Two Vital KM Questions

There are innumerable organisations, who have completed long of years of existence in India. It is natural for them to celebrate milestones of 25 years, 50 years etc of existence in the form of Silver Jubilee and Goden Jubilee etc.

One important introspection they need to indulge, as part of such celebrations, is the question “How much we know what we know?”. In one of my earlier posts I had pointed out about the situation “Knowledge Deja-Vu” where the existing knowledge is hidden in the forgotten memories of the organisational elements and structures. In order to recollect and utilise these available Knowledge, it is important to keep asking the above question. Let us remember the famous quote ascribed to Hewlett Packard Chief Executive “ If only HP knows what it knows, it will make three times more profit tomorrow”.

In addition to the above question, I feel that organizations who have completed large years of existence need to also ask the question “How much we should forget what we remember?” Such organizations over the period of their long existence also develop memory imprints of past prejudices, obsolete practices, outdated culture, incompetencies etc acquired over their existence. These negative learning somewhat is also embedded in a similar situation like “Knowledge Deja-Vu” and need to be consciously unlearned by asking the second question sited above.

Let us keep asking “How much we know what we know” and “How much we should forget what we remember” many times.

Books on line at your display

Google has been in the lead in the recent years to create innovative ways of using Technology for Knowledge Management. It has now come out with one more possibility to make knowledge and information available for sharing through digitizing and making available on line thousands of books that would have gone out of print and covered under copy right. KM practitioners would certainly welcome this good news.

Thanks Google for this innovative KM sharing idea!

Stages of Knowledge Search

Knowledge seekers never get tired of searching for new inspirations and knowledge; they are aware that there is infinite and omnipresent knowledge available out there.

Knowledge seeking produces results into three forms or levels.

The external surface level knowledge makes its available through various explicit forms and are assimilated by the external five senses of the seeker. Such knowledge like the surface of the sea is in constant churning and dynamically changing all the times, and can be compared to the “wake up” stage of all of us. All the knowledge of present day science and arts are representations of this surface level knowledge only.

The sub-surface level knowledge is the result of extraction of the external knowledge through our mind, emotions or the sixth sense. This knowledge can be correlated to the 'Dream' stage of our senses where knowledge acquires a context and is semi-static with respect to every form of our living.

Finally the deep level or the in-depth language is the absolute Truth which can be understood only through the integration of soul with the absolute. This can be correlated to the “Deep Sleep” stage where the being is in total stillness. This knowledge by its nature has been always present and is realised or revealed only through the divine wish.

It would be a long arduous path to travel from the surface level to the in-depth levels of knowledge but would be quite soul satisfying.

Diwali Festivity - Knowledge Productivity

Hail the Auspicious Diwali Festivity

Reminds us of Knowledge Productivity

Darkness fought with Lights brightly

Knowledge sought with efforts mightly

Wealth and Health be blessed on humanity

Use them smartly to heighten productivity

Spread the Love and compassion to everybody

Let Diwali bestows on us joy and prosperity.

KM in Action

When KM is put on action, the experience is highly enjoyable.

Last two weeks, there was plenty of opportunity to get involved in two KM action scenes. With the active association of Dr.Ron Young, these actions provided enough intellectual enrichment.

The first activity of a KM demo project at Bharat Electronics Limited provided ample evidence to the fact that many organisations in India have high potential to apply and reap benefits by implementing KM. The systematic attempt through extensive involvement of people at all levels provided initial impetus and answers to identification of suitable functions / project to develop a KM pilot.

The second project was the KM programme to senior managers from India (there was also one from Africa) to discuss emerging opportunities and challenges for KM. Through out the deliberations in the programme, four major essentials of KM implementation, namely, 'committed leadership', 'passionate involvement of people', 'proper use of KM tools and techniques' and 'supporting measures and rewards', were repeatedly emphasized. There was also opportunity to see that even medium Indian companies like “Triveni Engineering” are already practising KM for quite some time, though not much publicity has been given to their achievements.

On the whole, it is encouraging to note that there is bright future for KM in India.

SWOT - Reversal of Process through Learning

Have you ever carried out a SWOT analysis to restructure your strategies ?

One peculiar aspect of such an analysis you might have observed sometimes is the interplay between the ‘Strengths’ and the ‘Weaknesses’ and also between the ‘Opportunities’ and ‘Threats’. The factors you identify as ‘Strengths’ have the potential to become your ‘Weaknesses’ if you are in a non-learning mode and you can reverse this process to convert ‘Weaknesses’ into ‘Strengths’ by reorienting your direction towards organisational learning mode.

