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An interview with Tom Davenport and Larry
Prusak,
about their new book
Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know
There are a number of knowledge management books on the market right now. How is Working Knowledge different from others?
Most of those books are primarily advocating knowledge management—encouraging companies to manage and measure intellectual capital, preaching the glories of the knowledge age. We took for granted that managing knowledge is important and set out to tell companies how to do it successfully.
Why is it important to understand the dynamics of internal knowledge "markets" in companies?
The real value of a market perspective is helping companies realize the impediments to market success—people not feeling that they're getting any return from sharing knowledge, buyers and sellers not knowing of each other's existence, and so forth. It's just an analogy and could probably be carried too far, but it hasn't yet been in any company we've seen.
How do you prevent a knowledge monopoly within a company?
We feel that the best firms of the future will be those in which everyone creates, shares, and uses knowledge instead of hoarding it. Too many firms, particularly in the U.S., make knowledge the province of a single group—for example, the R&D organization. It takes a long time to change a knowledge culture, but firms should start now to inculcate the belief that knowledge is everybody's job.
You emphasize in Working Knowledge that companies may already be taking steps to generate, organize, and transfer knowledge—or that they have certain people who are already fulfilling the role of knowledge manager—without really realizing it. What are some examples?
Librarians, for one. We both have a lot of admiration for librarians and have been heartened by the role they have begun to play in knowledge management. They need to change some things about how they do their work, but the awareness and application of knowledge has always been at the center of their jobs. Even accountants are starting to get into the knowledge game, trying to calculate the value of a company's intellectual capital. It's an interesting exercise, though we think it's unlikely that the world's accounting systems will move in this direction shortly.
How do you systematize the dissemination of corporate gossip and the knowledge passed along by informal networks?
You can start by formalizing the networks to some degree. Knowledge works across networks and communities of practice, and you've got to nourish and facilitate their functioning if you want to manage knowledge. Once they're functioning well on a human level then you can start applying technology to ease the capture and sharing of knowledge across a network. But don't start with the technology!
To that point, it takes more than simply deploying technology in order for knowledge to be successfully organized and shared. Could you say what more is needed, and share some success stories of how companies are using technology to manage knowledge?
We say in the book that you shouldn't spend more than a third of your time thinking about technology for knowledge management. The other two-thirds includes culture, organizational roles and responsibilities, focusing on the knowledge content itself, strategy and economics, and so forth. There are a lot of examples, though, of technology playing an important role. In consulting firms like Ernst & Young, Andersen Consulting, and IBM Consulting, you couldn't get the global reach of knowledge sharing without technology. In British Petroleum, without their videoconferencing network, they couldn't solve problems across widely-scattered oil and gas fields.
What are some different kinds of knowledge projects that companies have undertaken in an effort to get better at managing what they know? What are the ingredients for a successful knowledge project?
Most projects involve building electronic repositories of knowledge—either structured document-based knowledge, informal discussion-type knowledge, or repositories of who knows what. There are also attempts to measure knowledge assets, to transfer knowledge more effectively, and to improve the general company environment for knowledge. As for what makes for success, we identify nine factors that make for a successful knowledge project. The most important of these are a fit with the organizational culture, leadership, and a tie to economics or business value—which gives knowledge projects a lot in common with other types of projects!
Are there some kinds of knowledge that simply defy codification—they can’t be written down in a data base or otherwise described? What are some examples, and how can you pass such knowledge along to others efficiently?
As consultants we are both aware of the value of "executive presence"—the ability to deal with senior managers in a polished way. You can't really make that type of knowledge explicit. The only way you can transfer or teach it is through long-term observation of people who have the knowledge. Mentoring and apprenticeship programs are perfectly good ways to transfer tacit knowledge.
What do you say to people who are trying to overcome political obstacles, or issues of trust, in order to set up and manage knowledge initiatives in their companies?
This is very difficult. And changing the culture for purposes of knowledge management would be like the tail wagging the dog. If you don't have a friendly political or cultural environment, you need to find a part of the organization that does, and work within it for a while.
Why isn’t the organizational chart generally a good guide to finding the people with certain knowledge in companies? What is the best way to inventory who knows what?
The organizational chart reflects power, not knowledge. If you want a map to who knows what you've got to create one. And knowledge mapping (also known as creating a "knowledge yellow pages") is one of the best early activities in knowledge management. It's not that expensive and can be done at a basic level in a few months.
How do you hire employees that are good at creating and transferring knowledge? How do you train for these skills?
Intellectual curiosity is the most important factor. As a simple guide, if the applicant hasn't studied your literature and web site before the interview, it's a very bad sign. It's difficult to train someone to be interested in acquiring knowledge. You may be fighting fifteen years of negative experience in the educational system.
Working Knowledge is heavily informed by an original study you conducted of 31 knowledge projects in 20 different companies. Of all the projects you examined, you said that most successes involved operational improvement of an isolated process or function, rather than fundamental transformation of the firm. Can you describe the successes you found and speculate as to why you didn’t see more radical changes?
There are many examples of successful knowledge management in the customer service function. It saves money and time, makes customers happy, and does a lot of good for the organization. But many CEOs probably aren't even aware of what's happening in their own firms. In order for knowledge to yield business transformation, you've got to have broad consensus that it's important, and spend a lot of time on cultural and organizational issues that influence knowledge. Most organizations just haven't done that yet, but now is a great time to get started.
Related Resources & Forums
Review by BRINT Institute: Working Knowledge goes ahead of the current crop of Knowledge Management books by providing a blueprint for creating organizational knowledge management initiatives. The book develops upon the fundamentals to explain how 'real' executives can implement 'real' knowledge management initiatives in 'real' organizations. Combining their seasoned experience and syntheses of theory with insights from several real world case studies, Davenport and Prusak provide a balanced perspective of social, political, and technological issues pertinent to successful implementation of organizational knowledge initiatives.
Thomas H. Davenport is professor of information management at the University of Texas, Austin. He has held directorships at Ernst & Young and McKinsey & Company and authored the best-selling Process Innovation (Harvard Business School Press).Laurence Prusak is a managing principal of the IBM Consulting Group and is the worldwide competency leader in knowledge management for IBM.
© Copyright, 1998, BRINT Institute, All Rights Reserved
Published on BRINT Institute by special arrangement with Harvard Business School Publishing.
This interview was coordinated by Harvard Business
School Publishing.
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