KM Malaysia

As business environments become increasingly embroiled in uncertainty and ambiguity the necessity for critical knowledge retention takes center stage. This is especially so in the knowledge age where people drown in information are starved of critical knowledge of how to continually improve.

In the knowledge age, the terrain of critical knowledge changes with time. Determination of critical knowledge is a dynamic phenomenon. It changes with circumstances and time. Many organizations spend time, money and resources acquiring knowledge that is supposedly critical but in reality, is not. Consequently, the applicability of knowledge retained in knowledge repositories declines with time. This short article seeks to provide ideas on how retention of knowledge has to be undertaken to arrest this decline.

Retention of such knowledge in the knowledge age requires consideration of a number of issues. They include the value it brings, the support it delivers and the process of retrieval that is required insofar as ensuring that the knowledge retained is applicable in practice.

Value Proposition of Knowledge

For any retained knowledge to be fervently consumed, it has to be knowledge that people value. Such knowledge helps employees work better, resolve issues and problems they face and make informed decisions. The higher the value this knowledge brings, the more readily it is acquired and applied in practice.

To establish what knowledge is critical requires a consideration of value it brings to the recipient of that knowledge from the perspective of the recipient. This highly valued knowledge for the specific targeted recipients has to be first determined. Only after this is established, the source of the required knowledge is determined. The knowledge source could include new hires, retirees, experienced managers or subject matter experts who have the critical knowledge required by the targeted knowledge recipients.

Social network mapping and technical support

Given the volatility of knowledge applicability in practice in the knowledge age, critical knowledge has to be analyzed in two primary context, know how or technical based and know who or social based. People need to be supported in terms of what they need to do as well as whom they need to refer to when this knowledge is required and applied.

Developing a checklist of what to do based on input received from a subject matter expert is insufficient. In addition, a social network mapping of who else possess this knowledge, why should this person be referred to, whom to avoid etc. enables a valuable ecosystem of social interactions required for knowledge acquisition to be developed as well.

When developing a framework for retaining critical knowledge that remains valuable over time, it is necessary to make adequate considerations for both technical know-how and know-what as well as mapping the flow of accessing knowledge from the right sources within specific domains that relate to the knowledge required.

Ease of Knowledge content retrieval

Critical knowledge has to be stored in a way that enables the best knowledge to be assessed by the right people at the right time to accomplish a specific goal. This requires knowledge to be stored in a condensed form and remain easily accessible to whosoever requires it when it is required.

Making this possible requires developing readily consumable knowledge nuggets developed based on the existing taxonomy in use. In addition, a process of content validation of knowledge from the source is required so that it may be readily accessible by knowledge recipients. The process of tagging key words or phrases and linking these to the specific content that has been stored is crucial in this regard.

In summary for iteratively improving business processes and delivering better products and services over time, critical knowledge required has to be retained and applied in practice. The knowledge retained will be of value only if it incorporates both know how as well as know who to get work done better. In addition, such knowledge should be structured in a way that remains easily accessible to whomsoever needs it whenever it is needed.

For additional assistance on how this may be done and to view a number of templates that have been developed to do this in practice, please contact Sharma Management International here at your convenience.

Dr Rumesh Kumar DBA MBA PMP CKM CST

Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But, since no one was listening, everything must be said again. -André Gide

Harnessing knowledge does not necessarily lead to people working better. People do not work better because they know more. They work better because they feel a sense of ownership and demonstrate that ownership by working better.

Knowledge assets refer to all knowledge that exist in organizations. It includes all information, ideas, learning, understanding, memory, insights, cognitive and technical skills, and capabilities. These knowledge assets confer knowledge capabilities that may be optimised to navigate changes in business environments to identify and capture opportunities that these changes bring out. With knowledge assets harnessed correctly, responding more rapidly and cost effectively to changes than competitors is possible.

By sustaining the momentum of thriving in a continuously changing, unpredictable business environment, organizations become increasingly agile. They develop a heightened level of sensing ability (“What is going on out there”), responding ability (“How to react”) and a seizing ability (“How to leverage on changes faced”). These abilities require various forms of knowledge‐based assets to be absorbed, assimilated, shared and utilised for innovation.

