How to overcome the paradigms?
As a consultant and coach in business media, the main barrier we find in its leaders and middle managers when we propose the new realities of the market, are reflected in these phrases
- IF YOU ARE RIGHT, BUT IN THIS ACTIVITY IT DOESN'T WORK… IT IS NOT FOR OUR COUNTRIES POSSIBLE BUT YOU KNOW 30 YEARS AGO THAT WE HAVE DONE IT LIKE THIS….. THE THEME OF DELEGATION IS OK, BUT THE REALITY IS THAT IF I AM NOT ABOVE THINGS, THE COMPANY DOES NOT WORK …… THE CHANGE IS EXPENSIVE….
These frequent statements deserve some comments that are developed below
- IF YOU ARE RIGHT, BUT IN THIS ACTIVITY IT DOES NOT WORK…. IT IS NOT FOR OUR COUNTRY
To know if in the activity, the generation of transformation and change works or not, we must know who or who feed us back with ideas and information. Being able to conclude that the breadth of criteria will always be shown by successful models - benchmarking of successful organizations. And this is measured by the results and the applicability of the obvious, which we obviously rule out as possible
- IT'S POSSIBLE…. BUT YOU KNOW? WE HAVE MADE THEM SO FOR 30 YEARS...
The cycles of thought and applicable ideas are constantly changing. Let's just look at the technological changes that have occurred in recent years
- The Internet that changed our way of being and thinking The spread of computing
In short, data providers so broad that it forces us to maximize rationality based on facts and data; accompanied by experience for decision making. And not decision-making based on the historical experience of models, also successful, but in times of different world reality
- .. THE THEME OF DELEGATION IS OK, BUT THE REALITY IS THAT IF I AM NOT ABOVE THINGS, THE COMPANY DOES NOT WORK...
And why doesn't it work? I have selected my human resources and they seemed the best to me, I have taught them what I know, I measure them by results, and they know it. So why doesn't it work?
Here comes the time to evaluate, a few years ago there was the "reality" of - do not grow your resources that turn against - and there were reasons in excess, but… Also for some years, the change called globalization did not oblige us to conceptualize - make your resources that help you grow grow - and this why? Because, the consumer in general has changed (us), in that their levels of demand in, quality, presentation, after-sales services, price, etc. They are different.
Concluding; There are so many variables, that thinking about concentrating tactical and strategic management at the top presents tremendous risks, since top management only knows between 4/8% of everything that happens, and the first operational line between 80/95 %
- … THE CHANGE IS EXPENSIVE…..
It depends on the evaluation that we carry out, if we measure in financial terms only everything is relative according to the “pocket” criterion that we have
Now if we see it with economic / financial criteria, analyzing cost / benefit, the question quickly arises: is it expensive or cheap?
In general, the changes are "cheap" because the major component of the change is concentrated in the conceptual and attitudinal.
We conclude this note with the contribution of a scientific experience carried out on the impact of habits; that despite the time elapsed since its publication continues
A group of scientists placed five monkeys in a cage, in the center of which they placed a ladder and, on it, a pile of bananas. When a monkey climbed the ladder to grab the bananas, the scientists released a stream of cold water on the ones on the ground. After some time, when a monkey was going up the stairs, the others grabbed him.
After some more time, no monkey climbed the ladder, despite the temptation of bananas. The scientists then replaced one of the monkeys. The first thing he did was climb the ladder, being quickly lowered by the others, who hit him. After some beatings, the new member of the group no longer climbed the ladder. A second monkey was substituted and the same thing happened. The first substitute enthusiastically participated in the beating of the rookie. A third was changed, and the fact is repeated. The fourth and finally the last of the veterans was replaced.
The scientists were then left with a group of five monkeys who, although when they never received a cold water bath, continued to beat anyone who tried to reach the bananas.
If it were possible to ask some of them why they hit anyone who tried to climb the ladder, the answer would certainly be:
"I don't know, things have always been done this way, here…" Does this sound familiar?
Do not miss the opportunity to pass this story on to your friends, so that, in one way or another, they wonder why they are hitting… and…
why we are doing things one way, if perhaps we can do them in another way..
"It is easier to disintegrate an atom than a pre-concept." Albert Einstein.
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
Knowledge Management
What is Knowledge Management?
It is a formal process, aimed at identifying the information that the company has and that could benefit the rest of its members, with the ultimate goal of finding a way to make it readily available.
L practices as vary from organization to organization, but often include the following steps:
- Create reservoirs of information on best practices. Establish networks to transfer information between employees who interact with customers and suppliers. Design formal procedures to ensure that learning during the course of a project can be communicated to those who perform similar tasks.
