Innovation towards Destruction

The recent terror threats to various cities in India have been cause of panic and fear amongst people. From my studies earlier of ‘Disaster Management’, I am aware that any disaster either natural or intentionally caused, somehow results in agony and damage to the people who are ill prepared to cope with the loss and also at a time when most unexpected. In case of intentionally caused disasters, the victims are always innocents who have nothing to do with the cause for which such actions are intended and have no ways of compensation for their losses.

Strictly by looking at the terrorist actions, however we can get examples and lessons for the use of innovative techniques for accomplishment of the missions. Either it is use of an aeroplane as a bomb against World Trade Centre, or regular use of human bombs against heavily guarded locations or precise planning and locations of serial bombs, use of local and indigenous materials like ammonium nitrate, in every action it is possible to look at use of highly innovative techniques which could not be conceived earlier at normal work situations.

What makes the creation of such innovation possible towards a destructive mission ? Like this, there are many examples of innovation and creativity excelling in war like situations to destroy enemy strengths in various battles and fights. Is it possible that the human innovation potential peaks when the mission is to destruct than support ? How much the humanity will benefit if only we can transform the people with such innovation for destruction to people of constructive innovative potential. Let us ponder over these and pray for peace and prosperity for all our fellow human beings.

A KM Laughter Break

Three Chief Knowledge Officers from USA, Japan and India met during a dinner on the sidelines of a Conference.

They were discussing about how they are able to retain and share the knowledge assets of their companies.

The American CKO said “ We have a high tech satellite based system which senses the movements and PDAs of all our officers and we collect the data from the satellite and store in a knowledge base. We spend 100 million dollars on this technology every year.”

The Japanese CKO said “We have invented robots with sensors which quietly follow our officers and track their talks and other actions continuously. We extract the data from these robots and store in a knowledge base. We spend a billion yen on these robots every year.”

The Indian CKO said “We track all the knowledge of our officers without much investment at all; we just ask their wives!”

KM Case Studies Publications

Asian Productivity Organisation (APO) has published a new book on "Knowledge Management : The Asian Lessons and Experience". This book is a compilation of case studies of KM from different Asian Countries.

Prof.Afin Talisayon has compiled and edited the book. The publication gives some good examples of KM companies both large and small scale in Asia. The book also describes the status of KM processes, tools and applications in Asian Countries.

The publication is available in downloadable form from APO Website.

The Knowledge Barrier

The productivity of our Knowledge is the highest when there is a perfect synergy between our thinking and doing. Many a times I wonder what is that prevents us from thinking about what we are doing and doing the same what we are thinking. When we are in childhood, it so happens that there is no external constraints to separate our thinking and acting. As we grow up and enter the so called civilized groups, our knowledge gets conditioned to set patterns of niceties, expectations and convenience. Hence to cater to these external factors, we create an artificial barrier between our thinking and doing. We use this barrier consciously and unconsciously to create various levels of conflicts between our thinking and doing. I prefer to call this the Knowledge Barrier.

As we observe the external world, we find primarily the biggest knowledge barriers are created and carried by the people whose materialistic needs surpass their spiritualistic needs. The urge to succeed in a so called ‘Competitive’ economy by any means makes them create a very long and apparently convenient barrier and live through a double role hopping between the thinking region and acting region in quick and continuous cycles. Such a situation makes prediction about the behaviour of such persons impossible as the probability of finding them in one of the two regions is very random and unpredictable.

Let us strive to discover the nature, extent and strength of Knowledge Barriers in people and try to eliminate this barrier so that productivity of knowledge can go up.

The e/i Knowledge Vs Commonsense Knowledge

It is nowadays very common to prefix 'e' or 'i' to signify utilisation of electronic/ IT oriented technology / tools for various common day activities; for example e-business, e-governance, e-ticket, i-pod, i-phone etc. Recently i read an article where e-cigarettes are being promoted as an alternative to normal cigarettes where electric/ electronic pulses are produced to get the nicotin vapour to produce the same effect as a common cigarette. The only hitch is that the e-version is much more expensive than the common item.

While e/i usage to facilitate and improve the people's satisfaction levels are an interesting development, sometimes it is done with counterproductive results. The excessive use of electonic gadgets like cell phones, ipods, and other radio wave and wireless instruments have been playing havoc with the mental and ergonomic comforts of the younger generation.

For many of use, it is still faster to use our memory to do artithmetical sums than use of calculators, the basic use of common sense as a problem solver should not be lost sight of. It is sad that many times the common sense is becoming uncommon and we are highly unproductive in trying to adopt e/i oriented instruments and gadgets where simple common sense based approach could have created much better results. Such practices in the medical / health fields has made health services almost non affordable to vast section of the humanity. KM using common sense and conventional practices in health practices is the need of the time.

The Confluence of Gnana and Bhakti

The traditional Hindu way of life mentions two separate paths towards self realization, ‘gnana’ and ‘bhakti’, that is, knowledge and devotion. Outwardly these two paths seem to be exclusive. Knowledge bases its evolution on logics, analysis and scientific thinking. We can correlate this to the ways of the right brain. Devotion depends on emotions, faith and trust and connected to work of the left brain.

It is possible to mix and match these two paths and when the confluence of the two takes place, wisdom emerges. The verse from the Upanishad “ Asatomah sat gamaya; mrityomah amritam gamaya; tamasomah jyotirgamaya” illustrated the confluence of the knowledge path and the devotional path towards realization of the Truth, that is Self;

What is the lesson from this to today’s managers? There are two ways to manage the business processes; through logical procedures, rules, systems and processes signified by the knowledge process; or through bonding, emotions, faith and relations signified by the devotional process; A proper mix of these two only can make the management realize its visions. Thus Productivity and Knowledge Management practices should evolve to combine these paths towards organizational excellence.