For example, until now, the Advanced Nations considered their large asset base as their Strengths and based their economic and global trade strategy on the assumption that these asset bases would serve them to secure their economy. Their non-learning continued upto their finding that these asset bases have been built over non-substantiated risks, their ‘Strengths’ turned into ‘Weaknesses’ and in a short time and they find their competitiveness drastically reduced.

Similarly many companies find their non-tech savvy workforce as ‘Weaknesses’ but in some companies, a well developed learning effort could convert their excellent prowess for tacit learning to solve many shop floor problems by facilitating learning through community efforts. This converted their ‘Weaknesses’ into ‘Strengths’.

Ultimately, is it not in our attitude to look at challenges as ‘Strengths’ or ‘Weaknesses’?

CKO Humour Series

First CKO : You said that you are very close to our company, which is a MAKE award winner.

Second CKO : Yes!

First CKO : Well, Explain how?

Second CKO : It is like this; you are a MAKE AWARD Enterprise while we make an AWKWARD enterprise.

Trust to Share

As I indulge more and more in KM, a fundamental truth is becoming clearer and clearer; KM is mostly about sharing Knowledge that exists in tacit forms or in explicit forms, but in hidden pockets. The main challenge for sharing this knowledge is the requirement to create “Trust” amongst colleagues, peers, divisions, organisations and society at large. It is well established that 'Sharing' of knowledge is possible only when the 'possessor' trusts the 'receiver', that the sharing process will be in furtherance to his objectives.

So, if you have to succeed in KM, think about how to create a culture of 'Trust'.

How does a child trusts its mother? It has the faith intuitively that the mother is the source of its being and hence will cause no harm. This intuitive trust has been arrived at after observing her actions, explicitly or tacitly, by being in constant touch with her. This trust creates and emotional bonding between the child and the mother and thus becomes the fundamental base for all future knowledge transfers.

Faith in God emanates from the belief that the almighty is the embodiment of all 'Goodness' and destroyer of all 'Evils'. By focusing his constant devotion to these characteristics, a human being develops a tacit 'Trust' in the God and thus the ability of the devotee to share his thoughts/emotions with his God and vice versa.

I believe that the Trust in 'Mother' and the 'God' through faith and belief are the most fundamental forms and to the extent that we can build similar bonding with the other relations, various forms and degrees of 'Trust' are possible to be developed making the 'sharing' process enjoyable.

Is this trustful enough for you to consider ?

RAMA for Persistence

Lord Ram had to face enormous hurdles at different stages of his life; just when he was nominated as the king of Ayodhya, his fathers's promise made him go to the forests for 14 years. Even when his entire family pleaded for the reversal of this decision, he persisted with the decision just to abide by his father's wish. When Sita was abducted by Ravan and taken to Lanka, again he persisted with the continuous search for her by undertaking a long arduous journey from the North to the South of the Nation. Thus persistence got associated with Ram.

One of the Change Management principles is the need for Persistence and it is coincidentally also associated with the word “RAMA”- 'R' for Resistance, 'A' for Agitation, 'M' for Modification and 'A' for Acceptance.

To clarify, that whenever a new direction is introduced, people concerned tried to Resist the idea first irrespective of its merit. When we continue to persist, the next reaction of the people is to Agitate against the idea. Still we persist, they request for some Modification to suit their desire/ego/adoptability etc. With continuous persistence, finally they will Accept the initiative and join the movement.

Let us follow RAMA towards persistence towards new ideas and initiatives.

Bollywood Burner

There is a simultaneous burning desire and fear as I read the following news item reported in the “Britain Today” latest issue.

"Vivek Singh, a London based Indian chef, has created a dish, named “Bollywood Burner” that he says is the world’s hottest curry.

It is so hot it comes with a health warning. Before ordering the curry, diners are required to sign a disclaimer saying they are aware of the nature and risks involved with tasting the curry before eating it.

Inspired by Andhra cuisine, Singh uses the Naga pepper and its seeds, which, on the Scoville scale that measures the piquancy of peppers, has a fi gure of 855,000 – over 100 times hotter than the better-known jalapeno pepper.

The Bollywood Burner has been submitted to the Guinness World Records for verification of its status as the world’s hottest curry."

So is it not interesting that the knowledge of the hottest curry also emanated from past Indian practices!

Artificial Knowledge?

An interesting news published today conveys the successful testing in an University of “Artificial Intelligence” being used to replicate human behaviour by letting computers do the chatting with human beings. Earlier we have heard about such experiences in computers able to beat humans at the Chess games by intelligent programming.

