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04.08.10 Knowledge Management Is The Gatekeeper To Re-Humanizing Your Company  By Luis SuarezLast 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. Continue reading this article. 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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