10 Myths about Knowledge Management
As knowledge management becomes more widely adopted, misconceptions about what it is and isn’t have also become more widespread. Here are the top 10 myths about knowledge management:
1. Knowledge management is an end unto itself. In fact, while creating new knowledge, organizing it so others can use it, and passing it on to succeeding generations is a defining human trait, business organizations should use knowledge management to build market value and competitive strength.
2. Knowledge management is just for professional services firms and other “intellectual” businesses. Not so. As we will see in Chapter 1, knowledge is a big percentage of the value of all goods and services produced in every industry.
3. Knowledge management just means hiring smart people. While it is true that people are the main sources of knowledge, it is what people do, not just what they know, that adds value to firms.
4. Knowledge management means implementing expensive technology. Technology certainly plays a key role— especially in distributing knowledge. But technology alone will not improve a company’s knowledge management or make it more competitive.
5. Knowledge management means creating huge, unwieldy databases. It’s true that many firms follow the “Grandma’s attic” approach to saving any information that might possibly be useful someday. But these are not the firms that get business value from their knowledge. Knowledge yields value when your people know where it is, know how to get at it, know it will help them, and join in keeping it current, practical, and useful.
6. Knowledge management is a “Field of Dreams”— just build it, and they will come. In that movie, a mystical voice tells the main character that if he builds a baseball field in his backyard, the legends of baseball will appear. That voice won’t help you with knowledge management. Building a new technology or process for creating and applying knowledge is not enough to inspire participation in knowledge management or yield business results.
7. Good knowledge management is driven by a good Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) or Chief Learning Officer (CLO). The creation, distribution, and application of knowledge drives the value of an organization’s goods and services and determines its market value. Whether you recognize and cultivate them or not, your knowledge processes are at the heart of your business. They can’t be left in the hands of one executive, however effective.
8. Knowledge management is just for Americans. Because the marketplace is global, the creation, distribution, and application of knowledge must also be global—not confined to one region, language, or culture.
9. Knowledge management is not like other good management practices and processes. Managing knowledge does not mean reinventing management. The elements of effective financial management, such as building theoretical knowledge, developing a shared vocabulary, and implementing best practice and processes, also drive effective knowledge management.
10. Knowledge management is a fad. The term “knowledge management” might fade away or be replaced. But the enormous contribution of knowledge to business value will only grow and the activities that create value from knowledge will always be vital to success.
If you have had suspicions about knowledge management, you have a lot of company. Until recently, you were certainly in the vast majority. Perhaps, by choosing to read this book, you are moving from suspicion to curiosity. So are many managers and companies. They are coming to realize that there is substance behind the hype. Knowledge—about customers, about the market, about core processes, about how things get done, about who knows what—is a core business asset that, when well managed, returns significant value.
Early on, knowledge management was viewed as visionary by a small number of innovators and as unimportant, frivolous, or even spurious by the majority of researchers and business people. Professional services firms were part of the first wave to take knowledge management seriously and give it a solid foothold. The business of these firms is the creation and transfer of knowledge. They realized that they needed better methods and technology for managing their knowledge —the core asset upon which their credibility, competitiveness, and longevity rest. They were soon followed by a cadre of early adopters, including larger companies in financial services, communications, and manufacturing, as well as large government agencies.
Now knowledge management is becoming mainstream in many industries and is spreading from large firms to medium-sized ones. In fact, at a recent World Economic Forum, 97 percent of chief executives surveyed stated that knowledge management is critical to the success of their companies. IDC (an industry research group) estimates that “worldwide spending for knowledge management services—including consulting, implementation, support, outsourcing, and training—will grow from $776 million in 1998 to over $8 billion by 2003.”1 Other estimates are even higher.
As knowledge management spreads through industry, its definition is expanding beyond aspects such as data mining, advanced search technology, and business intelligence. Concepts such as explicit and tacit knowledge, social networks, communities of practice, and virtual teams, have emerged as legitimate components of a knowledge management architecture. Learnings from the trenches have taught us that a hospitable cultural environment in which people share ideas and communicate freely is as important as a robust technical infrastructure.
In this book, we define knowledge management as much more than a set of tools or processes or the implementation of powerful technology. Knowledge management is the conscious management of a key corporate asset—knowledge—for the purpose of advancing organizational learning, strengthening the organization’s ability to sustain and expand its core competencies, and securing competitive advantage. We realize this definition is an earful. As you read this book, we will unravel it for you and help you find ways to get started on knowledge management.
This book is intended to be both informative and practical. We emphasize strategy and practice and classes of solutions, rather than focusing on specific technologies (which change too fast). We offer some key frameworks, or lenses, through which you can understand, and apply, the main concepts inherent in a knowledge management strategy. We will emphasize three critical principles:
• Knowledge management is about the conscious management of the business asset, knowledge.
• The management of this asset is about the management of both information and relationships.
• The ultimate goal of knowledge management is the systematic advancement of organizational learning so that the core competencies (the true competitive advantage) grow stronger and more widespread throughout the organization.
We will explain these concepts in more detail in the book’s early chapters. In later chapters, we will offer you practical guidance for applying these concepts and for getting started with knowledge management in your own organization.
What we hope to do in this book is offer you a sense of lessons learned to date and some practical ground rules for getting started. As the story goes, someone once stopped a New Yorker on a street corner and asked her how to get to Carnegie Hall. Her answer? “Practice.” Our advice to you as you read this book is to take these learnings—and practice them! Apply them in your own environments; learn as you go; keep what works and let go of what doesn’t.
Kathleen Foley Curley
Barbara Kivowitz
Endnotes
1 Greg Dyer, “KM Crosses the Chasm,” Knowledge Management magazine (US), March 2000, 50.