Organizations that imbue the characteristics of agility fuelled by harnessing knowledge assets are expected to thrive in unpredictable business environments, but not under all circumstances.

Importance of Accountability

Apple reclaimed the title of most valuable public company in the world, surpassing both Microsoft and Amazon in Q1 of 2019 with a market capitalization of $821.59 billion. This is despite its lagging iPhone sales worldwide. A very distinguishing feature of Apple as a business entity is that it puts a very high premium on being accountable for their actions, choices and results. Accountability for Apple is a cornerstone of their operations. The company realizes that you must be accountable first and then business will follow.

Accountability is a commitment to take responsibility for activities and transparent disclosure of the results. It is a personal choice to rise above one’s circumstances and demonstrate the ownership necessary for achieving desired results. This applies to individuals, teams and the organization as a whole. 

For organizations striving to be increasingly agile, harnessing knowledge assets is a necessary but not a sufficient requirement. A pressing fundamental requirement is the gradual development of a culture of accountability. Harnessing knowledge does not necessarily lead to people working better. People do not work better because they know more. They work better because they feel a sense of ownership and demonstrate that ownership by working better.

To enhance organizational agility to meet the increasing demands of market forces, organizations must purposefully create a culture of accountability. Such a culture is one that involves getting employees to integrate their work experiences with their beliefs and to act in accordance with those beliefs to take ownership of the results.

Role of Leaders

It is leaders who create the culture of accountability. They define the results that guide the culture change, ensure employees take actions that produces results, identify beliefs that generate the right actions as well as provide experiences that instil the right beliefs. Hence leaders need to pursue a culture of accountability in tandem with harnessing knowledge assets for agility at work to be enhanced.

Just as a bird cannot fly with only one wing, an organization cannot expect to become agile only through a single-minded focus on harnessing knowledge assets. Nurturing a culture of accountability is also required. Only by doing so, it is possible to sustain the momentum of thriving in a continually changing business environment.

I conducted a series of knowledge management programs for many organizations over the last few years. These organizations sent participants as they were desirous of improving their ability to perform better than before by developing a better grasps of knowledge management to navigate the changing business landscapes.

The idea was to enable them to learn how to harness knowledge assets in their respective organizations. Apart from the exam that they had to pass, the students were required to undertake mini projects as well to demonstrate their ability to harness knowledge assets.

Almost all passed the exam but only a very few percentage of them actually did the projects assigned to them. This led me to ponder on why, despite having been provided with the tools to harvest knowledge better, these tools were not being used as intended to under the projects assigned. Perhaps what was lacking in their organizations was a culture of accountability ?

Dr Rumesh Kumar 

An alternative approach to dealing with volatility, uncertainty, complexity ambiguity in the new world

Unleashing the powers of the mind has been one of the more enduring and yet elusive goals of mankind. As we embark on a perilous voyage into the realm of ambiguity, the need for seeking solace through introspection has never been so acute as it is now. Despite a plethora of suggestions on how to addresss complex, ill structured and ambiguous challenges, little has been done to demonstrate how this can occur in practice.

When a cobra prepares to strike its prey, it does do in three distinct states. Firstly, it raises its head, then unfolds the hood surrounding its head and finally it keeps gazing at the target before striking it. These three stages combined lead to its ability to successfully make a kill. Taken together, these stages represent what is needed to unleash the power of the mind to transcend challenges faced in a “VUCA” environment.

VUCA is an acronym that stands for volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity that impedes the ability of leaders to achieve goals set. Such an environment brings about enormous turbulence of unprecedented proportions. When a leader confronts such turbulence, his will to take decisive action is seriously impaired by an irresolute mind that is agitated. Leaders need to transcend this agitated state to then be able to develop an all-embracing selfless vision, enhance understanding and sustain clarity.

The agitated mind is a mob of thoughts and emotions that distract a leader from a prescribed vision. Such an agitated mind loses its power to act wisely based on accurate and deep understanding. When the mind is unruly and indecisive, the body follows through with non-action. An agitated mind ceases to function and succumbs to confusion and conflicts brought about by VUCA that derail well thought out plans.

