What can we do to leverage on collective knowledge for business benefits?
Organisations that are conscious about the importance of collective knowledge will continue to reap benefits even when work habits have become increasingly virtual and remote
I've been as taken aback and dazed as, perhaps, many of you here, ever since the commotion of Corona began to make news on a daily basis. My immediate reaction was to make sense of it and understand its impact on individuals and on the country/world.
As all of us know, it has now reached a crescendo and several countries are under a Lockdown. One of the consequences of a Lockdown is that most organisations must now rely on technology to connect its employees and help them collaborate. This is obviously essential to keep the organisation alive and running daily and help it get back on its feet after the Lockdown period. Losses and a negative impact on the organisation’s profitability are likely to be inevitable and significant. However, it does not take away the need to keep employees engaged and ensure that the day-to-day operations (those that can be handled virtually) are not severely affected.

Given this, I cannot help but wonder as to how many organisations were truly prepared for such a calamity. How many organisations can boast of a culture that constantly encouraged employees to be disciplined enough to document, share, discuss, decide/conclude and monitor progress of their collective tasks on internal digital platforms? How many organisations can confidently claim to have a culture that encouraged transparency, trust and consistent knowledge sharing that is reflected in the way it uses collaboration software, content management systems and community-building platforms (if any)? Knowledge Management professionals have, for several years now, requested/urged/pestered (and perhaps even warned) their organisation to acquire the habit of daily reflection, documentation, sharing, and discussions in order to make the most of collective knowledge that is otherwise scattered only between several pairs of ears.

Largely, these pleas may have fallen on deaf ears or may not have been identified as high priority elements by the organisation. The current crisis, by now, must be forcing teams to rely more on documentation and sharing via digital platforms to ensure that there is no loss in translation and thus make up for lack of face to face conversations. To adopt a realistic perspective, organisations cannot ignore the risk of facing a similar situation in the future as well. “Change is the only constant” What can we do to create a culture that benefits from and celebrates collective knowledge?
There are a lot of things that organisations that are serious about surviving such calamities must pay attention to, in order to not be threatened by a major disruption in the way their employees connect, collaborate and conclude on the daily tasks. They must make sure that the Knowledge Management (KM) function is given the necessary resources, freedom, and support to put the following things in place. This will help them respond better when the situation demands that organisations use digital interfaces to bring people together.

1. Make constant reflection a prerequisite for all roles that are knowledge-based
2. Mandate documentation of ideas, decisions, processes, deliberations and so on,
on digital platforms that can be referred to by anyone to whom it is relevant, at any point of time (Do not underestimate the power of writing things down. It improves clarity and sense of responsibility for the person writing it down. It improves the collective memory of the organisation. It helps the organisation learn from the past. It brings in more uniformity in the way employees understand things. It softens the blow of attrition and absence of employees. It helps in retrospective analysis and collective knowledge-building, among other things). Video capture would be a good or better alternative in some cases.
3. Ensure that digital collaboration platforms are used by every business unit, crossfunctional team, and project team, including senior management committees etc
4. Give importance to content management systems and make it a part of the process to store, retrieve and utilise content related to operations, marketing, strategy, and all other functions
5. Build community management platforms that allow for internal communities of interest or practice to create and manage a body of knowledge on business topics of their choice
6. Make it easy for every employee to identify and connect with colleagues who work in
related or associated areas. Encourage the constant seeking of knowledge from colleagues
7. Invest in content creation teams that focus on helping knowledge creators document,present and share their insights and learnings on a regular basis
8. Make sure there is at least one knowledge champion who is tech-savvy, in each team, so
they can constantly educate and inspire the team and get them to acknowledge the role
that digital platforms play in enabling collaboration at all times
9. Make sure those who share knowledge and those who reuse knowledge are constantly
under the spotlight and are appreciated, recognised and celebrated via these very digital platforms
10. Adopt and use video collaboration platforms with white-boarding features when the need for conventional documentation is low or when the situation is too chaotic for typical documentation

At the risk of sounding like a person who loves to say, "I told you so!", it's time to give knowledge management the attention it deserves. It is essential if organizations are serious about dealing with such disruptions in today's tech-powered and globalised world.
However, there is a critical point that today's tech-obsessed world may miss. Organizations that have sophisticated technology platforms, but poor usage will have plenty of stories to share in this context. The existence of digital platforms alone does not guarantee any benefit unless the organisation has also invested in knowledge management processes around these tech platforms. Case in point: Several e
commerce platforms are unable to service their customers amidst this crisis despite having all the technology at their disposal.
This is, arguably, because they have relied too much on technology and little on robust processes that can take over when the external situation changes.
Organizations must not only put the content, collaboration and community platforms in place but also invest in creating robust processes that hold and strengthen it.

