Knowledge helps organisations organise, so it’s management helps managers manage

Knowledge is power, knowledge is money

Knowledge helps organisations to organise; its management helps managers manage. The perception is that knowledge management is therefore quickly rising to the top of corporate agendas. This research, into the views of senior managers in UK corporates (i.e. FTSE 100 or FTSE 250 companies), offers an opportunity to test this perception out. And when Mick Fealty, the lead interviewer for this research, reports that “I had to explain to many respondents what knowledge management was”, we can be sure the jargon has yet to reach some in senior management. The principle, too, has only taken hold in a small proportion of companies – with only 38% reporting an established knowledge management programme and processes.

The failure to manage knowledge can be expensive. When IBM senior managers convinced themselves that personal computers were “not an issue”, they “created about $250 billion in market value – for their competitors”[1]. Some of the respondents in this survey were confident that their system was having a direct effect on the bottom line. One, a senior executive responsible for Knowledge Management, reported that their system meant that “in the next quarters figures we can clearly demonstrate that we have saved the company something in the region of £250,000”.

Knowledge is culture, secrecy it’s enemy

Professor Wilf Greenwood lectures in Business Information Strategies on the International MBA course at CERAM Management School in France. He has astringent views on knowledge management, and argues that:

Very often, secrecy in business is an attempt to hide ignorance, not to hide knowledge... A negative attitude to sharing information might be built in to the corporate culture right from the top. This has to be changed first, if initiatives for knowledge networking are to have any chance of success.

Getting individuals to share is much more a matter of giving them easy-to-use tools than retraining them psychologically! To share openly, individuals need tools and top-level proactive assistance and approval. Motivation will arrive via feedback and automated feedback can help complete the knowledge loop.[2]

This secrecy, whether motivated by ignorance or fear is, it would seem, an endemic problem for major UK corporates. 80% saw it as a costly problem in their company, with only 10% confident they were free of the problem.

Indeed, many of the managers interviewed were themselves suspicious of knowledge sharing, with 1 in 5 of the opinion that open systems depressed staff performance – making them less competitive with each other and less ambitious for promotion and preferment.

There are also problems when too much information is shared. Another BT survey in August 1997 found “British office workers read, on average, 125,000 words per month (equivalent to 15 heavy novels per year) in the course of business”[3] Meanwhile, businesses in France are officially inundated with information according to Dr Philippe Baumard, Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Paris-XII:

Redundancy of information is a serious waste of resources in most industrial democracies. For instance, in France, no less than 80 administrative bodies distribute to small and large businesses the same information again and again.[4]

Controlling and filtering the slew of information inundating modern workers has long been a Holy Grail for information managers – and new technology is rapidly catching up with this frequently-expressed need. As one survey respondent remarked:

There is a difference between knowledge and information. Getting the right information to the relevant person without over-burdening them with information they don't need, is what Knowledge Management is all about.

Knowledge networking

Most senior managers in UK corporates surveyed saw little significant difference between staff attitudes to knowledge-sharing in the UK and Europe. Only 10% agreed that, in their experience, “staff in the UK are much less likely to share knowledge than in other European countries.”

Perhaps it is to America that managers need to look for inspiration. The American authors of a recent book[5] on knowledge management note that:

Knowledge is also generated by informal, self-organizing networks within organizations that may over time become more formalized. Communities brought together by common interests usually talk in person, on the telephone, and via e-mail and groupware to share expertise and solve problems together. When networks of this kind have enough knowledge in common to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively, their ongoing conversation often generates new knowledge within firms. Although it may be difficult to codify, this process can add to the knowledge of the entire company. In the absence of formal knowledge policies and processes, networks act as critical conduits for much innovative thinking.

As more informal modes of behaviour (Friday “dress down” days are a well-known example) cross the Atlantic, it is probable that the restrictive practices that hold back effective knowledge exchange will begin to diminish.

E-plea

Most senior executives, when asked if they prefer to share information electronically or on paper, preferred the electronic option (73%) or either (12%) compared with only 15% still holding out for paper. This is in some ways surprising because, demographically, most of these executives were not brought up with computers as of right. (It is perhaps worth recalling that in 1965, a state-of-the-art IBM computer cost £167,500 – and could hold 13 pages of text.)

They have thus adapted to their use – and no doubt recognise the benefits of e-data over paper such as replicability, storage and dissemination. Electronic communication is also easy to produce and this brings its own problems. The ubiquity of e-mails, to the point where they can seem oppressive, has already been noted in the US. Their increasing use in the UK for knowledge transmission will certainly bring greater demand for better systems of control and classification to ensure their management.

It’s good to talk

This survey was conducted, on behalf of British Telecom, using telephones to talk to extremely busy senior executives in some of the UK’s largest corporations. The survey was designed to take as little time as possible – time being one crucial element to knowledge-sharing that cannot be replicated, replaced or extended.

Yet, as Knowledge Management (KM) specialist Joe Helfer points out, the telephone:

remains both one of the most effective KM enabling technologies available and one of the most overused and under-utilised assets. For some reason people seem reluctant to call someone up and ask “Hey, do you know how to…?” when it comes to higher level knowledge issues. Our advice? Call.

In conclusion

While the results of this survey are notable for the degree of unanimity shown by senior executives across a range of large UK corporates, they touch on the coming issues. Wilf Greenwood has argued that “six Cs” are crucial to effective knowledge management: create, clarify, classify, communicate, comprehend and create (again). Underpinning all these is a culture where these issues and processes are encouraged and given value. As one respondent said of knowledge management, “I think it’s a fundamental attitude about whether you do it or not.”

Communication will be essential to establishing such a culture – and that, of course, brings its own set of problems.

Editors notes

52 senior managers in various sectors from a random selection of 250 of FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 companies were interviewed.

Interviews were undertaken by telephone between 30 September and 2 October.

River Path Associates is a research and communications consultancy, specialising in communicating complex issues.

My company has an established knowledge management programme and processes
			% of total	% of those expressing opinion
Q1	Agree	20	38%	49%
	Disagree	21	41%	51%
	Don't Know	11	21%
		52	100%	100%
Selfishness by staff in not sharing information is a brake on increasing productivity
			% of total	% of those expressing opinion
Q2	Agree	42	80%	89%
	Disagree	5	10%	11%
	Don't know	5	10%
		52	100%	100%
Too much knowledge sharing can depress competitiveness, drive and ambition among staff
			% of total	% of those expressing opinion
Q3	Agree	11	21%	28%
	Disagree	29	56%	72%
	Don't know	12	23%
		52	100%	100%
In my experience, staff in the UK are much less likely to share knowledge than in other European countries
			% of total	% of those expressing opinion
Q4	Agree	5	10%	19%
	Disagree	22	42%	81%
	Neither	25	48%
		52	100%	100%
Do you find it easier to share information in electronic format rather than paper?
			% of total	% of those expressing opinion
Q5	Electronic	38	73%	83%
	Paper	8	15%	17%
	Either	6	12%
		52	100%	100%

[1] Order Out of Chaos: A Practitioner's Guide to Knowledge Management, Joe Helfer, Founder, Knowledge Management Readiness Systems (KMRS) in Searcher: The Magazine for Database Professionals, Volume 6, No. 7, July/August 1998

[2] Harnessing Individual Brilliance for Team Creation: The Six C's of the Knowledge Supply Chain
by Wilf Greenwood, paper presented at the Online Collaboration Conference, Berlin, June 1998, wilf@monaco.mc

[4] From InfoWar to Knowledge Warfare: Preparing for the Paradigm Shift, IOL Database, Indigo Publications, Paris.

Shared Knowledge, Shared Urgency