using knowledge for competitive advantage: a graphic illustration from history

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It being a lovely afternoon and with a guest over from Washington DC my wife and I decided to pay a visit to the Naval Dockyard at Portsmouth where some of Britain’s most famous warships have been restored and are on display.

I didn’t expect to find such a vivid example of how the application of what you know allied to an entrepreneurial spirit can make such a difference.

Here’s the background: By the time of the Battle of Trafalgar in 1805 the rate of fire from a cannon on the British Fleet was every 90 secs whereas for that of the enemy it was 5 minutes; a major factor in the competitive advantage of the British Fleet and the ensuing victory.

Here’s why:

Captain Charles Douglas, commander of the 90 gun ship Duke in 1778, had such great confidence in the efficiency of the flintlock for firing guns that he equipped his ship with them out of his own purse. When Douglas became captain of Lord Rodney’s flagship Formidable (90 guns) in April 1782, he demonstrated his superior rate of fire and hitting power in the victory over the French at the Battle of the Saints in the West Indies. Douglas’s son, Major General Sir Howard Douglas, improved the gun lock system by introducing a double headed hammer to house the flint. This made it unnecessary to change flints frequently during action as this new form of hammer could be turned through 180 degrees to engage the second flint.

What that quote omitted was that the French forces were the inventors of the original flintlock and indeed had trialled (without much success) its introduction to the fleet.

On the British side this became a grass roots incremental change programme spread by word of mouth that ultimately became ‘corporate’ policy. Individual Captains’ who were often quite wealthy paid for the enhancements to the guns on their vessels and were able to see significant improvements in productivity. By the time of the great sea battles of the late 18th and early 19th century most British ‘ships of the line’ were fitted with these devices with devastating impact.

It struck me as I walked around HMS Victory that today many organisations aren’t aware  of what others in different areas of their business do and are often not involved in the redesign of process. Indeed two of the recurring comments we hear are “I didn’t know they did that” or “yet another top down HO initiative we pay lip service to”.

This example spoke to me of the value of knowledge sharing and the need to engage rather than impose change.  I hope you agree?

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‘…they must put something in the coffee…’ from KM Mid East

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A quote in conversation with one of my fellow speakers at KM Mid East Abu Dhabi 2011.  We were talking about why people like working in her organisation; she herself has been there many years and now has a Knowledge Management (KM) brief.

That sense of pride was evident among many of the delegates I spoke to. It was borne out in the results of the Knowledge Survey conducted by Sparknow in advance of the event wherein the majority of people said they’d contribute for a sense of wider acheivement suggesting that monetary rewards are not motivators for knowledge sharing.

If I’m honest I was surprised by the number of people in the audience who put their hands up when I asked at the start of my address ‘how many of you are in a KM role?’ Over half of an audience of 120 plus drawn from across the region said they were.

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The event was a delightful mixture of formal and informal in a way the the Arab world excels at. Held in the splendour of the Intercontinental Hotel Abu Dhabi it brought together a mix of KM practitioners and wannabees.  The organisors will be posting speeches, videos and photos here; these are my observations on the people and customs and what might or might not work in KM.

There is great respect for the views and opinions of others and people are listened to attentively; delegates were happy to contribute personal experiences for this is very much an oral culture.  And we were reminded by one of the presenters that

the Koran pushes us for more knowledge

which would suggest KM is pushing against a door that is at least adjar.

The event was a reminder to me of how there is no one size fits all for a KM initative (KM ‘Project’ was fiercely debated and dismissed by the delegates). It was vividly illustrated a day later in a conversation I had in the offices of a government agency when it emerged that it is not uncommon for an employee to be called half a dozen times a day by his or her boss.  Contrast that to Western cultures where interactions usually take place via email or instant messaging. And the option of spending a day working at home to focus uninterrupted on a challenging issue is not one that seems to have permeated practices in the Gulf.

These were my takeaways for those running KM initiatives in the region:

  • An organisation’s culture is the sum of the culture of its individuals
  • Introducing financial incentives for sharing is counterproductive
  • The process of transferring knowledge between expatriate workers who still make up a large part of the workforce and nationall staff works best when additional time is built in at the end of a contract for that process to occur
  • More information does not make for better decisions; a case of paralysis by analysis?
  • Pictures stimulate conversation and brevity in written communication is preferred
  • Formal peer to peer dialogue usually requires approval of superiors which means informal ‘water cooler’ coversations often yield most benefit
  • Stories amplify KM and are readily understood as a way of exchanging lessons.

