Above and Beyond KM

What would happen if we turned our operating model on its head? What if we focused on individuals instead of the organization? What if we took Davenport and Prusak at their word and worked to make a reality of their claim that “knowledge management must be part of everyone’s job”?  No more ossified knowledge management systems. No more bureaucratic KM departments.  No more expensive KM “solutions” offered by eager vendors. No more struggles to achieve minimal user adoption.

According to Steve Barth, there’s a significant upside to focusing on the individual knowledge worker:

It seems obvious, but it is not often said that knowledge management works best when knowledge workers take the initiative and responsibility for what they know, don’t know and need to know. Doing so not only makes the individual more valuable to the corporation, it also enhances the value of intellectual capital for the corporation.

Tempted?

Here’s the plan:  learn about personal knowledge management (or personal sensemaking, if that is an easier concept for you).   Think about what it takes to aggregate, filter and share content effectively.  Put these principles into practice for yourself and measure their impact on your work life.  And then think about how you could pass on this learning to every one of your colleagues.  Taking this grassroots approach, could you help each of your colleagues become so good at managing their information flows that their work processes and work product improve?  Could you find a way to improve the overall performance of your organization?

If you’re interested in learning more about personal KM/ personal sensemaking, please participate in the Twitter Chat on Personal Knowledge Management sponsored by KMers.org.  In addition, here are some other good introductions to the subject:

• KM 0.0 – Simply Enabling Trusted Context-Rich Conversations Among Communities That Care (Dave Pollard)
• Managing the Fire Hose (Mary Abraham)
• Personal Knowledge Management (PKM) – An Update (Dave Pollard)
• Personal Toolkit: Three thousand communities of practice (Steve Barth)
• PKM: Aggregate, Filter, Connect (Harold Jarche)
• Resources in Personal KM (Steve Barth)
• Sense-Making with PKM (Harold Jarche)
• The Power of One (Steve Barth)
• What’s Next After Knowledge Management?  A Scenario (Dave Pollard)
• Your say: Personal knowledge management (Sandra Higgison)

[Photo Credit: moeyknight]

When we hire, we sometime focus too much on what lies within the boundaries of the job description rather than on what lies within the person we are interviewing. Granted, it’s extraordinarily difficult to assess fully a person you are meeting for the first time, but you nonetheless have to probe beyond their resumes.

Elan Gil has given this some thought and provided a list of characteristics he thinks are important, as he reports in Hiring the First 5 Engineers – What Sort of People Do You Want on Your Team:

1. Do what it takes-edness (to coin a term). Willingness to dive in and fix any problems that come up and to take charge since there will not be anyone else to do so. This includes the willingness to do lots of grunt work – there is no one to delegate to.
2. Persistence/tenacity.
3. Ability to deal with uncertainty and not freak out. You may end up with multiple pivots depending on company stage. You need people who will stay calm and keep with it.
4. Generalist technical knowledge. You will not have a “front end team” an “ops team” a “backend team” and a “database team” etc. You need someone who can optimally work on all parts of the stack.
5. Not religious about technology (or anything really). This is useful at any size company, but at a startup you really don’t want to waste time debating the merits of Python versus Java. You just want to build stuff and get it done. No engineering ego (I find the most confident engineers often don’t need to reinforce their ego – they already know they are very good so dont feel threatened easily) and no drama.
6. Get a lot done. You need people who can just crank on product. They need to be able to problem solve independently and go figure stuff out.
7. Do “just enough”. Focus on the 80% of stuff that needs to get done, not the 20% edge case which most users won’t care about (i.e. hire people who buil things that are very solid, but not “perfect” – this applies to an internet company, not e.g. a later stage hardware co)
8. Get along with the team. This does not mean the person is not quirky or lacks personality. It does mean that you will be 5-10 people in a room every day and you need people you and the rest of the team get along with.
9. Bonus points: financial stability. This could be a low personal burn rate, or ability to take a low salary either through a past financial success, being straight out of school so living costs low, or other means. This means the person may be more willing to take a low salary in exchange for more equity, which helps the company survive longer on less.
10. Lots of other stuff, but I think the above is important.

He goes on to suggest that while there is no perfect way of ensuring that the person you’re interviewing has what it takes, you can gather important information through reference checks, taking them out for a beer or dinner to see how they fit culturally with the team, and hiring them for a day and giving them a problem to solve.  The important thing is to keep digging until you’ve got a good sense as to whether this person meets your criteria.

