What Organizations can Learn from Talent Reality Shows

Why do I always have to start off my posts with an introduction to what I do/did and why I do/did it and so forth. Why can't I just plunge into what I want to share rather than get gregarious about the context? I suspect that contexts are really boring for most people however essential or important they are from a knowledge perspective. Ignoring the contextual pre-post introspection on contexts, here's what has been on my mind of late. 

Being a music aficionado, I enjoy watching music-based talent reality shows. Apart from enjoying the overdose of music and being amused by some of the occasional drama therein, what I really am in awe of is that most of the participants demonstrate radical improvement and phenomenal growth over a period of few/many months.

I think it's a great thing to genuinely identify, nurture and showcase talent to the world. It is true that most of the participants are already worth a lot but even diamonds need to be polished! As these thoughts sank in, it suddenly occurred to me that there must be something - actually, a lot - that organizations can learn from these shows about training, learning, induction and ramping up. I am not too familiar with international talent reality shows but I'd like to believe most of these points are universally valid.

I think the top reasons why talent reality shows manage to help their participants achieve exceptional growth are:

1. Mentoring and Training: Most reality shows engage full-time mentors and judges who spend a significant amount of energy on mentoring and training the participants. When organizations hire new employees, how serious are they about assigning appropriate mentors and monitoring their efforts?

2. Regular Practice/Focus (weekly, daily): Most talent shows involve daily or at least weekly practice, rehearsals and live performances which results in obvious improvements in participants' skill levels. How much of relevant hands on 'practice' do new employees get once they join an organization? Are they put on projects immediately? Do they get to work on pilot or internal projects if they are not assigned customer-facing projects?

3. Constant Feedback and Public Recognition: This is very important. I find that most talent shows spend a lot of time in giving the participants immediate, precise and clear feedback, suggestions and recognition. Sometimes this is from the judges and mentors and sometimes from the audience. I think this is an area where organizations don't do so well. Even the annual appraisals are rarely handled the way they ought to be.

4. All Round Development: In most cases, talent shows are great platforms for the participants to be exposed to various new dimensions of their subject. Even if the participants are only good at one or two aspects of the subject under question, by the time they are through the show, they undoubtedly pick up a lot of new information and learn about other aspects of the subject. For example, in Music reality shows, participants are exposed to all genres of music which improves their confidence and contributes to all round development. How many organizations have a clear and structured plan to ensure that their employees go through projects and experiences that develop them in many spheres of work and life?

5. Inspiration via the Gurus and Achievers: Talent reality show organizers, as far as I've observed, make an effort to bring in popular Gurus and achievers occasionally and put the participants in front of them. This may be an effort to improve the TRP of the show, but ignoring their intentions for a moment, it is true that participants find inspiration from such an exercise. Meeting achievers can change lives at one extreme or can at least teach new employees something very critical at the other. How many organizations take this up seriously and facilitate touch-time for new employees with the 'Stars' and Leaders of the organization?

6. Support from Family (Boss, colleagues, mentors): Most of the participants who make it to the top are the ones with enormous support from their family. How much of support does an organization provide? What do the new employees' manager, colleagues and mentors do to make it easy for them? Also, how much of importance is given to the employees' families and their work-life balance as they struggle to make the transition? 

7. Positive Team Dynamics: This is a versatile combination of healthy competition, team camaraderie, mutual support during all phases (low or high) and the very presence of a community of similar Talents. What could organizations do to establish such a beautiful culture and environment?

8. Fun Quotient: Every talent show worth its salt will have a prominent fun quotient. It's hard to imagine such a show being sober all the time. There is, for example, likely to be a person or two with a sense of humor or someone who imitates others on the show and so on. In the organizational context, teams with such 'humor glue' characters may do much better than others.

9. Tangible Rewards or Opportunities: I am not sure if I am underrating this aspect by putting it toward the end of the list. :-) I think an underlying growth motivator for most participants (however passionate they are about the skill itself) is the huge reward or promised opportunity at the end of the show. Is it clear or guaranteed in organizations that an employee will get a pay hike or a promotion or a wonderful project opportunity if she puts in her best?

10. Rules: To be more specific, talent shows have clearly defined rules that are however flexible in unique or unforeseen circumstances. The teams largely stick to the rules but the organizers are, I've observed, ready to make room for unique situations and bend the rules when required. Do organizations allow for such flexibility?

