SUBSCRIBE TO TMCnet
TMCnet - World's Largest Communications and Technology Community

CHANNEL BY TOPICS


QUICK LINKS




The 10 Commandments of Knowledge Management

TMCnews Featured Article


June 26, 2012

The 10 Commandments of Knowledge Management

By Colleen Lynch, TMCnet Contributor


Get a pen and paper ready, because knowledge management just got a new set of rules. The following are 10 commandments that should be followed by the book for successful knowledge management.


The first commandment is this: The amount of money that could be spent on accumulating knowledge is infinite. Knowledge itself is often seen as infinite, and therefore there is no perceivable end to the amount of knowledge a company can gain. So if there is more knowledge to gain, there should be more money spent to gain it, right? This idea will lead to big trouble in companies because there is no set end-point for spending on knowledge – there is no ceiling. Whatever knowledge has been gained won’t matter when there is more knowledge to be gained, so the spending never stops. This is extremely dangerous. For instance, the U.S. Library of Congress currently contains over 100 million items, knowledge held there for future reference. There doesn’t seem to be a reason needed to keep this knowledge, however – no one has to even postulate who would need to reference the information or why they would need to reference it. It’s there just for reference’s sake, and it is a perfect example of this first principle in knowledge management – figure out when to stop. Give yourself a ceiling. Don’t accumulate knowledge unless you see a use for it, or you will end up like the Library of Congress. You are not a library, you are a business.

The second commandment of knowledge management is that knowledge doesn’t necessarily have the value many seem to place on it. Different knowledge has different value for different people, yes, but unless this value is tapped into the knowledge remains, in effect, valueless. A company has to put the knowledge it has to use, or else the company will not benefit by it whatsoever. It would be like knowing the winning lottery ticket numbers, but not buying the ticket – and that’s just crazy.

What’s more, commandment three states that knowledge actually incurs a negative value if it isn’t put into use. Professor Martine Haas of the Wharton School researched the World Bank and proved this commandment true. Haas found that teams operating within the World Bank which put their knowledge to use and encouraged learning and innovation had higher performance.

When work was predetermined for the teams, performance didn’t rise with a rise in knowledge, however. This is because putting the knowledge to use would have had no effect on the teams’ work, so they didn’t implement it. They saw no reason to, and as a result their performance stagnated. Their extra knowledge, un-tapped, actually caused a problem.

The fourth commandment expounds upon the third. The more institutional knowledge a company has, the less effective action a company will then take. Along with another Professor Morten Hansen, Haas took a look at the use of internal knowledge systems in four large consulting firms. The consulting teams were in competition for sales bids, and were encouraged (and offered incentives) to make use of the considerable knowledge resources available to them.

Despite the expectation that teams using more knowledge would fare better, the study actually showed that the more a consulting team used the internal electronic databases, the more likely they were to lose the bid.

This was due to the knowledge ostensibly overwhelming the teams and their proposals. The proposals came out more generalized when they would have done better to mention a client’s specific needs.

So less is more, is that what I’m telling you? Not always – commandment five states that the most valuable knowledge increasingly lies outside the organization. The more an outside knowledge a company gains, the more that company will profit by the knowledge. Just fifty years ago all knowledge stayed inside an organization, but now companies are more open to sharing—and gaining—knowledge to and from their competition. This is proving profitable to all, as competition and collaboration are fueling action. These days, accessing knowledgeable people and other resources isn’t limited to in-house spheres, which facilitates with partnerships as well as reliable production and trust between companies. 

According to commandment number six, accessing certain knowledge can require specific and deep expertise. Yes, the Internet has made knowledge-gathering seem almost effortless, but not every important bit of information exists on the Web, or at least it won’t come up on the first page of Google (News - Alert) every time. It is important to remember that accessing knowledge can be a task, and therefore calls for the right people to do it. Knowledge can be both gained and lost, but it is much more easily lost. This means companies must work at accessing knowledge, and not rely on the knowledge already gained or the assumption that the process will be easy. It isn’t always – take for example what I’ll call the Dell (News - Alert) Debacle. A company called ASUSTeK began producing simple circuit boards for Dells. Then the company propositioned Dell to allow them to make Dell’s motherboard for reportedly 20 percent less than other companies. Though the deal seemed a logical gain for Dell, the results were less than what was hoped. Eventually ASUSTeK convinced Dell to let them manufacture nearly each and every part of the computer, from the motherboard to the overall design, and suddenly ASUSTeK had knowledge – a lot of it. ASUSTeK subsequently talked to BestBuy and Dell no longer had the expertise needed to compete as a computer manufacturer. ASUSTeK did the deals and put in the work to gain Dell’s knowledge, and now Dell no longer had the expertise needed to access the knowledge it once had as a leading computer manufacturer.

The seventh commandment covers this exact problem by stating that the deep expertise needed to access knowledge can be lost. Dell is an example of this, and so are entire industries like compact fluorescent lighting or LCDs for monitors. In an article from 2009 by Gary Pisano and Willy Shih with HBR, it was explained that by outsourcing manufacturing to countries outside of the states, eventually the United States loses its expertise in knowledge-accumulation, and can no longer manage or grow an industry. Other industries on the list include hard-disk drives and low-end servers, routers and netbook PCs. This commandment basically states that the Dell Debacle is happening on a national and global scale.

The eighth commandment is a tricky one, as it states that knowledge cannot be deemed valuable just because it is put to use, as commandment two suggests. Knowledge does have to be put to use to attain value, but it cannot be considered valuable unless it ultimately results in some type of improved outcome for an important customer or stakeholder in the company. This commandment makes sense, however, as it is founded on good business practices. A company wants to make its customers and stakeholders happy, and if the company uses knowledge benefitting them, the company will benefit. 

To help with commandment eight, commandment nine defines what an improved outcome actually means. The outcome of a company’s use of knowledge can be called an improvement only based on the strategy of the organization involved. A knowledge investment could make sense given one strategy, and could be detrimental and crazy when considered with another strategy. If the company is known for speed, and the knowledge helps to speed up delivery of products to customers, the knowledge creates an improved outcome for both customers and the company. If the company is known for customer care, the knowledge may or may not result in improved outcomes for the company’s customers.

It’s all in the strategy, which carries over to the tenth and last commandment.

The tenth commandment goes further to say that outcomes (improved or not) need to be measured against the organization’s strategy. Nothing can truly be managed effectively unless it can somehow be measured. If knowledge creates an improved outcome for a certain company based on that company’s strategy, then the knowledge has value. If you take the strategy out of the equation, you are left to guess whether or not the knowledge has value. Measurement has to be involved. For instance, in a private sector organization, resources spent on the creation or sharing of knowledge should be evaluated in relation to the outcomes expected from the products and services that the firm is generating, either now or in the future. In the case of a public sector organization, resources spent on the creation or sharing of knowledge need to be evaluated in relation to the outcomes for the core stakeholders expected to benefit from the strategy.

In the end, these ten commandments are a godsend when it comes to knowledge management.




Edited by Juliana Kenny







Technology Marketing Corporation

2 Trap Falls Road Suite 106, Shelton, CT 06484 USA
Ph: +1-203-852-6800, 800-243-6002

General comments: [email protected].
Comments about this site: [email protected].

STAY CURRENT YOUR WAY

© 2024 Technology Marketing Corporation. All rights reserved | Privacy Policy