Here are some of the distinquished speakers (John Girard, David Gurteen, Dr Allam Ahmed, Luke Naismith, Zabeda Abdul Hamid plus yours truly)

 

“The best motivational message I’ve ever seen…”

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So says Lucy Kellaway in an article today on FT.Com Management which draws on a “…standing on a burning platform..” memo, sent to all Nokia staff by CEO Stephen Elop, to make this point:

Fear of death is motivating; so is the truth. Most employees are fed on a never-ending diet of flannel, so when they are dished up a helping of stark truth, the effect can be invigorating.

When I first read the leaked memo at the end of last week what struck me was the CEO’s use of a story at a critical time in the organisation’s evolution or potential demise; it was as stark as that.  Through the imagery of a burning oil platform it presented staff with a  choice: jump into the freezing waters and potentially drown or remain onboard the platform as it is today and perish.

Seemingly part of a well orchestrated internal communications programme the memo was followed a few days later by an announcement of a strategic development tie up with Microsoft in response to Apple’s competitive edge in the smartphone and apps arena.

Lucy’s take (and I am paraphrasing) is that the use of fear is a powerful tool to cause a shift in approach.

It’s a technique we’ve used before to try and bring to life topics that normally switch off most senior managers when raised. I’m referring here to records management.

A couple of years back we used a picture (of the inside of a road tunnel) and asked the company’s management to look at the picture and estimate how much the remedial work about to be undertaken was going to cost.

The figure they gave reflected the fact that they had to strip down the tunnel walls to find out what was behind them; the records and plans were no longer to hand.  Quite apart from the increased cost of the project there was a significant loss of productivity caused by the unecessariy lengthy tunnel closure.

The picture and the supporting story were catalysts for a change in approach and the adoption of a new records management policy contributed to improved effeciency.

It remains to be seen whether the ‘burning platform’ memo will have a more dramatic effect at Nokia; its safe to assume the image is planted firmly in the minds of most employees and stakeholders.  I wonder if the next chapter in this unfolding story will be the release of a story based in the future?

KMUK 10: power of micro narratives

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KMUK 10 was held concurrently with the FIFA World Cup. At that time a lot of debate was going on about the abject performance of the English football team (twas ever thus). Looking back now it was clear old ways of presenting information were becoming stale.
If Emile Heskey is the answer, are we asking the right question?

The depressing performance by the English team at the South African World Cup illustrates the old adage that knowledge out of context is just information. Despite both teams possessing the latest analytical technology, a more astute German team executed their tactical plan perfectly and embarrassed England. And historical contexts are important here; a non-goal scorer remains a non-goal scorer and is therefore unlikely to change the course of a game when coming on as a substitute.

KMUK 2010

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of chairing the annual 2 day UK knowledge management event (kmuk http://kcuk.wordpress.com/) held this year in Canary Wharf London. In addition to 120 or so senior practitioners the speakers were drawn from across the globe; an interesting mix of people who’ve done stuff and are moving onto pastures new, those who are prominent advocates, those at the forefront of new thinking and of course Dave Snowden the recipient of a science in km award who fits at least three of the above and can be relied upon to give a provocative address.

It is a few years (in fact a decade) since Sparknow was a disruptive force at the sister event in Brussels, constructing a garden shed (‘scriptorium’ – a slightly quirky neutral space where delegates could retire to for reflection about the need to cultivate and propagate) among the many software vendors’ exhibits that were the backdrop to the conference. Today such vendors are conspicuous by their absence; perhaps Autonomy’s increasing ownership of the business enterprise search space has forced those that remain in business to explore new horizons?

I was looking for evidence of a new disruptive force and for signs of life among the km community. Did I find it? There were a couple of global km programmes showcased, Heineken, Sanofi Pasteur being two. The majority focused on specific solutions. People such as Bonnie Cheuk have made a virtue out of the necessity of identifying a business problem and then illustrating how km tools and techniques can help solve it. The example presented demonstrated how to use social media to help develop a new strategy. BAE Systems and Burges Salmon (law firm with big Bristol presence) have used an Autonomy based system to help them provide their internal clients with insights and what they described as best practice.

A lot of what was presented was illustrations of good professionalism. The absence of solid metrics was bemoaned (as it always is); people who measure tend to rely on surveys.

lightening bolt: Using stories to present issues

Was there a lightening bolt? If I’m honest the disruptive force / lightening bolt would seem to be increased use of narrative and story. The challenge; how to honour the original voice in an environment where sound bites and 24×7 headlines drive the attention span of audiences?

