Human contact critical to knowledge management - News

HR Magazine, July, 2003 by Stephanie Overman

NEW YORK -- The face-to-face component of knowledge management is just as critical as the technology component, experts said June 4 at a Conference Board session here.

Companies are realizing that to successfully manage knowledge, they must tame both the "power of conversations" and the power of technology, Hubert Saint-Onge, CEO of Konverge Digital Solutions Corp., said at the conference session "Collaborating Beyond Boundaries to Create Value."

"When you are face to face you absorb a million data points," said Scott Beaty, head of Shell Learning's personal and business skills practice. "When people are not together they still have that and are able to build up trust" that allows them to freely share knowledge.

But "it's unnatural to urge people to share knowledge in a purposeless way," Saint-Onge said. "To say, 'okay, I'll do my work and then document it' will never happen. People have to work in a way that makes knowledge an embedded function."

A key obstacle discussed by Saint-Onge and other speakers is employees' tendency to hoard knowledge in an effort to be indispensable to the company.

At General Electric "hoarding information can get you fired," said Steve Kerr, managing director and chief learning officer at Goldman Sachs Company. Kerr, former chief learning officer at GE, said it is considered no less an offense than theft of company property.

Saint-Onge suggested a gentler approach to getting employees to share knowledge. Let them know that if they "don't get with it, they are dealing themselves out" of career-building opportunities, he said.

Beaty finds that people are quite willing to share successful practices but not unsuccessful ones. And, "it's difficult to get people to adopt other people's successful practices," he said.

To get the most from a knowledge management system Harvard Business Review Editor Thomas A. Stewart suggested routinely asking employees who attend meetings and networking sessions what they have learned and what they are going to do with what they've learned.

The experts also advised finding custodians of knowledge or knowledge intermediaries who "understand what knowledge is and [who] would ask those questions." These knowledge intermediaries would be the ones who "bond, bridge, collect, capture, stir, provoke."

Leigh Weiss, a consultant with McKinsey & Company's Business Knowledge Services group, described what her firm does to address some common problems companies face in developing a knowledge management system. For example, Weiss said McKinsey uses editors to convert codified knowledge, such as PowerPoint presentations and videos, into "culture-rich documents" that have enough context to stand alone in the knowledge management system.

In addition, Weiss said McKinsey has developed a quality ratings system and documents have expiration dates in order to rid the company of outdated knowledge and redundancies.

Finally, Weiss said McKinsey has developed a system to deliver consistent search results despite varying classification systems for information.

The management consulting firm has focused so much attention on knowledge management because "knowledge is all we have" to give clients, Weiss said.

Companies that are not selling knowledge to clients may be less willing to invest in a knowledge management system. In those cases, Weiss suggested looking for "where, with minimal investment, can you have a quick win?"

STEPHENIE OVERMAN IS A FREELANCE WRITER BASED IN CHATHAM, N.J.