This list of key traits applies to a knowledge management dream team as well.  KM is a cost center with few traditional means of proving ROI.  As a result, the KM group will most likely be small and will have to operate with the energy, enthusiasm and tenacity of a classic start-up.  If you’re managing a group like that, you’d do well to hire the sorts of people Elan Gil recommends.  And, don’t forget the beer!

[Photo Credit:  Roscoe Van Damme]

We’re told that we should not watch anyone make sausages or laws. These are messy (and, in the view of some, stomach-churning) processes that can produce wonderful results. Unfortunately, many have extended this aversion from the making of laws to the providing of legal services. So we go through our days doing whatever the client needs without pulling back the curtain to see the reality of what it takes to provide that level of client service.

Well, I’ve got bad news for you:  if you want to continue to provide a high level of service at a price your clients are willing to pay, you’re going to have to roll up your sleeves, pull back the curtain, and take a much closer look at how sausages are made in your firm.  Do you have the right ingredients, recipes, workers, machinery and processes?  Do you consistently turn out high quality work at a predictable price? What sorts of changes might improve the way you work and what you produce?  Have you analyzed the effect on work product, efficiency and morale of changing your ingredients, recipes, workers, machinery and processes? Do you know exactly where you might create sustainable improvements? These are the questions every lawyer, law firm and law department should be asking.

In fact, these questions are being asked in businesses of all types.  As a result, more people are beginning to understand better what it takes to do what they do.  In order to get to this realization, we need many open conversations between the experts who do the work and the experts who understand how work processes may be improved.  Mark MacDonald describes this well with respect to how an IT department can assist in improving business processes.  We could say something similar about knowledge management personnel:

Process experts create value through working with their business peers in an environment of discovery and problem solving.  This is in contrast to many application development shops that gather requirements then go away to build the system.  Process change makes the sausage best in open collaboration with the business.

I’m not suggesting that we engineer a law firm to death, turning it into a soulless factory producing bland, unappetizing sausages at rock bottom prices.  However, I do think it’s possible to make our firms efficient producers of artisanal sausages — where we marry state of the art methods and machinery with highly skilled (even artistic) personnel to produce extraordinary, memorable, successful work product. And, I believe there is an important role for knowledge management and IT to play in achieving high quality artisanal work product at a price that makes our clients happy.

[Photo Credit:  cobalt 123]

When we work in an area like knowledge management that is hard to reduce to useful numbers, it can be challenging to prove ROI for the bean counters. In fact, some would argue that numbers can never tell the whole story regarding a knowledge management initiative. So what works better? Find your success stories and tell them until you are blue in the face.

When thinking about what makes an effective success story, consider the advice of Dan Heath (author of Made to Stick) as he talks about Subway’s fantastic “Jared” advertising campaign in the following Fast Company video clip.  As you may remember, Jared was the poster boy for losing astonishing amounts of weight while eating fast food. Heath uses this campaign to remind us of the three key attributes of an effective story:

• Concreteness
• Unexpectedness
• Emotional Impact

So how do you make this work for you?  First, think about what has improved in your firm thanks to KM. Next, find specific success stories relating to that improvement that are concrete, surprising and have emotional impact.  Then get out there and tell your story.  If enough folks listen, you won’t need to worry quite so much about the bean counters.

[Photo Credit:  Loren Javier]

Today is Groundhog Day. I have no idea whether Phil the groundhog will see his shadow, but I try never to forget what happened to Bill. Who’s Bill? Bill Murray in the movie, Groundhog Day. Because he resisted growing up and moving forward, he was condemned to repeat Groundhog Day until he did something to break the cycle.

Law firm knowledge management (and perhaps KM generally) seems to be in a Bill Murray repeat mode in many places.  We’ve all found some things that work (or worked at one time), so we repeat them.  We’ve also been asked to do some things that we know don’t work, but cannot overcome the pressure to meet these low expectations, so we repeat them.  Continue like this, and you run the risk of running KM into the ground.

So how do you break free?  Don’t look to new technology.   Technology won’t work well unless you have a clear vision of its uses and limits.  A tool implemented blindly won’t provide the forward momentum a firm sunk in KM Groundhog gloom needs.  The better approach is to start thinking strategically about your KM program.  Given the upheaval of the last couple of years, what does KM need to do in your firm to help it respond to economic pressures?  Have the practices of your firm changed?  Has your KM program kept pace?  Is there an opportunity to embed KM in a practice group or client team?

Everyday is KM Groundhog Day and everyday is an opportunity to to break the cycle.  Just think strategically.