Without these steps, what appears to be knowledge management is somewhat informal and fortuitous. When a team working on a certain task encounters difficulties, its members ask if someone else has done a similar job, and if that person is in a position to provide advice or suggestions. But there is rarely a simple way to find out who has worked on it. This process takes a long time and the results become a matter of luck; being highly probable that the accumulated knowledge in the company will never be discovered or transmitted.
Objectives of the Consulting and Training Program
The objective of Knowledge Management (KM) is to develop an information system that allows the company to:
- Have a system of organization of structured knowledge Avoid losing knowledge of the members of the organization Generate new knowledge of the members of the organization and environmental institutions (value chain) Organization system of structured knowledge
The ultimate goal of KM is to install structured information systems in companies that allow them to face natural problems such as:
| · Staff turnover
· Organizational changes · Changes in working methods · Changes in the market · New technologies · Competition · Changes in the product line · Changes in general |
Integrating Know How (know how), with Know why (know why) for decision making |
- Avoid losing knowledge of the members of the organization
|
|
KM is developed in institutions to avoid loss of knowledge of them. It concentrates on the KNOW HOW and allows to accumulate knowledge of work processes in their different forms, ensuring their permanence
Strengthening the business from knowledge; from the strategic levels, which manage the business concepts, to the operational levels, where we work on methods |
- Generate new knowledge of the members of the organization and of environmental institutions (value chain)
The discovery of the structure of the concepts allows the use of internal or external market information to gain knowledge about what is happening inside or outside the organization.
In this way, KNOW WHY opens a new path in KM for all those applications where the objective is to learn new work processes.
DEVELOP THE BUSINESS
KM as business developer
KM is a concept more than a product. As a product it takes many different forms in each organization and allows them to be institutionalized
What KM does is logically structure work information and develop a learning system that enables continuous improvement
KM value added is measured in money. KM is only recommended where the economic results are direct and measurable. On the contrary, there is a risk of transforming means into ends.
| Continuous learning systems make it possible to carry out conceptual benchmarking actions in organizations
Time management will result in the organization's objective management, since knowledge management is a key issue. |
1. KM as a concept developed in companies:
2. Improvement in their work systems 3. Streamlining processes 4. The development of effective services 5. Reduction of operating costs 6. Increased productivity 7. The best positioning in the market 8. Lowering Marketing Costs 9. The simplification of processes 10. The best use of talents 11. The institutionalization of companies. |
THE TOOLS
The KM as - product - takes two different forms concerning the difficulties is routed
- Oriented to the KNOW HOW as organizer of the processes and management control of their loss, the KM oriented to the KNOW WHY seeks to incorporate new knowledge into the organization, so it naturally competes with individuals who use knowledge for the management of power.
In both the KM requires an effective manager since he ensures the complementarity of both approaches in relation to the previous organization
The software to be used includes an Intranet to establish an information search system. In the rest it is complemented by the organization's computer solution. For this reason, it can only be used in organizations with minimal IT development. Being the simplest computer solution than the problematic solution. The limitation for the use of KM is given by the human structure of the organization
The learning system allows the company to take advantage of its resources and enhance its business by detecting key areas of development
- Surveys Interviews Motivational groups Empirical tests Pilot tests
The Know Why is the key for Know How successful. Integration of useful data and business rules define precise decision criteria
Management control Current or Previous
1.-Effect ratios are quantified
2.-There is no interdependence of investigation techniques
3.- There is no interdependence of the control systems according to the techniques used.
KNOW HOW
In the KM Know How market, the synthesis of added value is in the development of continuous improvement programs for which the accumulated information is the starting point for the improvement of work processes. The value of the KM system is high and requires a very important level of reliability, being based on internal processes
KNOW WHY
The KM market of Know Why applied to industrial processes allows, through the use of network technology and decisive conceptual analysis of the elements that the organization can optimize
Another alternative to know why analysis is that of market knowledge where cause / effect relationships determine possible action strategies. The KM of know why significantly reduces marketing costs since it allows developing cumulative analysis without losing the validity of the pre-existing information as it is conceptual
The KM of know-how adds the conceptual commercial knowledge on the information of the operational sales processes and makes it possible to introduce continuous improvement in them
In the field of economics, it allows the development of conceptual models establishing the relationships of the conceptual variables based on the analysis of the effects on the markets and thus making forecasts of scenarios with a very high probability of occurrence.