And here's a clarification I simply need to make lest I lose my wonderful non-existent reputation. (After all, I was the one who tweeted this recently - Give me 10 reasons why we need 10 reasons for everything.) I just happened to find 10 reasons, OK? I had no special schemes up my sleeve to make it to the common and ubiquitous "10 reasons why blah the blah" list. Believe me. And, more importantly, don't forget to leave your thoughts on organizations that are at level zero with reference to the list above.

A KM Project, Employee Engagement, MBA in KM, Collaboration Skills

I feel like I've been neglecting myself. Not a single blog post since April 23rd! Gasp! I am almost sure this has not happened before. I've earlier remained silent for a week +/- a few days, but this time the silence has lasted more than 20 days!! Though, I am aware that the silence is totally explainable and justified. I've been absorbed in the development and implementation of a new KM & Collaboration application that I conceived 6 months back. Yet again, it becomes crystal clear to me that...

And also....one must be lucky to have a great team if not a perfect team. If the team isn't world class, then it's only passion and perseverance that keeps it going.

Aside: So, my blog posts are beginning to look different now, I realize. Mostly made up of sporadic twitter moments later connected and weaved together in a clumsy manner. Uh? ;-)


Anyway, getting back to the project, I am hoping I will have an opportunity to present it at an appropriate conference and see what the rest of the KM crowd thinks. I have positioned the tool as a personal knowledge management and cognitive networking application within the org. The tool automatically bubbles up knowledge assets relevant to the employee from various sources within the organization and also allows them to connect with and view their colleagues' knowledge profiles. 


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Once we were through with the first release, I immediately jumped into phase 2 of the project plan but, as expected, some other entities do not want to keep running at the same speed. So, I'm trying to relax and slow down a bit for a while. But all said and done, I truly believe that....

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Last week, I came across this interesting consulting organization called Engage for Change. (Thanks to my Twitter circle) Their values and approaches resonate with me and intrigue me. It would be wonderful to watch them go about one of their projects, help organizations engage with their employees and implement the concepts of 'Distributed Leadership'. Such projects are enormously more complex and satisfying than a business strategy formulation project.

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In other news, I think this will fit into one of the top slots in my list of regrets - My missing Nanyang's MBA in KM - though there is absolutely nothing I could have done about it because this course did not exist when I graduated. 

I was looking up the current MBA curriculum in various B-Schools when I bumped into Nanyang's MBA in KM. Slurp. But doing this now would be absurd. Too late. Had I seen this after 2-3 years of corporate experience, it may have been a good idea to pursue it. After all, my entry into KM was an overnight incident and was influenced by my need to find a worthwhile job rather than any specific desire to get into KM. It was destiny that brought me into KM and, luckily, I just happened to get fascinated by the subject once I was introduced to it.

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HT to @DavidGurteen

Finally, check out this wonderful video on the importance of prototyping and quick collaboration skills for a team's success. Collaboration skills are increasingly important in today's global environment and I think KM initiatives need to be well supported by training programs on collaboration and team-work. 

The Reality of Management

First: Employees will not and cannot stay buried in work every minute of their day (at least not every day of the year). They will take breaks and the type of break depends on individual preferences. Just because a person chats with someone for 10 minutes or one hour, one cannot conclude that he is not a good worker. The chat may, in fact, be relevant to official activities. Worst case, the chat may give the employee a break from routine and that may re-energize the person. There are paranoid workaholics but not all employees belong to this category. Trying to make a person who is moderately interested in work a complete workaholic through force or fear will not work and could, more importantly, be disastrous. The quality of work is best only when a person is inherently passionate and sincere about it. The speed of work is great only when passion and sincerity is combined with personal and technical skills and support from the rest of the organization. Employees without work ethics and a conscience are hard to change but changing them over a long period of time is possible only with patience and perseverance

Second: We live in a world where we cannot anyway control each and every activity of an employee and even attempting to do so will only backfire. If the concerned employee is consistently involved in an inappropriate activity that has a negative impact on his work or is unethical and does not heed to warnings, it may only then be natural to ask him to leave

Third: The best way to get work done is to come up with exciting and useful ideas, provide the implementer with the appropriate environment, tools & training, inspire him and trust him. Fixing reasonable schedules is another dimension. Additionally, if one wants to slide toward a more “controlled” approach, one can obviously follow up and monitor the daily or weekly progress (or at some other appropriate intervals) depending on the situation and type of work. If this process throws up any loop-holes or other suspicions, appropriate action has to be taken to bring the person/project on track. The action could be related to the idea, environment, tool, training, inspiration or even just trust