Unlearning - The Counterpart to Learning

Today I read a news item that a research scholar of a University named Kary Packer studied about the characteristics of "Unlearning" as a prerequisite for change management. As per her, the process of unlearning is not easy, as people who are used to a particular process of doing things, not only are against changing but also refuse to unlearn their underlying beliefs set in their unconscious memory.

We have been hearing about the word "Unlearning" for quite some time now, but this is possibly only recently, people have tried to study the phenomenon in a systematic manner. In a recent programme I attended somebody illustrated an example that the magestic 'eagle' bird is capable of living for 70 to 80 years, but in order to live so much, it takes up a painful "unlearning" process of deliberately destroying its vital parts like beaks, tandons and feathers in mid life, so that new and more evolved parts can grow to sustain its another 30-40 years of life.

No doubt "unlearning' is a painful process as we are many times fearful of giving up our tested habits for unknown new methods; but sincere practice and "meditation" like reassurance to the mind and the intellect can make you well prepared for taking the plunge to the "unlearning" and go for "new learning".

If an eagle can do it, why not "human beings" like us?

Innovation - Magical or Manageable ?

Innovation plays a major important role in Knowledge Management and Productivity practices in the recent times. It is explained as that practice that can lead to new ways of doing things that can create enormous difference in wealth creation for the individual /organisation /society.

There are many examples of innovative developments in various economic spheres. The innovation of use of cell phones for various information and communication possibilities is one major example of recent times that has made enormous difference for people from all strata of society. Use of social networking through internet is another.

Recently in a meeting, two opposite schools of thought about innovation management tried to convince each other about their thinking.

Advocates of the belief that innovation is the result of impulsive and intuitive behaviour of human beings tried to emphasize that by its nature innovation would be very difficult to be categorised into specific steps or processes thus not amenable to any management practice. The best the leadership can do is to let the creative at the same time rebellious minds of the individuals to spring the innovative surprises and then use them to develop wealth creating mechanisms.

Another school of belief says that innovation is the product of creativity of the human being which as a trait can be nurtured through conscious management steps. Such management processes have to be identified and developed within the conventional processes of organisational development and nurtured through the cycle of plan - do - check - act behaviour.

While there is no conclusive winner amongst these two broad thinkers, let us continue to innovate to find new theories and solutions.

Knowledge, Ignorance and Innocence

Knowledge Management talks about identification of knowledge gaps and efforts to bridge the gaps.

I was just wondering what is Non-Knowledge ?

If Knowledge is power, many times ignorance is bliss. In our normal life, we know that we are blessed to be ignorant of certain things than to know them. The loss of memory to past painful experience is one of way of ignorance that helps to safeguard our mental health. Is it not prefereable that we are ignorant of evil ways to destroy humanity, create stress in the society etc. than to know them ?

If Ignorance is bliss, then we can say Innocence is Heavenly. Just look at a child when it asks questions about nature with pure innocence. Do we not love the emotions that go with the need to relate to identify with the child's innocence. Do we not prefer innocent honesty to knowledge based wickedness ?

Thus knowledge, ignorance and innocence have different justifications and applications based on the context and the situation. That indicates there is nothing like non-knowledge.

Is Knowledge Free ?

Rabindranath Tagore in one of his poems dreams of his father land where Knowledge would be free.

Knowledge is eternal and hence should be available just like air and water to living beings.

However, commercialisation has made even the basic necessities like air and water to be priced. It is being predicted that the next world war may be over water or air ( think of the latest world negotiations on carbon emission reductions).

Under the circumstances, it may be difficult to visualise how knowledge would be available for free for the persons who are in need of it. There is only one way - if we can discover the knowledge from our interal energy rather than looking for it outside. All ancient scriptures emphasized this hypothesis that the knowledge or the route to the knowledge lies within and only we have to make efforts to discover this. If we succeed in this process, through personal KM process, then knowledge would be really free.

The Truth Management

One of the definitions of Knowledge is that it is the distillate from information that helps in action or use. And what is Truth - it is the distillate from knowledge which leads to positive use or action.

A person or an organisation which bases its actions on Truth is all the time in Knowledge Management mode in an absolute and automatic way. It comes naturally and is part of the unconscious process that no special efforts are required to manage the knowledge separately.

Let us mould our technology to distill the information/ knowledge to automatically filter out the truth, then we will get a situation where Truth / Knowledge Management is in auto mode. Can we take up this challenge for the future ?

Learning Organisation and KM

I was present in the APO programme on "Learning Organisations" at Bali during 24-27, June, 2008. Learning Organisation concept overlaps and substanitiates Knowledge Management practices being advocated in many parts of the world. We can consider Learning Organisation as the energy of the atom whereas knowledge management as the mass (nucleus) of the atom. A combination of the two is required to make organisational functioning.

In the programme at Bali, there were plenty of examples of variations about learning organisations; In India, we are interested in reviving our past culture of knowledge appreciation for its purity and the mythical bliss in sharing knowledge; In Singapore, the discipline ingrained in the people and their systems automatically enhance learning; In Japan, there is society oriented compulsive learning due to which the mental health of a large percentage of population seem to be affected; In Thailand, many small firms are taking the path of management improvement techniques like TQM to achieve learning organisation status.

In Bali, we could also get a good idea of the tacit learning with the people based on their traditional culture and wisdom, which has very coincidental nature with Indian Hindu culture.