tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84062389091616746262024-03-13T10:14:23.984-07:00Adventures of a Knowledge ManagerAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-51176354337613510102014-01-05T03:29:00.002-08:002014-01-24T07:45:56.022-08:00Knowledge Management in 87 Seconds – Creating an “elevator” animation<div class="MsoNormal">
Reputation before brand were words that stuck with me following
a Marketing talk. Yet it could be argued that everything is about just that
these days. Marketing. This seems to apply to knowledge management too. Despite
some solid concepts, value adding approaches and genuine innovation, KM experts
aren't getting the plaudits they deserve because of messages that are too long
winded or confusing for mainstream audiences.<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
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I've been fortunate enough to recently complete a
project with friend and seasoned KM expert <a href="http://insightknowledge.com/spluck/" target="_blank">Stefan Lafloer</a> and a vibrant Dutch marketing and animation team <a href="http://www.funk-e.com/" target="_blank">Funk-e</a> to see if we could articulate the value of
knowledge management in less than 230 words.<o:p></o:p><br />
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If you prescribe to the concepts of <a href="http://www.cognitivedesignsolutions.com/KM/ExplicitTacit.htm" target="_blank">Tacit and Explicit knowledge</a>, then you’ll appreciate that not everything can be documented or
added to a knowledge base. The lemonade stand scenario was able to reflect situations
that could occur if key expertise was to exit organisations. An breakdown of the rationale behind some of our other inclusions.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Knowledge Health
Check<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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We begin by describing a practical starting point for a KM
intervention. Some form of <a href="http://www.kstoolkit.org/Knowledge+Audits" target="_blank">knowledge health-check or audit</a> will help understand
the current state of affairs for a company and identify opportunities for improvement.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Lessons Learned<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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We also talk about how effective <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtJv4QXE0RA" target="_blank">lessons learned </a>can avoid
mistakes and repeat successes and the value of knowledge reuse through an
effective lessons learned system will help reinvent the wheel and rework
solutions. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Collaboration<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Here we’re referring to <a href="http://infed.org/mobi/jean-lave-etienne-wenger-and-communities-of-practice/" target="_blank">Communities of Practice</a>. How the collective learning by groups can allow them to learn how to do things better as they interact more regularly to seek experience, reuse assets, coordinate and solve problems.<br />
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<b>Technology</b><br />
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Last and I guess least, we mention technology. Important as it is in KM, its role should be to support people and not the other way round. In light of this, it deliberately has less of a focus than the needs of people and process.<br />
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Anyway, on to the video...</div>
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<a href="http://youtu.be/JUZxaHj0FEI">http://youtu.be/JUZxaHj0FEI</a><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/JUZxaHj0FEI?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
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An 87 second
animation that took well over 87 collective hours by all stakeholders to complete in
the end and proved to be an intricate challenge. The Marketing guys rightfully advising us how certain concepts couldn't
be animated, to keep things succinct and make sure it could be understood and
appreciated by non-KM people. It was important for me and Stefan that the essence and key
tenets of KM were also captured.<br />
<br />
We're pretty happy with the results. With KM encompassing such a broad church of areas and different interpretations though, would anyone have done
things differently?<br />
<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-65405310170014011712013-08-19T08:05:00.000-07:002013-09-11T13:47:49.784-07:00Straits Knowledge – Working with a David<div class="MsoNormal">
Consultancies have had their share of bad press. Whether
that’s because of a lack of sincerity in their offering (as described by a former <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/masters-of-illusion-the-great-management-consultancy-swindle-1788556.html">consultant</a><span class="MsoHyperlink">)</span> or the result of clients who call on outside
expertise without understanding if it already exists within their <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11041845">organisation</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Despite this, the consultancy model appeals to me. With an honest
value proposition, their small structure, resulting lack of hierarchy and
organisational fat can allow them to deliver cutting edge approaches to clients
far more effectively than larger enterprises. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Working in KM roles for relatively large organisations
so far and meeting my fair share of consultants, I’ve always wanted to
experience what it would be like be on the other side. So when I was offered
the opportunity to spend two weeks with a small but respected Singapore
based Knowledge Management consultancy, <a href="http://straitsknowledge.com/">Straits
Knowledge</a>, I had to take it.<o:p></o:p></div>
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During my visit, I was introduced to the Singapore KM
community and invited to help in client projects. Highlights (of which there
were many) included talking at a community of practice launch, contributing my experiences
at a knowledge retention <a href="http://www.greenchameleon.com/gc/blog_detail/knowledge_retention_roundtable_and_knowledge_risks/">roundtable</a>
and actively encouraged to understand Strait’s own KM and learning set-up and
practices with the rationale of providing an honest debrief by the end of my trip.<o:p></o:p></div>
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Having my own set of keys to Straits Knowledge allowed me to
come in at any time during the day or night from my hotel room to do lots of
things. Such as… attempt to take arty photos of an empty office as shown below,
help myself to founding partner Edgar Tans stash of roasted almonds (I’m truly
sorry Edgar for not coming clean earlier) and slightly more productively, gain
a better insight into some of the methodologies Straits Knowledge has been
developing and delivering for over 10 years. </div>
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The most credible consultants I’ve met tend to possess a
good general understanding of organisations and management consulting while
being especially strong in certain areas. Straits CoP Workshop Facilitation, Knowledge
Audit and Taxonomy Development workshops particularly stood out. I’m going to
talk about the latter two.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Knowledge Audit<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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I understood knowledge audits as a means of identifying
which knowledge topics were well managed, which ones may be at risk as a result
of poor knowledge management and what actions might be needed to then help an
organisation. Straits Knowledge introduce their own special sauce by approaching
knowledge and cultural audit elements with a bespoke set of <a href="http://store.straitsknowledge.com/">cards</a>. The cards have been
created by gleaning patterns of behaviours from real life organisational
scenarios. Their approach allows participants to express their thoughts, while
also providing a structured method for actionable next steps. This <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeAVN2an-Xc">video</a> featuring Strait’s
founding partner Patrick Lambe might explain it better. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>Taxonomy Development<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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In my mind, Patrick is also a leading authority in this
area. Prior to meeting him though, I was always under the impression that
Taxonomies were a necessary component of a wider KM initiative, but fell
strictly under the area of information access and navigation. It’s only after
reading his book – <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/1843342278/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1/276-1390938-6166732?pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_r=1TTJKB3RQYAGR83H5PTB&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_i=1843342286">Organising
Knowledge</a>, gaining familiarity with Strait’s <a href="http://www.greenchameleon.com/uploads/Taxonomy_Process_Poster_A4.pdf" target="_blank">methodology </a>and how they apply
it practically to client projects that I could see how taxonomies can also act
as an effective enabler for collaboration too. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<b>My Verdict<o:p></o:p></b></div>
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Singapore is a fascinating place in so many ways and Straits
Knowledge were truly great hosts. Nevertheless, I had been asked to produce a
detailed report on Straits Knowledge and this proved to be a tough task
ultimately. <o:p></o:p></div>
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Edgar, Patrick and Wai Kong as well as being down-to-earth
and honest individuals, were also amongst the most competent KM practitioners I
have ever met. Part of me just felt like telling to them to just carry on as they were doing, but then I thought I’d have a go at picking on a couple of
points anyway! <o:p></o:p></div>
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The first (and don’t laugh) was how a laser printer would provide them with better quality text and images, as well as a time and
cost saving after the initial outlay. <o:p></o:p></div>
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The second slightly more intelligent observation was that while they were highly regarded in South East Asia for providing KM and Learning products and services, they
didn’t appear to have quite the same level of recognition in Europe - essentially because
they hadn’t explored the market here. <o:p></o:p></div>
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I'm pretty sure they’re still using that slow and noisy
inkjet printer, but the idea of a having a U.K presence appealed to them. For the first time, they will be delivering two <a href="http://www.greenchameleon.com/uploads/KM_Workshop_UK_flyer_2013_v1.pdf">U.K
workshops</a> on <a href="http://store.straitsknowledge.com/prod.aspx?id=38" target="_blank">Taxonomy Development</a>
and <a href="http://store.straitsknowledge.com/prod.aspx?id=39" target="_blank">Knowledge Audits</a> in Birmingham from the 19<sup>th</sup> to the 22<sup>nd</sup> of November. I would unequivocally recommend attending these to any KM and IM practitioners