Fourth: There are times when the team may be admittedly slow and not run like Ostriches or be ready to squeeze out every drop of its blood, but we must accept it to be a reflection of reality (especially in the case of teams as opposed to individual star performers) and be happy (at least till the time you find a way to inspire the team to run faster) if the team is found to be traveling at a reasonably good pace

The Netflix CULTure

Awesome set of slides on what Netflix wants its culture to be like. Hat-tip to @unorder (Shawn Callahan). They know exactly what they want in terms of employees and culture....and their preferences sound great to me (Sample this: We don't want Brilliant Jerks). This was uploaded only one month ago into slideshare, but has already been viewed 210000+ times, been set as a favorite almost a 1000 times and embedded elsewhere 500+ times. Not hard to see why. Not hard at all! As someone who once ran through every page of the PCMM manual, I can, well, see the difference between theory and practice.

I'm now motivated to understand their business and read about their management team. But it's quite sad, in a way, that such logical and ethical approaches toward business and culture are now seen as radical and revolutionary! We've, it might seem, come a long way down the wrong path! A clear reflection of the deterioration of the overall corporate culture!

PS: One thing that did make me pause and question is the value of "selflessness". Some of the points therein are understandable and to be appreciated but I think the value can be easily misconstrued. This value, for example, need not mean that you put the organization above everything else like the world/environment etc. And sometimes you may have to necessarily do what's more important to you rather than the organization - what if you're quite ill and not in a position to close an important business deal that cannot be further delayed? You may be forced to find someone else - though it may not be good for the organization - who can take your place and close the deal on your behalf, rather than risk your health.

And, thank you, Mr.Reed. For bringing back this quote that I drooled over a couple of years ago, when I first came across it.

'If you want to build a ship, don't drum up the people to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea' - -Antoine De Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince

Culture

View more presentations from Reed Hastings.

KM and HR: Siamese Twins?

Speaking of HR (previous post), @dineshtantri initiated a discussion some weeks ago - on the Ning Community for KMers in India - on how KM and HR must collaborate.

I gathered some of my thoughts on the topic and responded as follows:

I've previously pondered over how we could possibly work with HR to ensure success for KM and can perhaps summarize some of the key points as follows: (I am assuming that the points below represent key components in HR strategies)

1. Hiring - Hire people with at least an average KM quotient (attributes revolving around sharing, collective thinking, networking, coordination, collaboration, reuse, long-term thinking and big-picture perspective) Very much on the lines of what you spoke about during the K-Community meeting

2. Training - Encourage informal learning mechanisms (from peers, seniors, other divisions) and learning through communities and virtual teams. Include these in the HR dossier/induction programs.

3. Competency Development - Chip in with KM mechanisms for competency development...basically an extension of the previous point on Training along with aspects like mentoring, shadowing and coaching.

4. Appraisals - The well-known and often applied idea of including the employee's KM quotient as one of the objectives/competencies in the appraisal process and allowing that to make a difference in the overall rating (giving it a significant weightage)

5. Incentives - Including KM elements in the incentive schemes that HR will invariably have conceived for the organization and if possible including an exclusive category for KM - visibility/recognition/appreciation being more important than monetary gestures

6. Succession Planning - Identify the natural leaders who, according to me, would definitely be the ones who empower their teams through sharing, mentoring and practices involving collective thinking.

I'd forgotten to include some points which I recalled after Dinesh had some specific queries in the areas I'd left out...

He said:

How do we factor in things like employee commitment, motivation and satisfaction? The sense of belonging to a company?? In most cases, people work for a team or a leader in the team and in many cases leave the company because of problems at the team level. The Nick Bontis model relates employee commitment, motivation and satisfaction to knowledge generation and knowledge sharing. Employee satisfaction surveys [ asking the right questions ] seems important. The informal learning piece is interesting as well - the challenge is to make it a part of the culture..and I remember reading somewhere that 80% of learning happens in informal settings. Retention of key people, rotation of key people across projects also seem important. Peer- reviews and 360 degree appraisals may also be important in fostering trust, improving transparency etc.. This is complex but I believe all of these impact knowledge sharing....

And I, then, said:

- Employee Motivation/Satisfaction: I firmly believe that one of the critical aspects that contribute to employee satisfaction, delight and engagement is an environment that enables and celebrates knowledge sharing and collaboration. If employee satisfaction surveys can be designed in such a way that the link between such an environment and the sense of belonging that an employee has can be brought to light, half the job might be done. So, KMers do have a role to play in contributing to the design of employee satisfaction surveys. [I'd proposed this on one of my consultancy assignments (in an organization that was just kick-starting its KM initiative) at two levels - pre and post KM initiative.]

