Change communications and engaging employees is a critical part of this process and in this interview we talk to Andréa Thompson, Managing Director of Marmalade Consulting about some of the key communications issues organizations face in implementing KM.

Q. What are the key change-management issues that organisations need to address when looking to develop a KM programme?

A. The key change-management issues are: committed support from the top, the need for companies to put KM at the heart of their business strategy, introduce measurement tools and recognise the importance of engaging with target audiences through a comprehensive and robust communications plan.

Large companies tend to be composed of specialist units (commonly known as silos) and therefore no one person has a clear understanding of the overall corporate objectives in terms of what a KM initiative should achieve.

Organisations need to bridge the gap between ‘doing’ and ‘acting’. KM is a culture shift that transforms the way the company does business. It is about encouraging cross-functional working and improving individual performance for the benefit of the employee, the company and ultimately the customer.

Q. Do you think organisations looking to implement a KM programme have paid enough attention to these issues in the past?

A. Definitely not. We have a work culture that is information rich but most definitely knowledge poor. Companies need to define clear principles for KM rather than hold a mass of data that serves little purpose in growing the business.

In my experience one of biggest barriers to success is the failure of senior management to understand the value that informed internal communication can bring. By all means focus on process but don’t forget the emotional experience. It is your employees whose knowledge you require and they are the ones that will make it happen – if you cannot engage your audience you have little hope of improving operating performance and little chance of success.

Q. What can a well thought-out change-management strategy bring to a KM programme?

A. Success. Stakeholders need to establish a common recognition of the change required, agree the benefits of a clearly defined KM approach, establish a process to support it and define what level of support is required to make it happen. KM needs to become part of the culture and ‘the way we do things’.

Q. What techniques can organisations use to help increase acceptance of changing working practices?

A. There is no prescriptive method and no perfect way to communicate change. However, whatever the method, communication has a critical role to play in gaining the acceptance and participation of employees. There are many frustrations regarding methods of communication. Inevitably you can’t please all the people all the time, but there are some fundamentals that can be addressed. One overriding factor is that communication is vital for a successful change programme.

Many different channels can be used from a simple CEO memo through to full-scale staged event and getting the balance of communication channels right is extremely important. The most important aspect is to segment the audience and target messages and channels appropriately and consistently over a specified time period.

The overall lesson for communication is that the ‘closer’ you can get to the individual the more effective communications will be – hence the importance of the cascade process and face-to-face delivery.

People need to be listened to during times of change more so than usual. One-to-one meetings with managers should be seen as a critical part of the process. In difficult times, spokespeople are listened to more than ever, so it is essential that all messages are co-ordinated and that the company speaks with one voice. A leader’s behavioural can make the different between success and failure.

For example – the knowledge steward: We worked with Innogy One, the engineering division of Innogy (now RWE Energy), on the branding and communication of a knowledge-management initiative. There was a small, dedicated team to ensure the successful implementation of the programme and knowledge stewards were introduced into the process. The knowledge steward was someone who was not only supportive of the KM principle but was also experienced in the business and, importantly, a good networker.

This ensures that positive messages are being relayed to the team in which they operate and also other departments across the division. This works successfully on two levels: it begins to break down the silos in which so many companies operate and it brings together dedicated champions from each department on a regular basis to share experiences and ideas. In effect, they become the communication lynch pins through which everything is funnelled, creating consistency and commitment.

Another important aspect, and one that has worked for GSK and the United Health Group, is measurement. It should be a key part of the process to provide simple feedback loops ensuring people’s concerns are listened to and addressed.

Q. How important is senior-management buy-in in encouraging the adoption of new working practices?

A. The importance of strong leadership and the cascade process should never be underestimated. If the programme has support from the highest level then employees are far more likely to take it as a credible management initiative driven from the top. If the management team do not present a unified front then the programme has little hope of succeeding. Sponsors should give visible support as often as possible in terms of face-to-face team meetings, editorials, quotes and feedback.

When working with GSK on the introduction of a global project management improvement programme (Apex), sponsorship was key to success. It was visibly supported at the highest level and the programme director made it a priority to consistently rally advocates by keeping all senior management informed and involved at every step of the process. This was done on a face-to-face communication level supported by appropriate communications tools. This process ensured they were motivated and enthused in terms of cascading information through to their teams. I have rarely seen a better example of the impact senior-management buy in can make. Not only was the programme director fully committed to making it happen but the director was also given the resource and budget to do it properly.

Q. How important is the process of obtaining feedback from those the KM programme will affect?

A. In our experience, talking to the people who will be affected by the programme is essential. Before starting work on any KM programme, employees’ opinions should be gauged to gain a better insight into their needs and expectations and they should be encouraged to contribute ideas. In this way they feel involved from the outset and they will have an awareness and anticipation of the programme well before the launch. Once issues are understood, benefit-led messages can be introduced to address them.

Feeding back the feedback is just as important. It is critical to understand any ongoing issues so that any shortfall or drift can be addressed. We have experienced situations where research with employees has been carried out but they have had no follow- up communication so why should they bother next time round?

