

;-)

Idea Categories

Figure 1: Idea Categories

Europe


14/18

Idea Evaluation

Many proposals emerged from these workshops, so it was

obvious that we needed some kind of funnel because the

work volume per idea increases as they develop. We

defined different evaluation criteria for a first pre-selection.

Only proposals that pass the "evaluation spider" progress

to the next step in the process where idea owners are

asked to specify their proposals more precisely.

Idea Specification

In the idea specification phase the proposal has to undergo

its first verification, the feasibility study. Will it be possible

to realize this innovative idea? Which and how many

resources and what budget are required? What is the

estimated development effort? To come up with a project

plan you need the experience from different experts. We

were aware that there is much more experience in the

company than a single person might know of, so we

enlarged our existing Knowledge Management systems

to support this phase. The innovation expert database

contains all experts that are willing to share their knowledge,

their areas of expertise as well as their involvement in

other, past or running, innovation projects. All proposals

for innovation projects, which have been discussed are

stored in our document management system. This

information is accessible to everyone and therefore enlarges

their personal network. Besides, all idea owners can open

a "discussion forum" where everybody can join in, discuss

the proposed ideas and contribute to the existing

problem.

To make a final decision on which of the proposed

innovation projects will be funded, we founded the so

called Innovation Board. Members are decision make

from all over the organization: our CTO, sales manage

R&D managers and the Innovation Team. The Ide

Owners present their proposal and a rough project pla

The Innovation Board rejects or approves the innovatio

project and allocates the budget. In my opinion, budg

and resource allocation and getting the buy-in of to

management right from the start are the key succe

factors for an innovation project.

When we launched this process I was wondering if th

organization would accept and live the process, and if t

Innovation Board would meet more than once. But I a

happy to see that, for more than a year now, the innovatio

process is alive. I know that it is still a long way to go from

living a process to being a truly innovative company, bu

believe we have made the right start for it.

Europe

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A critical leadership function in the formulation and

implementation of strategy involves asking questions and

setting the agenda for organisational dialogue. The focus

needs to be improving the quality of the questions asked

then, through listening to answers, being able to act

effectively on that new knowledge.

Any effective KM Strategy requires the successful

integration of thoughts about business opportunities of

tomorrow, with a combination of what has been learned

from the past and the patterns of today s behaviours. In

most situations future strategies rarely fit neatly into

existing structures that are primarily driven by the demands

of history. But any organisation that is not driven by the

needs of the future will quickly find that it has become

part of the dust of history.

But how much time of the top management of any

organisation is spent thinking systematically about the

future, rather than attempting to manage the inequities

and inquests of history?

Successful organisations have to exploit a focus a core

competence at the same time as recognising the need

for change and innovation.

Where does the Chief Executive, or those responsible for

strategy development and ultimately this is the key role

for the Board obtain their knowledge about the future?

Are they aware of, and plugged into, the networks that

specialise in exploring future trends and potential

discontinuities?

What priority is given to knowledge about the future,within any KM process?

Are the KM Strategy systems both formal and

informal asking the right questions?

What are the future trends and new developments that

might have a profound impact on the future of our business?

What are the current strengths of the organisation and

how are they related to future opportunities?

How does all staff learn about new opportunities and

help reduce uncertainties?

How is future literacy promoted (and reinforced/managed?)

in the organisation?

Where does the main responsibility for future thinking

and creativity lie?

Here it is vital that as many people as possible ideally

everyone in the organisation is involved.

But are people really encouraged to share ideas? Most

people appear to believe that they work in organisations

where the underlying culture is Knowledge is Power. How

is it possible for a sharing culture to thrive in such an

environment? How is the knowledge available throughout

the organisation systematically used in the development

of strategy?

Who has the prime responsibility for the effective

management of this process apart from the CEO? Does

the Board spend enough time focused on the future and

how are these future orientated priorities determined?

Unless this is happening, every organisation today will

be deluged with irrelevant information. It is only by asking

the right questions that the insidious disease ofinformation

overload be avoided. But how is it possible to tell what

is important?

The vast majority of publications on the KM strategy

appear to be pre-occupied with the technical aspects of

the subject, very few consider the vital role of dialogue,

or questioning processes, in the generation and development

of new knowledge. The critical element of this process is

to improve the quality of the questions asked, particularly

about the future. But how effective are the questioning

skills of those concerned?Of course, asking the right questions is only a start.