- I, personally, do not believe that an employee can have a true sense of belonging if she only knows, interacts and enjoys a good relationship with her immediate team-members. The camaraderie has to scale up to the Business Unit level and then the Organizational level through cross-team initiatives, Organizational Vision/Mission etc If this were to be so, people may very well explore other opportunities within the organization rather than leave it for the sake of something "smaller".

- How could I forget Job Rotation?! Such an important point...KM has a huge role to play in designing the Job Rotation policies and processes alongside the HR. We need to understand the links between various roles and how rotation of employees (knowledge) would help the organization get more efficient/innovative.

- Attrition/Retention - I suspect that Exit Interviews definitely need to be handled a lot better than they are at present (in most organizations). KM's involvement ought to add value - could revolve around knowledge retention, participation in communities as an ex-employee, part-time project-based consultation in the case of critical employees etc

Ooh. Such a lot that KM and HR needs to accomplish together, eh? Easy, provided leaders of both these functions put employee satisfaction above everything else. Please visit the community page to see the complete thread and read comments from other KMers.

Low Thinking....

There's so much that each one of us needs to learn and not just in terms of knowledge but more in terms of attitude. Perhaps attitude is what adds up to wisdom...different from knowledge as we know it.

I was having a conversation with a colleague who suddenly declared that HR is a "low-level job". I was so shocked that I found it hard to hide my scowl. I am pained that people still think this way; in fact such thinking is what is "low". And this is not about HR but for that matter any job on earth (and other planets if you happen to be an alien)...!

There is no such thing as a "low-level job". It is the person who does the job that determines the way the job is seen. The passion, creativity and sincerity one brings to it can make any job a phenomenal one and something above comparison....

PS: Nonetheless, if you are a HR person, I guess this may make you ponder over the image that HR apparently has amongst the techies.

KM - Competency and Skill

The Context

KM and Identification of Training Needs

How does KM help in Competency and Skill Mapping?

Would KM drive this need or simply enable it? Enabler

Traditionally: The work experience per se, the training plans and programs, the self-learning as well as mentoring programs help develop the competency of the employee. Not so sure what is meant by mapping here. If you’re talking about recognizing someone’s competency and skill levels and keeping track of them in an employee matrix, then I guess this is traditionally put together by the HR team in coordination with the business managers

So, What is KM’s Value-add? KM can bring in the following to contribute to competency and skill development as well as mapping: a) Focus on mentoring using social network analysis b) community-based learning and competency development c)mapping of competency and skill levels using the participation quotient of the employee in KM initiatives like expertise banks, discussion forums, repositories, communities etc. Additionally, Blogs can help the employee reflect and collate his thoughts and establish his competencies in a much more transparent manner.

The Idea: A KM environment promotes competency development programs that leverage on not just formal and external agents but also internal resources on a part time basis. It can help connect people who can learn from each other and of course mentors and mentees. Additionally, a person’s real expertise and knowledge (which is a reflection of the competency) can be gauged by his participation in the collective endeavors that form a part of typical KM systems.

The Details: Culture, Process and Technology: Mentoring, Social networking tools, Blogs and community interaction.

C for...

Nice post on employee engagement from Terry. I think every C in the list is Critical for effective employee engagement. Except that there could, arguably, be an overlap between Contribution and Content.

HBR Again...

Went back to this month's HBR for some insights and thought-provoking stuff. The article on storytelling was not as enchanting as I'd hoped it would be. The core message is that a story needs to be true (from both the teller's and audience's perspectives), and true to the moment and mission.

Read another article on Simplicity-Minded Management and came across something that appealed to me. ConAgra's CEO apparently announced a particular year's goals to be simplicity, accountability and collaboration and made these three constitute 50% of the criteria for managerial performance. Maybe my experience is limited but I've rarely seen or heard of such aspects being given importance. And even if there are some such parameters, the number-targets normally override those. Finally, even in organizations where there is an effort to focus on softer aspects, subjectivity (largely unfair in today's Dilbert world) never deserts the performance appraisal scene. Wonder how ConAgra handled it....the article, unfortunately, doesn't go into the details....

KM, Innovation & Family! ;)

Discovered this via Techaid. Cool stuff, I think! (What else if we're talking about Google?) Google Sets is another manifestation of Web 2.0....i.e. collective thinking/perception....

