Knowledge Management Is The Gatekeeper To Re-Humanizing Your Company
Last Friday, my good friend, the always enlightening Euan Semple, posted one of those very thought provoking blog posts that one cannot ignore, just like that. Under the title Being Human he shared a few insights around the abstract that he submitted for the wonderful Social Business Edge conference event that will be taking place in New York in a couple of weeks and where he will be one of the many talented speakers.
In that article he comes to reflect some more on why knowledge workers, in general, face some tough issues at work, while they keep pushing the limits on their wider adoption of social software within the enterprise. Mainly:"The biggest challenge to getting people to share isn't to do with technology it is to do with very personal challenges and issues that relate to their sense of self and their relationship with their employers" The conversations that have sparked as a result of that blog entry by Euan have been amazingly inspiring (Go and read through the comments as well!) and surely are worth while reading through to get a glimpse of the potential solutions that the corporate world could well start exploring. The sooner, the better. KM extraordinaire Jack Vinson also picked up this topic under the post "What is it about humans?" and he actually finishes off that relevant article with some very thought provoking and controversial questions whose answers could perhaps address most of the key points that Euan discusses on his post.
So what is it? Why are knowledge workers so afraid of sharing what they know (Their ideas, experiences, know-how, skills, lessons learned, etc. etc. you name it!)? Is it because they don't want to disrupt the current enterprise status quo? Is it because they want to please their boss and don't go beyond the line? Is it because they don't want to stand out and just basically keep doing their jobs, so that they can get their paychecks by the end of the month? Specially, given the current financial crisis most countries are still recovering from? Is it because knowledge workers have never been told, nor taught, why sharing is a good thing? Or perhaps is it due to the fact that the corporate world keeps rewarding individual performance which lives on knowledge is power and therefore people have a tendency to hide away their knowledge and not share it widely?
Or is it perhaps something larger? Something much more profound and deep within every single business out there? A matter of trust? Trust that walks both ways, by the way, from the employee to the employer and vice versa? Or, better said, a lack of trust from either party that prohibits knowledge workers from excelling at what they are good by nature, social sharing, and which most businesses today would consider that a threat to their own status quo?
Who knows… The key thing, and that's something that I, too, agree with Euan big time, is that it is just such a missed opportunity! Businesses should not only encourage their knowledge workers to constantly share what they know, but they should go the extra mile. They should make an effort to help facilitate their knowledge workforce to challenge the business itself. Constantly. Day in, day out. To keep them real with feedback on what works, and what doesn't. To collectively improve the overall business processes in place, specially those that everyone knows need improvements, yet no-one speaks up about them! To, finally, open and speed up the innovation process where those knowledge workers would be much more in control, but without ignoring, nor neglecting, the structures already in place.
Businesses that don't have that kind of attitude or mentality are surely declaring, out loud, clear statements that, overtime, are going to harm the business even more; not encouraging your knowledge workforce to share and participate from open, unrestricted, provocative conversations to help generate more business value is basically telling them up front they are not to be trusted and their work as good, hard working professionals can't be trusted either!
And that's probably the worst thing you can do as a business: start undermining, right from the start, from the moment they join the company, the great talent of your workforce by not encouraging them to openly share what they, as working professionals, know they could go and deliver: their best of breed thinking.
I keep seeing such attitude time and time again all over place, specially when management is involved. I am sure you can hint why this is happening, right? But let me tell you this. There is *nothing* out there in the corporate world that could be more rewarding, for both the company and the employee workforce, than constructively challenging management decisions. It's a healthy behaviour. It keeps management real, down to earth, connected with their workforce, alert on what potential issues may be coming from their knowledge workers and already hint what could be done to address them. It keeps the business on guard by providing an opportunity to break hierarchical structures, to make them more dynamic, more agile, more proactive in helping tackle actual business problems. And find solutions…
It helps employees as well feel connected with their management line; it helps them understand that they, too, are humans, with a need to be social, to share, to collaborate, to work together (After all, they are on the same boat, aren't they not?!?!); in short, to partner together into making good companies great companies to work for. That is, challenging management decisions will help your business grow further much faster, much more intelligent and smart, much more involved with your employees, as well as customers and business partners, to the point where it would continue to deliver the business value of your company into a higher level of interactions.
Why? Because it makes you human and, like we all know, humans like to converse with other humans; they like to share what they know, they like to socialise, they want to co-create your next generation of great products, they want to take an active part in shaping up not only the relationships between customers and your company, but also within your own company. It's the age of the knowledge economy, where knowledge sharing, collaboration and rampant innovation walk hand in hand no longer in the shape of a nice thing to have, but more as an essential, critical and integral part of every business. And your knowledge worker is the gatekeeper. So the sooner you release that power, the better for you, as a business and, of course, for your customers, which is what matters at the end of the day, don't you think?
That's exactly why social software tools are so powerful in this scenario I have tried to describe over the last few paragraphs from this post. Why they keep breaking the traditional model of engagement behind the firewall, where only a few had got an opportunity to share their ideas. Now, everyone can! With social tools like blogs, wikis, social bookmarks, tagging, podcasting, vodcasting, etc. etc. everyone has got an opportunity to have a voice and an opinion inside the company; and value it for what it is: an indispensable, inexhaustible resource every single business out there just can't ignore any longer.
Thus what are you, as a business, going to do? Are you going to release, and make the best out of, all of that unused brain power? Or are you going to continue muting your own knowledge workforce, because whatever they may have to say may hurt your feelings and status quo? Are you going to show the way and lead them by example on how they, too, can be as human social beings as they would want to and therefore help re-humanise your company once again? Will you finally unleash the power and allow them to have the control for what they were hired to do in the first place? Being a hard working professional doing the right job?
It's up to you. Really. But hurry up, because there is a great chance they themselves won't wait for you much longer, if you don't start Being Human yourself …
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About the Author:
Luis Suarez has been working in the fields of Knowledge Management,
collaboration, communities, and learning for the past seven years, and is
heavily involved in social computing and its adoption within the enterprise.
Luis shares his insights on important KM issues of today through The Knowledge Management Blog
and ELSUA.NET, and is an active
participant in the ITtoolbox blogging
community.
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