Halfway down the stairs, where good is the enemy of great.

I've been reflecting on the dangers of “staying with the herd” when it comes to knowledge sharing.  It’s easy for our organisations to reinforce this mentality, and lead to people feeling exposed as “tall poppies” is they step out and share a good practice – or professionally incompetent if they are seen to be asking for help.  I think this leads people to cluster in the middle ground of mediocrity, or to put it more kindly, a place where good is the enemy of great.

This leads me to the words of AA Milne, in his poem, “Halfway down the stairs”.

Halfway down the stairs is a stair where I sit. there isn't any other stair quite like it. I'm not at the bottom, I'm not at the top; so this is the stair where I always stop.

Halfway up the stairs Isn't up And it isn't down. It isn't in the nursery, It isn't in town. And all sorts of funny thoughts Run round my head. It isn't really Anywhere! It's somewhere else Instead!

There’s a charming version sung by Robin the Frog from the Muppet's Show on YouTube, which takes me back to my childhood!  (I'll post it at the end as a treat for you)

The River Diagram is has now become a fairly well established tool, combining the principles of positive deviance with knowledge sharing.  However, less people are familiar with its companion tool, the Stairs Diagram.

The Stairs diagram shows levels of capability (often derived from a common self-assessment tool or maturity model) plotted against the size of the improvement goal.  The example below (fictitious) shows the results of a number of healthcare-related networks who have all used a common self-assessment tool to discuss and agree their levels of networking capability against a number of practices.  They have also identified a number of targets for improvement. One of the practices in the self-assessment was "Network Leadership & Facilitation".  This is the Stairs Diagram for that practice.

Stairs Diagram

• The Diabetes Network is at level 5, and clearly has something to share.
• The Quality Improvement Fellows network is at level 1, but has a desire to improve by two levels.
• The Cardio-community is at level 2, and hasn't chosen this practice as a priority for improvement.
• There is a cluster of networks at level 3 with no aspiration to improve, including the Health Informatics network.
• Finally, the TB Network is at level 3, but still seeking to improve by two level.

The power of the stairs diagram is that it maps out the potential connections of highest value - connecting those who have something to share with those who have something to learn.  This is shown in the green and red areas respectively.

Having a common measure (in this case, a self-assessment tool) enabled this group of networks to identify not only the positive deviants, but also the networks with the greatest aspiration to improve.  For each "staircase", the group can be coached to use an appropriate knowledge management tool to help those in the nursery to improve, and those in the town to share. That might be a Peer Assist, offers and requests, a knowledge cafe, knowledge fair, storytelling approach, or the capture and sharing of a distinctive or excellent practice.

So with the right motivation, the right leadership and the right methods, you can help people avoid the stair where they always stop.

You thought I'd forgotten?

Knowledge, Reciprocity and Billy Ray Harris

Have you heard the story of Billy Ray Harris?  It's a heart-warming one.

Billy Ray is a homeless Kansas man who received an unexpected donation when passer-by Sarah Darling accidentally put her engagement ring into his collecting cup.  Despite being offered $4000 for the ring by a jeweller, he kept the ring, and returned it to her when, panic-stricken, she came back the following day.  Sarah gave him all the cash she had in her purse as a reward, and as they told their good-luck story to friends - who then told their friends -  her finance decided to put up a website to collect donations for Billy Ray.  So far, $151,000 have been donated as the story has gone viral around the world.  Billy Ray plans to use the money to move to Houston to be near his family.  You can see the whole story here.

On closer inspection, it turns out that this wasn't the first ring that Billy had returned to its owner.  A few years previously, he found a  Super Bowl ring belonging to a football player and walked to the his hotel to return it.  The football player rewarded him financially, and gave him three nights at that luxury hotel.   So the pattern was already established for Billy Ray, who also attributes it to his upbringing as the grandson of a reverend.

Whether you see this story as an illustration of grace, karma or good-old-fashioned human nature,  it illustrates the principle of reciprocity.  