[Photo Credit:  Jimmy Wayne]

I made a mistake the other day.  As I was leaving for work, I checked the weather report to see how warmly I needed to dress.  The forecast said 40 Fahrenheit.  So, my brain went through the following fairly logical steps:

1. On the Fahrenheit scale, freezing occurs at 32 degrees.
2. Today’s temperature is only 8 measly degrees above freezing.
3. Therefore, it is practically freezing and I should dress warmly to avoid practically freezing myself.

So I put on my winter coat and walked out the door.  Moments later, it was clear that I had misunderstood the data.  I saw people walking in light jackets and, in a couple of slightly crazy cases, in shirtsleeves.  Where did I go wrong?  While 40 is fairly close to freezing, in New York City in January it can feel balmy — especially if it comes on the heels of a cold snap.  If you doubt this, think about how you  dress in the autumn in New York City as the temperature is plummeting towards winter.  Warmly, right?  To be specific, would you wear a sweater if it were 50 degrees Fahrenheit in September?  Yes, most probably.  Now think about a 50 degree day in March.  In New York City, you’re likely to see folks wearing shorts and T-shirts.

What is critical to this analysis is knowing that we’re talking about New York City rather than Miami AND we’re talking about specific times of year.  Both elements of context have a huge impact on how we interpret the bald data of temperature.  It is no different when thinking about the metrics you’ve so carefully collected (I hope!) to help understand the efficacy of your Enterprise 2.0 or knowledge management project.   Knowing that activity levels have risen may be interesting, but knowing that happened against a backdrop of falling business levels makes for interesting analysis.  What’s going on?  Why?  The metrics by themselves don’t tell the complete story.  They need faithful, honest interpreters who can place them in their correct context and draw appropriate conclusions.  We need to be those faithful, honest interpreters.

By the way, it’s snowing heavily in New York City as I write. I’ll be dressing warmly.

[Photo Credit: Qiao-Da-Ye]

The heartbreaking photos from Haiti are compelling. How can you not help? In fact, most folks I know have been looking for effective ways to help. And, as they look, many find their instincts clash with reality. For example, some feel compelled to get on the first available plane to Port-au-Prince and DO something. But what? Unless you are trained in medical or emergency services, what will you do? Others instinctively feel that giving things must be superior to merely giving money. But is that true? Not according to the Haitian Embassy (pictured above):

Embassy officials and relief organizers say while packaged good donations are welcome, the best way to help the earthquake victims is with monetary contributions to reputable relief agencies. They argue that the damage to Haiti’s infrastructure is so great that it’s hard to know when and how donated goods will actually make it to the ravaged island. [emphasis added]

Big-hearted people of goodwill feel instinctively that this can’t be right.  But are they right?  If the picture of the Haitian Embassy is any indication, the gifts in kind will pile up in the United States until there is a reliable means of transporting them to Haiti and delivering them to the people in need.  (Assuming, of course, that these things can even be delivered before cold, wind and rain destroy them in their makeshift storage areas outdoors.)  This is hardly ideal.  In fact, this is a terrible waste of the wonderful human impulse to help those in need.

So, the first step is to get comfortable with the idea that giving money is, in fact, the most effective way for most of us to respond to the disaster in Haiti.  Then, be careful not to give into the impulse to give blindly.  Texting a donation may seem trendy, but is it the best thing to do?  Be sure you give to a charity that guarantees to send nearly all of your donation to Haiti rather than spending too much of it on administrative costs. (For guidance on this, see Charity Navigator.  Their four-star charities have good track records.)   And, while you’re at it, see if your employer is willing to make a matching donation. In this way you double the impact of your contribution — thereby maximizing the assistance that can be provided.

Sometimes even our instincts for good lead us astray.  The only known antidote is to gather information with an open mind and critical eye.  And then, when the evidence requires, question our instincts.

[Photo Credit:  Jonas Hosmer]

If you’re looking for overnight success, forget about social media. Snake oil salesman who tell you it’s easy (or it’s like magic) are NOT telling you the truth. Social media success, like pretty much everything else in life, requires hard work — thoughtfully and consistently done.  A recent Mashable piece, 3 Things You Need to Know About Social Media Strategy, makes this clear with the following advice:

• Everyone Must Work Together – This definitely is easier said than done.  If your corporate culture is based on competition and bureaucratic infighting rather than cooperation and collaboration, you’ll have an uphill battle.

A company that hasn’t learned to listen to its own employees, and encourage them to collaborate internally, is not likely to succeed in integrating social media tools into its marketing mix, no matter what agency or consultant they hire.

