HRs Role in Knowledge Management How to Leverage Organizational Learning

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HRs Role in Knowledge ManagementHow to
Leverage Organizational Learning Innovation

• HRATT February 12, 2009
• Jim Mullen
• Elmira College

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Agenda

• What is Knowledge Management?
• Tacit Knowledge the Invisible Asset
• The Learning Organization Approach
• HRs Role in the Process
• Getting Started

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What is Knowledge Management?

• Knowledge management is the conscious strategy
  of getting the right knowledge to the right
  people at the right time and helping people share
  and put information into action in ways that
  improve organizational performance.

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Knowledge Management is Not
a management fad Managing a organizations
intellectual assets is a central them in
management literature. Research has demonstrated
it as a source of competitive advantage.
a information technology issue Makes people
connections possible but does not make it happen

• a training program
• Not just learning but involves thinking, acting,
  and doing

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The Challenge -Why Reinvent the Wheel?
Managing knowledge and transferring best
practices is simple in concept but difficult in
practice.
Without a systematic approach knowledge will not
spontaneously diffuse throughout an organization.
The key is knowledge sharing which requires
behavior change at every level of the
organization.
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Why We Need to Manage Knowledge
The Perfect Storm
Globalization
The War for Talent
Growing Skill Gaps
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Definitions
Information Data
Knowledge The process of learning,
understanding, and applying information
Knowledge Worker Someone who knows more about
their job than anyone else in the
organization Peter Drucker
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What is Knowledge?
Explicit Knowledge Formal Education
Training Passive Learning Reports, procedures
Tacit Knowledge On the Job Experiential Learning
Active Learning Deep experience and know how
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Explicit Knowledge is Only the Tip of the Iceberg
Explicit (Seen or Written Down)
Tacit (In Peoples Heads) the invisible asset
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Tacit Knowledge Exercise

• As Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) work as a group
  to construct a e-learning training module on how
  to throw a Frisbee

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Why is This so Important?

• Most work place learning goes on unbudgeted,
  unplanned, up to 70 of workplace learning is
  informal and uncaptured by the organization.
• Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton The
  Knowing-Doing Gap How Smart Companies Turn
  Knowledge into Action Harvard Business School
  Press (2000)

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The Solution to Knowledge Transfer
Hire smart people and let them talk to one
another

• Reality
• We isolate them in departments.
• We burden them with tasks that leave no time for
  conversation and little time for thought.
• We dont select for, develop, measure, or reward
  knowledge sharing.

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HRs Role in a Nutshell

• KM is 95 Culture and 5 Technology.
• HR Practices Shape an Organizations Behavior or
  Culture.
• Employees will demonstrate the behaviors that are
  measured and rewarded.

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What is a Learning Organization?

• A learning organization is an organization
  that is skilled at creating, acquiring,
  interpreting, transferring, and retaining
  knowledge, and at purposefully modifying its
  behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.
• Garvin, David Learning in Action A Guide to
  Putting the Learning Organization to Work,
  Harvard Business School Press,(2000)

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How Learning Organizations Work
Organizational capital knowledge embedded in
organizational systems, processes,
databases. -The problem has already been
solved. Social capital the knowledge created
from and available through a network of
relationships. - We can solve this
problem. Human capital the economic value
derived from the knowledge, skills, and abilities
of individuals. - I can solve this problem.
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Social Capital the knowledge created from and
available through a network of relationships.
HR Practices Foundation of Organizational
Behavior
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Value Proposition

• Learning organizations operate by transferring
  knowledge acquired by individuals through an
  organized and systematic sharing process in order
  to capture learning and make it widely accessible
  in common processes, procedures and practices.
• Learning organizations enhance organizational
  performance by transferring the undocumented
  learning and knowledge residing in peoples heads
  into systems that are accessible to the entire
  organization.

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It Works!!!!

• The greater the formal and informal networking
  the greater information and knowledge
  acquisition.
• The greater the knowledge acquisition the greater
  the organizational innovation.
• The greater the amount of innovation, the greater
  market and financial performance

Knowledge Management Philosophy, Processes, and
Pitfalls California Management Review Vol. 44 No.
4 Summer 2002
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Is Your Organization a Learning Organization?

• The litmus test - four key questions
• Does your organization have a defined learning
  agenda?
• Does your organization avoid repeated mistakes?
• Does your organization retain critical knowledge
  when key people leave?
• Does your organization act on what it knows?