Reciprocity is an important principle for knowledge management, and one which underpins the idea of Offers and Requests. 
Offers and Requests was a simple approach, introduced to make it easier for Operations Engineers at BP to ask for help, and to share good practice with their peers.  The idea was for each business unit to self-assess their level of operational excellence using a maturity model, and identify their relative strengths and weaknesses.   In order to overcome barriers like "tall poppy syndrome", or a reluctance to ask for help ("real men don't ask directions"), a process was  put in place whereby every business unit would be asked to offer three areas which they felt proud of, and three areas which they wanted help with.  The resulting marketplace for matching offers and requests was successful because:

i) The principle of offering a strength at the same time as requesting help  was non-threatening and reciprocal - it was implicitly fair.

ii) The fact that every business unit was making their offers and requests at the same time meant that it felt like a balanced and safe process.

Like Billy Ray, one positive experience of giving and receiving led to another, and ultimately to a Operations community.  A community website for offers and requests underpinned the process, enabling social connections and discussions.

This is played out in the Kansas story, where the addition of technology and social connections created disproportionate value - currently $151,000 of it. 

In the words of Billy Ray, "What is the world coming to when a person returns something that doesn't belong to him and all this happens?"

Knowledge retention - a game of two halves.

Back in the '80s, the oil company Shell ran a promotional campaign from their petrol (gas) stations in the UK which would never work today.  With every petrol purchase, you were given a scratch-card, which would reveal the left or right half of a banknote, with a value of up to £5000.  The half-note had no value in itself  - but if you could discover both halves of the banknote, then you would receive the cash.  As a child, I can remember it made those boring garage stops much more exciting! Shell's promotion relied on a good geographic separation of left and right halves of the high value banknotes. It worked well... until someone had the bright idea of asking for the missing half-notes on national radio (we're pre-internet here folks!), at which point I think Shell cried "foul" and cancelled the promotion.

I've been working on a KM/OL strategy for a company with a large number of major construction projects.  I had the privilege of interviewing a very perceptive senior manager who was reflecting for the first time on the challenges of managing knowledge in a project  team environment. She made an interesting observation about the power of stories as a source of shared knowledge, and the true cost of breaking up project teams to reallocate resources to new tasks.

It's easy to assume that when a team dissolves, each of the members  take the knowledge, lessons and stories with them. Completely.  Within this assumption, every team member is a  repository and can be managed and reallocated as a lossless, portable knowledge transfer approach, plugged into the next project just like a lego brick.

This manager's insight was that many of the stories don't reside wholly with an individual - they only surface when two former team members come together and spark each other's memories to release the value - just like our £5000 Shell scratchcard halves.  Without the other half, the knowledge value of that shared story is volatile, and at risk of dispersing into the ether.

In this world there is a real loss of knowledge when a team is disbanded and reallocated - it's not all carried by the individuals. The sum of the separated parts is now less than the sum of the parts when they were together.

As I write this, it seems obvious, but I have a feeling that our approaches to managing and sharing experience and expertise - and even our interpretation and use of network analysis - is often built on the assumption that we can make and break bonds and still retain all the knowledge in the nodes.

I think it's a lot messier than that - as Joe Cocker and the Beatles both sang - we only get by with a little help from our friends.

The ultimate Knowledge Management recipe?

I grew up in Devon, (south west England), surrounded by fields and sheep. A beautiful area, but sadly too remote to be a practical base for a much-traveled management consultant! One of the things about sheep is that you can see where they've been on the hillsides.  Their propensity for following each other leads to paths being worn away over the generations of sheep - becoming, quite literally, the path of least resistance.

We can identify similar patterns in our organisations.  We can discover who the go-to people are, and we can reveal how they interact with their colleagues, how technical advice flows, how requests for help are requited and where ideas are incubated.  That’s basis of organisational network analysis, which can be an excellent tool for determining the focus of a KM strategy or Community of Practice plan.

Of course, if you’re a sheep, and your landscape is unchanging, then a well-worn path is a good thing.

In most cases though, parts of our business landscape are changing.  Yesterday’s hill is tomorrow’s valley. However, it’s easy for sheep-like behaviour to persist, because the tracks are entrenched.