Q. How important is it that KM is integrated with existing work practices and not made a separate function in its own right?

KM should never be a separate function but the management team should be mindful of the existing processes used by the company. What are the lessons learnt? Are these practices useful to our way of working? And, importantly, are they the future of the organisation?

A. Many existing KM or project-management programmes are introduced on a project-by-project basis, not in the context of a wider, properly developed ‘vision’. The KM vision should strive towards a good practice and self-development programme that is linked to the organisation’s long-term corporate objectives. In which case they must be assessed and abandoned if not required. The best of the best should be taken from existing programmes and incorporated into the new working practices.

The KM programme of the United Health Group, a private health-insurance company in the US, combined five good-practice methodologies together in the same system. Taking the best from the best and pulling it together to make one common good-practice toolbox that would be introduced as a mandatory way of working for internal employees and also external consultants.

Q. What are the most common pitfalls relating to change management that organisations need to avoid when attempting to implement KM?

A. One of the most common pitfalls is to hand over the project to IT. KM should be viewed as a key asset because it is a lot more than technology. Stop viewing it as a process tool and begin to think of it as a culture change, which should be driven and supported from the top until it becomes second nature.

An IT system is an enabling tool that facilitates support. The purpose of KM, however, is to encourage faster and smarter working, built on the sharing of good-practice information and knowledge that will benefit the individual, and ultimately the company. Individuals need to recognise how it benefits them before they will support it. It is worth bearing in mind that the most powerful persuasion tool is self-interest.

Q. What are the likely consequences for organisations that continue to neglect the change-management aspects of knowledge management?

A. In large organisations, in particular those who are less asset focused, KM is fundamental to growth and profitability. If companies do not recognise the importance of change management in this area but continue to introduce systems on a project-by-project basis with no consideration to the wider company strategy, then effort will continue to be duplicated and the opportunity to capture intellectual capital will be lost.

Q. Are there any other issues that you feel deserve closer attention?

A. Having a well-conceived programme is one challenge; making people aware of it and want to use it is yet another.

Engaging the internal audience through customer-focused communications can contribute enormously in this process. In the outside world people will only buy something they think is worth buying, the same principles apply to our internal customer.

In my experience, employees successfully adopt this type of programme when it is well branded and promoted. The Apex initiative for GlaxoSmithKline is one such example. Apex (Advancing Project Expertise) is a well-planned system but to help its success we applied the rules of branding. The programme has a name, an identity; a visual appeal and targeted communications that were key to helping achieve heightened awareness and outstanding success.

A strong brand can encourage employees, it can provide a framework, common link, direction and cohesion, and a shared sense of purpose and unified attitude. It is a very powerful tool in the persuasion process.

For a successful company however it is of course not sufficient to respond to changes in the environment; rather it is desirable to anticipate those changes and to adapt before anyone else. This is a source of competitive advantage for an organization. Thus change needs to be a continual process which takes place iteratively rather than as discrete events. The capacity to change in this way involves the whole organization and requires an understanding of how organizations can learn to adapt continually. More particularly it requires the organization to make best use of the knowledge and expertise which is possessed within it and this has become known as knowledge management. In this article we are going to explore what is meant by knowledge management.

While concerns have been expressed as to whether KM is merely the latest in a long line of organizational `fashions’, such fears have been allayed through pointing to the likely enduring nature of how 21st century organizations are to go about managing their knowledge base (Scarbrough & Carter, 2000). As such there is a validity regarding a concern with knowledge in organizations that extends beyond the mere vicissitudes of fashion. In terms of situating KM, it is useful to reflect upon its antecedents. It has been argued that KM, as a theoretical area of enquiry, has been constituted through the coalescence of a number of management subjects.

It would be misplaced, however, to suggest that KM constitutes a synthesis between different disciplines. Instead, different perspectives each bring particular analytical concerns. It would however be erroneous to suggest that each discipline has an equal bearing on KM. For example there has been a concerted attempt by the Information Systems (IS) community to colonize KM, while there has been considerable concern among the HR profession that KM is fast developing a people management gap (Scarbrough & Swan, 1999). The preponderance of the IS community in KM initiatives has led some writers to warn that KM must be seen as more than a technicist fix, reducible to the implementation of a company Intranet, such as through Lotus Notes or Groupware. From the perspective of strategy, issues of knowledge have acted as the foundation stone of the influential `Resource Based Theory’ approach. Resource Based theory emerged as a critique of the Harvard-based `design school’, a perspective which has been influentially criticised as not sufficiently concerned with process and too much with rational planning and market analysis. The Resource-Based View (RBV) in strategic management has put issues of path dependency, the role of (organizational) history, firm-specific resources, appropriability and politics on the agenda (Kamoche, 1996; Mueller, 1996). Undoubtedly, the RBV has emerged as an influential alternative to approaches that were more concerned with market positioning, segmentation, and acquisition and diversification strategies. The appeal of RBV is that it places emphasis on what the organization `can do’ as opposed to what Clark (2000:p. 214) has termed `the strategic fantasies of formal, written mission statements’. It is this concern with `what an organization can do’ that has fuelled the interest of strategists in Knowledge Management.