Is it a prelude for the future where computers chat amongst themselves without human interference and if so, what would be the result of such behaviour – A robotic civilisation ?

Ganesha - Lord of Convergence

We begin all important projects by invoking the blessings of Lord Ganesha. Religeous sentiments apart, Ganesh, the elephant God signifies the convergence of ichha (desire), gyana(knowledge) and kriya(action). Gan – Esha means the Lord of Universe and he symbolises the spirit of unification of life on the earth with his elephant face and human body. His small eyes symbolises focusing on strategy and large ears signifies the need for listening to all noble thoughts. His additional trunk along with his four arms is to emphasise the extra efforts to complete the actions and his large body symbolises the enormous energy potential of humans.

As a futuristic thought, Ganesh rides on a mouse much like the modern computers symbolising Knowledge repositories.

Let Lord Ganesha reminds us of the desire to succeed in all our projects.

Customers as Suppliers

How many times someone asked your help to find a road / building/ address while you are out? And have you been rewarded for providing such help to a stranger?

Technology and connectivity opens up new avenues of customer participation in myriad ways that can convert sporadic instances to systematic development of a service product as well as customer rewards.

This news illustrates that every person, as he finds a new route / road / position in a city can contribute and share that information to the technology service provider and can get rewarded for it.

An interesting example of a well thought out strategy to use the customers as the suppliers at relatively cheaper cost with higher quality.

Passionate Thoughts

Nimmy's this post induces in me many passionate thoughts.

When a chief executive of my organisation left her position, on the last day, she told me something which I still cherish.

She told me, “Throughout my career I remembered and tried to follow the two advises of my caretaker and I pass on to you this secret today.”

First - “Assign work always to the overworked as they are the most passionate about the work and will certainly complete it to your satisfaction”

Second - “Remember there can emerge any number of successful persons in their professional career, but only you can be the successful parent for your children”

Our passions in our life should manage the combination of the expectations from our profession and personal life. Knowledge Management has the potential to assist us in our passions to pursue excellence in both these aspects of life.

Hinglish / Tamlish - Language Innovations ?

There are many mediums of communication amongst humans, the present language structures, which are the most common form of communication, has been formed over thousands of years of practice. Languages provide the base and context for Knowledge creation and sharing. Every language has its deep rooted strengths and closely interlinked to the culture of the people who created and are using it.

The growing internetworking amongst various nations, regions and communities is leading to the development of an interesting new phenomena. The formation of hybrid languages by the new generation.

India is already blessed with many languages used in its various regions / States. The phenomena of its younger generation being groomed to be proficient in English language apart from their mother tongue languages is now leading to the phenomena of mixing and mingling the languages – thus creating new forms of new languages of communication – Hinglish, Tamlish etc.

Various new words of these new breeds of languages are emanating – like Youngistan, Kulirdrinks etc. and are becoming quite natural words of communication. Development of these new offshoot words may be an interesting development to watch out for new innovations and KM sharing phenomena.

Knowledge of Recession

While India is celebrating and rejoicing the festival season, the news in the media is highly disturbing - reports of financial difficulties for developing countries, developed countries and a whole tiny nation suffering from the economic depression that is threatening to become the largest since the last 80 years.

It looks that the Financial Institutions world over taken over by euphoria, highly overestimated and exaggerated their intangible assets and tried to build their values through speculations and wishful expectations of the future prosperity that did not exist. 

While Governments all over the world are on firefighting mode to salvage the situation, I think each individual also can play a role - The antidote to the situation could be to remain calm and try to consume as much only to the extent of the needs and stay away from greed and speculations, also invest in only those assets that could produce sustainable productivity. Also be prepared to help the needy, if required. 

Let our inherent knowledge and potential of overcoming setbacks help us to tide over this temporary setback.

CKO Humour Series

First CKO: We embarked on preparation of ‘Best Practices Knowledge Repository’ by asking our KM members to study the various management improvement initiatives introduced in the company.

 Second CKO : OK! What all initiatives they studied ?

 First CKO: TQM, TPM, Kaizen, 5 S, Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, BPR, EVA etc.

 Second CKO: What best practices from these initiatives they could document ?

 First CKO : Well! The only best practice they could find was “How to silently close one initiative and start the other with a bang”!

 

 

Knowledge Rediscovery

As I watched the TV Chat show in “Lok Sabha Channel” Mr.Siviah, Epic Scholar, was forcefully emphasizing his belief and findings that the “Epics” period was as much developed and scientific, if not more, than present times. He was reciting slokas after slokas from Mahabharat, Ramayan et al to prove that Flights, rockets, satellites, robots, missiles, computers, name any scientific modern gadget, existed during those times of Ram and Krishna. Though of course, he was not specifically asked about the existence of internet and web 2.0 during those times, which I am sure would also have been proved by some other slokas.