and internal consultants who are able to attend. Details can be found on their website or feel free to contact me for further information. </div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-16019814142553808882013-05-30T05:47:00.000-07:002014-03-25T06:02:57.457-07:00Technology. A knowledge managers guide to tackling this dirty area<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhLvOjP0BXrGGJ3m3lqM_nBgT4A4fzyN4NJx3rnWq6OVHQUEo9TzscW3SqtjDbyTp1J0jWmXvAC0Rc7xmmfXYYSJAbFOXAUYhNJciKYQieXf492VcYupjP2J9NKMsH6nIzsgu08IY8SesA/s640/ASH3.jpg" width="640"></div>
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<span id="goog_1239901735"></span>
I'm actually going to stop apologising for the long pregnant pauses I've shown between posts. Rest assured though, I'm still about! I've also tried to make this entry a little more illustrated through the use of a groovy annotating tool I came across called thinglink. Please do have a go at hovering across the image and exploring the links. A larger version can be found <a href="https://www.thinglink.com/scene/396587414245605376#tlsite" target="_blank">HERE</a>.<br>
<br>
Anyway, onwards to this blog topic - beginning with an explanation for the choice of headline. I don't seriously mean technology is a "dirty" area of course. It's something I have a genuine interest in, appreciating the positive contribution it can make to knowledge management implementations However, this contribution also needs to be put into perspective. Many KM practitioners (myself included) understand the importance of people in any successful KM initiative and technology on average should really only take about 20% of the focus. Yet there is an expectation in many KM roles to a smaller or larger extent to have an understanding of technology, if only from an end-user/business-end perspective. Although irrespective of how whizz-bang the technology offering is and what software vendors will claim theirs can do, it will (at best) be an enabler and not a solution in KM implementations. 'Social Life of Information' is a book that puts the area in context, respectfully and rationally.<br>
<br>
Of course, technology itself is a huge field. Enterprise Content Management (ECM) and Social Software - Enterprise 2.0 type technologies were the areas that most related to my objectives at the time and the blog image above tells a story of some of the providers I have worked with over the last few years that may help other KM folk experiencing similar challenges.<br>
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<b>Free or cheap</b><br>
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"Can you look into finding a tool that can act as an online forum? Oh and there's no room in the budget so it should probably be free". (It happens), in which case, something like PhPbb could function perfectly well as a business forum tool. Topics can be posted and answered by your community of users, although there still needs to be an active coordinator/moderator to encourage conversations and keep things on topic. PhPbb might not be disco enough for some people and there have been some security problems. However, it does function well, is easy to use and under the open source model is completely free.<br>
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<b>Tactical solutions</b><br>
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Sometimes solutions need to be in place very quickly. Decisions and the implementation around an on the premise software solution while allowing complete control can also take time and are expensive in terms of overheads and maintenance costs. For smaller IT departments a cloud-based solution, such as Yammer, Huddle or Salesforce Chatter can make good alternatives. The latter is unashamedly modelled on Facebook for user experience and allows easy posting and replying to topics and searching for documents and expertise. Still on Salesforce, I'd recommend visiting one of their CloudForce events. As long as you don't get seduced by the hyperbole it will give you a chance to see how companies are practically adopting their tools and Salesforce really know how to throw a party!<br>
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<b>A longer-term approach</b><br>
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As a rule, the cloud based content management and search solutions I've mentioned don't have as rich a feature set as the more established vendors in the market, namely SharePoint - which personally I feel can provide pretty much anything. In the words of a KM friend of mine though, it is clunky, complete but a 'money pit' (due I guess to the development costs and the unwillingness of Microsoft to support smaller implementation projects). Being in a situation to provide something from scratch can be a challenging and an exciting and worthwhile time. Challenging, because things can get quite techie and venture into the domain of a systems analyst role. Exciting and worthwhile because you have a chance to really get to know the solution, involve the users from the beginning and be in a position to offer something refreshingly different from the usual corporate intranet.<br>
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The world of Enterprise content management (ECM) and social software can be a confusing area - even to the tech-savvy. Once you've agreed as an organisation what the ECM is supposed to help with, I found some useful places to start were to look at <a href="http://cmswire.com./">CMSWire.com.</a> The site provides impartial reviews, new products and white papers on the areas of document and content management systems.<br>
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Gartner's Magic Quadrant although considered biased towards larger vendors does put forward quite a strategic selection criteria that can provide a good basis of questions for any organisations ECM selection process. Typically these include a vendors product and service functionality, financial health, profitability, revenue growth, customer feedback any any other factors that could help gauge if they are likely to be around in the future. Hardly exciting, but useful to know if you're going to be investing a considerable sum of money in a 3+ year solution. With this said, its better not to get too precious about any tool, after the 5 year mark any organisation should look into re-evaluating their content architecture for potentially better solutions.<br>
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Based on the functional, technical and security requirements of your organisation it makes sense to come up with a shortlist. SharePoint tends to be in the running, generally because it is one of the market leaders and SharePoint farms already exist in larger organisations. Folks like to stick to what they know sometimes, although there are a lot of technologies out there that can augment existing SharePoint implementations. Other contenders to consider might be their biggest opensource competitor, Alfresco - that can compete on functionality and knock spots off MS for value. Highland Onbase, which appeared to be particularly strong on document management capabilities (security and library services, check-in check out and versioning) and Jive - which Gartner class as 'social software in the workplace' amongst other areas. Ultimately it still comes down to what's needed in your company. In other words there is no best ECM, only a best fit.<br>
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From here it makes sense to do bring them in for a 'beauty parade', where your organisations stakeholders can score against a criteria agreed earlier. Try not to chuckle/get upset when any of vendors claim their solutions are a knowledge management solution or "will create" communities. From my experiences they seem to be more interested in providing a technology solution and not a knowledge management one. PowerPoints look great, so don't be shy on asking them for live demonstrations and arranging pilots (at their cost ideally).<br>
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<b>Geographically dispersed workforce</b><br>
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If you've worked in an organisation where most of your colleagues are of no fixed abode, it is important to consider how easy it is for them to access and contribute to an organisation wide ECM when they are on the move or at client sites. Many vendors have also considered this and in addition to extranet access provide dedicated smartphone and tablet apps. Some are better than others, although Salesforce Chatter, Huddle, and Jive all provide impressive mobile access and I'd be interested to hear about other tools people have had success with.<br>
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<b>Hearts and Minds</b><br>
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A question KM practitioners should ask themselves or be prepared to answer if asked<b> </b>is "what is going to be different this time round?" In other words how is your all singing, all dancing KM technology proposition going to be any different from previous (usually unsuccessful) technology implementations? It comes back to the key challenge of <a href="http://adventuresofaknowledgemanager.blogspot.co.uk/2012/01/carrots-sticks-and-obama-knowledge.html" target="_blank">change management</a>.<br>
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Although an IT tool itself is not the answer to change management, it's interesting to see how uses of technology can help with this crucial area. Apparently the most commonly used content management system within any organisation is the humble shared drive. One option is to mandate the use of a specific single repository. The reality is that a change programme like this will have varying degrees of resistance depending on how it is handled. Alfresco had a cuter approach to this situation. The existing shared drive access was kept in place including the regular icon. However, instead of this information being stored locally, it was actually being routed and saved in a central location. The user experience would remain unaffected and the system would be able to consolidate usually disparate knowledge bases into one centrally stored and accessible system.<br>
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A related challenge that you might come across is when an organisation may implement a technology for a company wide intranet platform. Then decide to launch successive knowledge bases with no thought into any kind of data migration or decommissioning plan. The result can be a confused and irritated user groups who save their work in what they believe is the best location, only to be told to move on to yet another platform without any type of hand holding or training. One approach to tackling these 'islands' within an organisation would be through the use of horizontal portal technology. These essentially work by consolidating several existing repositories into a single search interface to allow users to search targeted to their particular account. Tools such as <a href="http://www.liferay.com/" target="_blank">liferay</a> can act as an effective front-end portal for more established back-end content management systems such as Alfresco and SharePoint.<br>
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<b>So...</b></div>
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If you've managed to read this far, give yourself a pat on the back for surviving such a techie explicit post. </div>