Contrast the behaviour of sheep with the waggle dance of the honey bee.   There’s an excellent 7-minute documentary about this on YouTube, but here’s a quick summary:

When a bee identifies a source of pollen, it returns to the hive and performs a ‘dance’ in the presence of the other bees.  The dance follows a figure-of-eight pattern and includes a pronounced waggle.  The direction of the waggle relates to the location of the pollen source – a precise angle in relation to the sun (even when cloudy) in relation to the hive; the duration of the waggle indicates the distance to the source.  It’s an amazing piece of design, and the documentary explains it very well.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFDGPgXtK-U]

In contrast to the sheep, the sources of pollen are short-lived - perhaps just a few days, for a few hours of the day. This action of discovery-broadcast-sign posting reminds me of the way in which organisations are using micro-broadcast tools like Yammer.  I was privileged to get some insights into the way Deloitte (UK) are using it recently, and was impressed by the buzz(!) of discovery and sharing which it had generated.

So reflecting on the sheep and the bees,  I'm left with a belief that:

i) we need to understand the sheep paths on our organisations.  They may be positive and worthy of reinforcement, or they may be historical patterns of a "ghost" organisation, rather than a current picture of where the optimum knowledge flows should be.

ii) we also need to encourage the bee-haviour (sorry!) and enjoy the discovery of resources  - and subsequently the discovery of shared interests, expertise, passions and ultimately informal networks.

So perhaps the ultimate knowledge-sharing dish is roast lamb glazed in honey?

Taking Knowledge for a walk

My shaggy-dog story.In April we had a new addition to the family. Alfie the Labradoodle came into our lives, and for 98% of the time, we haven’t looked back.

You can put that 2% down to unscheduled early mornings, a chewed laptop power supply, a hole in the garden – and a very disturbing barefoot encounter on the lawn after dark.  I’ll leave that to your imagination.

The thing I find most remarkable about being a dog owner is that it’s as though you suddenly become visible to people.  I have had more conversations with complete strangers in the last three months than in all the 10 years we have lived here. For the first time in my life, random women approach me with a “hello gorgeous” (OK, not me exactly), parents stop me and ask if their toddlers can stroke him, car drivers stop and ask what breed he is and grown men share their innermost ideas about dog training tips and anti-pull harness choices.

It was a bit disconcerting at first, but it’s actually quite pleasant.  Perhaps this new social norm is what it was like in the 60’s?

So why so people feel OK to engage in conversation, share their experience and impart wisdom in ways that they never would have done before?

We’ll, it’s obvious I guess – because the dog is obvious. Everyone can see that I’m a dog owner, so my membership of the dog-lovers’-club is visible to all, at the end of a lead.  That gives permission for other club members to approach me and ask or share.

This reminds me of Etienne Wenger’s famous definition of Communities of Practice

A group of people who share a concern or passion for something they do, and they learn to do it better as they interact regularly.

You can see where this is going. How much more effective and productive would our organizations be if we made our expertise, our experience, our concerns and our passion more visible to our colleagues?  Here are six to consider.

• I’ve written before about the poster culture in Syngenta and how they make their projects and programmes more visible.
• Expertise directories, personal profiles and smart social media which suggests connections generates a culture of greater disclosure are also helpful.
• Retreats where you have time, space and informality to get to know your colleagues better are a natural way to make new connections and deepen existing ones.
• Communities of practice can create a safe place for shrinking violets to flourish, and communities of interest (I’ve seen photography, cycling, food and wine societies, women’s networks etc. in organisations) can also generate the conditions to mix business with pleasure.
• Finally, Knowledge fairs and offers-and-requests marketplaces create a pause – a moment to browse and discover.

So much better than leaving your knowledge in its kennel...

You know knowledge is being effectively managed when...

There was a helpful thread in the sikm-leaders forum last week when someone asked for ten responses to complete the statement “You know knowledge is being effectively managed when...” I thought it was a really practical way to explore how it feels, and looks – how people behave, when KM is really working.   Here are my ten suggestions:

You know knowledge is being effectively managed when...

Leadership. Leaders in the organisation are role models, challenging people to ask for help, seek out, share and apply good practices this inspires curiosity and a commitment to improve.  The organisation is learning!