I typed in Knowledge Management and Innovation and see what Google Sets returned! :)
Was pretty glad to find leadership, organizational learning, strategy, change management and human resources in the list. Goes a long way to show that these aspects are perceived to have a strong association with KM and Innovation! Yeah! Thank you, Google!!

knowledge management

innovation

leadership

collaboration

marketing

intellectual capital

creativity

management

mind map

organizational learning

strategy

technology

communities

change management

human resources

I then played around a bit and typed Knowledge Management and Collaboration and got a slightly different set.....interesting 'game'! Now, tell me what you discovered! :)

PR, HR etc

Bette Davis - "It has been my experience that one cannot, in any shape or form, depend on human relations for lasting reward. It is only work that truly satisfies."

Those of you who feed on spiritual and self-help books and generally belong to the moderation-balance school of thought may, of course, tell me that "it's always about balance". But what I am getting at here is something different. ;) Interestingly enough, human relations at work determines whether the work will be satisfying enough or not to a significant extent. Agree?

Focusing on human relations gets work done for some people. Focusing on work overrides human relations for some and messes things up for some others. Some rare characters are blessed with a wonderful knack for handling people as well as work.

What's your passion?

Here's the second article that I promised I'd write about. From the HBR series on Finding and Retaining the Best People. By James Waldroop and Timothy Butler again. Here, the authors write about 8 key innate passions that people tend to have and how organizations can work on job sculpting and match these passions, thus keeping employees happy and in good spirits apart from leveraging on their inherent skills. The 8 innate passions that the authors believe people would normally have are:

- Application of Technology
- Quantitative Analysis
- Theory and Conceptual Thinking
- Creative Production
- Enterprise Control
- Coaching and Mentoring
- Managing People and Relationships
- Influence through Language and Ideas

If people could be put in roles that match one or more of their inherent passions as per the classification above, there is bound to be 'good'. Moreover, the authors say that even already-assigned jobs can be sculpted and tailored to cater to the innate passion(s). I am able to relate very well to these categories. I really think anyone who loves his/her profession ought to fall under one or more of these categories. How useful it would be for managers to understand where their team members are in this spectrum and then do some things that would keep them happy...and get them to realize their full potential. Realizing one's potential, after all, is about tapping into one's natural talents, eh?

I, personally, would be thrilled with Theory and Conceptual Thinking, Creative Production and Influence through Language and Ideas. A day with opportunities in these three areas, for example, would seem like a perfect day to me! Bliss! :) :D

Think about it.....I like this categorization and think many people would be able to understand their strengths and what kind of jobs they would fit into based on this research....

Talented but not so successful...!?

Just been reading HBR’s collection of articles on Finding and Keeping the Best People. A couple of good articles that I’ll talk about in this post and the next one.

The first one – Managing away bad habits - is about helping talented people who unfortunately have ‘bad’ habits that prevent them from doing well despite being talented and brilliant. The authors, James Waldroop and Timothy Butler, bring out the fact that there can never be perfect employees and it is up to the organization to help talented people perform well by spending enough time and effort in helping them overcome their ‘problems’. The six types of people identified by the authors - based on their ‘bad’ habits - are quite interesting and would be easy to relate to for people who have been in an organizational environment for some time.

- Hero (The woman who pushes her people to be superhuman and therefore has a team that soon runs out of steam)

- Meritocrat (The guy who expects everything to be ideal and objective and therefore gets frustrated when things aren’t the way they ought to be)

- Bulldozer (The person who doesn’t mind a few dead bodies on the way to achieving things)

- Pessimist (The person who means well but is always expecting the worst and therefore prevents anything new from happening)

- Rebel (The girl who is against all the rules because it is in her nature to behave so….independent and hard-headed)

- Home Run Hitter (The guy who spreads himself too thin and tries to do too many things)

The authors go on to provide some tips on how to help such people cope with reality. Useful article, overall.

What once made Jack a dull boy....now makes him a dull employee!

"It's not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours." - Sam Ewing

I think this one ought to be printed in bold, Arial Black (probably), font size 10,000 (whatever) and put up in the reception areas of most companies that I know of. I just can’t help feeling confused when I come across supervisors who complain about a shortage in the number of hours their team is putting in without even attempting to understand whether the output expected of the team has been delivered (if it has been delivered in a duration that’s less than average, that’s more a time for celebration than anything else). And, in the first place, there might actually be a need for supervisors to understand what kind of investment (time) the output expected calls for – maybe there was a gross overestimation. And, of course, at times, even if there is a need for spending more time every day due to underestimation, what its impact is on the quality of the work and what its impact is on the people themselves are serious questions that have to necessarily be posed. Take a simple example - look at students who pour over their books for months together without understanding what in the world they are looking at as opposed to those who understand the concepts quickly and move on to something else (maybe outside of regular work!). You know who’s likely to be referred to as “that bright kid”. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy and further on…a dull employee. :P

Thinking about TRUST!