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In closing I'd say that many KM practitioners know the extent to which technology can help and yet its easy to find yourself thinking that it can provide a complete solution to KM. This above should really act as a <i>reminder. </i>From a a technology perspective vendor solutions, ECM and related tools can do pretty much anything. The real challenge comes down to change - something that can't be "populated and searched for" in the blink of an eye.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-11229189612735013632012-11-28T14:55:00.000-08:002013-03-07T08:04:38.661-08:00Is a picture really worth a thousand words? Images and Knowledge Management <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV48LCCngN4cNYU6Y2Sxhfgm0oLR6trzy7WPjhWL935n7iVnETOZnPRM921FutkA9v2RbpzXAsxU_maaxULaSFWpNBtrr0veGAdI5ClrSSNgDzGa59QgCqA6NMunjqMSlk8iBMSV4moMs/s1600/8211354101_1108646c05_b.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img alt="" border="0" height="379" jsa="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV48LCCngN4cNYU6Y2Sxhfgm0oLR6trzy7WPjhWL935n7iVnETOZnPRM921FutkA9v2RbpzXAsxU_maaxULaSFWpNBtrr0veGAdI5ClrSSNgDzGa59QgCqA6NMunjqMSlk8iBMSV4moMs/s640/8211354101_1108646c05_b.jpg" title="Image from flickr user: kmworks" width="640" /></a></div>
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Before I explain the seemingly odd looking images in the photo below, I wanted to give my take on KM and innovation. Some would argue otherwise, but effective KM promotes innovation, by supporting diversity, encouraging new ideas and helping to seek out new approaches. This is still a fairly high level view and innovation, like other values could benefit from a helping hand. I thought it was time to blog about the experiences I’ve had of the use of images to inspire innovation and how they could help folk do things differently.<br />
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Sue Fernandez is the owner of BOSSCo. It’s a great little business that has accommodated the Manchester Knowledge Café’s this year and provides everything from photocopying facilities and chocolate pizzas to branding and website design.<br />
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During one of many visits there, Sue set a number of cards out and asked me to describe how they might relate to an organisation I was involved with. Looking past the caricatural nature of the photos, it got me thinking about how senior management (who I pictured at the front of the train) mainly relaxed and smiley, had recently communicated how we had won new business - how there was nothing to worry about and how the future was bright. Conversely, back office staff (effectively the people looking worried and jumping off at the back) were of the belief that this new business wasn't actually generating any additional revenue, that the figures were not being met and ultimately it was time to jump ship.<br />
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The spinning plates reminded me about a colleague’s frustration at the ‘ball chasing’ the company did. How all resources were diverted on new and potentially new customers and before you knew it, everyone’s put into a position of juggling too many responsibilities and spreading themselves thin. The spinning plate image especially illustrates the diversity of feelings. Some may actually view this as an example of a capable team. Apart from the odd plate falling it could be perceived that activities are generally being handled well, with almost all the plates left spinning (albeit with fairly stressed looking staff)<br />
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Whatever your perception of these and similar images, they are based on real things people have said about real situations and can be a far more effective method of eliciting conversation than simply going into an organisation and asking people to tell you their problems.<br />
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Gary King, owner of deadcatdreaming is another image led individual I’ve had the pleasure of meeting. Gary, an artist by trade has helped everyone from managers of Sony to council executives articulate their strategic plans, using one common denominator – pictures. He encourages participants in his workshops to express their thoughts, feelings and ideas as visual metaphors. Gary then creates these on-the-fly, painting large scale graphic records of what was important to the organisation who can take these away as constant and colourful visual reminders. This participatory approach deliberately combines different viewpoints, refining and defining often complex problems in ways that resonate for everyone involved, all the while unlocking the creative potential to see things differently (An example of Gary doing his stuff <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BpjVnylm_fc&feature=youtu.be" target="_blank">HERE</a>). <br />
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Through his work as a graphic facilitator, Gary has also distilled a powerful set of images that he found constantly reoccurring across communities of practice. Deadcatdreaming have also gone on to package these into a set of evocative cue cards that they use to elicit meanings from many audience and topics.<br />
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As Gary said, on their own, these cards mean very little. However, when combined with a provocative question or a series of questions within a structured framework, things can really take off. So graphics facilitation is something that I’d class as a utility and like any utility it should be used appropriately – yet one that should be part of a KM practitioner’s toolkit.<br />
<br />
Improving team or organisational performance could be one use, building relationships with customers another. More specifically, within knowledge management I see great merit in this approach as part of a knowledge audit process. For example, requesting stakeholders pick an image that might represent their view of knowledge management, be that good or bad and then of course explaining what made them arrive at this choice.<br />
<br />
Still not convinced? The next Manchester Knowledge Café on November the 11th will be co-presented by two facilitators, each with their own take on graphics facilitation. Read more and express your interest <a href="http://kmcgraphicsfacilitation.eventbrite.co.uk/?ebtv=C" target="_blank">HERE</a>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-76835399511894581542012-10-24T02:16:00.001-07:002012-10-25T09:44:11.982-07:00When knowledge walks. Tactical Knowledge Retention in KM<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcuGbHJX3TwmwU752DtcQtCK0sGLor6AHeHFE4nUMAwgZdRKlDwLvVaTzsBKrgF6j5s8GpoJeS6klVKHzQ4B97lkoqZnffXW91hXVC8Lh9yZVdXbj9Z13NOxL03LZsNwPGTrYJkzaJiQo/s1600/ColorSplashImage+(2).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" height="462" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcuGbHJX3TwmwU752DtcQtCK0sGLor6AHeHFE4nUMAwgZdRKlDwLvVaTzsBKrgF6j5s8GpoJeS6klVKHzQ4B97lkoqZnffXW91hXVC8Lh9yZVdXbj9Z13NOxL03LZsNwPGTrYJkzaJiQo/s640/ColorSplashImage+(2).JPG" title="username kmworks on flickr" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">You
never forget a good teacher… The lovely Mrs Lowe managed to communicate the
importance of good dental hygiene, where dentists and countless ad campaigns
had failed. Her humble props of a jar, an egg and a litre of cola were enough
to convince us kids <i>not to wait for decay
and use Colgate today.</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">As
a manager I’d have missed her contribution to the school. As a knowledge
manager, it would be the regret at losing her expertise, assumptions, values
and insight that would inevitably occur when Mrs Lowe finished her class for
the last time. You see this all the time of course – workers, good workers like
Mrs Lowe, with years of experience leaving an organisation in planned or
unplanned ways with little or no thought about how this knowledge loss could
be mitigated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">KM
practitioners could be thinking communities of practice and mentoring
programmes, but what if these don’t exist formally or even informally in your
organisation? They’re also not much use if that person is leaving in days and
weeks and not months and years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">When
bossman asked me to look into creating a procedure for tactical knowledge
retention, I was only too happy to help. Perhaps the start and tail ends of an employees lifecycle are the most crucial periods, both in terms of how they are supported
and the steps taken to mitigate critical knowledge loss. I’ll attempt to
provide an overview of the exit process. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Knowledge Retention?<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Related
terms include, ‘Knowledge Elicitation’ and ‘Knowledge Harvesting’, although the
latter phrase was something that brought genuine fear into the eyes of the
first person who volunteered to take part in one. After reassuring them that no
brains would be sucked out at any point in the sessions, I decided to
communicate it as the less racy ‘Knowledge Retention’ from then on.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Knowledge
retention is a response to the crucial knowledge lost when key personnel leave
an organisation. It would still be unrealistic to expect that the entire knowledge
built up during months and years of a worker’s tenure can be captured in
sessions that may amount to hours. Knowledge retention is therefore a damage
limitation exercise at best, yet still infinitely better than asking people to
volunteer their expertise by writing down what they know, relying only on
gathering documents and records they may have created or worse still doing
absolutely nothing.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Even
with the best will in the world, many experts <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8406238909161674626" name="OLE_LINK2"></a><a href="http://www.apqc.org/dr-carla-o-dell" name="OLE_LINK1" target="_blank">‘don’t know what they know’</a>. Therefore, an effective way of capturing and transferring
meaningful knowledge is through structured interviewing to help systematically
surface know-how and ‘deep-dive’ on content that an individual or team wouldn’t
have considered capturing on their own. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">My
first foray into knowledge retention was to specifically capture and transfer
some crucial learning between a subject matter expert who was leaving and a new
starter who would be in a position to take some of the previous incumbents
responsibilities. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Deciding When<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Before
embarking on this exercise it makes sense for all involved to understand to
what extent their participation should be. Knoco refer to this as ‘High
Grading’ the knowledge risk. For example, is the work continuing? Does anyone
else have the knowledge? Or, has the knowledge been fully documented previously<i>? </i>Depending on the response, possible
solutions could be to simply creating optional self-help documentation.<i> </i>If however they’re identified as the
only subject matter expert with key operational knowledge, as was the case of
the first person who participated in this session with me, then more needs to
be done.<i> </i>In a single point failure
situation like this, a structured knowledge retention exercise was the only
option.<i><o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Roles<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Prior
to a session it seems logical to define certain roles and responsibilities.