 

Fantasy, belief or scientific truth, Knowledge Management on a Cosmic Scale is a cycle of processes that occur repeatedly. May be the inventions and discoveries of those times were lost due to improper storage and sharing methodologies. In any case, it is interesting to watch the contention that our present scientific knowledge is only a rediscovery of earlier discoveries made thousands of years ago.

Learning Organisation - Cultural Mutation

The trait of ‘Bullying’ by some bosses is the genetic carry over habit from the cavemen days – A study by Australian Researchers have been reported in the media today. The example illustrates that organisations are capable of ‘acquiring’ cultures from sources which are totally at away, geographically, socially or time wise.

 A case study of a ‘Learning Organisation’ has pointed out that the ‘learning and sharing’ culture in the Bharat Petroleum Corporation, a public sector oil company has been much primarily acquired from its predecessor owners ‘Shell Company’ which is a private organisation.

 Culture transformation can take place in an organisation through various routes. Formal routes of acquisition and learning of organisational culture are through “Business Mergers and takeovers”, “ Leadership Changes”, “Technology Infusion”, “Competitor Pressure” etc.

 There could also be subtle and hidden causes like “Work Group Politics”, “Employee Attrition and Intakes”, “External social and political factors”  etc. that can make substantial culture transfers and influence organisational learning. By the invisible nature of these factors, one may ignore to take them into account while introducing new initiatives, with disastrous results. 

Nano - Mega Surprise

The news of Tatas’ Nano Plant shifting from Singur is making major haeadlines in all Indian Business circles. Nano project was acknowledged as a great innovation to have been conceived as a common man’s dream of having a car at a price of Rs. 1 Lakhs. However, true to the name ‘Nano’, signifying ‘miniscule small’, the project is proving to be quite unstable.

 The news reminds us of the element of ‘Surprise’ that can be faced during the execution of various major projects and initiatives. Certainly the developments from the Political, Social  and the Government sectors resulting in Tatas having to shift the project elsewhere would have been a major ‘surprise’ development they would not have foreseen while strategising the project. Such surprise developments if they are possible to be foreseen and quantified are called by the name ‘Risk’ and managed by ‘Risk Management’ techniques.

 In case ‘Surprise’ developments cannot be foreseen and arise suddenly, how do we manage the situation? Possibly by a ‘Counter Surprise’ Strategy. - I am remembered of a story I read in this regard.

 In a factory, some trouble creating union leaders wanted to put the HR manager to trouble and so they took hold of a plate of Canteen Lunch, which had some impurity lodged in it. Their strategy was to take the management head on by displaying the Lunch Plate by surprise to the HR manager and question the commitment of the management to provide good food to the workers. The HR manager, having been tipped about the intentions of the union leaders in advance, thought of a counter surprise strategy. As soon as the union members entered his room with the said lunch plate, he exclaimed “Come!, Come! My Friends! How did you know that I am hungry and brought a lunch for me. How thoughtful of you!’ having said this, he seized the lunch plate from them, simply removed the minor impurity from the food and started eating the lunch. The people who came to complain and make a hue and cry were stumped by this Counter Surprise attack and left the place quietly.

 I am sure Tatas have a mega counter surprise strategy to the Nano-Surprise development. 

Knowledge Deja Vu?

Have you experienced the feelings at times that you are just recreating the same scene that you lived through in the past, though you are consciously sure that it is the first such instance, meeting, event in your life etc. Such an experience is called “Deja Vu” - which many of us have had at one time or the other.

I just noticed while looking at the past archives of our organisation, a leading industrialist wrote to then Industry Minister and the President of the Productivity Council complaining that there is a habit of declaration of holidays for flimsy reasons by the Government, which affects Productivity. He has sited the example of the Government declaring the next Monday as a holiday subsequent to the Republic Day falling on a Sunday. The Government of that time possibly ignored his pleas.

Fifty years down the lane, the recent Pay Commission has also pointed out the plethora of holidays declared by the Government, and alternatively suggested declaration of only three National Holidays. The result is still the same, the Government rejected the proposal.

While going in for Knowledge Management implementation, you will find many “Deja Vu” situations, that your organisation attempted many improvements and tried to implement them in its history. May be these got stuck up or stagnated due to any of those old reasons, change of leadership, want of resources, the champion leaving the organisation, union resistance etc. etc. But the remnants of such attempts would be lying somewhere in the subconscious memory and learning of the organisation. Try to discover those initiatives and give new lease of life by providing new breathing into them. May be only a little bit of additional efforts in terms of time, money, and people's involvement are required to put them on tracks. Many such fragmented jigsaw puzzles when fitted together can form a nice canvass of improvement platform for your organisation rather than totally starting afresh.