Learning. People instinctively seek to learn before doing.  Lessons from successes and failures are drawn out in an effective manner and shared openly with others who are genuinely eager to learn, apply and improve. Lessons lead to actions and improvement.

Networking. People are actively networking, seamlessly using formal communities and informal social networks to get help, share solutions, lessons and good practices. The boundaries between internal and external networks are blurred and all employees understand the benefits and take personal responsibility for managing the risks.

Navigation. There are no unnecessary barriers to information, which is shared by default and restricted only where necessary. Information management tools and protocols are intuitive, simple and well understood by everybody.  This results in a navigable, searchable, intelligently tagged and appropriately classified asset for the whole organisation, with secure access for trusted partners.

Collaboration. People have the desire and capability to use work collaboratively, using a variety of technology tools with confidence.  Collaboration is a natural act, whether spontaneous or scheduled.  People work with an awareness of their colleagues and use on-line tools as instinctively as the telephone to increase their productivity.

Consolidation. People know which knowledge is strategically important, and treat it as an asset.  Relevant lessons are drawn from the experience of many, and consolidated into guidelines. These are brought to life with stories and narrative, useful documents and templates and links to individuals with experience and expertise. These living “knowledge assets” are refreshed and updated regularly by a community of practitioners.

Social Media. Everybody understands how to get the best from the available tools and channels. Social media is just part of business as usual; people have stopped making a distinction. Serendipity, authenticity and customer intimacy are increasing.  People are no longer tentative and are encouraged to innovate and experiment. The old dogs are learning new tricks!  Policies are supportive and constantly evolving, keeping pace with innovation in the industry.

Storytelling. Stories are told, stories are listened to, stories are re-told and experience is shared. People know how to use the influencing power of storytelling.  Narrative is valued, captured, analysed and used to identify emergent patterns which inform future strategy.

Environment. The physical workplace reflects a culture of openness and collaboration.  Everyone feels part of what’s going on in the office.  Informal and formal meetings are easily arranged without space constraints and technology is always on hand to enhance productivity and involve participants who can be there in person.

Embedding. Knowledge management is fully embedded in people management and development, influencing recruitment and selection. Knowledge-sharing behaviours are built-into induction programmes and are evident in corporate values and individual competencies.  Knowledge transfer is part of the strategic agenda for HR. The risks of knowledge loss are addressed proactively. Knowledge salvage efforts during hurried exit interviews are a thing of the past!

Now your top ten will probably be different to mine (although you’re very welcome to borrow and adapt them). This kind of approach encourages us to look well beyond the technology which often disproportionately demands our attention.

Taken from the Consulting Collison Column in an upcoming edition of Inside Knowledge

When answers aren't clever...

Naguib Mahfouz was a Nobel prizewinning Egyptian author who published over 50 novels, and died a few years ago, aged 95.  I have to confess right now that I haven’t read any of his work - but I often cite one of his quotations, and use it in my "Quotations Gallery" icebreaker exercise:

“You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.”

I think that nicely articulates some of the problems we see in discussion forums and other knowledge exchanges, and one of the reasons that communities of practice are sometimes difficult to get started. We can coach and  encourage people to be wise – to be willing to ask questions and request help and advice – that’s a healthy and valuable stimulus for discussions within a community. However, often the person reading their requests can feel that they need to provide “clever answers”. All too often, that’s where it stops.

I was talking with a knowledge manager last week who has been supporting communities in her organisation for several years, and has had particular success with her on-line discussion forums.  I often find myself working with organisations who are struggling to sustain momentum with this kind of thing, so I was interested to see what was different in her approach.  She talked me though the way the forum worked.

“and this is our Q&R section..”, she commented, clicking deftly through the tabs in the software.

“Q&R?  What’s that?”. I stopped her.

“Q&R?  Why, it’s questions and responses.  We used to call it “questions and answers”, but we found that it inhibited people who didn’t feel that they had a complete answer, but were willing to offer some kind of a response.”

I think that’s a great insight.  When we use the word “answer”, we raise the stakes for anyone thinking about making a contribution. But if I’m just being asked for a response, and the requester will make a decision on how to interpret and apply it... well, that’s a far less threatening proposition, for the person answering and the person asking.