Katrina Pugh describes these very effectively as part of her ‘Knowledge Jam’
process. For example, a sponsor (in my case my boss) would act to fund and
select knowledge retention subjects and advocates in favour of knowledge
retention event.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
‘Knowledge Originator’ would be the subject matter or domain expert with
know-how potentially useful to others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
‘Knowledge Seeker’ would be the person in search of the knowledge. They should
also take part in the knowledge retention process if they are available while
the knowledge originator is. Here they can play a role in shaping the direction
of the knowledge captured to by requesting any specific information that would
help them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">I
took the role of facilitator to explain, coordinate and structure the knowledge
retention exercise, as well as capture the outputs of the event between the
originator and seeker. While it would depend on resources, a dedicated scribe
could also work alongside the facilitator and knowledge seeker to help augment
any dialogue and capture other such that was missed, noting down who said
what. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The Process<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">The
knowledge seekers need a structured method by which to share their knowledge,
in other words something to help tell them tell their story. Indeed </span><a href="http://adventuresofaknowledgemanager.blogspot.co.uk/2011/05/storytelling.html"><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">storytelling</span></a><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;"> methods themselves
could be incorporated into any sessions. If, like me, you subscribe to the
notion that experts ‘don’t know what they know’, a key purpose of the knowledge
retention exercise should be to help surface this knowledge from them. A
‘pre-interview’ session to determine key points would help here. Routine admin
type stuff can be taken out of the way and a request for fundamental reference
documents, contacts and the structure of their working year taken.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Providing
a context to help the knowledge originator tell their story is a useful
starting point in the main interview session. An existing methodology or
strategy will act as a logical basis to structure questions on. The first
participant I undertook this with was a trading professional that was expected
to adhere to a company mandated sourcing methodology. The various stages of
this methodology were used as a framework by which questions could be
formulated and structured conversation encouraged. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">More
generic questions could include, “<i>what
product/process/strategy do we have today?</i>” Or, “<i>how did the politics of your networks influence how you went about
these?</i>”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">During
the pre-interview stage it helps to ask the originator to describe in a couple
of word’s what they feel the crux of their job is about. With the first participant,
this was essentially how they managed the customer and how they made the saving.
Both these concerns were then structured into the main interview session
questioning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">As
a teacher in a previous life, my guru used to tell me that intelligence comes from
within and our role was less as tutors and more to facilitate the elicitation
of responses from students. A learning background is an advantage in any
facilitated sessions, however probing questions to press for specifics could
include:</span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"><br /></span></span></div>
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<span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 15px;">- </span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;">What
would you do if?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;">- What
usually happens?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-indent: -24px;">- What </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;">are the things to watch out for?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-indent: -24px;">- </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;">How
could this be made easier to understand?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-indent: -24px;">- </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Why do you do that?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-indent: -24px;">- </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;">Where
do you go for further details?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-indent: -24px;">- </span><span style="text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">Describe
a situation where it </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">didn't</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> go to plan? </span></span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;"><span style="font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 15px; text-indent: -24px;">- </span><span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt; text-indent: -18pt;">What
are the critical success factors to achieving success in that part of your job?</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">A
sequence of asking questions - exploring those answers, summarising the feedback
and developing new questions - to help produce recommendations for the next
person doing similar work should be the method of operation here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">The
session </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">doesn't</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> need to be limited to capturing only text either. During one
session a knowledge originator became quite excited about explaining the
management structure of a customer and resorted to using the whiteboard present
in the room. It’s fine to go with the flow within reason and I took a quick
snap afterwards that was included and annotated in the final report.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Recording
any proceedings was something that I personally don’t opt to do, figuring that
it could inhibit the flow of conversation and make both the knowledge originator
and seeker feel more self-conscious. However, discrete audio clips embedded
into session documents can work well as a way of enriching the final explicit
knowledge created.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">At
the end of the sessions, it also makes sense to distribute any reports with
both the knowledge originator and the seeker to verify the facts and to let
them add anything that may have been missed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Demonstrating Value<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Knowledge
seekers, Knowledge originators and perhaps most importantly my boss could see
clear benefits of performing this activity. If you are faced with a
particularly incredulous financial director, work by Dr Hoffman from the Florida
Institute for Human & Machine Cognition laboratories could strengthen the
idea of knowledge retention becoming a strategic imperative in your
organisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Consider
five people in your organisation who have knowledge that is critical and
remains undocumented. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">For
these people think of five critical job functions they perform<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">For
each of these functions, estimate the frequency with which it has been
performed and the approximate time it takes for the expert to accomplish
primary goals.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">From
here the total operational costs of achieving all these critical functions can
be calculated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">For
each of the functions, list 5 consequences to the organisation if the function
was lost<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">From
this estimate the following questions can be answered “When would the revenue
stream dry up if the organisation lost that expertise?”<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">For
each of experts, how many years of salary and training costs did it take the
organisation to grow the expertise in the first instance?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 36.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 36.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt; mso-fareast-font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;">
</span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Based
on this figure, the total cost of regenerating that expertise over 10 years can
be calculated.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Knowledge Empathy<o:p></o:p></span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 11pt;">If
the process of Knowledge Retention </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">doesn't</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> sound too difficult, then it </span><span style="font-size: 15px;">isn't</span><span style="font-size: 11pt;"> meant to. Regardless of how much the process is refined or how well a
facilitator practices the art of eliciting answers though the success of the
entire process balances on the emotions of the knowledge originator and to a
lesser extent the knowledge seeker involved. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">As
part of the process you can talk about moving proceedings offsite and promoting
a safe environment for everyone to contribute. I was fortunate enough to see
successes with knowledge retention candidates who although leaving their
respective organisations, were grateful for the experience and had simply found
opportunities that appealed to them more. As a result they contributed
wholeheartedly and made excellent participants. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 11pt;">Problems
arise when an organisation talks redundancy and expects those same people to
disclose their knowledge with enthusiasm and full cooperation before they walk
out of the door. It goes without saying that overworked, undervalued and
generally unhappy workers do not make good knowledge retention candidates.</span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">In
the current economic climate redundancies are becoming unavoidable
for all sectors. It’s still in management’s and HR’s gift to manage the
process with as much empathy as possible to make people feel a part of the
organisation right up to their last day. It will pay dividends and not just
from a knowledge transfer perspective. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">So
how would a knowledge manager win hearts and minds in situations like this? The
first candidate who took part mentioned how the sessions helped him to capture,
categorise and transfer the tacit knowledge he had been building up, helping
his exit and giving him a sense of legacy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Offering
a sense of legacy may be the only real benefit this exercise could offer to
some people. The organisation will of course profit from this knowledge.
