Knowledge is the new basis of competitiveness in post-capitalist society ” Peter Drucker
Knowledge is the only unlimited resource, the only asset that increases with its use ” Paul Romer
The Age of Knowledge
We enter a completely different era from the one we knew. The great change is being marked by the transition from the paradigm of the industrial society to the paradigm of the knowledge society.
Increasing productivity by trying to optimize job fragmentation or applying traditional schemes is no longer the solution. The productivity revolution understood in this way is already over. The new era of work involves the application of knowledge as the new source of creation of value and wealth.
The generation of added value, via knowledge, is the innovation and improvement of the company's products and services that come from the intelligence and creativity of people.
Why should we manage knowledge, what should we know and do, and what results do we hope to obtain?
There is a growing conviction that knowing about knowledge is indispensable for business success in these times and possibly also for its survival. Even before “core competencies”, “smart organizations”, “strategic planning” were discussed, good managers valued the experience and know-how of their employees - that is, their knowledge. However, only recently, it has been realized that much more than a fortuitous or even involuntary method of managing knowledge is required if you want to succeed in today's and tomorrow's economy.
The disappointment of fads, theories, panaceas and silver bullets has led companies to look for something more basic, something irreducible and vital for performance, productivity and innovation.
As a result, the executive community has realized that what an organization and its employees know is the essential foundation of the organization's operation.
The problem posed by executives can be summarized as follows: "We do not have a real notion of how to manage complementary information and valuable knowledge for our companies"
First, much of the knowledge that businesses need already exists within organizations themselves, but is not accessible or not available when required. An HP CEO said, "If HP knew what it knew, we would be three times more profitable." In other words, what we call the knowledge market works in all organizations, what happens is that it simply does not work very effectively.
A company is actually a community of people organized to produce something, its production capacity depends on what they usually know and the knowledge they have acquired in their routines and in the production gear. A company's tangible assets are of limited value unless people know what to do with them.
We can conclude that in the "Age of Knowledge", the main production factor is gray, weighs approximately 1,300 grams, lodges in the head and is called the "human brain".
All in all, if you think that investing in developing human capital and managing your company's knowledge is not important, try ignorance and see how it goes.
Intellectual Capital and Knowledge Management
Following the intellect model, incorporated in euroforum, 1998, the value of a company can be defined by the value of its assets plus the value that it may generate in the future. So let's look at graph 1
Model intellect euro forum 1998
The model defines two key asset classes, but in this article we will briefly focus on developing some comments on the intangible asset that is the basis for developing intellectual capital in the company (figure 2).
We will briefly describe each of them:
- Human capital: refers to the useful knowledge for the company, that people possess, as well as their ability to regenerate it, it is the generation base of the other two intellectual capitals, this capital is not owned by the company, but by the people who They work on it, as individuals increase their knowledge, human capital will grow. Structural capital: it is the knowledge that the organization manages to make explicit, including the structured knowledge on which the effectiveness and internal efficiency of the company depends: information and communication systems, available technology, management systems, work processes, patents. Structural capital is owned by the company, it remains in the organization after people leave it. Solid structural capital facilitates an increase in the flow of knowledge and implies an improvement in the effectiveness of the organization. Relational capital: the value of the set of relationships that are maintained with the outside of the company: customer base, suppliers, alliances, community, etc.
As we noted, human capital is driven by the knowledge engine and how it is managed in the organization, but before we define knowledge management, it is necessary to make some distinctions between data, information and knowledge and the degree of value that it adds to the company..
- Data: set of discrete and objective events facts, for example annual sales. Information: data endowed with importance, for example, profitability per customer, product or service that the customer hires, etc. Knowledge: is a set of notions and skills by which individuals can solve problems.
As the reader will be able to deduce what adds more value is knowledge and what hardly adds value is data.
The mere sum of information is not transformed into knowledge because knowledge is information in action, it arises from the work people do with the information. It implies a social and human process of shared understanding to finally use the information effectively.
Knowledge management aims to create value from the intangible assets of an organization. It is the process of capturing the collective expertise of a company wherever it resides - in databases, on paper, or in people's minds and its distribution to wherever it helps to produce the best results.
What is sought is to bring the right knowledge in the right way and at the right time to the right person so that they can understand it and make the best decisions.
Since information is converted into knowledge through a social process, the approach must consider the technological dimension but fundamentally must focus on the human dimension: the practices of people at work and the culture of the organization.
