Leaders In the Know

Knowledge Sharing Isn't Always A Good Thing

If you ever wondered if there could ever be too much knowledge sharing, you might want to read Does Knowledge Sharing Deliver On Its Promises? published by Knowledge@Wharton.

According to management professor Martine Haas, project teams that aren't well designed or don't use the right type of knowledge in the right way will not only not benefit from knowledge management systems but they can actually be less productive. 

Haas' research in the consulting and financial project team environment revealed a real conundrum.  Sharing information and advice the old fashioned way, by talking, takes longer in terms of time and effort  (and is therefore more costly both to give and to obtain) but pays off in terms of  work quality and demonstrating competence.  In contrast, using codified, electronic information (captured through documents and data bases) saves time for the team but does not improve work quality or convey competence to clients.

The culprits? Not the technology, it's a work environment characterized by ambiguity, overload and politics. Very often the projects they work on are not routine. And team members may not know what information is relevant or how to best use it.

I think there's another dimension at play that was not addressed: motivation.

Knowledge sharing systems just never really hit the mark. Great in theory, they failed to take the human side of the equation into account. People who are overloaded with day-to-demands, who can't imagine the bar getting raised any higher, and who are insecure about where their company or their career is headed are not terribly eager to "give away" the very knowledge they perceive makes them valuable.

Web 2.0 technologies provide organizations another bite at the knowledge sharing apple. The only way they can be fully leveraged is if they are prepared to acknowledge the complexity of dealing with the human and practical sides of the productivity equation.

How Would Your Fare in an Employee Confidence Vote?

The results of a  new, worldwide employee survey co-sponsored by the Iacocca Institute of Lehigh University and SAS Institute's Better Management.com claims that  40% of white-collar employees see their organization as "middle-of-the pack or struggling" in its industry.

This demoralizing statistic is reflected in employee morale. Approximately 40% of all respondents indicated that morale of their top management was fair or not good; 50% said their middle management felt the same. An even greater percentage (60%) believe morale of their nonsupervisory staff was in the pits.

Author Robert A. Rudzki attributes this to leaders who are not paying enough attention to core principles. Instead, they are consumed with the day to day emergencies and complexities of modern business life.

Would the answer be the same at your company? Tell us what you think:

• Do employees believe anything management has to say?

• How do leaders stay connected and in touch with what employees really think?

• Have we gotten to the point where everyone is on information overload?

• Have the complexities of the business world finally gotten too big to get our arms around?

• How do we turn this around?

We invite you  to post your comments.

The Hidden Value of Social Computing

For twenty years, usability has been an after-thought in all too many software development projects.  Web 2.0 completely changes the playing field. Usability is now a "make or break" for any web site or application - whether it's aimed at customers or used by employees.

Only 5% of InformationWeek readers responding to a recent poll on Web 2.0 technologies rate any kind of social networking as very useful. (October 29, 2007)  Too bad no one told Microsoft before they plunked down $240 million for a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook. 

This statistic underscores the skepticism CIOs have about the long term impact of user engagement on their companies.  Author Andy Dornan got it right:

Forget outsourcing. The real threat to IT pros could be Web 2.0. While there's a lot of hype and hubris surrounding wikis, mashups, and social networking, there's also a lot of real innovation - much of it coming from increasingly tech-savvy business users, not the IT department.

Business leaders: seize the day!

There are many often-discussed, legitimate concerns that are immediately raised whenever Web 2.0 comes up: security breaches, restricting access to information, trade secrets and other nasties making their way around the Internet -- and last, but not least, employees wasting time on line.

The real reason for the disconnect is that Web 2.0 technologies - especially social computing - puts the spotlight on areas that do not play to most business' strengths.

Corporate America doesn't "do" relating to people very well; Web 2.0 technologies are most valuable in how people use them:

• people connecting with others
• people engaging with companies they do business with
• people interacting with web sites and web tools
• people adding their own content
• people personalizing their own screens

Like its ability to deal with people, Corporate America doesn't "do" handling exceptions very well either. Web 2.0 is also about customization, personalization and, by extension, being able to handle exceptions.

Anyone who has searched a website in vain trying to get an answer or to resolve a problem has experienced this shortcoming first-hand.  Assuming you actually get that far,  is there anything more annoying than working your way through numerous automated choices to be allowed to talk with a person? It's not like it's much easier for the rep who fields the call - especially if the situation calls for any deviation from the script. It's small comfort to know that customers and employees struggle equally to use the system.

The competitive advantages for mastering the user experience required by Web 2.0 technologies are not necessarily in the technical domain alone. Companies that get it right will be better equipped to deal with problems that plague them in the non-web world.

They will be skilled at the process and art of engaging people, internal and external audiences alike. And they will acheive the power that comes from having the flexibility, knowledge-sharing and resiliance to handle exceptions as gracefully as they do transactions.