“End justifies the means” – Embrace the right way for KM success

This is one of my favourite phrases. I would like to explain this phrase in the context of implementing knowledge management practices & platforms. In most cases, only through the outcomes the value of what we do become visible to others. Consequences help us judge our actions. If the end goal is a real success, we will all believe what we do and what we did (means to reach the end) is perfectly in line with the objectives. If the end is a failure, we all blame the means no matter what we did and how hard we worked for it.

What we do, what we believe and how we do need to be perfectly aligned to the end goal. So, we need to embrace the right way to successfully implement the best practices. In addition to our perceptions and management approach, the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) can also reflect the fate of the initiatives. KPI has the power to drive towards success or failure. It is up to us to draw the right roadmap and define the right metrics to drive and measure the progress. For example, counting just the number of documents and number of interactions will only add junk entries and useless conversations to the knowledge base. If we start counting the number of visits to the knowledge portal, we will display information that attracts more visitors than displaying information that drive business excellence. If we continue along these lines, we will produce dashboards and reports only to display the rate of increase in knowledge assets, visitors to knowledge portal and knowledge contributions that may or may not have the business relevance.

If we take these reports to top management for further funding and continuous support to drive the initiative, they might ask “So what?”. The number of knowledge assets is not the indicator of business growth or profitability. Business owners and leaders don’t care for number of visits to the knowledge base but they only care for:

• the number of high quality and faster responses per person per month
• the cost of learning versus the talent development
• the percentage of successful & profitable projects leading to good number of satisfied customers and continuous business
• how the learning programs reach the right people and how much faster one can learn

Even in the case of cost centres, the metrics should be based on the actual outcome of the activities and learning but not just based on what they do with the knowledge base. The people at the top will not have time & knowledge to sit with the people at the middle of the pyramid for understanding day-to-day work and discovering the inefficiencies. If the middle management can convince the top just for the POC for one team and show the result, then the top will get convinced on the means to achieve the desired business outcome.

The reason for the number of failures in KM initiatives is the failure in making KM an integral part of the business. In most cases, the KM was made a voluntary service and extra work. That’s why we get responses such as, “I could not find time to share knowledge that is why I could not contribute to the knowledge base. Am busy all the time.”. Then, we start complaining about lack of volunteers and lack of contribution. This will happen only when we do not align the knowledge management system & practices to the day-to-day work.  To make 100% participation, KM should be part of daily work and not an option one can choose for the extra bonus and peanuts.

Set the performance benchmark such a way that they can never achieve this by learning and working in silos. People need to embrace the KM practices unconsciously and we need to recognize people delivering extraordinary performance at work. This is the only way the knowledge flow will become the lifeline of the organization.

When every single eye hospital followed the traditional model without new thinking, the founder of Arvind eye hospital in Madurai redefined the process because he had bigger ambition and set very high productivity numbers. Now they have given vision to millions of people. Even though they charge only nominal fees  and continue to give free service to poor people, they could make some profit. This is the power of redefining the way we work. If there is a will, there is a way. We cannot wait for everyone to change the culture and thinking before we can start implementing the system. Instead we need to implement the system thinking to empower people to self-manage, take control and naturally change them for delivering high value.

When the top management realize that there is no significant improvement in per person productivity and business profitability, they will stop funding the initiatives. Finally, we start blaming the top for not supporting the initiatives.

If you are not successful in your KM, change the means and align your actions towards the desired end goal. To change the way we communicate, we should slowly plan to shutdown the outdated communication technologies. To dramatically bring down the search time, we must change the way we organize knowledge and access them without having to search.

We cannot keep both old and new roads open and expect all the people take the new road suddenly. At some point in time, we need to block the old road (old thinking) that is taking the organization no where. Keep on educating the knowledge workers will only lead to frustrations. If there are multiple options to do the same in different ways, the people should be exposed to those options so that they can decide based on the need. If anyone who gets deeply buried into the old way of doing something without delivering the desired outcome, then it requires special and personal attention.

At some point in time, we need to raise the performance benchmarks and very clearly define the purpose of each and every employee in the organization. If we explain in the right tone on why we have to raise the bar on their performance level and if we empower them with the right tool, then they will start to change. Many a times it is not the culture but the lack of right tool & approach become the roadblock for adoption of new systems and practices. If we expect people to save time on getting the right information on time, we cannot ask them to go through 15 tools to access the fifteen information silos. Even the sensible and energetic person will get frustrated and stop using those disconnected point solutions. Imagine asking Sachin to hit century by giving him ten different types of bats. Even if there are high performers like Sachin, we cannot give them the wrong or too many tools and expect them to perform at their best.

As Steven Covey says, “start with the end in mind”. To successfully reach the end we have in mind, we need to embrace right means and manage them well for a great success. Every way has a destination and it is up to us to decide which destination we need to reach and smartly choose the right way and right approach to get there.

To know more about the KM platforms and practices for various functions and industries, read the other blog posts in this site. You can also visit http://www.lpcube.com to know more about the solutions.

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