Sharing The Intellectual Wealth - knowledge management

Chief Executive, The, July, 2001 by Bob Woods

It's one thing to possess knowledge, another to spread it around.

Back in the early 1990s, Buckman Laboratories set itself up as a sort of experimental station in the then fledgling field of knowledge management. The CEO at the time, Robert Buckman, was captivated by the notion of the company's 1,200 employees formally sharing their ideas and expertise in a centralized, high-tech forum, and had instituted a worldwide online network. (See story, page 9.) He recalls an example of how the system worked, even in those nascent days of the information superhighway, that epitomizes the power of what has come to be known in KM circles as knowledge sharing.

Buckman's managing director in Singapore e-mailed everyone for help on a complicated client proposal. A few hours later, a reply came in from headquarters in Memphis, followed shortly by input from Canada, then Sweden, New Zealand, Spain, Memphis again, Mexico and South Africa.

Along with an eventual $6 million sale, partly attributable to the rapid assistance of various colleagues around the globe, the story illustrates the strength of organized collaboration. "The most powerful people are those who become a source of knowledge by sharing what they know," states Buckman.

Knowledge sharing is the cornerstone of any knowledge management program. Without mechanisms for the work force to transfer what they know back and forth -- whether they're down the hall from each other or on the other side of the world -- KM becomes, well, stupid. Creating and using those mechanisms demands creativity and commitment from chief executives such as Buckman, as well as participation and trust from the employees who interact with them.

To achieve that goal, companies need to convince people to reject the old-school thinking that they are being measured by what they know and do individually. Such thinking only perpetuates knowledge hoarding, an unproductive remnant of an era when workers were trained to play it close to the vest. Employers should adopt programs that also measure how much information people share and how willing they are to reuse knowledge received from others. Trickier are the methods employed to motivate and reward collaboration.

THE RIGHT THING TO DO

Knowledge sharing, however, doesn't just happen with a vision emanating from the CEO's office or a one-day management seminar. It demands careful planning and objectives, some type of user-friendly interactive technology and an attitude from the top down that exchanging information not only boosts productivity, innovation and the bottom line, but also is the right thing to do for the intrinsic value of the organization.

Consider a technique Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, the global professional services firm, developed for its tax practice called the client-service matrix. "We gather ideas from around the world and distribute them every month to our professionals," says Jerry Leamon, global managing partner, tax and legal. "So they're armed with ideas for their clients, as well as technical documentation and a team supporting each idea. If one fits a client's particular interests, then it's sort of ready-made. Of course, they have to be tweaked a bit -- nothing ever fits precisely. This has fostered a belief in the sharing of intellectual capital and helped them to be more successful in serving clients."

More and more companies are becoming convinced that assessing their intellectual capital -- knowing what the organization knows -- makes sense. Yet the logic falls apart if captured best practices and corporate information can't find its way into the hands of the people who could use it to their advantage. Such was the dilemma confronting management at Frito-Lay, the $8.5 billion snack food division of Pepsico. How could they efficiently disseminate its cache of documented knowledge to salespeople in a way that would encourage them both to use it and contribute to it?

The solution was to build a knowledge management portal on the company's intranet, where the disparate sales force could access proprietary information and data on customers and the industry as a whole, as well as brainstorm and collaborate online. The portal includes access to managers in key departments at Frito-Lay headquarters in Plano, Texas -- such as promotion planning, costing and new product development -- internal sales and marketing research and password-protected sales information directly from clients.

The company's Customer Community Portal began with a pilot program developed for a specific sales team a year and a half ago; it has been so successful that the system has spread to three additional sales units, with plans to tie in other Pepsico divisions, as well. Aside from measurably increasing sales, the portal has been embraced by the sales force as a useful communication device and an alternative to costly travel. Management certainly likes the bump in business, but also finds the portal a new source of employee performance and skill assessment.

"As a team leader," says Joe Ackerman, a national account manager based in Vancouver, B.C., "it helps me analyze where people's gaps might be without having to travel to another member's location." Culturally, the system has engendered a new sense of camaraderie among the work force, providing a feeling of connection with their colleagues, which has translated into higher retention rates.