Knowledge Management Isn’t Just About Organization
by Noah Heller and Phillip Colón
WHAT Is KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?
What percentage of a typical week do you spend sorting through emails or searching for information to complete a task? According to a 2021 McKinsey Global Institute report, the average employee spends upwards of 28 percent and 19 percent of their time, respectively, on these tasks.[1] That is approximately 11-hours of a 40-hour work week consumed looking for information instead of completing more significant projects. Think of the impact on your business if you had even a few more hours each week to strategize or produce results for your organization or client’s mission. Rockwood believes that a properly managed knowledge environment provides leaders with the tools they need to improve decision making and avoid potential hardships by focusing on the more important aspects of running an organization.
A principal point to address is the differences between information management and knowledge management. On the surface they sound similar and perhaps synonymous. They are often used interchangeably in casual conversation. There are key differences between the two, however, that savvy leaders need to understand to build a properly managed knowledge environment. Mr. Martin Ihrig and Mr. Ian MacMillan’s 2015 Harvard Business Review article, Managing Your Mission Critical Knowledge,[2] is a great resource for those who are new to the knowledge management process.
Information management focuses on explicit knowledge, such as data and documents that can be stored. It is concerned more with PROCESSES and TOOLS, rather than with people and how they use the information. An information management system is important but only part of the equation required to build a mature organization.
Knowledge management goes a step further and is a multidisciplinary field that concerns the storing, organizing, updating, and sharing of knowledge within an organization. It encompasses both explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge, such as an employee’s skills that can only be transferred in a person-to-person interaction. Critically a mature knowledge management practice aligns PEOPLE, PROCESSES, and TOOLS within an organization.
People create a culture that encourages collaboration and rewards knowledge sharing. Processes ensure that the knowledge management system is structured and can endure indefinitely. Tools facilitate effective organization and the sharing of knowledge across a business. Leaders should not neglect any of these pillars if they wish to build a successful knowledge management practice.
WHY DO I NEED KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT?
One of the most important issues knowledge managements seeks to address is information siloes. Businesses develop processes and tools to solve a particular problem for a specific team without considering the wider impact changes have on other groups. This process repeats ad nauseum until teams are all independent fiefdoms unaware of how they or their neighbors factor into the overall business strategy.
A lack of communication often leads to duplicative work across divisions and eventually a seemingly endless backlog of unsorted and decentralized records and information forms. Employees grow increasingly exacerbated with the mess and leave for greener pastures. Irreplaceable institutional knowledge is lost. The organization’s problems start to spiral out of control.
While the above example is perhaps a bit hyperbolic, a mature knowledge management practice seeks to solve these problems before they overwhelm a business. Organizations know that these issues negatively impact operations but are often unsure of how to untangle the gordian knot.
HOW DO I BUILD A KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT PRACTICE?
Developing a knowledge management strategy is a smart first step to better align your organization processes. A representative group of leaders from across the enterprise should convene to discuss what to include in the strategy and how it may align with the organization’s mission. Remember, complete institutional buy-in is required and excluding key stakeholders will sabotage the effort before it begins. Leadership should also understand what the organization can realistically accomplish in both the short- and long-term. Rockwood recommends drafting a five-year strategy to address how your organization plans to mature and create a properly managed knowledge environment.
The goal now is to develop accountability metrics to track the progress of the five-year plan. Leadership should keep staff informed throughout the process to encourage their investment in the success of the knowledge management program. An effective way to develop metrics is to document the challenges your organization is trying to address and the resources it needs to resolve them. Once the organization identifies and agrees on the challenges it can set goals around these challenges and create key performance indicators. Metrics will help you measure your success. For example, if you set a goal to reduce the time staff spend searching for information through updated knowledge management practices, you might create a metric based on the average number of hours these practices save each employee each month.
Now that your processes are aligned you can start to address how your organization uses tools. Many organizations lack the understanding and ability to properly leverage every technology available to them. Conducting a tools assessment allows leadership to document and standardize how technology is used throughout their organization. Another strategic benefit of this exercise is establishing the single source of truth for all of your data streams. Documenting where data originates allows users to focus on analysis instead of wasting time verifying information. Standardizing what tools and data your organization also simplifies training. Everyone is using the same technology suite and leaders no longer need to account for archaic tools used for one off tasks.
Aligning people to the new knowledge management regime is the final part of creating enduring change. Many organizations lack a dedicated and empowered team to oversee the implantation of change which can significantly contribute to an organization’s knowledge management shortcomings. Knowledge management will not improve without adequate dedicated resources. An authoritative team should help ensure that knowledge management receives the proper amount of attention and funding.
An organization can develop a strategy, adopt formal processes, or stand-up official groups but if the organization does not hold its leaders and staff accountable to those processes, they will have little impact. Therefore, leaders must establish formal guidance and processes and require leaders and staff to adhere to them. This should focus on positive reinforcement and rewarding those who adopt the new processes and tools. Including knowledge management on performance reviews is an effective way to encourage participation.
Perhaps the most important factor in determining the success of a knowledge management program is developing a communications strategy. The realignment of an organization’s processes, tools, and people is only effective if leadership and staff know about the changes. Any knowledge management awareness campaign should have a dual focus. First, you must build awareness across leadership and management about the value, importance, and requirements of a mature knowledge management practice. Second, you must educate all employees about why the organization is undergoing change. People are unlikely to make changes if they do not understand what is changing and why they need to change.
Leaders operating in a properly managed knowledge environment can be confident that they are making strategic decisions based on accurate data produced by individuals who are fully aware of the organization’s mission. PROCESSES, TOOLS, and PEOPLE are the key to a successful knowledge management practice. Remember, though, creating enduring change takes time. Knowledge management is a marathon, not a sprint.