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Contrasting Organizational Dimensions
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How to Implement a Learning Organization

• Lead Learning Create an environment where
  everyone teaches, everyone learns, and everyone
  gets smarter everyday.
• Create Opportunities for Learning by reducing
  inter-organizational boundaries that inhibit the
  free flow of information and keep people
  isolated.
• Implement Supporting HR Practices select,
  train, develop, appraise, and reward
  organizational learning.

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Implementing a Knowledge Management System
Force Field Analysis
Forces for Change
Forces against Change
PLAN Implement Methods and Activities to
Generate and Share Knowledge
Competitive Environment
What is in it for me?
Enhance organizations performance
I dont have the time
Makes sense the right thing to do
Where is the value? Does it work?
This is what successful organizations do
Is management really committed to this?
We can deliver value to our customers
Can I learn new skills?
None of us is a smart as all of us
Will I lose power if I share my knowledge?
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3 Common Barriers

• Time Sorry Im too busy
• Space Meet where?
• You cant teach old dogs new tricks

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P PC
Stress Burn out Short Term Thinking
Need to Sharpen the Saw
From The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
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Email Friend or Foe?

• Not all is value added average is 57 per day up
  from 37 per day last year.
• Promotes isolation reduces face to face contact
• US Cellular, Intel, and Deloitte Touche have
  imposed No Email Fridays

A Day without Email is like Wall Street Journal
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Office Layout Impacts Knowledge Sharing

• Cubicles isolate employees
• HP, Cisco, Microsoft, Intel, and Autodesk have
  recently introduced open offices aimed at
  promoting employee collaboration and innovation.
• Tacit knowledge transfer has to be face to face.

Why Silicon Valley is Rethinking the Cubicle
Office Wall Street Journal
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Build Organizational Confidence with Early Wins

• Learning organizations are not built overnight.
  Organizational learning is after all like any
  other organizational process, not all that
  different from product development or order
  fulfillment. Like other critical processes, it
  requires a commitment of time, energy and
  resources, there are no automatic gains and
  merely expecting progress does not bring it
  about.

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Getting Started Pilot Project

• Action Steps
• Start with High Value Knowledge.
• Understand the knowledge generation process.
• Experiment with knowledge transfer mechanisms
• Develop a prototype knowledge management system

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Mapping Knowledge (understanding the resource
explicit vs tacit)

• What is knowledge within your organization?
• What does it look and sound like?
• How is it different than data or information?
• Who has it, where is it, and who uses it?

Davenport, Thomas H, Prusak, Laurence Working
Knowledge How Organizations Manage What They
Know Harvard Business School Press (2000)
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Facilitate Knowledge Transfer

• Building a knowledge market (knowledge seekers vs
  knowledge owners)
• Overcoming trade barriers or friction (people
  will be concerned by what they gain or lose by
  sharing knowledge)

Davenport, Thomas H, Prusak, Laurence Working
Knowledge How Organizations Manage What They
Know Harvard Business School Press (2000)
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Enabling Connections Between Knowledge Buyers and
Sellers

• Formal (Transfer explicit knowledge people to
  documents or people to experts)
• 1. Documents
• Best practice - templates
• Lessons learned debrief
• Business intelligence data base
• 2. Practices
• Knowledge fairs or open forums
• Brownbag seminars
• Education Training

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Enabling Connections Between Knowledge Buyers and
Sellers

• Informal (Transfer tacit knowledge people to
  people)
• Knowledge networks (SME yellow pages)
• Coaching, mentoring, apprenticeships (active
  learning how to and what and why)
• Communities of practice

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Suggested Reading

• Working Knowledge How Organizations Manage What
  They Know by Davenport Prusak, Harvard Business
  School Press1998
• If Only We Knew What We Know The Transfer of
  Internal Knowledge and Best Practice by ODell
  and Grayson, The Free Press 1998
• Learning in Action A Guide to Putting the
  Learning Organization to Work by Garvin, Harvard
  Business School Press 1999
• Thinking for a Living How to get better
  performance and results from knowledge workers by
  Davenport, Harvard Business School Press 2005
• Cultivating Communities of Practice by Wenger
  McDermott Snyder, Harvard Business School Press
  2002
• Lost Knowledge Confronting the Threat of an
  Aging Workforce by Delong, Oxford University
  press, 2004
• Deep Smarts How to Cultivate and Transfer
  Enduring Business Wisdom by Lenard and Swap,
  Harvard Business School Press 2005
• The Knowing-Doing Gap How Smart Companies Turn
  Knowledge into Action by Pfeffer Sutton,
  Harvard Business School Press 2000