Personally speaking (and biased as I will be), there is no bigger compliment
than having your knowledge become an organisations knowledge, embedded to
change the way of working for the betterment of everyone and successive
employees and a much greater enticer than any enhanced redundancy package. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial","sans-serif"; font-size: 11.0pt;">Of
course, had I had this know-how as an urchin of a kid, I would have asked Mrs
Lowe to explain her tooth decay exercise for far more commercial reasons. We could
have marketed it to revolutionize the dental industry and made a fortune (or at
least enough to let me buy that Scaletrix set that I always wanted). If only I
knew then what I know now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-17556302385744131782012-07-04T10:18:00.000-07:002013-03-11T09:39:31.568-07:00Chocopedia * – How the sweet stuff acted as a perfect enabler for collaboration.<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial;">Whoever
said “</span><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;">When no one understands you,
chocolate is there” probably didn’t realise how profound a statement this could
actually be.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;">“Team Building” sessions are part and parcel to many company
offsites and one I attended in Coventry recently was no different. Forrest Gump’s
mother might have said, they’re just like a bunch of a chocolates, you’re never
sure what you’re going to get (I’ll try to refrain from more choc puns). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;">While these events are sold as enrichment exercises and an
opportunity to build bonds with colleagues in an informal environment, the
company hierarchy and competitive spirit to win is all too present. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;">And it’s always interesting to see the lengths company
employees will go to. Grown men and women reduced to running around after furry
coloured balls, internalised into handling a bamboo stick like it was a stick
of plutonium. Or my favourite to date, spending an hour working out the most
efficient way to touch an object and return to the same position, only to be told
that a group of school children were able to complete the same task in less
than half the time. The group exercise I took part in, was a little easier on
the ego though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.freshtracks.co.uk/">Freshtracks</a> have
been running their ‘Chocolate Challenge” event since 1998. Originally developed
for the marketing team at Pepsi, it has since been used by several organisations
and was the basis of the final challenge for BBC’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Apprentice_(UK_TV_series)">The
Apprentice</a>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;">Prior to the exercise we were split into groups. Senior management,
including one esteemed member who had worked for a couple of high profile
confectionary companies were strategically placed in various teams. Every team
except ours, who consisted of, dare I say it, ‘the little people’. A couple of
respected procurement managers, an operational sourcing expert, accounting
professional and yours truly (Mr Knowledge as I’m increasingly referred to these days). We
made our introductions and sat down to hear the Freshtracks facilitator’s
presentation. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;">To begin, t<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>ee of
the most successful chocolate campaigns of the past t<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>ee
decades were shown. <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_eKkdWAVNM" target="_blank">The After Eight</a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXFs9DvPGO8" target="_blank">Milk Tray</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zs7gAxsfK5U" target="_blank">Ferrero Rocher</a> commercials
brought back memories of my childhood and the cold war, although younger
members of the team clearly had no such emotional attachment to them.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj02LMvSgaJw4uBdZimHbReKVCC4yL4_mX1g1HRvLys8BMocjDYt47hrEQ9gCdSkYp7qfsJsHEG12BSn4M6na5KergROycoLSTNsScB1rdHz5zrZY8QNCD88e17kWm0h1nx1dOpYDjvNsI/s1600/chocsie.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj02LMvSgaJw4uBdZimHbReKVCC4yL4_mX1g1HRvLys8BMocjDYt47hrEQ9gCdSkYp7qfsJsHEG12BSn4M6na5KergROycoLSTNsScB1rdHz5zrZY8QNCD88e17kWm0h1nx1dOpYDjvNsI/s640/chocsie.jpg" title="From an original by kmworks on Flickr" width="640" /></a></div>
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Arial;">The challenge itself consisted of t<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>ee
tasks:<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>1) Create
an original box of chocolates</b> – As teams we were tasked to create and make a
unique, never-been-tasted before chocolate experience<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>2) Present
a product or marketing strategy</b> – We were told to write and present a marketing
strategy that would explain how we would promote our chocolates to a desired
sector with an appropriate brand name and profit margin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>3) Deliver
a 30 second TV commercial </b>– Each team was commissioned with writing and performing
a television commercial that would support the marketing strategy. If the commercial
ran over 30 seconds, points could be deducted. The finished advert would be
presented at the end of the session following a two minute product
presentation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">We were
told that we could use an unlimited amount of dark, milk or white chocolate to create
our product. We could add various ingredients (at a cost), from the fairly
cheap and humdrum marshmallows and rice crispies to the more exotic and
expensive crystallized ginger, chilli, nutmeg and coconut.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">We sat down
as a team and got to work. It struck me how we should consider targeting our brand of chocolate for the more premium market. The main focus of all t<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>ee adverts was less about the chocolate and more
about the kind of lifestyle that could be associated with these chocolates. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">A younger
member of the team was particularly enthused about contributing to the task.
Considering he is also a regular reader of this blog, I’m going to refer to him
with a pseudonym. “Bandy” a self proclaimed ideas man, got the ball rolling
with his “5-a-day” proposal. <i>“There’s loads of different types of fruit we can
use. Let’s cover them in chocolate and boom! Job done!”</i> he said clicking his
fingers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">While this wasn't a bad idea, it didn’t jump out as a task winner either. I
didn’t want to stifle Bandy’s gusto though. Another member of the team
mentioned that while it would be a new, never been released before concept,
there was probably a good reason for that! I took this as a cue to add a little
constructive diplomacy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">We should
definitely have this idea as a possibility, even if it could deliver a mixed
message. On the one hand we would be trying to promote the health benefits of
our product and on the other, smothering them in a high sugar and fat
substance. The group agreed and Bandy gracefully accepted this feedback. We
still had to come up with a concept though…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">After 10
minutes of umming and aahing, I reminded the group that we had access to a
large range of ingredients, sourced from different regions of the world. How
about we create a ‘journey of chocolate’? Different regions of the world could dictate
their own influence on the ingredients and this as far as I could see would be
a truly unique concept. There was a collective agreement to go with this, but
we still had to think of a name.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">My first
thoughts were ‘Coco-Republic’ except it could definitely be perceived as a
rip-off from the strong Coffee-Republic brand. I then put forward Coco-Nation.
Better perhaps, except in common with the majority, I felt it didn’t quite hit
the spot.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Maybe we
should be looking for terms from languages, other than English I figured. Another
team member suggested that we could use ‘Du Monde’ or ‘Of the World’ in French
somewhere in the name. “That’s it!” I said. “Coco Du Monde”. "How about simply Coco Monde?" said a</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial;">nother
member of the team. A catchy, classy,</span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial;"> elegant and expensive sounding name that would capture the essence of our concept perfectly.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">We then
acquired a range of ingredients and packaging for Coco Monde that our accounting
professional had worked out at the cost of 49p. A healthy profit if we were to
market this chocolate as a luxury brand with our proposed RRP of £4.99. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I suggested
we split the choice of chocolates into Continents. South America could have the
whole Inca connection, where I remember hearing somewhere lay the origins of
chocolate. Dark chocolate, with chilli and cinnamon would be a nice
combination.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">For Europe,
we could keep it simple and sophisticated. Milk chocolate with hazelnuts was
agreed to be the flavour of choice for this region.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">For Africa,
often referred to as the home of civilisation our accounting professional
advised natural, earthy ingredients, such as crystallized ginger, honey and
dark chocolate as the foundation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Then, as a group
we hit a collective mental block – we’d momentarily run out of good ideas. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Everyone
except Bandy.<i> “How about we include <st1:place w:st="on">Antarctica</st1:place>
and choose white chocolate and peppermint as a cool theme for that area!?”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Fantastic, we
thought. A procurement professional within the team recommended we create a
circular box, like an Aerial view of the world. Bandy was on a role,<i> “yes and
lets carry that theme into the inside of the box too!”</i> he said, <i>“Depending on
what region of the world you choose, that would be the taste that you would
experience!” </i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Time was
running out and we hadn’t determined a target demographic and associated
promotional campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I suggested
that this could simply be anyone who has an interest in travelling and the
group approved. <i>“And as a promotion we could give away some golden tickets in
selected boxes where lucky winners could go on a world tour – Willy Wonka
style!”</i> (By now you will have assumed who made that statement)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">It was time
for the teams to present their ideas to the rest of the company and we were
first up. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Tasked with
doing the initial pitch and with zero rehearsal time being a factor, it
probably came across as pretty poor – even if I managed to get the basic
concept of all our hard work across. Bandy then took some samples around and
they were well received by the group as a whole. Our accounting professional
gave a breakdown of the costings, which all added up.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The final
part of the presentation was to deliver a 30 second commercial. Again, we had
left zero time for this area of the
task.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Inspiration (and courage) hit me. I asked Bandy (who by now I’d learned
was pretty fearless too) to fly past and mimic an aeroplane and then leave the
rest to me…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><i>“You know…
I’d love to just pack up my bags and jump on a plane to somewhere exotic. What
with these difficult economic times it’s something that I can’t just do. Well
now I don’t have to leave my sitting room to enjoy some escapism. I can savour
the fiery, spicy passion of South America, the creamy sophistication of Europe,
the natural, gingery earthiness of Africa, and the soft, minty coolness of
Antarctica, encapsulated in a dark, white and milk chocolate experience all for
a recommended retail price of £4.99”</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">This
impromptu, freestyled speech seemed to go down well and it was time for our
team to sit back, relax and listen and score the rest of the groups offerings.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">It’s fair
to say all the presentations were delivered more professionally than ours, with
the adverts better scripted and acted out. As slick as they were, it was also
fair to say that with the exception of our group, it was difficult to identify
any of the products being pitched as unique. The wider group and the
Freshtrack’s judges agreed. Coco Monde won the challenge and we were each
awarded a nice little book you see in the photo to the shock and awe of a few Senior Directors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">That’s a
sweet story, you may be thinking, but what has it got to do with KM? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Let me take
the group itself as an example. Unlike the others, there were no senior people
present. Not that that’s always a bad thing of course, however it meant that as
peers with no rank and essentially no hierarchy was established. A serious
purpose to win was helped by the informal environment – arguably the best type