THE CLIENT ACCORDING TO KM
The client according to KM can be defined as that of all the institutions that function as such and not as a group that follows a leader, needing to maintain and improve their work processes
Being able to affirm that they are all institutions oriented to growth and not to survival. So the institutions are the ones that
- They seek to grow They manage technological alternatives in the market They are exposed to market risk
Not including institutions that are fundamentally power oriented and have a functional monopoly
POSITION OF SMES IN THE FACE OF THE KM
SMEs qualify for the KM concept as long as they function or aspire to form institutionally; generally, when the initiative is solely from its owner, it is extremely difficult to incorporate the KM concept
And as long as it is oriented to two market segments
- The KM market oriented to know howThe KM market oriented to know why
The know-how market is the KM market oriented to maintain information on work processes in their different forms
The know why market, on the other hand, is oriented towards organizational learning, both in relation to internal and external processes.
BENCHMARKING ACCORDING TO KM
Benchmarking is a form of KM. In the world of know-how, it consists of transferring best practices between similar problems. The ease it allows is to use other people's experience
Benchamarking is another form of KM. In the world of know why, it consists of transferring the most operative concepts between organizations with similar problems; making it possible to use other people's experience from different but homologous fields
KM seeks to use both concepts to improve organization.
The management of decision alternatives with objective parameters to maximize results.
The work undertaken from the KM of the organization operates from the initial diagnosis and the implementation of measures in the field.
MANAGEMENT IN THE COMPANY
| KEY PARADIGMS - decades | |||||
| fifty | 60 | 70 | 80 | 90 | 00 |
| ORGANIZATION | STRATEGY | ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
TOTAL QUALITY |
REENGINEERING
EMPOWERMENT INTEGRATED QUALITY |
KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT
(Knowledge management) |
INTEGRATED MANAGEMENT
Integrated Management is the art of bringing together all the facets of managing an organization in search of greater competitiveness.
Occasionally new ideas come up, or at least new words in the field of administration, trying to reduce the complexity of the business phenomenon to a single component that, supposedly, can explain everything.
It is what is known as the dominant paradigm. The day before yesterday it was the organization, yesterday it was the strategy, then the total quality; then we return to the organization with the topic of reengineering, and who knows that it will be imported tomorrow, to understand the business phenomenon in the Latin countries.
In the 1950s, the dominant paradigm was organization. In other words, it was believed that any problem of the company could be solved through a study of the organization or a change in the organization chart, but experience showed that there were companies that, despite being well organized, failed. So the administrative sciences looked for another paradigm.
In the 60s and 70s, it was the strategy. Then the same promoters of the organization of the 1950s changed their names, they were called promoters in strategic planning. His idea was that the company that had a strategy superior to that of its competitors was the one that would be successful; the rest would fail. However, little by little it became clear that a strategy is nothing but a plan of action on paper and that to carry it out, people are needed, who contribute their knowledge and sustained dedication through effective management.
This evidence led to the search for another paradigm for the 1980s; that of organizational culture. According to him, for the company to be successful it not only needs a good organization and a good strategy, but also a team of people capable of imagining, formulating and implementing a strategy. The company is a group of people in interaction. How to optimize both the production and sale process and the human process? The answer lies in another paradigm of the 1980s: total quality.
But when it happened that total quality, as such, had serious difficulties for its active intellectual implementation (it is not a problem of academic and experiential education, it is one of business culture) in Latino organizations, new paradigms emerged that competed for the predominant title; the struggle to delegate (empowerment), “I want but I don't want; I must but I don't want to; I have, but I don't want to. So I don't do it because my human resources don't work ”reengineering… etc., etc., So the reflection is NOTHING SERVES ?, quite the opposite, EVERYTHING SERVES, insofar as we know how to separate the “straw from the wheat”
- What is the primary? (The conceptual-attitudinal basis for acting - managing to do-do; where everyone, involved, contribute knowledge for the current management and that it is registered and added to the previous one generating a broad intellectual base not dependent on the owner, the specialist on duty, etc.) What is secondary? (Knowledge of the applicability "by all and for all" of the tools to manage
For this reason, the new century woke up Latino companies, mostly SMEs that interact with each other, and corporations that find themselves in the dilemma of transferring organizational technology because they correctly consider that SMEs are part of the value chain; or accept that their organizational and management models are different in the obvious, although the same in the deep
Beyond administrative fads and semantic mutations that enrich the language of administration, it is worth looking for the true immutable themes that govern the behavior of companies:
- Marketing, since without a market, there is no product, and without a product (or service) to sell, the company has no reason to exist. Organizational psychology, because a company, above all, is a human group with its own culture and behavior.Finance, since the company is an economic entity in pursuit of profitability for shareholders. Planning, so that the company chooses its future instead of suffering it. Competitiveness, which is the end of business action. Competitive companies survive in the long run
Around these primary themes, there are others, whose existence derives from the first. Production depends on marketing, planning and the competitive environment; accounting is the language that serves as a basis to express the financial reality of the company.