This is a relevant starting-point for acknowledging the recent emergence of the interest in Knowledge Management. One of the most striking features of this is the debt to the resource based approach in the way that knowledge is presented as an endogenous, if sometimes elusive, organizational resource. The shift towards looking at the organization, and its immediate supply chain, is a cornerstone of approaches to KM. The spread of the discourse seems to be driven by claims that this hitherto hidden but highly valuable resource is now accessible to management and exploitation. In order to make sense of intangible assets, there have been a number of attempts to introduce concepts that help clarify the nature of `knowledge in organizations’. Perhaps most famously, Nonaka and Takeuchi, (1995: 236) in their highly influential `The Knowledge Creating Company’, have claimed that the insights of KM mean that the `knowledge creating process is no longer an enigma’. They have argued that knowledge can be distinguished in terms of whether it is `tacit’ or `explicit’, and whether it is held collectively—such as in a team—or individually. For instance, Lam (1998) argues that organizations’ possess a key knowledge agent, such as an `individual’, a `team’ etc.

This work has been developed more extensively within the team working literature (Dyerson & Mueller, 1999; Proctor & Mueller, 1999), where issues of the distribution and value of knowledge have been placed at center stage. Whatever one’s view concerning the techniques of Knowledge Management, it is clear that the intention is to arrive at codified knowledge such that this knowledge can be applied by anyone with access to the manual. To use a manual does not need an expert, with his/her associated cost, in order to apply the knowledge. The position taken in this paper is that this `knowledge’ is in fact data which has been captured for subsequent use—thus it is possible to consider data warehousing as a mechanism for Knowledge Management.

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In my teens, that manifested itself as reading everything I could lay my hands on in the quest for the “one right answer.” I wasn’t as smart as Alan Kay to realize early on that books had limits or could be wrong. I was so engrossed in the world that books opened up for me that it took quite a while to grasp their limits. My dad used to say that he could always tell when I had finished a book by my fervent belief in some new world view. In retrospect, I suspect my ignorance was growing faster than my knowledge. But I was more focused on the inside of the circle than on its contact with the rest of knowledge.

My first cut at visualizing this image was along the following lines:

Circle Of Knowledge

In this version, learning can be viewed as either expanding your circle of knowledge or as increasing your boundary of ignorance.  So, the more you learn the more you know, but also the more you know that you don’t know.  Depending on your temperament, this can be either encouraging or discouraging to your efforts to continue learning.

Formal schooling focuses attention on the inside of the circle and keeps you carefully inside the boundaries. The credentialing system of education looks backward at what you are supposed to have learned. On the plus side, a good school environment helps keep you from falling off the edge into material you are unable to understand or appreciate. I can remember trying to read various books on philosophy in my wildly eclectic romps through the public library during my high school days. All fields have their professional vocabulary and one purpose of schools is to introduce you to that vocabulary in a coherent order. While we are hard-wired to learn spoken languages simply by being immersed in them, I don’t think the same strategy would work as well for learning calculus or modern European history.

The danger of formal schooling (even when well done) is too much focus on what you already know. If you don’t push yourself out to the boundaries, you seriously limit your opportunities for significant new learning. Formal schooling tends to overly protect you from failure and, therefore, from opportunities for deeper learning. Granted, I’ve come to appreciate the importance of failure in real learning courtesy of my work with Roger Schank. The more important learning becomes as an ongoing career development activity, the more you have to deal with not knowing. This can become a real challenge as you advance in your career and as you become recognized for your expertise.

Over time and as you get farther away from your school days, your circle of knowledge starts to get spiky:

Lumpy Circle Of Knowledge

You become more expert and informed on certain topics at the expense of others. The nice, well-rounded, circle that might have characterized the end of a classical liberal arts education has been replaced with the distinctive profile of an expert in some particular domain.

If you assume that you do, in fact, need to continue to learn, regardless of your current level of expertise, is there some way to use this notion of the “boundary of ignorance” to guide ongoing learning? For an individual topic,

Monitoring your curiosity consists of becoming aware of terms, tools, topics, and techniques that you are encountering in your environment, yet are not part of your current knowledge and skills. As these become visible to you, the next step is to cluster and chunk that material into a learning agenda; a sequence of topics ranging from the nearly familiar to the barely recognized. [IT Learning at the Boundaries of Your Ignorance]

In addition to tuning into the language of a topic, you can also start to identify the experts and authorities who are working in the domain.

In general, your learning agenda is not likely to be a single topic. Instead, you will be pushing out along multiple dimensions. It might be helpful to visualize that process in terms of progress along several learning vectors. For example, I might group my learning activities along the following dimensions:

Learning Vectors

This larger picture of learning would help assess what kind of balance I was striking across topics and whether that balance was suitable.

What you are left with at this point is a map for what you want to learn based on the edges of what you know now coupled with what captures your curiosity. What comes next is the effort to learn topic by topic and to fit that learning into the demands of performing.

by Jim McGee

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