for fostering innovation. Every contribution was also a valid contribution and
led to a free flow of ideas. Entirely the guidelines by how <a href="http://adventuresofaknowledgemanager.blogspot.co.uk/2011/06/dear-boss-heres-why-you-should-let-me_16.html" target="_blank">Knowledge Cafés</a> are
run.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Like most
people trying to introduce a new concept into an organisation, you’re likely to
encounter some challenging questions - even from well wishers. So when a colleague
of mine (who was always a supporter of KM) expressed his concerns about KM
succeeding if a culture of individual success was encouraged over any kind of
team work, I didn’t have an answer. And not having one worried me for a while.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">My boss
reminded me of why this should potentially never be a barrier to knowledge
sharing and collaboration. Before I could finish my sentence expressing my
worries he was nodding his head in disagreement. He convinced me that being a
winner, an entrepreneur, a leader and collaboration are part and parcel to each other. How Lewis Hamilton
and Jenson Button have a whole team of people behind them that have contributed to
their successes. Of course he was right. The crews of
engineers, designers and R&D scientists all play a part in a successful
podium position and are all, by rights – winners too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">The success
of our team wasn’t the result of one good idea by one person, but the
accumulation of ideas and workstreams created as a result of this. Ideas
were encouraged, a unique concept discovered, then developed and built upon by
different members of the team, all contributing to the same goal. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">So perhaps
the biggest lesson to me is how the Chocolate Challenge reinforced what someone
once told me “<i>A team can be perfect where an individual cannot</i>”. As much as you
need your project managers, process people and techie's, you equally need
your motivators, academics and Bandy’s too. I first heard C<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>is Collison use this p<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>ase
and I unequivocally agree. In the end "<i>all of us know more than any of us</i>".<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<st1:personname w:st="on"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Arshad Ahmed</span></st1:personname><span style="font-family: Arial;"> Knowledge Manager and team winner of the 2012 Castle
Coombe Chocolate Challenge ;-)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 10pt;">*
NB. Chocopedia was the name Cadbury’s used for their international
collaboration tool. As a Knowledge worker It seems
almost criminal to take credit for other peoples p<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>ases!</span></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-28324455127604022842012-01-20T06:14:00.000-08:002012-02-07T13:41:37.349-08:00Carrots, Sticks and Obama. A Knowledge Managers Perspective on Change Management<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>Sincere
apologies for this unfashionably late update</b>. The topic is change and I’ve been
going t<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>ough some myself that have
affected my decision to post any further updates until now. Changes in my work,
changes in my thought-process and even changes in my trouser size (too much
information perhaps). <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Change can
appear to be such a powerful verb. By asserting that 'things needs to change' or 'we’re going to change', there seems to be an acceptance that an event/s need to
improve. That the old way was wrong and the new way will be better. With this
come feelings of excitement, anticipation, fear, but perhaps greatest of all
hope. Of course both “Change” and “Hope” were popular slogans for Barrack
Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, both of which he </span><a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/20/us-usa-campaign-obama-idUSTRE79J0O020111020"><span style="font-family: Arial;">arguably</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> hasn't delivered on. At the next
elections the voters will of course decide. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/fsamuels/2955302071/"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcGH-8hdewhrJ0yu0gl8EOibPpAYmPiTmP8vXjuoZdJUcQizMfOnuKoH5MNhWIsiwtM00hOxoJfcHNt0uFDg2vla6RPHZ2HncRhTVRfLUn8bImnuqzaVNFK3mC-vr-hMFudX_CnmJrY_4/s640/2955302071_6038ecced5_b.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;">Back on
topic, this post is about change and specifically the topic of ‘change
management’. I still remember as a PhD Student brazenly telling a local
Council’s Performance Management Officer that the reason for the slow adoption
of a recently introduced information repository was the result of a ‘change
management’ issue. His frantic scribbling of notes hinted at the potency of
this term. It’s a good job the Council bods didn’t have enough funds to sponsor
me in the end. Beyond blurting out that impressive sounding statement, I
didn't have much of an approach at that time in my KM
journey.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">So I’ll
start by attempting to explain what <i>my</i> understanding of change
management is and why I feel it is so significant to the area of KM and
management in general.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">I once
heard change and knowledge management being described as ‘bedfellows’. This is
despite there not appearing to be a united definition for either. Cue
Wikipedia: who at the time of writing this blog define change management as “<i>a
structured approach to shifting/transitioning individuals, teams,
and organisations from a current state to a desired future state. It
is an organizational process aimed at helping employees to accept and embrace
changes in their current business environment</i>” <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Arial;">They also
describe it using a separate paradigm. From a project management perspective it
is considered “<i>a <span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">process where changes to a project are formally
introduced and approved</span></span></i><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">”<o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">A clear dichotomy between the
two terms, however it is the first definition that sits closer to my heart and
also the one this blog post will talk about.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">So how exactly does change
management relate to knowledge management? I agree with Tom Young of Knoco’s </span></span><a href="http://www.tomyoungblog.com/2009/06/communication-strategy-for-knowledge.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">view</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">. Introducing KM in an organisation should be
treated as a change management project. Unless you’re dealing with a start-up
where KM can be embedded from the very beginning into daily work routines,
you’re likely to encounter some degree of resistance to any new implementation,
including something as crucial as KM. Tom goes on to say that two of the most
important aspects to achieve this are Communication and Stakeholder Management
(more of this later).<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">So we have a description of
change management and its relation to knowledge management, but it still
doesn’t address the need for organisations to take it seriously, irrespective
of change being an important factor in the success of knowledge management
adoption or not. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">An article I came across by
Lawrence Polsky provided the killer statistic. 50-70% of new initiatives fail
as a result of ignoring </span></span><a href="http://www.openforum.com/idea-hub/topics/managing/article/5-change-dangers-and-how-to-avoid-them-lawrence-polsky"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">change dangers</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">. Issues, such as communication, change
resistance and a lack of urgency. A lack of urgency especially was something
that <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lawrence</st1:place></st1:city>
went into more detail on when we spoke. He asked me how I’d react to being
asked to get up at 2 a.m., wake my family, go outside immediately and cross the
street. The answer would be… well I’ll leave any profanities out, but
essentially ‘no’. As <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lawrence</st1:place></st1:city>
mentioned, it’s really inconvenient and I’d get nothing out of it – exactly how
99% of employees might feel when encountering organisational change that was
being imposed on them. He then asked me what I’d do this if my house was on
fire? Like 100% of people, I would say yes. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">I continue to talk with <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lawrence</st1:place></st1:city> on a range of
change management issues, but his analogy really got me thinking. For KM to
succeed, you have to find that 'burning house'. Although <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lawrence</st1:place></st1:city> didn’t suggest this by any means,
was fear the answer? It’s one I’ve heard more than one KM practitioner imply as
a strong-arm tactic. How an employee</span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"><span class="msoIns">’</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">s future
in an organisation should be limited if they didn't share their knowledge and
their ‘reward’ for knowledge sharing would be simple, they’d keep their job.
Not that I'm saying rewarding knowledge via incentives is a good idea either.
David Gurteen explains the pitfalls of </span></span><a href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/measures"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">rewarding and
setting targets for knowledge</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"> and
Dan Pinks phenomenal talk at TED on </span></span><a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">motivation</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"> had me convinced that this was the wrong path to
go down too.</span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">From a basic,
empathetic perspective, it doesn’t seem right to relate non-compliance to
having a direct effect on someone’s livelihood either. Perhaps this is the reason why
people perform tasks (including disseminating their knowledge) without any real
passion or pride or more detrimentally end up leaving an organisation
completely. An act that isn’t likely to benefit either party. With this said,
certain crucial changes that would affect the livelihood of the company do need
to be communicated in such a way, however this really needs to be as a last resort.
<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">So my first practical task
around cultural change was to support the roll out of a new initiative.
‘Carrots and Sticks’ was suggested as a basis at the time. An expression
referring to a policy that essentially offers a combination of rewards and
punishment to provoke certain behaviour. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">I decided to go visit a change
manager I met serendipitously a few years ago. He’s a qualified Psychologist
who’s always happy to offer some first rate guidance on change related challenges.
His room in <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Manchester</st1:place></st1:city>
is more akin to a stereotypical counsellor’s study and I feel like a patient
every time I'm there. I guess good change managers like good
counsellors have the ability to listen, if only to become fully aware of every
pain-point. He gave me an excellent book to read, “</span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Goal_(novel)"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">The Goal</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">” by </span></span><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Eli Goldratt<span class="apple-style-span">, suggested I look at
the concepts of </span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"><a href="http://www.institute.nhs.uk/quality_and_service_improvement_tools/quality_and_service_improvement_tools/force_field_analysis.html" target="_blank">Force Field Analysis</a> and </span></span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuckman's_stages_of_group_development"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Tuckmans Theory</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"> and left me with some advice. That “Carrots and
Sticks” is a horrid Management term used to manipulate people into a win-lose
scenario. True change management is about reaching win-win and this is the only
way it will truly succeed. The significance of this instruction hadn’t really
sunk at the time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">I attended an inspiring course
by </span></span><a href="http://www.impactfactory.com/"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Impact Factory</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"> earlier this year. The firm provides change
management services to a range of clients including the likes of BP and
Deloitte. Personally I feel their most impressive success story was developing
a change programme for Gala Bingo. For anyone not familiar with Bingo, it’s a
card marking pastime in the U.K with points awarded for completing a ‘full
house’. With approximately 5 million bingo members, Gala’s management were wise
to think ahead of issues that could affect the playing environment of these
valued customers, as a result of the Smoking Ban that was coming into effect in
the <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">United Kingdom</st1:place></st1:country-region>.
