Is knowledge the most important asset of your organization?

The Importance of Knowledge

Knowledge creation is a system through which organizations acquire, organize and process information with the aim of generating new knowledge. One of the most cited people in this subject is Ikujiro Nonaka, whose theory explains the creation of organizational knowledge in a structured and detailed way. This author defends three types of knowledge:

a) Explicit knowledge, a kind of formal and systematic knowledge, which can be registered (expressed verbally or graphically) and therefore easily communicated or shared;

b) Tacit knowledge, an informal knowledge, linked to the senses, to individual perception, to the capacity of corporal expression, to convictions and to different perspectives. For that reason, tacit knowledge is one of difficult transmission;

c) Practical knowledge, which is based on the phenomena of human action, especially through the dialectic examination of opinions.

The ability to create companies’ knowledge is not due to their manufacturing capacity, access to capital, or cooperation with customers, suppliers and the State, but rather to the capacity and expertise in “creating organizational knowledge” as a consequence of uncertainties and market crisis, which force continuous innovation and, inherently, the creation of new knowledge.

The Knowledge-Creating Company

For organizational knowledge to be created, it is necessary to convert tacit and explicit knowledge through processes that allow the “amplification” of individual knowledge in the organization, through social processes between individuals, namely:

• Socialization: conversion of tacit knowledge into tacit knowledge – sharing of practical and direct group work experiences, generating shared knowledge;

• Externalization: conversion of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge (actions that can be understood by others) – creation of perfect knowledge through dialogue, collective reflection and use of metaphors and analogies, generating conceptual knowledge;

• Combination: conversion of explicit knowledge into explicit knowledge – systematization of concepts into a knowledge system, through combining, editing and processing within the teams in order to form new knowledge, generating systemic knowledge, but not expanding the already existing knowledge base;

• Internalization: conversion of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge – incorporation of explicit knowledge into tacit knowledge, internalizing the new explicit knowledge shared in the organization by individuals, which occurs through “learning by doing”, verbalization and mental models, generating operational knowledge.

Although knowledge is created at the individual level, the individual must convey this information to the organization, otherwise it will be lost. In this process of creation, storage and dissemination of organizational knowledge, some characteristics must be considered:

• Figurative language and symbolism to explain the inexplicable, such as the use of metaphor and analogy to express intuitions;
• The sharing of personal knowledge in organizational knowledge, such as through group discussions, dialogues and discussions;
• Ambiguity and redundancy, leading to the emergence of new knowledge by encouraging frequent dialogue and communication, creating a “common cognitive basis” among employees.

Some Easy Daily Practices to Create Knowledge

The organizations that introduce knowledge management in their daily lives show distinctive characteristics that favor innovation and continuous improvement. For example, CREATE IT provides an organizational culture of incentive for the practices of creation and dissemination of knowledge to be effectively operationalized. Here are some examples:

• Project-area: Virtual space dedicated to each project where documentation (e.g. text documents, spreadsheets, images, videos, diagrams) is placed for sharing and collaboration between the team. This repository follows a standard logic and structure for the various projects for easier navigation. Being accessible by any collaborator (not just the team of the project), the documents can be consulted and worked simultaneously and remotely, in a true collaborative spirit.

• Tech-shots: Ad-hoc internal training sessions where technical topics are presented. They are organized and presented by the collaborator who intends to disseminate internally new tools, technologies, processes, projects, or innovations recently applied in specific contexts. They typically occur in sessions from 30 minutes up to 2 hours, and the success only depends on the motivation of the trainer and attendees.

• Wallace: Bank of hours for consumption at the discretion of each employee, and is normally used for training and R&D. All employees must present a summary of the created knowledge to all the team twice a year . This presentation is followed by a short debate opened to the audience and a proposal of the investment areas for the next semester. As other initiatives, all these presentations are also available on the intranet (including the video recording of the presentation, debate and proposal).

• Role-play: An internal program of role-play sessions where certain skills – hard and soft skills – are trained simulating real scenarios. The promoter typically uses practical cases that have occurred recently in his real-life job context (e.g. the client postpones an important meeting at the last minute, the team is not aligned with the client agenda). These initiatives can be developed individually or in workgroup, being highly effective as a practice of diffusion of knowledge. Team role-plays can take on a gamification dynamic, which further elevates levels of motivation and retention of knowledge.