Listening, and then establishing effective action, based on

the answers, is also needed. Unfortunately for too many

managers (and people in general), effective listening is by

far the most difficult part. It is important always to remember

that the information obtained from asking questions

depends partly on the quality of the questions asked, but

often it is much more dependent on the way the

questions themselves are asked.

In the end listening to the future is the key to long term

The foundation of effective KM andStrategy

Any effective KM Strategy requires the successful integrationof thoughts about business opportunities of tomorrow.

Dr. Bruce LloydProfessor of Strategic

Management

London South Bank University

London, United Kingdom

Bruce spent over 25 years in

industry and finance before joining

London South Bank University a

decade ago. He has a degree in

Chemical Engineering and MBA

from the London Business School.

He has written extensively on

strategy and futures related issues.

United Kingdom



business success, and this is particularly true in periods of

rapid change and innovation. This is not just a content

issue, but it is more critically dependent on how the future

is integrated into the present.

The further up an organisation, the more individuals

should be focused on, and concerned about, the future.

Whether it is thinking about strategy, or KM, the critical

factor is the extent to which there is an effective process

for thinking about the future.

The key word here is effective, which emphasises the

need to convert information into relevant, useful, knowledge,

as knowledge is information in use, and knowledge has

only value when it is used.

At the centre of this process and any effective

Learning Organisation approach is the need for effective

questioning and effective listening. If this dimension is

not understood and operated to good effect it should not

be surprising that so many strategy (/KM) programmes

are failures. It cannot be over-emphasised that, contrary

to the impression given in most books on the subject, KM

Strategy are not just technical subjects.

Todays CEOs have not only to know what questions to

ask, but how to ask them; they need to have enough respect

for their colleagues to be able to listen seriously to the

answers. Of course, it is also critical that CEOs need to be

knowledgeable enough to know when people are talking

nonsense! And be able to say so, without alienating those

concerned.

All these qualities (competencies?) can be learned, or atleast developed. But how much time do we spend developing

them?

The CEO is not only the fulcrum between the past and

the future; they are at the centre of strategy development

and implementation processes although obviously not

responsible for all the detailed work.

(However, it is also essential not to forget that many

CEOs learn the hard way that: Strategy is in the detail!)

As Prof. Kets de Vries recently argued: You have to

create a corporate culture where people have a healthy

disrespect for their boss; where they can speak the

minds. What needs to be avoided is that these executi

live in an unrealistic bubble far removed from realit

(Why no corporate leader can afford to be an island

Michael Skapinker, FT 19 January 2005.) Skapinker the

went on to add: It is in businesses with thousands,

millions, of customers, that those at the top are in greate

danger of losing all knowledge of what is happening.

The whole strategy/KM process involves the hearts,

well as minds, of all those concerned. Commitment, invariab

driven by a values agenda, is frequently more critical th

competencies, as the latter can usually be much more eas

learnt.

Although there is now a growing industry concerne

with Executive Coaching, yet how often do you find th

issues raised here are an integral part of thos

experiences? Not very often, if a quick survey of some

the latest literature on the subject is any guide.

One way to confirm (or not?) this view is to check th

index of any book Executive Coaching and see if th

words future, questioning or dialogue are listed? W

not?

Effective questioning, dialogue and listening are n

only at the core of the Counsellingprocess; they are centr

for any effective CEO, as well as for all levels of managemen

they are the essence of any effective strategy (/KM

development and implementation process.

But why does experience show this to be so rare

practice?

United Kingdom



Legendary KM experts Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka

are back with a timely compilation of essays on

knowledge networking techniques in business organisations,

particularly in Japanese companies facing the heat of 21st

century change and competition.

Knowledge management (KM) is now at the very centre

of what management has to do in todays fast-changing

environment, Takeuchi and Nonaka begin.

The nine writers in the book are all professors from the

graduate school of international corporate strategy at

Japans Hitotsubashi University (hence the name of the

book).

Takeuchi and Nonaka identify a category of companies

called "dialectic" companies, which are not just passively

coping with paradoxes but actively embracing opposites

and cultivating contradictions.

"Knowledge is not either explicit or tacit. Knowledge is

both explicit and tacit," the authors explain. Companies

need to embrace a whole multitude of opposites at the

same time; tensions between different traits can provide

the necessary variations and nuances for resolving the

situation.

"In this day and age of the Internet, the quantity and

quality of explicit knowledge that can be accumulated

have expanded exponentially and the conversion of explicit

tham, david. (2005, mar) "the need for knowledge leaders". in david gurteen (ed.), global knowledge...

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