One presenter (Helen) chose to be bold. She read out three stories and invited the audience to discuss each one. They focused on how a centrally driven change management effort was being received. There was an audible buzz; the delegates had listened and had differing emotions. The language and way of presentation had struck a chord and the delegate’s feedback reflected this:

  • A very illuminating session on the power of micro-narratives; how much you can learn from a short story. Good to have opportunity to discuss, rather than just being another ‘lecture’.
  • Very participative, and found it useful to engage in discussion around the stories.
  • Great to take this approach as contrast to presentations. Supports reflection and some slower learning.

illustrating the value (and effort) of story work

Helen is now grappling with the outputs of this exercise and since this is a common issue I thought I’d play back something one of our clients said about an assignment Sparknow worked on with them on a couple of years back:

  • One of our strongest impressions… was the absolutely meticulous attention to detail. I think this is both a good and bad thing – it leads to a fantastic product every time but at a very high resource cost from those working on the project. One thing I particularly noticed being so closely involved in the narrative research project was how important that attention to detail was in ensuring the right questions were asked of customers to bring out the stories – I had absolute confidence in the project right through the process.
  • The method generates extremely deep insight and the stories have proved extremely powerful both in and out of the Boardroom. It has been interesting watching people react to the stories – they can make people very uncomfortable or react quite strongly. The interesting thing is that they don’t allow people to ‘hide’ from the truth and therefore the impact of just the .stories collected is long lasting, as well as the insights generated.
  • Story work seems to be resource intensive (probably associated with the meticulousness of what was done) so it is something you have to pick and choose carefully where you use it – not only in terms of spending the money but also in terms of the impact that can be created with particular sets of stories. * The audio material is still being used to this day so there is quite a legacy!

an alternative summary: ‘Good wrap-up and collation of key points from sessions.’

As a departure from the usual Chairman’s Summary session Christopher Heimann and I invited each participant to share with his or her partner whatever they wanted to as takeaways. We stressed this was not a conversation more an exercise in listening and being heard. We asked the pair to repeat this process with the other partner acting as teller and vice versa.

Based on a technique we’d used in Darfur it illustrated how valuable (and in a pressure situation, cathartic) it can be to tell and hear your story played back at the end of a tiring day. It surfaced many previously unspoken issues and being unexpected shifted thinking, two of the many virtues of a narrative approach.

using the past to inform the future: Asian Development Bank

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In 2010 in Manila, staff and Alumni at Asian Development Bank were handed a book and cd as part of a new Human Resources strategy, the culmination of an assignment to create a Living Archive for the bank that had begun back in November 2008.

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Here is the story of the assignment.

“…the story he told me about his work… made things come alive, and showed where my project fitted into a much larger and more complex picture than I had foreseen or understood.”
Rajat M Nag | Managing Director General

In November 2008 ADB officials and alumni embarked on a journey to find new ways to share reflections, insights and experience. Recognizing the power of narrative to stimulate dialog and unearth the hidden stories that best illustrate an organization at work, ADB appointed Sparknow LLP, a knowledge and communications consultancy, to help to create a Living Archive and to nurture the individual and collective practices that will allow ADB build a new narrative capacity to marry to the substantial analytical skills it already has.

An exhibit, plenary sessions, a combination of short, structured sessions and more extended oral history interviews, interactive workshops and on location sound recording were techniques employed to capture the content that forms the backbone of an embryonic Living Archive upon which ADB can build.

Today, the Living Archive comprises:

  • a slim book, ADB: Reflections and Beyond, capturing significant events in ADB’s history told through the eyes of some of those who were involved
  • a set of audio clips for use in induction and training
  • a CD featuring the sounds of ADB and Asia as a backdrop to many illuminating reminiscences about working for and in ADB
  • a narrative practitioner manual to support ADB in evolving the processes and practices across the organization.

A small group of determined, enthusiastic and skilled Narrative Practitioners has worked with Sparknow throughout and these people are now equipped to listen for, capture and share stories about ADB, its work and impact on those it seeks to help. These processes and their products can be seeded through all parts of the organization, whether it’s the formation of a community of practice, better handling of a mission debrief, or new ways of evaluating and carrying out after action reviews. ADB’s narrative practitioner team will help to build on the work with Sparknow in 2010 and make the most of the possibilities it has opened up.

Fast forward a couple of years to 2012 and this case study is now part of a publication from the Ark Group entitled “Making Knowledge Management Work For Your Organisation”