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Anjali Prayag

The Internet has made people realise the benefits of knowledge-sharing. Knowledge-sharing amongst employees is the new corporate mantra. It's better than reinventing the wheel everytime there's a problem. So learn, share and gain. Report: Anjal i Prayag Graphics: K. Balaa

Human beings have an infinite ability to create knowledge and as age-old wisdom says, unlike conventional assets, knowledge grows when it is shared. HR experts say these two traditional yet powerful features will change how we `manage' in the knowledge era.

According to Dr Karl Erik Sveiby, management guru and a knowledge management expert, managers no longer manage people or even knowledge, but the space in which knowledge is created. This space is both the intangible culture and the tangible environment such as the office.

This zeroes us on to an important activity in today's offices: knowledge sharing. New-age culture encourages knowledge sharing so that people are recognised publicly and rewarded for sharing. Top management recognises trust as the bandwidth of sharing and have investments in trust building as one of their top priorities.

The schoolboy practice of hoarding knowledge and information as a means of career advancement is actively discouraged and the best knowledge workers are paid more than their bosses because they know more about the technical field than their bosses, have a better feel for the market and are closer to the customers. Knowledge management initiatives taken by companies and practitioners worldwide reveal how companies create value from their intangible assets.

R. Vidyasagar, Vice-President, HR, i-flex Solutions Ltd, highlights the main challenge facing the HR professional: Employees tend to work in islands. "We're a country known for individual brilliance," he reiterates, adding, "An employee is groomed in a school culture that implies: `If I hold back some information, I'll score better.' The employee is only extending this behaviour in corporate life.''

Internet changes it all

But the advent of the Internet has turned this recipe for success stale and redundant. There is nothing that you cannot get on the Net. Therefore companies and employees find it easier to share and gain rather then reinvent the wheel every time there's a problem.

For instance, if there's a particular customer issue that's sensitive to Japan or Africa, then one's colleagues are the best sources of that information. Says Vidyasagar, "Each business closure is a learning experience under various transcultural settings. There is a huge wealth of knowledge that gives the advantage of not reinventing the wheel.''

And this phenomenon of sharing happened in pockets of communities through the ages. Ever since the guru-shishya tradition, knowledge has been transferred and perpetuated through different mediums. From the palm leaves to the printing press to the Internet it's a long journey, albeit with the same purpose.

The Iflex HR chief says knowledge on the Net can be called `knowledge in a tap'. With about 40-50 million Web sites and with coded information doubling every 12 hours, "it's foolish to hoard knowledge.''

So how are companies following the new rules of the game and how are employees taking to the `sharing' policy?

R.R. Nair, Advisor, Organisational Behaviour, HLL, feels a company's ability to effectively use knowledge depends on how enthusiastic people are about sharing it. "Leveraging knowledge is possible only when people attach value to building on each other's ideas," and he says much of this is shaped by the culture of the organisation.

Agrees Dr Vivekanand P. Kochikar, Principal Knowledge Manager, Infosys Technologies, "The aim of any KM (Knowledge Management) initiative is to move towards a culture where knowledge sharing is built into the organisational fabric. Creating such a culture of sharing is governed by principles that have much in common with Metcalfe's Law — as more people grow convinced of the benefits of participating in the knowledge-sharing movement, it becomes easier to convince more people to buy in.''

KM champions show the way

A key thrust is thus to get an initial set of people to buy into the KM initiatives, and then draw on these people's services to spread the conviction wider. "At Infosys we call these people `KM champions' — these are people who are outstanding communicators, have excellent informal networks, and a high degree of credibility among their peers.'' These are the attributes more than their official role in the organisational hierarchy that enables these champions to get buy-in from large quarters of the organisation. `Recruiting' the services of these `believers' involves significant up-front effort, but once they are on board these `evangelists' form a powerful force, says Kochikar.

Each company has worked out its unique strategy in adopting this sharing policy. It is necessary to approach this problem along multiple fronts such as projecting the business benefits of better sharing. Some companies have opted to project the personal benefits like material rewards and greater recognition among peers and senior management. Some others have modified business processes in such a way as to make knowledge sharing integral to people's everyday work. Says Kochikar, "This is important too, as knowledge sharing is unlikely to take off in a big way if it is seen as an overhead for which explicit time has to be allocated."

Try the KCU scorecard

Infosys has devised a scheme — the Knowledge Currency Units (KCU) — that plays a strong role in helping create such a sharing culture. The KCU serves three key purposes: as a mechanism for incentivising participation, a mechanism for determining the quality of content in the KM repository, and as a measurement mechanism for the level of KM activity.

Kochikar says in its most basic form, the scheme incentivises participation by allowing KCUs to be earned for various knowledge-sharing activities. KCUs thus earned accrue to the individual's KCU account, and can be `encashed' for digital gift certificates.