Each topic appeals to analytical techniques and tools that the leader must know. However, knowledge of the issues and techniques is insufficient to manage the company. Knowing does not guarantee know-how…. a university teacher can fail as an entrepreneur.
It is that the teaching of the administration, from the time of Fayol (1916), is articulated around the so-called functions that divide the company into so many towers of Babel. The specialized areas, production, finance, marketing, human resources, and others, each speak their own language and focus only on their own. Due to this total disconnection between the functional areas, it is difficult to understand the role of the others, and less that of the company as a whole. And people tend to ignore, and even belittle, what they don't understand.
At the moment of truth, the "functions" of the company only exist in the heads of the analyst intellectuals; because it is a convenient categorization of the Business Action to break it down into pieces that are easy to teach or easy to "manage", as appropriate to the medium of education or the company.
For example, we can safely affirm that:
“If sales go down, everyone is wondering what kind of problem it is and who to blame, rather than trying to solve the problem. According to the label (marketing, finance, organization, etc.) that they place on it, a "commercial", "financial", "organizational" solution is sought… reducing the problem to a single dimension, when reality is multidimensional or global; sales are down because the product was poorly designed, poor quality control, sellers have no incentive to sell it, the competition has just introduced another product and offers a higher financing plan than ours, etc. "
The labeling of the problems and their reduction to a single dimension are generally those that produce serious results.
Consequence in general of management highly trained in areas of specialization, but with difficulties to interpret the integral management of the business.
Unfortunately, company work tends to reinforce specialization, as most are organized by function. "… If I'm a marketing manager, I don't get involved in finance, first because they don't allow me and second because I don't know anything about finance…".
As we have stated, knowledge in the areas of specialization prevails in management.
Therefore, the new paradigm of this century is Knowledge management, based on two basic and ancient principles.
- KNOW HOW TO MAKE THAT THE KNOWLEDGE OF EACH ONE IS AT THE SERVICE OF THE ORGANIZATION ALL AT ALL TIMES AND NOT AT THE SERVICE OF THE TURN MANAGEMENT
How to achieve it ?. Simply using recipes as old as effective, the recognition of AUTHORITY over POWER; become COACH and MENTOR of all the existing human resources in the organization's value chain (includes external suppliers and clients), having as a main tool the conceptual historical tripod that supports any organization, whatever its size and specialty.
- The strategy: to know where we are going and how to achieve it The organization: to carry out the strategy efficiently The culture: to energize the organization and encourage its people
Therefore, as we said earlier in the chronological analysis, each era has had its prevalence, and the experience accumulated in such eras (extremely positive and enriching) did not lead - wanting or not wanting - knowing or not knowing; at a point of no return KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT or KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT (which is not new, but we accept that it involves the organization, its human resources, making the results of such involvement endure throughout the organizational history constantly adding intellectual, technical knowledge and management)
CONCLUSION
The foregoing does not make it possible to conclude that incorporating knowledge will allow us to:
the "KNOW HOW or KNOW HOW"
the "KNOW WHY or KNOW WHY"
To achieve the maximum objective of any organization, developing an information system that allows the company to:
- have your knowledge organization system structured avoid losing knowledge of the members of the organization gain new knowledge of the members of the organization and environmental institutions.
Then it is possible that the question will arise: Is it a new fashion ?, and the so-feared answer NO, and why is it feared?
But… before rejecting the new reality; We suggest a broad and precise evaluation regarding BENEFITS and COSTS, projected beyond the current reality, or the way of thinking about the continental reality;
Suggesting that the possibility of rejection is not influenced by conditioning statements of the future, based on truths from the past (the ones we find most frequently in organizations are mentioned)
- Due to conceptual ignorance. The denial produced by the successful about "I am successful, I know them all" Difficulties in quantifying the projection. Generally influenced by professionals who are unaware of the subject and doubt or fear "doing what they did not do and producing results contrary to those historically recommended" For the feared "why change if it was always done this way", although the world changed and will continue to change. how much will I have to face with "a lot of power" "that of the entire harmonized organization sharing knowledge and not competing with each other and I can lose" power "" to natural problems in hyper-competitive markets and changing scenarios that are not temporary.
So the real challenge will be:
HOW TO INTELLIGENTLY RECORD ALL THE INFORMATION THAT THE COMPANY HAS THROUGH ALL ITS MEMBERS TO TRANSFORM THOSE DATA INTO KNOWLEDGE?
The Integral Management - Jean Paul Sallanave
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