• Top Management Must Be On Board – Although you hear about social media as a grassroots phenomenon on the internet, it is a different animal when it is grafted onto a corporate culture.  Very little happens within an organization without top level support.  They control the staffing, the communications channels and, above all, the budget.

If the direction doesn’t come from the very top, managers, who have myriad reasons to fear change, will hang on to the status quo.

• Don’t Expect Overnight Success – There is no such thing as “turnkey social media.”  You can’t just buy a tool and expect a social media revolution within your organization.  The first thing to realize that it’s not about the tools.  In fact, identifying the tool is the last stage of the process.  The first step is to understand what modes of communication and collaboration would best further your corporate strategy. Then, find a social media tool that will facilitate that.  If all you are doing is implementing the latest fad tool, your social media efforts will flounder.  And, even if you deploy the right tool for your needs, you should expect that it will take from 18 months to 3 years to gain significant traction.  That’s not my definition of overnight success. Is it yours?

If you’ve been under the illusion that implementing Enterprise 2.0 tools behind the firewall or launching an external social media campaign is easy, think again.  If you’ve been fortunate enough to accomplish one or the other with little or no pain, please let us know how.  In fact,  if you’re for real, you could probably charge a pretty penny as a social media consultant.  For the rest of us mortals, pull on your overalls and get to work because Thomas Edison could have been talking about social media when he said, “Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work.”

[h/t to David Gurteen for pointing out the Mashable piece]

There’s something quite comforting in the voice that reminds me to “mind the gap” when I travel the London Underground. That recorded message has saved me from many a misstep. It’s a pity we knowledge managers don’t hear a similar recorded message before we communicate with senior management or front line workers. There is a knowledge gap between us and our non-KM colleagues that can make good communication challenging.  There are things we know about facilitating collaboration and expediting the flow of information that they may never think about.  Equally, there may be things about their work that are not obvious to us, even as we work to provide them with knowledge management support.  Under these conditions, it’s painfully easy to talk past each other.  And that can be fatal.

Before you go to “sell” a knowledge management project to senior management or front line workers, think about it from their perspective.  What do they care about?  What do they want to know?  What do they need to hear to better understand how your solution addresses their problem?  Once you are able to approach things from the perspective of the people your KM system is supposed to serve, then you’ll go some distance in eliminating the risk of miscommunication.  Until then, mind the gap.

There have been some recent high profile investigations of bribery in the business world. Has anyone checked the knowledge management world? I’ve heard reports of cash rewards, gift cards and coveted electronics offered by various KM departments to induce knowledge workers to participate in KM systems. In what way are these not bribes?

Here’s the sad part, while greasing the palm of a corrupt official may win a piece of business, bribing a knowledge worker to do anything except rote work rarely works.  I’ve linked below to a David Gurteen video on KM Incentives and a Daniel Pink video on Motivation, both of which explain some of the problems with offering incentives.  According to Dan Pink, knowledge workers find that extrinsic motivators (like cash rewards and gifts) tend to narrow their focus, limit their creativity and increase the pressure.  Rewards discourage risk taking.  In other words, extrinsic motivators create precisely the kind of conditions least conducive for creative, expansive, innovative work.  David Gurteen raises some additional issues relating to incentives for KM participation:

• By offering an incentive for KM work, you imply that this work is a burden — an extra chore that no sane person would undertake without coercion or incentive.  Is this really the message you wish to convey?  Or, worse still, is this the reality of your KM program?
• KM incentives change human behavior, training people to participate in a KM system only when bribed, rather than participating because it is the right thing to do.  He cites Alfie Kohn (author of Punished by Rewards) who believes that rewards can destroy the intrinsic motivation to do a job well or to do the right thing.  (See summary by Justin Podur.)
• External motivators tend to encourage people to game the system.  Since they are being asked to do something they don’t really want to do, sensible people will try to do as little of it as possible for the maximum gain.  This leads to participation peaks near the deadline for tallying credit or forming alliances to rig the outcomes.

If KM incentives have little more than short-term value, then what should a wise knowledge manager focus on?  Focus on the elephant that has been standing quietly in the corner during this whole discussion:  you have to prove the value of your KM system.  If knowledge workers don’t believe that a system is valuable, then they will have little internal motivation to participate, and any external motivators offered will produce only grudging cooperation.  At the end of the day, effective people don’t really want to waste time.  If we can’t prove the value of our KM systems, then we are asking them to waste their time.  Under these conditions, offering an incentive is little more than providing a tranquilizer to ease the pain.

Daniel Pink’s Video

David Gurteen’s Video

[Photo Credit: jessicafm -- using candy and toys to induce cooperation during a haircut]