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Thursday, November 13, 2014

Smoke on the water

The river, as it meanders through the plains gathers momentum, and then falls from great heights crashing down on the rocks below creating a misty spray; this process effectively transforms a small part of the gushing river to its almost elemental state of water droplets. They soon gather themselves and continue their journey downstream.
Observing this phenomenon at Hogenakkal, I was reminded of a question someone asked me recently, on how tacit knowledge becomes explicit in an organization? In other words, when does personal knowledge of an individual become organizational knowledge? In his magnum opus, Personal KnowledgePolanyi talks about the 'knowledge continuum' between tacit knowledge and explicit knowledge.
Knowledge can be categorized into three broad categories based on how it impacts business:
  • Process-related
  • Organization and Culture-related
  • Tools (Information technology)
Broadly speaking, all business performance is streamlined into tasks, procedures, processes with measures to determine how it is impacting the business. For example, revenue v/s target is an indication of how close the business is towards achieving its sales objectives. The underlying processes provide the mechanism to achieve that, which in today's world, for the most part is executed through tools (CRM / ERP, etc). So, we also measure process performance to assess the efficiency or effectiveness of the process. The productivity of the personnel who execute these processes are also measured to enable improvement in their performance.
The second aspect relating to organization and culture is largely defined by:
  • Skills and level of mastery
  • Work environment
  • Training and Development
  • Motivation factors
Post-industrial era has seen a large change in the work environment, and the behavioral characteristics of the workforce. A recent Gallup report described the current workforce to consist of more than 40% of knowledge workers, which is growing every year. The standard motivational factors that motivated industrial era workers do not work in this environment any longer. Daniel Pink, in his book A Whole New Mind, talks of the death of Management principles that were based on Taylor's measurement techniques, largely because there is less and less work that is monotonous and requires just a pair or arms or legs.

As we have seen, culture has also been significantly influenced by Technology and tools that have helped in breaking silos and bridging chasms - creating the ability to collaborate across boundaries. Tools come with integral collaboration capability and workflows that support seamless involvement of people across tasks. 

So, how can the impact of KM be measured on the organization?
  • The impact of Knowledge on the business process, as measured by metrics which determine underlying causes for the change in business measures
  • The inter-relation of these underlying causes which can be attributed to change in skills, work environment, learning and motivation factors
  • The impact of tools in enabling change in culture - creating a collaborative and connected community
In the absence of clear metrics that link business performance to changes in process, the impact of implementing Knowledge Management in an organization on creating greater cohesion, collaboration and ability to reach out to a larger community will have to be used as an indirect measure on the overall improvement in the business.

For example:
  • How can we relate activities at the two ends of the knowledge spectrum - a user accessing a procedure document or content in the knowledge repository to tacit knowledge which is measured as conversations that occur in the collaborative work-space;
  • Or the ability of the Knowledge environment to bridge the transition from personal knowledge to organizational knowledge by connecting a seeker of knowledge to an expert on the subject
  • measuring the decibel levels in a community or discussion forum to associated change in processes - which result from the community making innovative changes in the way the business process is executed
These by themselves will have no direct impact on business performance. However, they are the cogs in the wheels which turn bigger wheels which result in generating huge momentum and force. Viewed in isolation, it may not be possible to determine their end impact, but recognizing the role in the overall work environment will definitely help in ensuring that organizations organize themselves towards a knowledge-driven strategy for growth and sustainability.
So back to my original question: at what point does personal knowledge become organizational knowledge? I think the SECI model proposed by Nonaka provides a framework in which to understand this transformation. Technology and the rapid adoption of social media tools in the work-place has enabled us understand this phenomenon better.
What do you think?