I am getting comfortable with today’s mind-shift from developing a KM strategy to developing a strategy for incorporating and resourcing KM. I will still need principles in this process somewhere. So far, I have four.
I drafted the following four principles a while back, and I think they serve as a touchstone – one of the many ways I try to stay honest.
- The company matters more than the sum of any of its parts
- I must learn and share information in order to do my job
- I don’t have to know where information is located in order to find it
- I need to trust in the accuracy, quality, and timeliness of the information I find
I’m certain there are more, this still feels like information management principles instead of KM, and I wonder if my colleagues in Security and Contracts have similar principles posted to their wall. I am trying to get us away from “see what Billy thinks about this” when it comes to policies or initiatives. We are still too personality driven, and while that is useful for some things, we do need to write down shared principles at some point if we aim to grow at the pace expected.
As I go forward, then, I’m using these principles to guide my advice and recommendations regarding our deployment of information systems. That’s what I get being located under the CIO, the baseline context will be IT for the near term.
It strikes me that these were easy to write, precisely because we have so far to go in fixing our internal information management processes and systems. It reminds me of my three-month stint in a West Texas town. Having come from New York, I was unnerved by the tornado logo in the corner of my television screen one evening. In speaking to a neighbor, they confirmed that meant there was a good chance of tornadic activity in the area – and no, he didn’t have a basement either.
“Well, who does have a basement in this town? Where are the shelters?”
“Over there in the new section, called Grape Creek. Those houses all have basements.”
“Why?”
“Because Grape Creek was leveled a few years back by a tornado…”
3 Comments
Including the people that make up the company?
That seems to be main consensus behind the broken workplace social contracts of the last 50 years — when the company asks us to give, and give again, to be selfless – we discover that once in the pangs of existential survival, the company turns on individuals to treat them like disposable rubbish attached to it’s shoe.
And there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that if the company had the honesty to tell you as much so that you can intelligently make that decision when you’re asked to give and give again.
But alas, it’s never as clearly articulated as your four points.
(*Of course, I don’t refer to you, but to the royal you.)
The company or agency, from an organizational perspective, matters more than the sum of any of its parts. This refers to the necessity of cooperation across elements, the need for emergent value to be realized from an organizational flow of knowledge and activity, etc. Your description of sacrifice is somewhat beside the point, unless you’re referring to public sector or social organizations – where that sacrifice may indeed be requested. Asking whether the people “matter more” is a bit of a red herring, this list is designed to capture KM principles for the firm. As such, they “assume” honorable behavior. Any attempt to capture focused principles will by necessity make some assumptions. If you’d like me to expand on corporate ethical principles, corporate social responsibility, principles of human capital management, principles of global sustainability, let me know. Or take my course. Be happy to accommodate you at Walsh College’s MBA program.
Thanks for the offer John.
I’m a senior manager that manages IP on a daily basis. Probably been doing it wrong for years, and not even sure that KM = IP, but I assume it does in my case what with the focus on repeatability and the impact of repeatable solutions on margin..
WRT MBA courses, well I gotta say that from looking at the economy over the last few years and the general state of corporate governance since NAFTA I’m not too impressed with the results and output of the graduates. Not trying to be obnoxious, just have a different viewpoint on the correct approach as practiced.
I do take MBA level courses once in a while, as an exercise in group interaction, and I do find them incredibly interesting as a method of breaking out of my own echo chamber to get a spectrum of ideas and opinions from the interaction.
I understand now that your four principles apply to KM and not to corporate behavior in general.
ttfn