INNOVATION September-October 2014

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Is Your Organization Losing Its Knowledge? “With the death of an elder, an entire encyclopedia goes with him.” Anon

Marg Latham, P.Eng. I recently finished reading, Love, Life and Elephants, An African Love Story, by Dame Daphne Sheldrick, a wonder-filled story that brought back memories of a trip of a lifetime to Kenya and Tanzania. The quote above, which so aptly captures the need for valuing and manag- ing knowledge, began her epilogue. Being passionate about how organizations manage their knowledge, this quote resonated with me. Losing the elder’s knowledge could have meant the difference between life and death to a tribe. People in the tribe understood that. But do today’s corporations understand how important and fleeting their corporate knowledge is? Knowledge management became the talk of busi- ness publications in the 1990s. It became so preva- lent that it took on the label of fad or “flavour of the month” as some leaders embraced it and then did not see it through. However, the concept and disciplines have proved their worth in organizations that thought

about what they wanted to achieve, planned, tested out, measured and continually improved their efforts. It is puzzling, then, why knowledge management’s methodologies have not embedded themselves in more organizations especially given the impending loss of knowledge. Baby boomers may have stayed a little longer than expected to continue to share what they know, but eventually, they will retire and without actions to capture and share it, they will take that valuable know- how with them. And unfortunately, the knowledge that they possess just can’t be downloaded to a server. The process is more like osmosis. It needs time and exposure for it to be transferred. Decisions made to produce better quarterly results without assessing the potential knowledge loss may also be contributing to the drain of strategic corporate memory and may affect the longer term viability and success of an organization.

What can and should be done to ad- dress the risk? It starts by understanding what your organization knows and needs to know to achieve its strategic plan. What knowledge will you need to serve existing and new clients now and in the future? An effective strategic planning process ought to identify your organiza- tion’s knowledge needs. It should also assess where the knowledge currently exists and identify any gaps. Assessing knowledge requirements and addressing knowledge gaps is critical to achieving your strategy. It should be the fo- cus of a strategic objective and initiatives to address the gaps. Like any strategic initia- tive, it should have a champion, timeline, budget, a means to measure progress and accountability for results. These elements are critical for effective execution of your plan. Their absence is one of the reasons why the majority of organizations do not achieve their strategic plans. So what actions can your organiza- tion take to address your knowledge gaps? Knowledge management defines two types of knowledge—explicit knowledge, which can be easily documented, and tacit knowl- edge, which can’t be easily expressed. Your organization’s explicit knowledge can be incorporated into your policies, procedures and processes. It can also

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