NO ONE SEEMS TO KNOW THE POWER OF KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT!
Knowledge Management (KM) is largely seen as a function that does not directly impact the business or operations and nothing could be farther from the truth. Access to knowledge is a subtle dimension that is overlooked by the majority. Timely access to knowledge helps employees

1) deal with work challenges, (especially novices)
2) process their daily tasks in a more efficient manner, (process familiarisation, who is who, tips and tricks etc)
3) respond to customers quickly and
4) build on nascent ideas as a collective force

Not to forget, it improves overall employee satisfaction and morale because they acquire a sense of belonging with improved access to information and know they can rely on the collective knowledge of the organization at any time.
Promoting the KM initiative and increasing the usage and adoption of the KM platform is a lengthy process that requires patience, creativity, investment of time and resources, perseverance, a strong belief in the domain’s impact on business and leadership involvement. Consider the following aspects as you go about driving the initiative and improving employee traction:
1. Is the Why or Purpose of the initiative clear to all stakeholders (juniors, experts, leaders, managers and so on). How are you communicating this? Are there visually enticing and convincing advertisements, emailers, presentations in important cross-functional meetings, leaders’ gatherings and so on?
2. Are you using creative methods such as contextual events, roadshows, contests, recognition, awards, gamification, videos, and storytelling to catch everyone’s attention?
3. Are case studies of early adopters being presented to laggards within the organization?
Do you have metrics that make sense to the majority and are you sharing it at regular intervals?
4. Are the said case studies being seen and presented through multiple filters such as anecdotal evidence of benefits, perception surveys, and impact on business parameters (such as productivity, response time, cycle time, social learning to solve challenges or achieve objectives) where possible?
5. Is there a monthly or quarterly newsletter that delves into fundamental concepts and cultural aspects to provoke deeper thought processes among the employees? You never know when you will earn yourself an enthusiastic champion who understands where you are
coming from
6. Are orientation sessions being conducted via multiple mechanisms such as classroom
sessions, webinars, videos, one on one workshops etc?
7. Do you have a full-time or part-time team that takes on the role of focused hubs within each division of the organization and do these evangelists have a strong understanding of and an intense focus on their respective business units?
8. Are you piggy backing on other functions that already have a foothold via other initiatives that can be linked to knowledge management? For example, training via in-house subject matter experts?
9. Do you continuously demystify the technology platform and focus on simplifying and enriching its user experience - which includes userinterface, features, customizations, and performance (speed of response and accessibility of features including mobile interfaces)?
10. Do you have supportive leaders in senior positions talking about the importance of knowledge sharing, learning from others, usage of the technology platform and benefits of the function?

There are many more aspects that will emerge as the function evolves and matures. What are your experiences and thoughts on this? We must remember that there is no one-size-fits-all and some of these points are more important than others in certain cultures and ecosystems. What worked well for you and what were the surprises you had? Hit us up if you want to chat or ponder over getting a better return on your investment in KM.

SIMPLE PROJECTS THAT LEVERAGE ON COLLECTIVE KNOWLEDGE FOR BUSINESS BENEFITS
How can startups get going with knowledge management and keep it simple?
Here is a simple lens that start-ups can use to leverage on collective knowledge and
benefit from it practically. Choose a large or critical department/function that has a
diverse set of employees and/or complex business goals and map them on to one of the
following four collective knowledge “enhancement” programs.

1. Content management - Making the most of content
2. Conversations - Using collective knowledge to achieve business objectives
3. Co-creation - Collaborating to create content for a competitive edge
4. Social Coaching - Strengthening the weakest links

It is important to note that an effective methodology must be adopted to ensure that the program is systematic, well-planned, frequently monitored, discussed, improved, and measured to clearly indicate how it has impacted the department.

In the case of #1, a brief analysis must be carried out regarding the content that the
department generates on a daily/monthly/quarterly/annual basis. A content management
system, process and guidelines must be defined and implemented in order to manage the
content generated, keep it up-to-date, utilise it and measure the impact of its usage
(monitor time-saved, learning improvement, time taken to respond to customer, cycle
time for key processes, etc)

In the case of #2, a brief analysis must be carried out to understand what kind of
conversations happen within the department and what type of decisions they lead to.
Existing mechanisms must be analysed, and their shortcomings acknowledged. Tools
must be designed and utilised effectively to set up a conversation system that helps
distributed or large departments to a) keep track of ideas and how they materialise and b)
problems and their resolutions (idea success rate, time taken to resolve problems etc)

In the case of #3, the need for co-created content must be clearly defined and described.
For example, guidelines, templates, checklists, procedures, agenda for events etc are,
largely, the result of collective thinking and can be critical to improve efficiency and
consistency in start-ups. Current mechanisms and their drawbacks must be identified and
discussed. New mechanisms for collective content creation, if need be, must be designed
and implemented to tap into collective knowledge and improve the quality of content
generated (pre and post implementation comparisons or perception surveys can be
conducted)

In the last case, departments that have a high novice to expert ratio will particularly be
suitable for the experiment. Classroom and online learning need to be complemented
with social learning supported by experts and peers. A clear schedule can be chalked out
for formal mechanisms and social learning can be encouraged in various other contextual
ways. Tools must be built or purchased to enable explicit knowledge sharing alongside
webinars, mentoring and job shadowing etc. (Performance improvement can be tracked
by peers and managers, and learning improvement surveys can be conducted)

If you are a small business, do any of these themes strike a chord? Which of these four
categories of enhancement programs do you think you may need immediately? What are
the drawbacks of the current methods because of which you are unable to tap into a)
content already created or b) collective thinking? How does it affect business parameters
such as productivity, performance, and operational costs? Are you ignoring or dismissing
something that is likely to make a difference?

Get in touch to kick-start any of these programs via tried and tested methods and tools
and make a significant positive impact on the business and/or operations.