by Galen McPherson

  This article was originally published in The Productivity Institute (PI) Newsletter

And contrary to popular expression, neither it is it whom you know.  I want to offer you a new mantra for successfully competing in the knowledge economy, and for developing a successful knowledge strategy.

It’s not what you know that counts,
it’s how fast you can access all the things you need to know.

When you can get your access time down to a few seconds, you can effectively know everything.  Provided, of course, that you know where it resides, and it is accessible.  And that is the key to effective knowledge strategy.

A knowledge management policy is not a knowledge strategy.  A knowledge strategy should not stop with knowledge management.  A knowledge strategy should not start with knowledge management.  A knowledge strategy should begin with a strategy for extracting value from knowledge.

In deciding this strategy, you need first to consider which knowledge is going to be managed.  This selection process revolves around four basic questions:

1. What is the work group? Contrary to other “laws”, in knowledge, bigger is not better, and one size does not fit all.  The responsibility for the content of a knowledge management system should reside with the affected work group.  Integration of this knowledge with other “pools” is a different story altogether, but that is another article.  Keeping responsibility at the work group level serves to maximize the utility of the knowledge.
2. What does the work group need to know?  Knowledge is not information, nor is information knowledge.  Information only becomes knowledge when it is placed in a context within which value is created.  Downplay collecting information, and elevate knowledge.  Having to sort through too much information to get to the knowledge will reduce the usefulness, and therefore the usage rate, of the knowledge management system.
3. Is this knowledge to be used for standardization or for customization?  Most knowledge seekers, contrary to a very popular analogy, are not seeking a library- they want a café.  Their knowledge requests are unstructured; problems and questions are new.  Sometimes they don’t really want an answer, they simply want to talk to smart people.  On the other hand, some seekers are looking for a firm guide or instruction, so they do need the “reference section” of the library.  The knowledge system, to be useful, must serve both knowledge exploration and exploitation communities.
4. What is the nature of the knowledge?  Another paradox of current knowledge management systems: the degree of technology is inversely proportional to the amount of content transferred.  Technology helps collect, store, transfer manipulate and distribute information, but it is rarely able to set the context that converts these data from information to useful knowledge.  This begins to probe the whole dilemma of tacit versus explicit knowledge: tacit is the only form of knowledge that makes it to the point of application, and explicit is the only form of knowledge which can be transferred.  A high value-add knowledge management system converts as much tacit information into explicit as possible and then creates a network to access and develop that which remains tacit.

My experience has taught me one very basic thing about knowledge management systems, and particularly failed knowledge management systems: knowledge management systems fail for one simple reason- they are not useful to the intended audience.  The most useful knowledge management systems are those which focus on unifying explicit [technology-mediated] knowledge with tacit [personal] knowledge in a meaningful value-added way.

Until next time… what are you thinking?

Galen McPherson is an unabashed Intellectual Capitalist, and developer of the KnexusTM model of knowledge exchange.  He believes firmly that every company’s most important asset walks out the door every night, and the owners only hope that it returns in the morning.  With over thirty years in training and adult education, coupled with strong business process improvement credentials internationally, Galen brings an interesting, refreshing, and most importantly profitable angle to how you will view the brainpower of your employees in the future.  He can be reached at: (816) 678-5163 and galenmcp@att.net .