The capacity of the human being to rise up to the occasion/need of the hour is amazing. Mind-boggling...incredible….and so forth. Necessity is the mother of invention is something that we all are familiar with. What I am alluding to here, though, is slightly different. I am referring to acts of performing to one’s full potential or even getting close to one’s full potential. When the spotlight is thrown on human beings who outdo themselves in certain situations, it goes a long way to prove that if one is really motivated and has the zeal, there is absolutely nothing on earth that can prevent her/him from doing what might seem – to others - like a sheer miracle. This feeling was strengthened in no small measure as I watched a bunch of talented kids go way beyond their own previous performances, in a singing competition. One common factor – apart from the default challenge embedded in the program - that I noticed was that the trust bestowed in them by the program hosts and judges improved the kids’ confidence by leaps and bounds.

In an organizational context, the only challenge is that the situation(s) that inspires such a performance from people may differ from person to person. Some people can do wonders if they are allowed to lead, some are happier to follow, some can change things almost overnight if they are given a complete free hand, some people can do it amidst peer pressure, some people do it just for the love of their jobs etc. I believe that almost everyone is likely to come close to a miraculous performance if they are truly trusted to do a good job and told so; time and again. And, I am talking only about one dimension of trust….that associated with competence.

T- Tell them you trust them to perform. Give them all the information and support that may be required. Leave your doors open for advice if required

R – Rest assured that they will perform – the belief has to be genuine….only then will it show up in your natural behaviour with them

U – (make sure you) Understand the task and the competence required to perform it and do target a reasonable match between the task and the person (Obviously!)

S – Stay away from the person till the deadline is reached or at least a while before the deadline is reached, in case it is critical to ensure that everything’s fine in advance

T – (post the performance) Tell them that the trust you placed in them was completely justified and you’re proud of them while at the same time not allowing them to get completely carried away.

Can we manage knowledge?

When I asked the visitors to this blog for ideas on what to talk about on KM, Peter posed a fundamental but intriguing and important question: Recently, I have been confronted with "KMers" (not sure I agree that they are) that consider that you can only manage information and not knowledge because "knowledge" is only in people's minds, and that what can be communicated is only "information". What would be your arguments to support the view that knowledge can be "managed" and is not only found in our minds?

(Ni)Me says: Peter, thanks for helping me go back to the basics and re-think on a really important aspect of KM. Is KM an oxymoron or not is a question that many people have raised in the past and continue to raise even today. There is a school of thought that believes that knowledge cannot be managed because everything that can be labeled as knowledge lies between the ears of human beings and these human beings walk out, carrying this knowledge with them, at the end of the day. This school of thought also perhaps believes that whatever is extracted/drawn out from people is not equivalent to knowledge once it is extracted/drawn out. It loses a particular attribute of itself that converts it into bare information the minute it is extracted - The human mind retains the cognitive clothing. Now, how much of truth does this perspective carry as seen through my eyes is perhaps what I need to delve into in this post! :)

Human beings are carriers of knowledge, not just carriers but generators, and processors of knowledge. Would managing people (the HR turf) be the equivalent of managing knowledge then? I think so! Now, that is a very simplistic view of managing knowledge according to me! If you’re managing your people, you’re, in a way, managing your knowledge! If you’re capable of inducing people to generate ideas, share thoughts, collaborate, apply their knowledge, learn continuously and act upon what they’re learning – bingo, you are indeed managing the knowledge of the organization! So, am I saying that all we have to do is replace the KM function with the HR function and say there’s nothing else to do to manage knowledge? No! Managing something (content) by managing the container that contains it is not exactly the same as managing the content itself, but it does come close! ;)