Knowledge levels
The explicit knowledge that is located on a conscious plane is distinguished, it is the knowledge documented, for example in procedures, manuals, instructions, bibliography, etc., from the tacit knowledge that exists in the minds of people, which is on an unconscious plane. and that is revealed in interactions and conversations, that is why its capture is an epistemological and ontological process since most of the time the holders are not aware of being carriers of tacit knowledge.
The implicit knowledge is the one that is in a preconscious plane and that the person triggers a thought process to externalize it.
Intervention model
We emphasize a holistic model of intervention, from the point of view of advocating the conception of each reality as a whole different from the sum of its component parts.
Holistic intervention model ®
We will briefly develop each circle and then arrive at our knowledge management model.
- Management systems: According to the bases of the National Quality Award, it is defined as “System to establish policy and objectives and to achieve said objectives. An organization's management system could include different management systems such as a quality management system, a financial management system or an environmental management system ”.
Here we have to make a distinction between companies that already have management systems that are considered as the basis to start working with our model, that is, they already have a knowledge base explained in manuals, and companies, generally SMEs that before starting to Applying a Knowledge Management program it would be advisable first to develop some basic management system.
- Ontological coaching: "Nothing will happen without personal transformation", conversational skills, self-knowledge, the transformation of the type of observer that we are of reality and learning to learn, will help to create changes in the organizational culture and therefore in interactions between people. These changes will not last if they are not rooted in the belief system, values, in the way of perceiving the world, in the way of relating and in the way of taking responsibility.
Our intervention from ontological coaching aims at people learning to expand their capacity for effective action, it operates not only in the domain of language, conversation, but also in the bodily and emotional domains.
- Leadership and emotional intelligence: As Stephen Covey teaches us, "To lead is to convey the worth and potential of people in such a clear, convincing and coherent way that they really get to see them inside", this will launch the process of seeing, make and transform. The changes as we say above are first from the inside out, his character, his competence, his initiative and his positive energy - in short his moral authority to find his own voice and then inspire and motivate others to find his own.
Thus, the most sustainable organizations are those that know how to create generations of effective leaders, these have the ability to foster a climate of cooperation and trust that is only possible through the emotional intelligence that according to Daniel Goleman is due to the interaction of four fundamental domains: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness and relationship management.
- Knowledge management: We have already developed part of the proposed intervention model above and thus prepare the organization to manage knowledge and develop its intellectual capital, now from our observation the most important thing is to place Human Capital at the center of the strategy of For this, company is a necessary condition to work on people's attitudes since, unlike machines, humans can decide to share or reserve knowledge, ideas and creativity.
Humans have hopes and aspirations, we can trust and commit ourselves, and the trust and commitment we feel influence our willingness to give more than what is dictated by duty, build spaces of trust and create capacities to produce it is fundamental since success of a team depends on the trust of its members, trust is the glue that holds organizations together.
Referring to figure 4, we must complete the analysis saying that it is essential that knowledge management is declared in the strategic planning of the company as a policy tied to the motivational system of the organization.
Knowledge is captured from formal and informal conversational spaces that we call Knowledge Sharing Circles (CIC) and will be made explicit on a knowledge map accessible to the entire organization.
Finally we want to share eight fundamental principles to keep in mind to introduce knowledge management in an organization:
- Knowledge originates and resides in people's minds. Knowledge sharing requires trust. Technology enables new knowledge behaviors. Knowledge sharing should be promoted and rewarded. Management support and resources are essential. Knowledge should start with a pilot program. Quantitative and qualitative measurements are needed to evaluate the initiative. Knowledge is creative and its development needs to be promoted in an unusual way.
Bibliography
- Knowledge management systems Stuart Barnes Ed. Thomson Knowledge in action Davenport-Prusak Ed. Prentice Hall Emotional intelligence Daniel Goleman Ed. Vergara Emotional intelligence in the company Daniel Goleman Ed. Vergara. The seven habits of highly effective people Stephen Covey Ed. PaidósThe eighth habit of effectiveness to greatness Stephen Covey Ed. Paidós The fifth discipline Peter Senge Ed. Norma. The Dance of Change Peter Senge Ed. Norma. Metamanagement Fredy Kofman Ed. Granica. Dow Chemical model Source: Euroforum 1998 Skandia market value scheme Source: Edvinsson and Malone (1997) Knowledge conversion processes in the organization Source: Nonaka and Takeuchi 1995 Canadian Imperial Bank model Source: Saint-Onge (1996), in Euroforum (1998).Intelect Euroforum Model (1998) Prost Gilbert Model (1999) KPGM Model Fuente Tejedor Aguirre (1998) Knowledge Management Assessment Tool (KMAT) Model Arthur Andersen Source (1999).