ConocoPhillips, another company whose KM activities I admire, structure their discussion forums under the banner of “Ask and Discuss”.  You want me to join in a discussion?  That sounds fine!

I blogged earlier about a technique called “Speed Consulting”, which applies time pressure to a problem-solving meeting so that sharing “consultants” only have time to offer imperfect suggestions – rather than perfect solutions. It’s the same principle.

So let’s leave it to the people who ask the questions, to derive their own answers from our responses and inputs into the discussion.  After all, as Naguib would say, they’re the wise ones.

To be published in the next edition of Inside Knowledge

 

No marks for clever answers... (but I bet the examiner smiled!)

Speed Consulting

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if you combined speed dating and knowledge-sharing? I can’t own up to any firsthand experience of the former, but I’m told by friends who do, that you participate in a merry-go-round of three-minute exchanges on a room full of tables-for-two.  When the bell rings you move around to the next person.  If you like what you’re experienced, you make a note on your score-card, and, if the feeling was mutual, you take the next steps together. Tremendously efficient and less emotionally risky than the traditional approach - at least for most people!

To save a praying mantis experience, there are websites full of interesting questions that you might ask during your 3 minutes – for example:  “What luxury item would you take on a desert island?” and “What are your favourite words and why?”. Incidentally, “knowledge management” is not a good answer to the second question. So if speed-dating is designed to reduce the emotional investment, embarrassment and risk of failure  of finding a potential partner – what can we learn from that room-full of tables which we could apply in a KM context?

In my work with communities of practice and networks over the years, I have observed that when someone asks a question in a network, people are sometimes reluctant to offer up suggestions and ideas because they don’t have a complete answer or a polished response.  The longer the silence lasts, the more risky it feels to contribute.  People hold back, worried that they might be the only one to respond and that their idea will be perceived as being too trivial or too obvious – how embarrassing! If your community feels like this, and you have an opportunity to meet face-to-face, then let me recommend a simple “Speed Consulting” exercise which can help groups to break these bad habits.  (I’m indebted to my friend and consulting colleague Elizabeth Lank for introducing me to this technique).

A quick guide to speed consulting.

Identify some business issue owners In advance, identify a number of people (around 10% of the total) with a business challenge which they would like help with – they are to play the role of the client who will be visited by a team of brilliant management consultants. Business issues should not be highly complex; ideally, each issue could be described in 3 minutes or less.  Brief the issue owners privately coach on their body language, active listening, acknowledgement of input etc.  Remind them that if they are seen to have stopped taking notes (even when a suggestion has been noted before); they may stem the flow of ideas.

Arrange the room You need multiple small consultant teams working in parallel, close enough to generate a “buzz” from the room to keep the overall energy high. Round tables or chair circles work well.  Sit one issue owner at each table. Everybody else at the table plays the role of a consultant. The issue owner will remain at the table throughout the exercise, whilst the groups of “visiting consultants” move around.

Set the context Explain to the room that each table has a business issue, and a team of consultants.  The consultants have a tremendous amount to offer collectively – from their experience and knowledge - but that they need to do it very quickly because they are paid by the minute! They have 15 minutes with each client before a bell sounds, and they move on to their next assignment. The time pressure is designed to prevent any one person monopolising the time with detailed explanation of a particular technique.  Instead, they should refer the issue owner to somewhere (or someone) where they can get further information.  Short inputs make it easier for less confident contributors to participate.

Start the first round Reiterate that you will keep rigidly to time, and that the consultants should work fast to ensure that everyone has shared everything that they have to offer. After 15 minutes, sound the bell and synchronise the movement to avoid a “consultant pile-up”.

Repeat the process Issue owners need to behave as though this is the first group and not respond with ‘the other group thought of that!’. They may need to conceal their notes. Check the energy levels at the tables after 45 minutes.  More than three rounds can be tiring for the issue owners, but if the motivation is particularly high, you might manage 4 rotations.

Ask for feedback and reflection on the process Emphasise that the issue owners are not being asked to “judge” the quality of the consultants!  Invariably, someone will say that they were surprised at the breadth of ideas, and that they received valuable input from unexpected places. Ask members of the “consulting teams” to do the same. Often they will voice their surprise at how sharing an incomplete idea or a contact was well received, and how they found it easy to build on the ideas of others.

