A Recipe for Sharing Knowledge

The recent spate of hurricanes that ravaged the Gulf Coast and Florida put a glaring focus on the importance of knowledge management. The ability to capture accurate information, transfer it to the right people at the right time, and use the knowledge appropriately can save lives and dollars. In the corporate world, knowledge management can be a remedy for redundant efforts, lost information, and high employee frustration levels, all of which cost time and money.

Unfortunately, the reality for today's organizations strapped in learning-to-do-more-with-less mode is that true knowledge management may never happen.

A more likely scenario points to a strategy of knowledge sharing, breaking knowledge into specific, focused chunks for targeted internal audiences. With tighter parameters than knowledge management, knowledge sharing is an achievable corporate goal that can have tremendous bottom-line impact when it's set in an atmosphere that promotes respect and cross-functional thinking and is accompanied by an infrastructure that facilitates access, distribution, and interaction.

Categorizing Necessary Information

Knowledge sharing is inherently people based. Every employee can be a knowledge provider and a knowledge consumer. In a large organization, harnessing the knowledge gained by one person and getting it to another is an incredibly daunting proposition. How do you chunk the information and store it? You need a structure for classifying knowledge.

Those working within an organization's learning function may be well positioned to play a role in the process. Industry expert Elliott Masie suggests breaking down knowledge may be helpful to instructional designers, developers, and others charged with packaging intelligence.

Imagine three different knowledge buckets, the first holding seminal information, that which is so crucial the employee needs to know it by heart. The second bucket holds the knowledge we want employees to know at a familiar level, but not necessarily a memory level. (Perhaps the learner would know an overarching concept, but not the step-by-step process behind it.) The third bucket might hold what Masie calls referenced learning, whereby the learner would simply need to know the process to follow for accessing information and understand the tools of reference.

As companies proactively prioritize and categorize knowledge into one of the buckets, employees would better know how to spend their learning energy. When done well, the information can be mined so the right people get the right information when they need it.

In a global organization, a system for managing knowledge can't exist without a strong technology base. Technology must be part of the total knowledge-sharing solution and needs to function not just as a sorting and storing tool, but as an enabler for communicating. A company's email/intranet/Internet infrastructure, coupled with its proprietary database software, can and should be used for knowledge creation and to share ideas, experiences, and problems. With corporate-wide standard desktops now more the norm than the exception, technological barriers that used to hinder data and document sharing are no longer a problem. Sophisticated workflow tools continue to aid information filtering and sharing.

That said, the heart of any knowledge-sharing effort still boils down to people. Without the people side working, technology falls flat.

Knowledge Sharing vs. Knowledge Hoarding

The real secret behind effective knowledge sharing lies in a corporate culture that enables and rewards efficient and effective exchange of key information. The power of information correlates to the depth and reach of the social and physical networks that channel it. Within any organization, social networks can be great sources of insight. Chat structures in the web environment point to the growth of these important connections. The web itself, though unfiltered and massive, can be tamed and encouraged as a connector. And connections should be encouraged; risk-free sharing of opinions and best thinking should become a core value. Unfortunately, too many companies seem to foster an environment of fear, internal competition, minimal cooperation, and even out-and-out information hoarding.

A key way to change a culture is through the behavior of leadership. But getting knowledge sharing on the leadership radar can sometimes pose a big challenge. It is necessary to demonstrate and communicate the value for everybody in terms of company and industry success. Even then, it can be a struggle to break through and make leaders understand.

Steelcase president Jim Hackett champions knowledge sharing in the 14,000-employee furniture manufacturing company he has led for more than a decade. He supports and demonstrates belief in this core value by teaching his own critical thinking model to those in leadership positions throughout the organization. In the very first stage of his model, Hackett promotes knowledge sharing by advocating the solicitation of cross-functional thinking as part of one's due diligence.

At the planning and implementation stage of the model, he builds knowledge sharing into the corporate way by setting an expectation of cross-functional participation. A cross-functional, holistic approach, on any relevant issue or concern, helps ensure there's no resistance, all views get heard, and stumbling blocks are identified and eliminated before a project or process moves into the planning and implementation stages, saving time and money. It isn't rocket science; it's a cultural thought process he is pushing through the organization, reinforcing a culture of dignity and respect.

To exclude functional areas from decision-making or to hoard information is to disrespect the culture promoted through Hackett's model and shared through his teaching sessions.

Building a Knowledge-Sharing Environment

The work environment can go far in establishing the human behaviors that fit the knowledge-sharing goals of an organization. Extensive Steelcase research has focused on how people work and share information in order to provide the environment and tools that best support productivity. The old days of employees shuttered in offices with a secretary on guard are long gone. When the workplace is engineered to feel safe and friendly, supporting and encouraging interaction and collaboration, inspiration goes far. With talk rooms and work villages, as well as tools for sharing and recording ideas, employees' freethinking, creativity, and risk taking are enhanced.

Steelcase University's Learning Center exemplifies a community-based plan specifically designed to welcome and support innovative thinking and problem solving, cross-functional teams, inter-organizational projects, and corporate learning. It provides workspace flexibility, easily adapting to people's changing needs, whether for individual privacy, group work, or collaborative learning. The 63,000-square-foot center promotes knowledge sharing through a variety of carefully engineered information zones.

Knowledge work is made visible by encouraging information sharing with whiteboards and tack boards that are set up throughout the space. The environment adapts to change with flexible furnishings that permit spontaneous rearrangement, with an infrastructure designed to accommodate emerging technologies. Companies from all over the world visit the site regularly to better understand how environment can nurture the individual, cultivate interaction, and propagate knowledge, which plays a key role in knowledge sharing.

Knowledge sharing is a worthwhile and achievable goal for any progressive organization. With supportive technologies, a proactive plan for breaking down and organizing information, as well as physical and sociocultural environments that support sharing, an organization can go far in shaping knowledge sharing behaviors that will continually enhance individual, and ultimately corporate, performance.