Everyone in every club, from Operations and General Managers to ‘on the ground’
staff members (who you could argue know the club better than anyone) went t<st1:personname w:st="on">hr</st1:personname>ough a version of their programme. Impact
Factory’s approach didn’t just focus on the implications of the smoking ban,
but also on how to help people grapple with the issue of imposed change, an
approach that can create “divisive or difficult behaviour, negativity and
feelings of impotence” as they described it. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">During the course, several
discussions about the challenges we were facing were brought up and I mentioned
the role of urgency. I asked if a little fear was a good thing. That little bit
of fear to make you cross the road quicker to prevent getting run over. Or to
make sure that you do get to work on time, because somebody might just decide
that your poor time keeping was a reason to let you go. One presenter suggested
that such an approach would work with her, but not universally – different
people require different tact. It dawned on me then that the urgency associated
with the burning house <st1:city w:st="on"><st1:place w:st="on">Lawrence</st1:place></st1:city>
was referring to doesn’t have to be a scare tactic at all. Employee motivation
and engagement can be communicated without any negative connotations and it
will be a much more powerful approach as a result.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">So in the end I left the course
with some closure and something that has gone to form my current view of change
management. There isn’t actually a set way of approaching it. So I’m sorry to
disappoint anyone reading this, including knowledge workers hoping to find a
solution for their own ‘burning house’. I simply
can’t endorse an omni-applicable solution. Even if I did, one blog post would
hardly be able to encapsulate the many facets of change management. Like
knowledge management, it’s a huge topic, with many approaches and I’ve found
the road can get very rocky when trying to address either of them. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">You may not have the luxury of
dedicated change management departments like the </span></span><a href="http://www.accenture.com/us-en/consulting/talent-organization/change-management/pages/index.aspx"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Accenture's</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"> of this world. Or the crucial support of senior
management, if they choose to ignore how important it is to the success and
many times the very survival of an organisation. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">As a lone crusader you can
still make a difference. My change manager friend told me that when he
asked about going into the field he was told simply not to. That he’d be continually
going upstream, find it frustrating, confusing and lonely at times. Not too
dissimilar to how we knowledge workers can feel. </span></span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"><br /></span></span><br />
<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Except we do what we do
because we believe in it and that belief can go a long way. As a starting point
then, change management, like KM needs to be taken <i>very</i> seriously and in
many cases tried, tried and tried again.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">I’ll no-doubt continue to see
companies spending like Richard Pryor in </span></span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088850/"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Brewster’s Millions</span></a><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;"> on IT solutions, including knowledge management
technologies, without taking the requirement for change management seriously or
at all. Like politicians, senior management support can have a habit of communicating one
message outwardly and a different agenda altogether internally. A good
starting point is surely to be sincere about change and not attempt
it half-baked. Lay down the good and the bad and if you’re not willing to
embrace it yourself, then what’s the likelihood of your employees playing ball? <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">By merely providing tool
support and believing that something user-friendly and glitzy or making change the
responsibility of one person in an organisation without the appropriate
firepower, or worse still try to force change</span></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial;">, </span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Arial;">you’re really
just delaying the inevitable, not avoiding it.</span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">So I’ll end by steering away
from blame and offering some solutions instead. Here are some insights I have picked up from research, talking to people and my own
thoughts during my journey into
change management so far. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';"> </span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Change
is achievable and inevitable, but it isn’t easy and it can take time.
Communicating change, including knowledge management is easier approaching it
person by person, department by department and division by division than an
entire organisation at one time.<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">People
aren’t stupid and disrespect breeds disrespect. Good leaders are at least
testament to the fact that being sincere and empathetic with your stakeholders
is the best way to achieve a win-win. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Communicating
the benefits of change effectively will in the majority of circumstances be
more successful than any strong-arm tactic. Change shouldn’t be addressed with
fear – unless it is a very real and last resort. Positive urgency on the other
hand can be a very worthwhile method. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">If your
organisation hasn’t already, urge Senior Management to take this discipline
seriously. Any change initiative will be far more likely to succeed with their
support, especially if they not only endorse it, but live it too<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Practical tips for impleme<a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=8406238909161674626" name="_GoBack"></a>nting change is a huge
area to cover. However, Lawrence Polsky from </span><a href="http://www.peoplenrg.com/about-peoplenrg/peoplenrg-team.htm"><span style="font-family: Arial;">People NRG</span></a><span style="font-family: Arial;"> has created some brilliant potted
guides. I also like the <b>A.R.M.E.D </b>approach. Get their <b>A</b>ttention.
Make it <b>R</b>elevant. Give a clear central <b>M</b>essage. Give an <b>E</b>xample.
Say what you want them to <b>D</b>o. Change often needs to be articulated clearly
and succinctly in order to deliver a powerful yet concise message.<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Do look
at academic theories of Change Management. I support Dan Pinks aphorism,
“science knows what business doesn’t” However, no amount of mastery of these
theories will work if understanding, engaging and empathising with people isn’t
addressed effectively. <o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span></span></span><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; font-family: Arial;">Along
with ‘Blue-Sky thinking’ and ‘</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">lighting a fire under someone’ confine the term ‘Carrots and
Sticks’ to the business jargon bin<span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;">. If you’re reading this
Dr Harrison, then I agree with you completely now. It really does sound like an
insensitive, tacky and uninspiring business approach.<span style="font-size: x-small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><span class="apple-style-span"><span style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-color: white; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial;"><b>RELATED LINKS</b></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial;"><br /></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">-<span style="font: normal normal normal 7pt/normal 'Times New Roman';">
</span>A Knowledge Café about the topic of change will be held in
the Manchester area on February <span style="font-size: 12pt; text-indent: -18pt;">6</span><sup style="text-indent: -18pt;">th </sup></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">2012</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;">. More details </span><a href="http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/event/2824176187/efblike" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; text-indent: -18pt;" target="_blank">HERE</a></div>
</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-21149088629846710222011-06-20T02:29:00.000-07:002012-11-30T16:44:44.004-08:00Knowledge Café Launch Starbucks Drive -Thru Manchester 28th June 6-9 pm<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSoLzX9owD1Fl6pZWOeV8_OnJe_-_tJbsl3ktJIqHHQgxOaWNCWJCiti1AzfmsZ1s_rhziHGnevMxelP_3gy20n7SUcfPchH5dtG0T9Y1xZVfO5rwjQq6QBq5IGfZnW_m8Ph_OFAfAfys/s1600/Photo0077.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSoLzX9owD1Fl6pZWOeV8_OnJe_-_tJbsl3ktJIqHHQgxOaWNCWJCiti1AzfmsZ1s_rhziHGnevMxelP_3gy20n7SUcfPchH5dtG0T9Y1xZVfO5rwjQq6QBq5IGfZnW_m8Ph_OFAfAfys/s640/Photo0077.jpg" width="640" /></a></div><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Knowledge Cafes have been successfully running in the North West of England for over 6 years. With an established Liverpool presence a Manchester launch has now been planned to be held on June 28<sup>th</sup> at Starbucks Trafford Park Manchester. The Café will start at 6pm with a coffee tasting session and nibbles provided by Starbucks. The programme will then begin at 6.30 and go on until 9pm.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Knowledge Cafes can be used to: </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: list 21.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 21.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Give people a voice for them to feel heard, making them less cynical and more engaged in their work </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 21.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">As a stimulus for innovation by challenging people to reflect on their thinking; help them surface new ideas and make new connections </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 21.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Breaks down organizational silos</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 21.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">As a sales tool to engage our customers in conversation and thus better understand their needs and for them to better understand our products or service </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 21.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; tab-stops: list 21.0pt; text-indent: -18.0pt;"><span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Surface hidden problems and opportunities that exist in our organisation or in a department or project - especially ones caused by lack of communication.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 3.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">This initial café will explain the background, format and purpose of the Knowledge Café concept. Following this will be specific question/s around the subject of knowledge cafes as an area of discussion for the rest of the evening.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">For more information on how to register for this free event, please contact me directly via email or the phone on 07917 087856 or join the Knowledge Café 0151 Groupsite (also free to register) organised by Peter Bond <a href="http://www.knowledgecafe0151.groupsite.com/main/summary">HERE</a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">Further information of the Knowledge Café concept can be found <a href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/kcafe">HERE</a> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial;">And on my recent blog post <a href="http://adventuresofaknowledgemanager.blogspot.com/2011/06/dear-boss-heres-why-you-should-let-me_16.html">HERE</a> </span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-79146269014528995782011-06-16T08:07:00.000-07:002012-10-24T08:43:19.283-07:00Dear Boss, here’s why you should let me attend a Knowledge Café<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/earlg/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrIh1dGFqNyGmGLCk94K944KHVOR2mCm-z_A6DH4gP51yR_7817QuFDXrj2HxjE-ncAHy6FKsi_drrDFOiBlBhyuaZjoTkSgVuohqMtuEH7owBPgTTQQpc_nuRfpntdgZin0bzBAmVxk0/s640/black+n+white.JPG" width="640" /></a><br />