Is it really true that ‘knowledge’ when ‘outside’ a person’s head is information and absolutely nothing more? I don’t think so. A concept that I’ve come across when discussing knowledge sharing with some KMers is that of deciding whether the knowledge that has to be shared is of the type that can be just pointed to, or is of the type that has to be told about or has to be actually shown/demonstrated. Thus, when we can simply point to something or explain something, we are passing on not just plain information but adding to it our own experiences, opinions, intuitive feelings etc. When we show or demonstrate something, we cannot possibly help the knowledge seeker replicate our methods immediately or as is but we do succeed in sharing some components of our knowledge. Assuming that the knowledge sharer and seeker are both genuinely interested in the exercise and are using the right tools and methods, through a repeated process, we succeed in transferring quite a significant amount of knowledge. It is important to understand that the ‘knowledge’ transfer is complete only when we explain the reasons, causes, logic and the intricacies of the action under question. Basically, the knowledge transfer is effective when we explain the Why and How of things to the knowledge seeker….else, it may be safely declared that what is transferred is nothing more than information. Knowledge equips the knowledge seeker to think on her own some time down the line, analyze things by herself, understand the methodology and apply concepts and tools in future situations without requiring external support. Thus, true knowledge sharing happens when the knowledge sharers go beyond the ordinary – go an extra mile - and become true mentors and coachers. Thus, it is possible to connect the knowledge sharers with the seekers, help them share knowledge in such a way that it makes a difference to both the entities and thus helps the organization manage its knowledge. Because managing knowledge means ensuring that it flows between different entities, gets used and leveraged upon and gets enhanced by the inclusion of multiple perspectives.

An organization that combines various pieces of information and in order to lead to action and continuously works on aspects like embedding something in an existing process can be said to be managing knowledge because it is leveraging on knowledge from a long-term perspective. It has to be ensured that the process also captures the Why, Who and guidelines for the How so as to be sustained in the long run. When people who use the process understand why it is done that way, they are gaining knowledge and not just information. As long as the why and how are understood, it does qualify to be called knowledge rather than information. Because it equips the receiver to then think and apply the concepts on her own.

Digressing a bit and going into a day-to-day example, superstitions, for example, are labeled so when there is no information about the reasoning behind them. The minute such a ‘belief’ is backed by the why (and how wherever applicable), it ceases to be bare information and becomes richer knowledge because it allows knowledge seekers to understand, evaluate, agree/disagree and use it in their own lives!

Oops. Looks like I’ve ended up writing an article in response to Peter’s query! :D But what I’d like to know from Peter and everyone else who’s interested is whether I’ve hit the nail on the head or left you feeling like using the hammer to hit mine. Let me know…! ;)

Motivation @ the Workplace

Why Your Employees Are Losing Motivation - HBS Working Knowledge

Lovely article. Spot on. It says that employees are looking for three key things from their organization and as long as organizations deal with these, most employees will perform well. It also very rightly points out that most employees are enthusiastic when they start. It's the organization and its ways which demotivates the employees more often than not. The 3 key things pointed out are Equity, Achievement and Camaraderie....and I would like to add....perhaps in the same order?

ERrrr...Dear HR,

I have a sincere request. And it is directed at the HR folks. Apologies if you’re a HR professional, and this post hurts you. But I want to really get this message out. And if you're a HR person, I'd obviously like to know your opinion.

Here's the message - Please try some creative and unconventional strategies/tactics to manage Employees. Please come out of the shells that you all seem to have got into. Please think different if not radically different. Please introspect on current HR practices and what’s wrong with them. Start afresh. Try and make a true connection with the employees. Forget about pleasing the management for some time. If required, spend a lot of time on how to convince the management about why it’s first important to have happy employees. Happy customers will be a natural consequence. The fact is that I am yet to encounter a HR experience that I might love. If I were a blunter person, I might even have said “I am yet to encounter a HR experience”. I only see HR professionals talking about compensation, performance appraisals, incentives, and attrition in a conventional and stoic manner. I see them not being able to wield their wares when with business managers. Perhaps, to be fair to HR departments, in quite a few cases, this is so because they have the responsibility but not the authority. Nevertheless, I see quite a few of them just enjoying the powers of being a HR person in terms of their roles in the process of compensation finalization. Anyways, for the genuine professionals, it may boil down to whether they are able to make a convincing business case for employee satisfaction (in practice, not in theory) and thereafter make it happen. How many organizations you know think afresh when it comes to HR….and at least try a pilot project based on such an idea? How many at least take that one chance and risk failure as much as they may hope for equally unprecedented success? Screech. Stop.

Yeah. All that was empty talk leading to nowhere. So, let’s look at what may be done in reality lest you brush me off as a good-for-nothing cribber. Let’s take some of the key areas as mentioned in PCMM and think of something nice and unconventional to do in each of those….a couple of these maybe crazy-sounding but nothing ventured, nothing gained is something we’ll have to remember. And anyways, if you know me, you know I believe that being crazy is good at times.

- Compensation: What if it is not kept a secret like the way it is in today’s organizations? How about putting it out in the open and discussing it and coming up with a completely transparent way of calculating everyone’s salary? As a (mature) team? How about a process that involves people thrashing out everything in the open and then going back assured that there are no secrets and not imagining that his colleague is getting much more than what he deserves etc. Hmm?