• Interest-groups: Creation of informal and specific groups by areas of interest. They are totally agnostic to the organizational structure of the company, and regardless of the profiles of the collaborators or their technical background. In these groups prevails the sharing of thematic knowledge. Their members usually distribute some news, experiment new tools and technology, diffuse new processes and disseminate innovations and their results. The repository allows you to search over past posts and experiences.

• Skills directory: Repository of projects, competencies and certifications per employee, so any person can easily find colleagues having the knowledge intended for certain contexts. It is a tool that facilitates the identification of key people by areas of knowledge, encouraging sharing within the team. In other words, it is a “Knowledge Marketplace”, which brings demand closer to the offer available.

In addition to these practices aimed at generating internal knowledge, CREATE IT employees are also encouraged to share their know-how externally, namely by promoting webinars, posting articles on the company’s blog, and engaging in community events (as speakers, organizers, supporters or participants). CREATE IT also promotes internally a set of other people-centered knowledge creation programs, such as onboarding, mentoring, and coaching. We can explore it a bit in future posts.

Smart Tools to Retain and Spread Knowledge

CREATE IT knows that the preservation of data and information is very important for the retention and conversion of knowledge. This applies both to management and technical areas. Therefore, the company applies much of its energy to the use and optimization of the tools capable of raising this crucial asset to new levels of creativity and innovation. Here are some examples:

• DiggSpace is an internal communication portal based on SmartPortals, taking advantage of Office 365 features. DiggSpace provides a means for organizations to easily share information, make teamwork easier, collaboratively develop projects and facilitate bottom-up communication. With DiggSpace the company promotes productivity and knowledge sharing and encourages efficiency, thus strengthening the sense of belonging, collaboration, involvement, commitment and sharing among all employees.

• SmartPortals is a platform for portal development thanks to its extensibility, making it ideal to support solutions that integrate with our clients’ systems. Based on Umbraco CMS, an open source content management technology, SmartPortals allows content managers to work in an agile way. It also supports several types of information, due to its scalability characteristics.

• SharePoint is a Microsoft web-based collaborative platform that integrates with Microsoft Office. Launched in 2001, SharePoint is primarily sold as a document management and storage system, but it is highly configurable and usage varies substantially among organizations (eg. web portals, intranets, content management). Microsoft states that SharePoint has 190 million users across 200.000 customer organizations.

• Office 365 is a line of subscription services offered by Microsoft, as part of the Microsoft Office product line. The brand encompasses plans that allow use of the Microsoft Office software suite over the life of the subscription, as well as cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) products for business environments. All Office 365 plans include automatic updates to their respective software at no additional charge, as opposed to conventional licenses for these programs where new versions require purchase of a new license.

• Teams is a platform that combines workplace chat, audio and video base conference call meetings, notes, attachments and all that relates to digital team work. The service integrates with the company’s Office 365 subscription office productivity suite, including Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, and features extensions that can integrate with non-Microsoft products. Microsoft launched the service worldwide on 14 March 2017.

Conclusion

At present, there is an increasing relevance of knowledge in organizations, from the daily operation to the long-term strategy. It is the most important intangible resource of modern and agile companies, being commonly presented as the major factor of competitive differentiation, and basis for innovation. It transcends, therefore, the importance of capital itself, of natural resources, or of labor.

Knowledge management raises the potential of an organization, providing important competitive advantages, minimizing risk, and maximizing success rates in a globalized market. Organizational knowledge is built under properly organized and oriented management and innovation processes, which allow and encourage the circulation of knowledge, and motivate employees to share experiences, inside and outside the boundaries of their organizational structures, based on mutual trust and respect.

The biggest challenges with this attempt are the barriers created by the organizations themselves, making it difficult to disseminate knowledge and information, namely: the organizational culture itself, lack of a favorable environment for sharing, non-committed and non-aligned managers, and teams not properly involved in business processes.

So, organizations should focus on actively promoting the sharing of knowledge, being it tacit or explicit, creating environments and offering tools favorable to the free circulation of different knowledge sets. This results in higher agility and better processes and outcomes, through the incorporation in the daily work of each employee and the innovative learning obtained through sharing.