Knoweldge Management as a Change Management Strategy

Knowledge Management (KM) has slowly made a mark in the American business landscape. Although it seems that the European Pacific Rim companies are finding greater value in the concept. Some in the business world have deemed Knowledge Management a lofty ambition that may not be a practical pursuit in today’s economy. Others are seeing the value of capturing the pertinent knowledge resident in the minds of their workforce realizing that due to attrition, some of this information will be gone forever when the worker walks out the door. Most of the prominent thinkers in the KM arena have focused their attention to a specific piece of the KM lifecycle. Larry Prusak, Tom Davenport and Nonaka and their general concepts have since been taken over by those seeking to explore and exploit specific techniques to sharing or codifying knowledge that benefits their organizations with repeatable, sustainable information. And while this deeper exploration is important to the evolution of KM as a legitimate business practice, the case for corporate strategy is still an important one to make.
The practice of KM encompasses all of the information a company uses to make decisions and achieve strategic goals and objectives. Sometimes this information is still between the ears of the employee who understands it. How do you leverage this information to improve your organization’s competitive position? How do you make this accessible to the whole organization in an actionable format? First the categories of information available must be explained, including both structured data in databases, data warehouses and data marts and unstructured data such as word processing documents, Web pages and electronic mail messages.

Tacit and explicit expressions of what we know, but don’t always record-
Knowledge in is between the ears – what then of the very important information that is never recorded anywhere? What becomes of the 30 plus years of information, business intelligence and intellectual capital that reside in the mind of the worker who is accepting the gold watch and walking out the door? This very valuable business intelligence must be extracted and codified so the business does not lose the ability to capitalize on the experiences and knowledge of its workforce – past, present and future.

Codification of that “working” knowledge provides an important central repository for the collection, analysis, and replenishment of the information important to the strategic success of an organization. However the tools are only as useful as the process and culture allow them to be. Do you codify all intellectual capital of all knowledge workers in your organization? While there is merit to extracting every nugget of information that may benefit your organization it would prove to be a logistical jumble of information that may or not be of any benefit in the long run. However, tying this collection effort to the high priority of meeting the strategic goals and objectives of the organization will give collection efforts purpose and focus.
Is the effort worth the return? What is the business advantage to managing organizational knowledge?

Management Advantages
How often are previously made decisions redundantly made or time spent investigating if anyone has addressed the issue before? Keeping all the structured data that backs up an analysis plus the actual documentation, such as word-processed documents, email trails, etc., together via a content management solution. Strategic planning starts with understanding what decisions have been made in the past, the outcomes of those decisions and the current competitive environment. Time to make a decision is an important factor in the success of any business. Having all of the information accessible from one place is cuts down on the time it takes to progress through the Knowledge Process.

Human Factors Consideration
How do you access this wealth of knowledge that resides “between the ears” so to speak? There are two challenges to this issue. The first and the more challenging issue has nothing to do with technology. It is cultural. Organizations generally compete internally as much as they compete externally. Budget dollars, FTE’s, the favor of the CEO are all examples of the stakes within an organization. What then gives one functional area the edge over another? The advantage comes from the intellectual capital that resides within their work groups. Knowledge is power and internal power traditionally reaps the benefits due only to a few highly competitive survivors. Unfortunately, this type of energy better serves the organization when turned outwardly at industry competitors. So, how do you get the sharing of knowledge for the benefit of the organization to happen? The only way to achieve this shift in the cultural paradigm is to institute a change management program that encompasses the processes and culture of the organization and propels and compels the people to make the necessary changes to achieve the competitive goal. Part of the change management effort may involve process redesign as the tools and technology create opportunity to explore new areas of the business that were untouchable before due to the workload. Positioning this as an opportunity rather then a threat will ease the change for the workforce and create enthusiasm around the opportunity to create new prospects for their business.

KM as a Change Management Strategy
Successful change management strategy depends on the management of corporate knowledge assets. The competitive landscape of a global economy is information dependant. Knowing your markets, customers and high value products or services depends on good information, both in structured and unstructured form. Being able to leverage and interpret that information is a key factor in the success of a business in the 21st century economy. The components of KM have been practiced in business for decades. However, pulling all the pieces together into a management strategy to capture corporate intellectual and information assets is where the value is or will be realized.