Under these circumstances, it is imperative to develop the powers of concentration, the powers of decision making and the power of selflessness.

Power of concentration

The power of concentration requires three things to be done. The first is to bear down on the object of concentration, the second is to avoid all distractions and the third is to remain focused on the object of focus over a prolonged period of time. This is precisely what a cobra does as it prepares to strike its prey as it raises its head, unfolds the hood and gazes monetarily at the target.

Concentrating on the underlying issues that drive volatility is necessary. For this to happen, all distractions that occur due to complexity and uncertainty have to be disregarded as a leader, steeped in concentration, remains focused long enough on issues that matter for him or her to develop an all-embracing vision for the future.

This is becoming increasingly difficult as Daniel Coleman in his book Focus, noted how we live today in the midst of epidemic distractions. He claims that in today’s world, most people, leaders included, are forced to grapple with distractions continuously. They find it difficult to engage in mental activities that require concentration required for vision, understanding and clarity. Consequently, the powers of concentration decline.

Power of selflessness

By adopting and clinging onto an egoistic mindset, leaders fail to develop a deep and accurate understanding of what happened, what is happening and what could happen in a volatile business environment. They tend to dismiss viewpoints that differ from theirs as fallacies and seek validation of their biased opinions and viewpoints when pursuing their personal vision. As such their understanding of issues that emerge remain superficial. This being the case, overcoming volatility becomes a nightmare that continually engulfs the entire organization in a shroud of ignorance.

The mind has the power to discard the influence of the ego as a central criterion that bears on how a person thinks. By using this power, a leader puts the well-being of the people, the organization and the nation beyond his personal well-being when defining a more all-embracing selfless vision. By doing so, leaders lead with compassion and genuine concern for long term welfare of all employees and clients when faced with difficult choices.

Power of decision making

Seeking and maintaining clarity is the antidote for dealing with complexity. As complexity takes root in any situation, leaders become increasingly indecisive and unclear on their next course of action due to the variegated maze of options available.

The mind has the power to decide on what to think and what not to think about. It has the power to decide on what to do and what not to do. Essentially it means using the mind to make a conscious and deliberate attempt to pursue a specific thought, discarding all other thoughts and in the process taking a specific course of action and discarding all alternatives altogether.

By developing the power of decision making, a leader is able to delete alternative options available in order to focus on making conscious attempts towards achieving a specific goal. This avoids the tendency of keeping other options open that run the risk that the leader will change the mind mid-way, leading to indecisiveness.

Being decisive is a critical requirement for seeking clarity as it involves ignoring information that is false, incomplete and inaccurate and focusing only on information that is true, complete and accurate. By doing so, a leader is better poised to make the correct decision most of the time.

In summary, for leaders to navigate around and thrive in a VUCA environment, they need to unleash the powers of the mind. Transcending limitations imposed as a result of volatility, requires a selfless all-embracing vision. Minimizing the impact of uncertainty requires developing the accurate understanding. Integrating accurate understanding with a selfless vision requires clarity to counter confusion when faced with complexity. To overcome complexity, the power to decide effectively and conclusively is crucial.

Developing the powers of concentration, selflessness and decision making provides better understanding, clarity and vision that is necessary to navigate in unchartered waters leaders find ourselves themselves in. Hence unleashing the powers of the mind holds the key to survival in this day and age.

Dr Rumesh Kumar

Sharma Management International

How Knowledge Management is crucial for Digital Transformation 

I had a chat with a Chief information Officer of a business conglomerate the other day. His company embarked on a Digital Transformation strategy recently. Millions of dollars were invested in cloud computing and data analytics but he lamented that the efficient return on these investments are difficult to realize. As we spoke it became clear to me that this was a common problem most companies embarking on a digital transformation experience. I enquired on the basis for selecting the digital technology in question and his response was that it appeared to be the best available. Evidently, it appears that the allure to invest is there but grounds for doing so efficiently remain unclear. Let me share my thoughts on how better knowledge management helps identify what needs to be digitized and how to select the digital technology that gives the best returns for investing in digital transformation.