Transfer these behaviours into community life Challenge them to offer up partial solutions, ideas and suggestions when a business issue arises in a community.  Having established the habit face-to-face, it should be far easier to continue in a virtual environment.   The immediacy and brevity of social media helps here – perhaps the 140 character limit in Twitter empowers people to contribute?

So perhaps I should have just tweeted: @ikmagazine http://bit.ly/speed_consulting boosts sharing in communities #KM @elank and waited to see what my followers would respond with! To be published in the next edition of Inside Knowledge.

Preserving knowledge. Jam tomorrow?

Have you ever been given a pot of homemade jam?  (Jelly to my American readers!) Perhaps you won some as a prize on the tombola stall at a school fair, whilst secretly hoping for that champagne bottle?

It usually comes in a recycled jar, carefully labelled by hand – often in the spidery handwriting of somebody else’s Aunt Agatha.  If you’re anything like me, you’ll smile dutifully, and put it away in the dark corner of a kitchen cupboard for a few years.  One day you’ll rediscover it, and put it straight into the bin (or if you’re unscrupulous, offer it to the tombola stall at the next school fair).

The trouble is, I don’t know Aunt Agatha.  I’m sure she’s a very nice lady, who thought she was doing a wonderful job of preserving those blackcurrants for the future.  However, I have no idea about her jam-making prowess, whether she thoroughly checked the ingredients for bugs or mould – or whether I’ll I reach the bottom of the jar and discover her false teeth. No thank you.  I’d rather stick with a new pot of Bon Maman™ from the supermarket.  I like it, I know exactly what I’m getting, and I can return it if there’s a problem. You know what the truth is?  Don’t tell her, but as much as she loves to make it, nobody ever eats Aunt Agatha’s jam... We’re in the throes of a global recession, and on the edge of some pretty severe job reductions, particularly in the UK public sector. As this becomes a reality, I have no doubt that many enlightened but embattled managers will recognise implications for corporate memory, and look for “knowledge harvesting” solutions.  This is where alarm bells start ringing for me.

Why the alarm?  Well, I fear that management consultants and KM specialists can give false hope to organisations, and in the worst cases, prey on the fears and insecurities of managers.

“Don’t worry – we’ll interview all your key members of staff, and give you a nicely packaged product on a memory stick which represents each person’s knowledge, experience, relationships, favourite references etc.  You can relax – your worries are over.  The corporate knowledge is safe for future generations.”

In ‘Learning to Fly’, I described these kind of personal knowledge capture activities as “knowledge salvage”.  I’m speaking from experience, as a consultant who has tried these techniques, and as a former corporate employee who has used them.  Yes, there are some practical steps you can take in an emergency situation for a key individual small number of retiring staff - but you need to recognise that it’s a damage limitation exercise at best.  All is not lost – but most of it is.

No matter how skilled and prepared the interviewer is, no matter how much you involve colleagues and networks in formulating the questions and iterating the content, no matter how slick and media-rich the final product is, and no matter how much you can persuade the “survivors” to actually use it...  it’s a salvage operation.

Large scale downsizing is brutal.  Surgery is usually carried out with a blunt instrument and valuable knowledge will be lost forever. Fact. I think it important that we face up to the limitations of KM, and manage expectations.

We know how it works.  After a painful period of reduction and redundancy there is a period of adjustment as things begin to stabilise and the downsized world becomes a reality.  After a couple of years management attention will turn back towards future growth  - at which point the organisation will usually  look to the outside for transformational leaders with fresh thinking to begin its new chapter. Doesn’t that sounds more like a future taste for Bon Maman™, and less likely that a jar of Aunt Agatha’s 3-year old preserve will be savoured?

So what should we do when faced with downsizing on a large scale?  Nothing at all?  Just let that knowledge walk out of the door carrying its redundancy package?

I’m not saying that - but I do encourage a healthy dose of pragmatism.

