How do you define and practice knowledge management
How do you define and practice knowledge management
Budiarso, Consultant Accenture, Jakarta
So far, there is no standard definition of knowledge
management. Some of the pioneers in this field have their own
definitions.
To Karl-Erik Sveiby of Sweden, it is the art of creating value
from intangible assets. According to Hubert Saint-Onge, it's
about building the capability to create value. Ikujiro Nonaka,
dubbed "Mr. Knowledge" by The Economist, prefers to use knowledge
creation than knowledge management.
While the definitions of knowledge management is still not
standardized, it has become a common term that spans varied
initiatives, new processes, and in some cases new management
functions.
Some organizations see it as little more than information
management, while others see it as something far more complex,
involving management of knowledge in all its forms.
Practitioners are united in their belief in the potential to
increase productivity, quality, and innovation by changing the
way that works gets done.
In general, knowledge could be divided into two.
The first, explicit knowledge, can be expressed in words and
numbers and shared in the form of data, scientific formula,
product specifications, manuals, universal principles, and so
forth. This kind of knowledge can be readily transmitted across
individuals formally and systematically.
The other one, tacit knowledge, is highly personal and hard to
formalize, making it difficult to communicate or share with
others. Subjective insights, intuitions and hunches fall into
this category of knowledge. Furthermore, tacit knowledge is
deeply rooted in an individual's action and experience, as well
as in the ideals, values or emotions he or she embraces.
To convert tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge means
findings a way to express the inexpressible. For tacit knowledge
to be communicated and shared within the organization, it has to
be converted into words or numbers that anyone can understand.
The distinction between tacit and explicit knowledge also
determines who owns the knowledge. Explicit knowledge is most
likely the property of the firm. One way or another it is either
data or work product.
Tacit knowledge is most likely remains the property of the
employees. Companies have certainly tried to own this knowledge.
While they are employed by the company, employees are ethically
-- and sometimes contractually -- prohibited from sharing their
knowledge with competitors. But if the employees leave the firm,
they'd take that knowledge and its inherent value with them.
Examples of knowledge management can be obtained from looking
at the difference in the philosophical tradition of the West and
Japan.
Western managers tend to emphasize the importance of explicit
knowledge whereas Japanese managers put more emphasis on tacit
knowledge. Western philosophy has a tradition of separating 'the
subject who knows' from 'the object that is known', epitomized in
the work of the French rationalist Descartes.
In contrast, the Japanese intellectual tradition placed a
strong emphasis on the importance of the 'whole personality',
which provided a basis for valuing personal and physical
experience over indirect, intellectual abstraction. A sumo
wrestler becomes a grand champion when he achieves shingi-ittai,
or when the mind (shin) and technique (gi) become one (ittai).
At the end it matters less how you define knowledge management
than how you practice it. It means nothing if you do not take
knowledge and turn it into customer value.