HR, not IT, is key to knowledge

By VICKI JAYNE

"Knowledge management" may sound dauntingly high-tech, but it could be as simple as chatting to the chap in the next-door office.

There is a lot of organisational know-how being lost because of the tendency to slap an IT label on the whole process of managing knowledge, says social scientist Carl Davidson.

"The expectation is that it involves designing databases, establishing intranets, or putting in bandwidth to handle the communication flows.

"The idea I'd like to push is that while you can have some pretty cool systems to support it, knowledge management is more about the culture of your organisation than the size of your database. It is about HR, not IT."

That is not to say that bundling information into electronic holding pens isn't a useful activity. But if it is to provide some competitive thrust to companies operating in the much-vaunted knowledge economy, it has to be let out to play.

"What is often overlooked is that knowledge has a social life," says Mr Davidson. "It's perhaps less a question of managing it as sharing and activating it. The key to that is cross-functional exposure and informal structures."

Companies need to make both the time and space available for people in different parts of their organisation to meet, share ideas and tap into those valuable knowledge sources they each carry in their heads.

Mr Davidson's emphasis on the social nature of knowledge is perhaps not surprising, given his previous life as a sociology lecturer at Massey University.

He and colleague Phillip Voss, formerly a psychology lecturer, are principals of No Doubt Research, a research, strategy and knowledge management consulting company based in the e-centre business incubator at Albany.

When established three years ago, its focus was weighted towards providing research services, says Mr Davidson.

"What we found early on was a lot of organisations were unaware of the wealth of information they already held.

"In one instance, the answer to a question they asked us to research was in a previously commissioned report.

"People tend to think knowledge resides somewhere else."

While collecting information into some form of corporate library is a first step, he says, knowledge management goes much further.

It involves marrying three components - the right knowledge streams and sources feeding into the organisation; the right technology to store and communicate that knowledge; and the right workplace culture so staff are motivated to make more use of it.

"It has to include what expertise and collective wisdom is in the heads of your employees and - which is where it starts to get challenging - in those of your customers and suppliers.

"These are people who interact with you on a regular basis, know a heck of a lot about you, what you do and how you might do it better."

Most knowledge management projects tend to focus on accumulating voluminous knowledge stocks, hence the seduction of technology solutions.

Get it all tidied into electronic boxes and install some whizz-bang gophers to retrieve relevant needles from the data stacks.

"Little attention is paid to knowledge flow. There's an assumption that if it's on an intranet, it will be used," says Mr Davidson.

That, he reckons, is a hangover from the belief that technology provided some sort of panacea for a lot of organisational ills.

There is now much greater awareness that while technology has some of the answers, it does not remove the responsibility for aiding more effective learning and communication.

The idea is to ensure those needing specific information know where it is or who can best provide it.

"One of the first things we do when we go into an organisation is find out who has it - identify the knowledge champions and then look at how you get them talking to each other."

A database or intranet can house commonly accessed information - the questions most frequently asked about company structure, systems, products or machinery operations, for instance.

Creating a more interpersonal knowledge flow involves not only who to ask, but how to ask - and listen.

So social learning can be part of the package.

"This is where the process becomes quite radical," says Mr Davidson. "If you are truly committed to creating an organisation that is about learning and the communication of knowledge, then you have to change how the organisation works."

It may have to loosen up a little, because the knowledge transfer works best where learning is cross-functional and informal.

It is no good trying to structure the process through special meetings. It is better to provide space and time for it to happen informally.

"The other advantage of cross-function communications is people are less inclined to shift the burden of blame when things aren't quite up to scratch - we got the wrong orders and the quality control people are useless, so the problems aren't ours."

Communication channels can be established vertically as well as horizontally.

Getting people on the shop floor talking to senior management prompts people to think about issues and problems in ways that otherwise would not happen.

With average time in jobs now around two years in Auckland, companies can farewell half their intellectual capital in just five years if they don't find effective ways to disperse it through the company, warns Mr Davidson.

"At its best, knowledge management can also lead to a more rewarding, more vital workplace. And that could prove a real bonus in New Zealand just in terms of job retention."

* vjayne@iconz.co.nz