• Don’t structure knowledge around an individual.  In two years time, nobody will remember who they were, what they achieved or which context they were working in.  Identify which topics are critical to continuing current operations.  Capture any key points against these topics. If you come across a memorable story or anecdote which illustrates the point, then take note of it.
• Focus where knowledge is technical or procedural, and can be captured as guidelines, checklists and recommendations.  Embed these in a process or policy if you can.
• Pay attention to ‘know-who’, but remember that you can’t capture a relationship – all you can do capturing contacts and a small amount of background context.  Relationships will have to be re-built from scratch by the new job-holder.
• If the pace of the downsizing allows it, place the emphasis on knowledge transfer methods to staff likely to remain.  Examples include the use of future retirees as mentors, buddying, shadowing and participation in communities of practice.
• Work with HR to find creative ways to remain connected to leavers. It might be better to divert that knowledge retention budget towards securing ongoing knowledge access.  The ability to access an alumni network, or to have a timely telephone call or meeting with a former employee will  easily outweigh the effort required to anticipate all possible questions, capture the answers up-front and bury them in SharePoint.

Above all, challenge yourself with the question:  “If this knowledge is important to the future, what is the best can I ensure that it’s actually used?”.  That will stop you, or your consultant, from getting too carried away. I don’t believe that you can be a meticulous corporate historian and an effective corporate strategist at the same time; you’ll only end up in a jam.

With apologies to Aunt Agatha.  Taken from my upcoming column in the next edition of Inside Knowledge.

Target Practice

Urinals.  Do you spend much time looking at them?

This is just a guess, but for half of you, I’m assuming that the answer is “no”.  The other half of you are wondering where I’m going with this line of enquiry.

 If you have had the pleasure of using the urinals at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam, you will have noticed that each one is embellished with a lifelike image of a fly, under the glaze – just near the drain.  Initially I dismissed this as merely an example of quirky humour from a Dutch sanitary-ware manufacturer, but I was too hasty. Apparently, since incorporating the fly into their urinals, airports and other public places have noticed a decrease in the amount of cleaning required. Some of these have improved to the extent that they have saved money by reducing the number of cleaning shifts.    If you haven’t figured out the link between the fly and the cost reduction, ask any small boy!

All of this got me thinking about how on-target we are in the way we exchange knowledge, good practices, worst practices and stories.  Despite our best efforts, do people sometimes miss the mark when it comes to knowledge exchange? 

As knowledge professionals, we work hard to use processes and social technologies to bring people together collaboratively.  On some precious occasions, we get to design and facilitate face-to-face knowledge-sharing events.  Occasionally, we even get to work on leadership behaviours and organisational design. 

In all of these worthy activities, we sometimes forget that knowledge management can also help groups of people to agree upon and describe their practices – and hence connect and share more efficiently because they have negotiated a common language.

Here’s an illustration.  In KM circles, we have talked for years about the value of nurturing communities of practice, and rightly so.  However, if we were to turn our “Community of Practice toolkits” out onto the table, the majority of our tools play into the notion of Community: role descriptions and training programmes for leaders and facilitators, templates for community charters, designs for launch events, no end of technology options for social collaboration and document management.

But what about the Practice bit?  Do we have anything in our toolkits to offer groups of professionals who want to agree upon “what’s important” and describe “what good looks like”?  Yes, we can provide wikis where people can discuss and build glossaries, definitions and reference material, but that’s a platform, rather than a process.

I’m advocating that as Knowledge Management professionals, we should be able to offer any group a simple process for describing their practices qualitatively, thereby enhancing their knowledge-sharing.   That could involve the creation of a self-assessment tool (maturity model) – or perhaps a knowledge asset which helps others to navigate through a distillation of past learning, current good practice, examples and key contacts. 

That’s more than installing a wiki, a Drupal community or a set of SharePoint libraries.  It requires  us to roll up our sleeves and engage with the subject  experts and practitioners.  It involves us in helping them to agree and describe their practice in an accessible way.  By helping them to produce a common model of the practices which make up their functional area, they will be able to target their knowledge-sharing far more precisely, and hence get more value from KM tools and techniques.

Or to put it another way - if our knowledge workers have something more clearly defined to aim at, then we’ll have to spend less time clearing up after them.

 First Published in the October Edition of Inside Knowledge