Ignorance may be bliss elsewhere in life, but not in the business world. In the business world, knowledge and information are two best resources a firm can have to put us ahead of others and make a Corporation more competitive. Today, knowledge and information are not merely advantages one can have but they are the essential ingredients of survival and staying fit in a corporate world inundated by the threat of obsolescence.
Corporations need to learn, tap the knowledge, retain it and dissipate it within organizations to enable them work towards monetization of knowledge. In its final form knowledge becomes a resource only when there is monetization of the knowledge. This is where the question of competence comes into consideration because many organizations need help in understanding their own knowledge capabilities, the value of the knowledge they have spread around in the organization in a very diffuse state, the mechanisms to tap it and convert it into a viable monetized form before its obsolescence.
The properties of knowledge
Understanding the properties of knowledge is important before trying to tap, store and convert it. One of its essential qualities is, it is highly perishable and exists in a volatile form. It needs to be tapped to retain its value and needs to be given a more stable form. Knowledge is also very diffuse in nature, resulting in complex mix of harvestable and the chaff. There is a great risk of corporations not being able to recognizing the long term value of some forms of knowledge and ignoring it.
Knowledge must therefore be clearly identified in relation to its time value. The short term knowledge must be monetized before it is obsolete while the long term one needs to be assessed for nurturing and future value.
Knowledge is a mental process; therefore, it is trapped inside the individuals who work in corporations. Though some of it may have existed before an employee gets into the organization, a large part of it may have been accumulated in the course of performing the job and therefore the corporations tend to lose it when an employee leaves the organization. The tacit nature of knowledge is a difficult one to handle and equally difficult to lay claims to it.
Since knowledge also tends to rapidly grow through the exchange in groups, easy mechanisms do not exist for allocation of credit for knowledge.
Facilitating Knowledge recognition and Growth
Facilitating the growth of the knowledge growth is important. The facilitation mechanisms must be such that it is a free exchange in a free climate but not an imposed systems and manipulative mechanism. Frequent exchange processes, brain storming sessions and control free mechanism must be developed to let it get freed from its bound existence to flow into the corporate reserves. Reserves can take various forms suitable to the corporate convenience. A natural outflow of knowledge encouraged by meta satisfaction is more conducive to knowledge liberation from individuals rather than mere incentives in whatever form they are given. Incentives tend to encourage liberating it in a fragmented form without coherence and holistic outlook. The possessor begins to look upon it as a possession that can be bartered for an incentive rather than a process with bigger and better goal and vision.
The Learning Centers
Learning centers cultivated by corporations are useful in facilitating the exchange, growth and capture of knowledge provided they are used in the ideal manner. They need to be free exchange mechanisms not education centers. If they are perceived as executive education centers they may turn out to be class rooms of monotonic one way processes rather than a fearless expression of ideas. They also may be under the risk of being perceived synonymous with training, substitutes for training and a more modern term for training. They are not any of these, but they are distinct mechanisms to process the collective knowledge that exists inside and allow it to be integrated into a meaningful utilizable form. There is a danger of Corporations applying their usual metrics to these centers as it is germane to corporate culture to be measured and be result oriented. Therefore they need to be left alone to be judged only by those fit to judge them.
Difference from Training
Training is an ongoing phenomenon in the corporate world. It is a process of updating the executives with what preexists to prevent a possible threat of getting obsolete. There could be other forms of training where a new product is introduced. Training is level conscious and the appropriate training is offered to make it relevant to different levels. Knowledge development and learning needs to be independent of levels, it is an integrated process that forgets any existence of levels. Training is measured in various ways for its effectiveness; learning and knowledge capture are a gamble. There can be no scale applied. The rewards are future oriented ranging from zero to an immeasurable magnitude.
In the absence of a conscious attempt to differentiate between training and learning and a holistic approach with top executive involvement in learning centers stand the risk of being conceived as mere modern training centers in the corporate world.
An experienced business executive, educator and consultant. Many years of experience in industry, as consultant and professor and dean at Indian Institute of Management. Visits Management Institutes and lectures on diverse management issues. Writes on management, education, political and social issues. Active participant of social responsibility and social marketing programs.
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