Week 3 Blog - Knowledge Management, the Future, and the Role of Leadership

The Evolution of KM

This week, the topic of knowledge management (KM) was highlighted, in which several scholars have noted its evolution since its conception (Davenport, 2015; Dixon, May, 2009; Dixon, March, 2009; Jarche, 2010; Jarche, 2016). KM was first considered important for organizations to identify and store explicit knowledge and to connect people to content, then shifted for the purpose of formulating social networks and communities of practice and to connect people to people, and then transitioned to a third generation in which KM was considered essential for leveraging collective knowledge and generating conversations (both in-person and via virtual spaces) and to connect people with decision makers (Dixon, May, 2009). This third stage of KM stemmed due to the erosion of cognitive authority that existed within traditional centralized and hierarchical organizational structures, failing to include strategy at the level of top and middle management, and recognizing the vital need to integrate ideas from multiple perspectives to address increasingly complex issues (Dixon, May, 2009).  

KM is now believed to be entering its fourth stage in which collective knowledge is to be leveraged through interconnected networks on the Web. It requires connecting with others and promoting social learning in order to keep up with the increasing speed of technological changes (Jarche, 2010). In other words, for organizations to gain a competitive advantage and be effective, the success of KM hinges on the capability of “wierarchies”, or the ability to identify the right people to tackle the right questions, and creating the space in which continual dialogue and two-way flow of knowledge can occur (Jarche, 2010).  This new process of KM and learning is suggested to be most effective when it occurs simultaneously with the natural flow of work that is being performed, in real-time. Doing so creates a circular loop or system in which individuals seek knowledge, make sense of their experiences, and share their feedback (Jarche, 2016).

KM, the Internet, & Information Overload

            The rise and dependency of the Internet has shifted the way in which organizations manage knowledge. And like the popular lyric “video killed the radio star” by the music group Bubbles, Davenport (2015) poses the question of whether the Internet has killed the need for knowledge management. From my understanding, Davenport (2015) is essentially suggesting that knowledge, itself, has not become less important, but rather the overwhelming amount of external information that is now capable of being accessed from the Internet has weakened the value or need for organizations to manage KM internally. This to me, seems to be a valid point. Clearly the function of KM has shifted from being internally driven to externally driven since the web affords employees, regardless of title or level, the ability to access and share whatever desired information they want.  

            However, the ability to obtain more knowledge and information might not necessarily equate to better, and to Davenport’s (2015) point, it is starting to seem that more access to knowledge leads to more confusion. There is now a tremendous shift from valuing ownership of information to accessing free information in real-time, from centralization to decentralization of knowledge, and this flattening is causing a tension between the need for everything to flow faster and the need to keep up (Kelley, 2016). Kelley (2016) also acknowledges this issue during the chapter on “screening” when describing the emergence of a screen culture whereby sharing and continual flowing access of tweets, headlines, and instagrams has become the new norm and individuals are able to make their own content and construct their own truth. In other words, although the web has connected us to more, the continuous flow of knowledge and information overload is also leading people further away from actual truths and facts, enabling more skepticism of potential “fake news”, and causing people to feel more uncertain, vulnerable and less trusting of knowledge and information that is produced. Adding to this concern is the notion that the constant sharing, producing and reproducing of knowledge and information on the Internet is also largely uncontained, unrestricted, or vetted (Kelley, 2016).

The Future of KM and Leadership’s Role

Dixon (May, 2009) suggests the leader’s role in the future of KM entails three essential components: (1) The need to include people with cognitively diverse perspectives to discern between technical problems and adaptive challenges, (2) The need to challenge and question old assumptions and facilitate dialogue, and (3) Increase transparency by creating an environment that promotes psychological safety. I was very pleased to see psychological safety to be offered as a key factor for the future success of KM because it happens to be my topic of interest for my dissertation research. I agree wholeheartedly that all work environments will greatly benefit from more psychological safety, also known as the belief that it is safe to take interpersonal risks in the workplace (e.g., speaking up about concerns, asking questions, providing suggestions) without fear of negative consequence such as embarrassment (Edmondson, 1999).

I found another article written by Dixon that posits a leader’s role for the success of KM is not to make sense of it for the organization’s group of employees since nobody is really capable of making sense for someone else (Dixon, March, 2009). Instead, the leader’s role should be to create a forum in which it is possible for groups of individuals to do the sensemaking themselves through dialogue and conversation (Dixon, March, 2009). In doing so, the leader’s purpose should be to determine what type of conversation is needed regarding KM, and I thought the article did an excellent job at suggesting four types of conversations (i.e., for relationship-building, mutual understanding, possibilities, and action) that leaders should convene that are likely relevant and applicable to any discussion regarding KM (Dixon, March, 2009).   

Final Thoughts

What stands out the most to me this week is that the technological changes that are continuing to occur so rapidly and immediately is likely not sufficient enough to ensure the future success of KM. What is lacking and still needed to supplement the growth of technological changes relating to KM in today’s working society is the cultivation of human intangibles and attributes. Instead of focusing on doing more, perhaps people need to focus on being more. In other words, we need to be more in order to do more, not the other way around. This, in my opinion, can only occur if individuals are willing to engage in honest self-reflection and do the difficult inner work that is necessary to reach full potential – to become what the class lecture suggests as being more emotionally intelligent, curious, creative, adaptive, resilient, and capable of engaging in creative thinking. This, ultimately is where I believe the role of leadership comes into play for the future success of KM - in the ability to create the space for individuals with cognitively diverse perspectives to engage in meaningful conversations and to convene and guide these conversations so that knowledge can be sought, experienced, and shared to generate effective KM solutions to implement.

References

Davenport, T. (June 24, 2015). Whatever happened to knowledge management? CIO Journal. Retrieved from: https://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2015/06/24/whatever-happened-to-knowledge-management/

Dixon, N. (March 18, 2009). Four conversations to address adaptive change. Conversation Matters. Retrieved from: https://www.nancydixonblog.com/2009/03/four-conversations-to-address-adaptive-challenges.html

Dixon, N. (May 02, 2009). Where knowledge management has been and where it is going. Conversation Matters. Retrieved from: https://www.nancydixonblog.com/2009/05/where-knowledge-management-has-been-and-where-it-is-going-part-one.html

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work team. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350-383.

Jarche, H. (February 24, 2010). A framework for social learning in the enterprise. Retrieved from: http://jarche.com/2010/02/a-framework-for-social-learning-in-the-enterprise/

Jarche, H. (December 08, 2016). Closing the learning-knowledge loop. Retrieved from: http://jarche.com/2016/12/closing-the-learning-knowledge-loop/

Kelley, K. (2016). The inevitable: Understanding the 12 technological forces that will shape our future. New York: NY: Penguin Random House LLC