Am I only inducing a “Deja Vu”, you are already aware of ?  

CKO Humour Series

First CKO : Why are you staring at me as I said that you should develop your Organisation by learning from your Customers' Knowledge ?

Second CKO : I am the CKO from a Mental Hospital !!

Innovative Winners

CIO magazine in its special issue has listed 100 CIO winners who successfully completed innovative projects.

It was an interesting reading to learn about the projects of these winners, however I am quoting three examples which were noteworthy.

Mahindra & Mahindra the manufacturing company, created a common interface for sharing information and knowledge amongst each of its employees expanding across all georgraphies through an MPLS network – a major KM achievement indeed.

Pune Municipal Corporation using a website connected thousands of common people to share their visions, strategies and aspirations for the Pune city. 

Bharatiya Janata Party used completely open source software to create a unified communication systems to keep in touch with all its party cadres by the leadership.

Let us look for more and more such KM and IT productivity efforts and winners.

(P.S. BJP - Please watch out - The IT savvyness alone may not get the votes from the public - remember AP and Karnataka elections) 

Appeal to Culture & Values for Change

“The best barometer of the righteousness of your new initiative is the amount of resistance it faces” when I proposed a quote like this, it was acclaimed by many as very apt.

You might recollect the amount of resistance to even genuine attempts to improve the common welfare, at times, mainly because of the fear brought by the new, but, unknown ideas from the majority and the sabotaging tendencies of the few minority vested interests. Pray then, how do we go about changing the mind set of the majority which is required for the success of the project!

An experiment conducted at a firm may throw some light. People were first told about ill effects of smoking – it will damage your lungs , it will create heart problems, your life span will be reduced etc etc – it produced apparently no change in the belief and habits of people who were smoking. However as an alternative when they were told – Smoking results in carcinogens in sperms that can induce cancer to the yet to be born offsprings – it also produces psychological stress and mental disorder to the aged parents who happen to be near their smoking children – there was observed very noticeable tendencies in the subjects to stop smoking.

Another experiment in some cities successfully prevented defacing of boundary walls of building through spitting of paans or urinating, just by fixing a few tiles on the walls with pictures of revered deities of various religions, as the people desisted from disrespecting their lords even if they have to change from their hard set habits and practices.

The moral to us all is that for successful change management, appeal to the values and culture of the people that can touch their mind and soul rather than communication simply intended to insist on new procedures and their material advantages.

NV Day Thinking

If yesterday was World Vegetarian Day, today is World NV day - No it is not Non Vegetarians' day; it is Non-Violence day.

More than Physical Violence, presently, the world is experiencing excessive violence and intolerance of culture, principles, systems, values and humanity. On this day, Let us take pledge to adopt Non-Violence against all forms of violence and intolerance.

"Sabko Sanmathi Dhe Bhagwan"

Intuitive Decision Making

Decision making is a process that requires analysis of dependant variables and their effect on intended outcome. During our normal lives, we keep making innumerable decisions.

If we feel that the outcome of a decision will have greater effect on our lives, we try to collect more and more data/ information on as many variables as possible and then use empirical relations between these variables to arrive at a possible alternative as a decision.

In many day to day affairs, however, I have observed that the decisions made through intuition are more satisfying than those made after prolonged thinking and analysis. Why this is so ?

Apparently, intuitive decisions seem to be wild guesses based on individual's superstitions and prone to failures. But I believe intuitively, that behind every such intuition, a detailed analytical process is activated by the mind to arrive at the decision. Since such a process is the automatic result of long set of tacit knowledge and experience stored in the memory, over the continuous living process, the chances of it being more correct as the other conscious process may be hampered by the distractions of outer environments.

How do you decide whether you should be more intuitive or analytical ? You may have to do that again by your intuition.

World Vegetarian Day

Today, 1^st October, 2008  is World Vegetarian day, celebrated by vegetarians across the world (and also the animal kingdom). More and more evidence is being brought out every day as to why and how vegetarianism is preferable over non-vegetarianism.

 

“Join the group of vegetarians

Keep the human body out of toxins

Eat more of vegetables and fruits

Create a healthy life of good diets

Stay away from meat and flesh

Pray the mind is free from stress

 

Join the group of vegetarians

Let  body, mind and soul  be Unitarians.”