Digitization is the process of digitizing information from an analog format to a digital format. It involves creating a digital version, which consists of bits and bytes, of a physical object or process. For example, developing an application that enables all information normally captured on a physical form to instead be captured on a smartphone or laptop.

What data and information needs to be digitized is an important decision to make. If the decision is made without prior understanding of what information is crucial, the level of data integrity and where this knowledge currently resides, the information that is digitized itself may be incomplete, irrelevant or incorrect. Only when digitization has occurred correctly can the process of digitalization yield positive results.

Digital technologies, such as cloud computing or data analytics, analyze and convert digitized data available and use them to further refine business activities or processes. They enable digital transformation. The usage of cloud computing that houses vast reservoirs of knowledge to seek solutions instantaneously is an example of digitalization. The integration of digital technology into all areas of a business is a very expensive proposition. What is needed is an organically driven integration, starting with an activity or process that provides maximum potential for generating positive returns. This integration is continued gradually until the digital transformation is complete.

Digital Transformation Digital transformation refers to being able to rethink old ways of doing things, to experiment more and to become more agile in terms of responding to digital customers and rivals. It entails a cultural change whereby organizations continually challenge the status quo, experiment and get comfortable with failure.

Digital transformation closes the gap between what digital customers already expect and what existing businesses can actually deliver. Investing in digital technologies through digitalization is aimed primarily to close this gap. However, unless organizations seek to continually learn to refine and reframe their business processes as and when the gap emerges, the digital transformation process will not yield desired results.

Based on the above, there are three primary requirements for successful digital transformation. The first is that the information to be digitized is complete, relevant and correct. The second is that the business process selected for digitalization has the potential for maximizing returns on investment. The third is that learning and relearning of customer needs and practices is institutionalized throughout the organization. These three requirements rest on an organizations ability to learn, unlearn and relearn through effective knowledge management.

Knowledge Management Knowledge Management refers to the art and science of optimizing knowledge flows within an organization. It involves the efficient handling of information and resources within an organization, which is an integral part of digital transformation. Managing knowledge provides clarity on the best means of acquiring knowledge, the mechanisms for producing new knowledge and how the learning process undertaken is integrated in practice. This is especially useful in an era where dealing with customers who are more digitally conscious than ever and are comfortable using multiple devices to interact with a business

Knowledge Management is done through various methods and techniques such as knowledge mapping, the conduct of knowledge café that facilitates unfretted and open conversations, and the creation of communities of practice that encourage interactions necessary to explore options available to meet customer requirements that emerge.

It is crucial to understand that digitization and digitalization enable digital transformation. Whilst these processes incur high cost, they may not be sufficient for digital transformation to occur successfully. What is pertinent is to first acquire knowledge on what information needs to be digitized and what processes need to be digitalized and when. This knowledge is acquired from experience available by experts or through knowledge sharing techniques with relevant parties concerned.

Digitalization involves investment in digital technologies. Before embarking on digitalization, an organization needs first to assess from many different perspectives what processes are currently hampering growth and have to be digitalized first. Getting people who need this knowledge with people who have this knowledge is important in this context. Only then can the correct process be selected for digitalization.

 Digital transformation is an ongoing process. It involves creating and maintaining an environment in which people are comfortable in engaging, interacting and integrating ideas that are free flowing. Such ideas have to then be assessed for its usability and how they may be integrated into existing work routines. This process of learning, unlearning and relearning, is a necessary component of digital transformation. As organizations increase their knowledge management maturity levels, they are able to develop knowledge management strategies that support digital transformation processes for desired results to be achieved.

In summary, the digital transformation process is an ongoing voyage of discovery of new ways to meet the ever-evolving demands of digital customers. This process is facilitated to a large extent by knowledge management. Managing knowledge assists in identifying what to digitize, and how to digitalize optimally. This reduces the costs associated with digital transformation. More pertinently, through ongoing and relentless focus on building knowledge management maturity, the ongoing process of closing the gap between the needs of digital customers and what is delivered will become easier with time.

Dr Rumesh Kumar

Sharma Management International

January 2019