- Performance Appraisal: What if performance appraisals are removed altogether and revamped bit by bit to make them effective and genuine? How about appraisals not being done just by the manager but by a team of people from various levels. What about changing all the parameters from individually oriented ones to collaboration-oriented ones? What about giving employees a bonus if they’re self-critical and honest about their own performance? Eh?

- Attrition: How about HR and Management spending a lot of quality time on exit interviews? Well, that’s an ordinary thought. How about introducing a clever lifeline that employees can use the minute they feel like they should be looking for other options (moving out of the company, I mean)? Maybe an anonymous lifeline that will result in suggestions and assurance that address the employee’s concerns and changes her mind? If the employee wants to leave for reasons related to compensation, then the treatment may have to be different.

- Incentives: How about incentives that are a lot more thoughtful than they generally are? Maybe employees can keep a log of what they need/want etc and the organization decides on the incentive based on this employee-specific list. An accumulation of 10 such occasions could be translated into access to a great training programme, promotion etc

- Succession Planning: Apart from getting managers to choose who their successors ought to be, why not get people at junior levels to identify who they would like to be led by?

- Mentoring: Why not keep aside one component of senior people’s salary for performance as a mentor?

- Team Building - Internal Competition Vs Collaboration: Why not identify everything that causes internal competition and do something to kill it? Internal competition may help in the short-run but will lead to dirty politics and stupidity in the long-run. It is a simple case of conditioning. Humans stop working unless they are put in an environment that is competitive. Create an environment for collaboration and accept work on those terms and things will change.

- Work Environment: I don’t know if the HR is responsible for a turnaround in work environment policies but lots of companies seem to have got creative on this. Most of the ideas I am about to mention have already been implemented in employee-friendly companies. Anyways….kill the concept of exclusive offices and experience based privileges in the work environment unless it is a scare something that is essential for a particular role (eg: huge cupboards for those who handle a lot of documentation). Everybody is equal. Everybody plays her role. Bring in the pets. Arrange for some fauna as well. Allow music as long as everybody around agrees to it.

- Communication: Well, get away from those boring mails. Use some creative methods. Go get some advertising professionals like the marketing department does. Use your psychologists. Adopt storytelling.

- Personal Competency Development: Invest in some Personal KM tools! Show your employees that you are concerned for their own knowledge apart from the organizational knowledge management. Investing in personal KM will most likely pave the way for better organizational KM.

- Training: Allow employees to attend a training programme of their choice (high quality, expensive – assuming that the really good ones are bound to be effective, a topic of their choice rather than only those associated with the employee’s current job) at least once a year.

I shall stop here. Obviously, there is no dearth of people who can get more adventurous and creative with their ideas on how people processes and policies can be revamped. No, I still haven’t read some of those books that talk about companies that do a lot of so-called weird things to keep their employees delighted. But one related book I have read is Bob Sutton’s book on 11 ½ weird ideas….

Nucor Steel

This is a great opening page for a corporate website in my opinion. Do this kind of a thing in word and spirit and the company's reputation, ranking, revenues, profits, operational costs et al automatically change for the better. Keep the employees happy, respect them, trust them, value them, give them the ownership and the customers will automatically come flocking. Talk only about customers, ignore the employees altogether and the path to the corporate graveyard is surely being paved...

Improving the objectivity of the appraisal process...

continuing from where I left earlier....

It is more or less a cliché, at least in the HR circles, that people don’t leave organizations; they leave their managers. Then it fails me as to why (the hell) do organizations (we) leave it only to the manager to appraise employees’ performance? Why do we leave it to the relationship between managers and employees to decide where the latter will be? Where is the objectivity? How can third parties (HR, bosses’ boss etc) do anything to increase the objectivity? Why can’t HR processes be smart enough to account for 'those' managers and accept that there is a better way to do these things? Why can’t we be radical? Why can’t we be unconventional? Why do we all have to do the same things that other organizations do and why do we believe that the same processes fit into all organizations irrespective of their cultures? (BTW, I should admit that reading Dilbert and recognizing Dilbert’s popularity across the globe leaves me with a growing feeling that cultures don’t really differ from company to company and country to country! ;)) Come back, Nimmy. So, why can’t we do away with appraisals by managers? Why can’t we have a customer and peer survey instead? Or why can’t we have a combination of the two? Why can’t we have appropriate numerical and qualitative feedback capturing mechanisms throughout the year to assess the performance of the employee? Methinks, we have to work on this and come up with a full-fledged process and propose it to people worth their appraisals…oops…worth their salt.