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I’ve always thought of you as a fair, supportive and trusting manager. That's why I was wondering how you’d feel about giving me a few hours away from work every couple of weeks to have a chat with my colleagues? While you’re at it would you mind paying for some coffee and cookies for us too? (Rob and me have a soft spot for the macadamia nut and white chocolate sort). Now before you call me a cheeky so and so, I think I better explain a little further.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Don’t get me wrong, I like working where I do and everyone’s really pleasant. But, it just feels awkward sometimes chatting with my colleague Louise when I need her opinion on something. I feel like I’m disturbing the quiet environment of the office. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I sometimes bump into Jim from Accounts at the water cooler. He’s a great sounding board and gives me some useful nuggets of advice about my work - except our conversations are never long enough. It’s a shame really, because I know he could help me with some of the tasks you give me and we never really get a chance to work together, walking in the different corridors that we do.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Then there’s people like Imran who I met at a local event. He’s not a member of our company, but maybe that’s not a bad thing? Imran looks at situations in a different way and uses his expertise to help me discover new ways of working. Perhaps we could sort a cup of Joe or two for him too? </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">If I’m honest I’ve asked around the business and most of us agree that it would be great to have access to a relaxed informal workshop away from work. It’s this type of environment that really helps encourage an open conversation around a particular business challenge we might have and I reckon it would also increase the collective knowledge of our company by sharing these ideas with others.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">I’m rambling on now and I know you like me to explain my needs in easy to follow points with a sound business justification, so here goes…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Knowledge Cafes can be used for many business ends. Some specific examples might be to: </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Surface hidden problems and opportunities that exist in our organisation or in a department or project - especially ones caused by lack of communication.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">As a sales tool to engage our customers in conversation and thus better understand their needs and for them to better understand our products or service </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Break down our organizational silos so that I have a place to meet likeminded people like Jim more regularly. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Give people a voice for them to feel heard, making them less cynical and more engaged in their work </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">As a stimulus for innovation by challenging people to reflect on their thinking; help them surface new ideas and make new connections </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">An opportunity to eat some white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies. If you’ve tried them before you’d know where I was coming from.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Thanks in Advance,</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">Arshad Ahmed</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> <b> </b></span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><b>NB</b> There will be a Manchester Launch for Knowledge Café’s at the Starbucks Drive Thru in Trafford Park. It’s free to attend. For more information please join the Knowledge Café 0151 Groupsite (also free to register) organised by Peter Bond <a href="http://www.knowledgecafe0151.groupsite.com/main/summary">HERE</a></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial;">-<span style="font: 7pt "Times New Roman";"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial;">Further information of the Knowledge Café concept can be found <a href="http://www.gurteen.com/gurteen/gurteen.nsf/id/kcafe">HERE</a> </span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-59253479164961864862011-05-04T09:42:00.000-07:002013-10-25T08:59:35.677-07:00Storytelling<div class="MsoNormal">
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<b style="text-align: justify;">April 19</b><sup style="text-align: justify;"><b>th</b></sup><b style="text-align: justify;"> 9.30 pm</b><span style="text-align: justify;">, I’m driving out of Liverpool having just attended a Knowledge Café on ‘Storytelling’. I’m feeling enlightened, excited and a little ashamed. Ashamed because of my somewhat unfeeling attitude towards the discipline prior to the event and this was despite reading several papers describing it as a tried and tested </span><a href="http://www.slideshare.net/ericbrown/storytelling-knowledge-management" style="text-align: justify;" target="_blank">knowledge management practice</a><span style="text-align: justify;">.</span><br />
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One contention is that PowerPoint as a presentation tool simply doesn’t work. Having read a well-researched paper a former teaching colleague wrote about it I would have to agree. There had to be a better way and I guess the very phrase ‘Storytelling’ did at least sound a little more exciting than Microsoft's offering or merely delivering a speech.</div>
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This particular Café was hosted by two delightful ladies, <a href="http://www.lonelyfurrowcompany.com/">Elizabeth Gates</a> and <a href="http://www.positivelives.co.uk/">Lisa Rossetti</a>, both professional coaches and expert storytellers. They began the event by explaining their profession and then asking the other café members of their experiences of the area. I was quick to admit that it wasn’t a concept I was familiar with and had therefore never used it. Or so I first thought. It then dawned on me that I had told my fair share of stories during my working life (the majority true may I add!). More recently I was encouraged to tell a story about my work experience in the form of a competency-based interview when being shortlisted for my current role. </div>
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Likewise I remember explaining the concept of <a href="http://www.knoco.com/communities-of-practice.htm">Communities of Practice</a> to a senior management member by actually beginning my pitch with “can I tell you a little story?”</div>
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It actually went something like this…</div>
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<i>“Workers in a factory would meet every Friday afternoon in a local coffee shop. Here they would spend time sharing their practices, insights and ideas about working on the production line that week. One day a new Operations Manager was appointed and asked where everyone was on a Friday afternoon. Upon hearing that they would take an early lunch he immediately banned these get togethers as an unproductive use of employee time. After all, that time could be better spent in the factory, increasing production and therefore profit for the company. The outcome was that staff morale dropped, as did new ideas and attrition rates also increased. The only thing that had changed were these Friday afternoon informal meetings…”</i></div>
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Admittedly I did feel a bit of a loon telling it at the time, except it seemed to describe a business justification for Communities of Practice in an extremely compelling and effective way. I suspect the story listener, (an intelligent and respected senior manager) would have no-doubt used his own experiences to fill in the gaps on what the factory workers looked like or the industry they belonged to. Surprisingly though he didn’t feel the need to ask me to for any supporting evidence or where I'd actually heard the story from. I guess it really didn’t matter as he just seemed to ‘get it’.</div>
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Elizabeth described how Alice in Wonderland was one of the most cited books in Management talks. </div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><i>‘In our country,’ said Alice, still panting a little, ‘you’d generally get to somewhere else – if you ran very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.’ ‘A slow sort of country!’ said the Queen. ‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’</i><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">The same concept applies in business. In today’s competitive business environment only continual improvement can keep you on par with the competition and getting ahead can sometimes take a truly huge effort. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">Lisa mentioned how one speech she delivered in the form of a story was commented on by ‘those in the know’ felt that technically speaking its structure wasn’t the best. Yet everyone in the room was gripped by it and several had tears in their eyes. I can believe this too. A good story has a way of capturing a persons attention in a way that conventional presenting could only hope to. </span></div>
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So I’m not going to start turning up to work with a long robe on or start every sentence with <i>“Once upon a time…”</i> and finish with <i>“and they lived happily ever after…</i>” I’m also not suggesting that conventional presentations don’t serve a purpose. I am now however of the firm belief that storytelling could and should be utilised as a method to embody and transfer knowledge, build communities and enhance technologies in KM programmes, as well as being deployed as a communication technique within companies in general.</div>
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Having recently sat through two solid days of PowerPoint presentation after presentation it did become pretty painful at times - even with the most charismatic of speakers. At least there were enough coffee breaks and this of course gave us plenty of opportunities to share some stories…</div>
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For more information on attending North West England Knowledge Cafes, join the Knowledge Café 0151 Groupsite run by Peter Bond <a href="http://www.knowledgecafe0151.groupsite.com/">HERE</a></div>
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<i>The End</i></div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8406238909161674626.post-10613351523999945272011-04-20T02:42:00.000-07:002011-04-27T04:34:49.026-07:00First PostAbout time really, as I'm constantly having conversations with my own conscience with respect to knowledge related challenges. In the spirit of ‘2.0’ I’m going to now share these reflections more publicly and hopefully encourage some conversations/thoughts around my posts. At the very least they could strike a chord and help someone, somewhere in their own knowledge management world in what I’m finding to be an exciting, motivating and a sometimes lonely and confusing journey. Let the blogging begin!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10126131416601630280noreply@blogger.com3