Leading KCU earners also get visibility through a `KCU scoreboard' on KShop (the Knowledge Portal). Top scorers are also given awards at periodic `knowledge summits'. As a content-rating mechanism, the scheme functions by allowing reviewers and users of documents on KShop to award KCUs to documents they find useful. These awarded KCUs are used to update a `composite KCU rating' for the document, which functions as a barometer of the quality of that document. KCUs are also used as metrics in the measurement of KM benefits and for assessing the level of KM activity in any unit of the organisation.

At i-flex too, employees are awarded certain standard points for sharing useful information with colleagues. "These points can be encashed against buying books and certain other material rewards," says Vidyasagar. Through forums such as i-share, i-opener and i-deation centres, Iflex employees have created a knowledge platform that benefits all employees.

At Iflex, about 70 per cent of the `development population' are sharing technical knowledge with one another and their HR chief says, "Sharing is not natural, and therefore when employees make an effort to share, it should be rewarded."

The rules of the game

Though knowledge sharing is appreciated, some companies do not correlate it with promotion because then `employees will end up doing only that.'

At Hewlett Packard, one of the rules of the garage says `Share tools, ideas and trust your colleagues'. The company has an Expert Yellow Pages that enables employees to register their areas of expertise and competence. Through this knowledge management system, HP employees can find a person in HP with knowledge, skills, education, interests, affiliations, projects that are of interest to them. This tool facilitates the sharing of best practices, answering of questions and obtaining feedback on ideas.

HP's Vice-President, HR, C. Mahalingam says the knowledge market needs its own currency to transact knowledge business. "Organisations will have to define, design and deliver such a tool as well."

Nair gives us an example of a KM initiative on packaging: Packaging in HLL is very important to provide protection to the product in transit and storage as well as its contribution to pack presentation and brand image. The challenge is to deliver packaging and operational excellence right across all categories.

The packaging team in the company formed a knowledge community consisting of the packaging developing managers and officers and packaging buyers of various businesses in the company. Some suppliers were also invited to the forum. This community developed a charter for improving speed and quality of innovations, identifying opportunities for technology-led cost effectiveness and creating processes for achieving packaging synergy through exchange of ideas. The community is very effective in learning, sharing and effective implementation of its charter.

Tailor-made or customised

The market today boasts of several tools that support various aspects of knowledge sharing — enterprise portals, groupware, content management tools, etc. Kochikar of Infosys says companies can tailor these tools for their needs, or build customised tools. "The key point to be borne in mind is, tools are unlikely to be a solution unto themselves — they only support a well-thought out strategy that addresses the people, content, process and technology aspects of KM in an integral fashion.''

Beliefs about knowledge sharing need to be changed, stresses Dr N.M. Agrawal, Professor-OB and HRM, Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore. In his opinion, "Competition should be with the very best in the world and not with one's colleagues." And this will only happen when people who share are treated as heroes.

How do employees take to this concept, considering that they are bred on the attitude, `If you want to be successful, hoard knowledge.'

Says Kochikar, "We have not found this mindset to be much of an issue in our context, perhaps because the IT arena is so vast and rapidly growing that people do not feel the need to cling to their developed area of expertise.''

Moving mindsets

But there's one mindset that could make progress ponderous: "Yes, it is important for me to share my knowledge, but I am too busy to do that right now." Another significant hurdle is the mindset that says, "My situation is unique, and there isn't much I can learn from others' experience that will be relevant to me''. Kochikar calls this the NIH, or Not-Invented-Here, Syndrome.

Vidyasagar says a knowledge worker realises that he is the subset of the knowledge economy and learning and sharing are the two sides of the same coin. Knowledge management is change management and people resist any change process. "That's why we have mentors at all critical levels.'' And he points to another startling fact, "Just imagine how much knowledge we would have lost when the IT industry witnessed attrition levels of 55 per cent.'' And that's why most progressive companies, including traditional companies are looking at knowledge sharing as a prime activity.

Knowledge sharing has been recognised as an imperative by companies operating in every business, and several companies have taken up strong initiatives. Worldwide, IBM, Microsoft, 3M, Daimler Chrysler, BP, Schlumberger, McKinsey, HP, several US federal government agencies, and in India, HLL, Infosys, Tata Steel and HOCL, are some examples.

Nair talks of the emerging importance of reverse mentoring, where a senior manager will easily accept his ignorance of a subject and learn from `juniors within the organisation'.

Speaking of bottomlines, Mahalingam of HP, says that organisations that do not manage knowledge will lag by 30-40 per cent.

"In this knowledge era, ROI should stand for Return on Ideas and not Return on Investment," he says.

At a recent seminar on the HR manager's role in knowledge sharing, HR practitioners concluded that the main barrier to a successful knowledge management system in any organisation is the fact that it has installed reward systems that focus on tangible and quick results. With the result that most employees do not realise the joy of sharing.

But those who do not share also do not realise that any information is just five clicks away and it's foolish to hoard knowledge.

A quick look at how some world-class companies are encouraging a knowledge-sharing culture among employees.

The experts at work

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