Knowledge management (KM) professionals face persist problems in convincing colleagues to adopt KM initiatives and knowledge sharing behaviors. While there is useful learning on that adoption issue, this presentation encourages KM professionals to consider a different type of adoption. It encourages them to personally adopt a KM theory or framework that provides insight or guidance for their day-to-day work. To do this, KM professionals will need to stay abreast of the best and latest research in the discipline and, crucially, share through communities of practice (such as the SIKM leaders group) KM frameworks and theories that they have found most useful. In this way, we elevate the entire profession.

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The OTHER KM Adoption
Challenge
V. Mary Abraham
Above and Beyond KM
18 November 2014

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KM Enterprise Adoption:
How to Make it Stick!
Stan Garfield
Jean-Claude Monney
Deirdre Walsh
Mary Abraham
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Half of all knowledge
management initiatives fail in
the 1st year,
2/3 of the remainder in 3 years.
John Ragsdale
VP Research, Technology Services
Industry Association

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Solve the Adoption
Problem
Business Rationale
Culture
Leadership
KMWorld 2014
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What makes adoption so hard?
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We know what we’re
supposed to do, but
we fail to do it.

6. http://pixabay.com/en/shear-office-metal-cut-480551/
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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/86/Once_Upon_a_Time_Logo.jpg

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A man has no ears for that
to which experience has
given him no access.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

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Encounter Problem
Stumble Through
http://pixabay.com/en/signs-stumbling-stumble-fall-24034/

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Work Smarter,
not Harder

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http://www.animalleague.org/assets/images/feature-window/adopt-a-dog.jpg

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Read Theory
Encounter Problem
Apply Theory
Solve Problem

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Knowledge Management
Strategy
Hansen, M., Nohria, N., and Tierney, T. (1999), `What’s Your Strategy
for Managing Knowledge?’, Harvard Business Review, 77/2:106
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Codification vs. Personalization
Knowledge Strategy Codification Personalization
Business-Knowledge
Link
Competitive
advantage through
knowledge reuse
Competitive
advantage through
knowledge creation
Relevant Knowledge
Process
Transferring
knowledge from
people to documents
Improving social
processes to facilitate
sharing tacit
knowledge
Human Resource
Management
Implications
Motivate people to
codify their knowledge
Focus training on IT
skills
Reward people for
codifying knowledge
Motivate people to
share their knowledge
Focus training on
inter-personal skills
Reward people for
sharing their
knowledge
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Explicit Knowledge Challenge
Snowden, D. `Rendering Knowledge,’ Cognitive Edge Network Blog,
11 October 2008
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Seven Principles of Knowledge
Management
 Knowledge can only be volunteered it cannot be conscripted. *
 We only know what we know when we need to know it. *
 In the context of real need few people will withhold their
knowledge.
 Everything is fragmented.
 Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success.
 The way we know things is not the way we report we know things.
*
 We always know more than we can say, and we will always say
more than we can write down. *
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Collaboration / Knowledge
Flow
Hansen, Morten T., Collaboration (Boston: Harvard Business Press,
2009)
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Why doesn’t the knowledge flow?
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 Lazy



Mean
Competitive
Paranoid
http://cdn8.steveseay.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/hoarding-reasons.jpg

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The not-invented-here
barrier
 Insular Culture
 Communication mainly inside a group
 Status Gap
 Don’t want to cross status lines
 Self-reliance
 Should fix your own problems
 Fear
Do not want to reveal problems
[Hansen, M.T., Collaboration, p.51]
People are unwilling to go outside their
own unit to seek input from others
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The hoarding barrier
 Competition
 Competition with colleagues and units
 Narrow incentives
 Rewards for own goals
 Too busy
 No time to help others
 Fear
 Loss of power if sharing knowledge
[Hansen, M.T., Collaboration, p.54]
People are unwilling to help and share
what they know
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The search barrier
 Company size
 Big companies face search problems
 Physical distance
 Distance makes search difficult
 Information overload
 Too much information worsens search
 Poverty of networks
 Lack of links undermines search
[Hansen, M.T., Collaboration, p.57]
People who look for information and
people cannot easily find them
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The transfer barrier
 Tacit knowledge
 Difficult knowledge to transfer
 No common frame
 No shared language
 No shared experience
 Don’t know how to work together
 Weak ties
 No strong relations to ease transfer
[Hansen, M.T., Collaboration, p.61]
People are unable to transfer
knowledge easily from one place to
another
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Knowledge Manager as
Change Agent
Battilana, J. and Casciaro, T., `The Network Secrets of Change
Agents’, Harvard Business Review, July 2013 (Available at:
https://hbr.org/2013/07/the-network-secrets-of-great-change-agents)
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The Network Secrets of Great
Change Agents
 Change agents who were central in the organization’s
informal network had a clear advantage, regardless of their
position in the formal hierarchy.
 People who bridged disconnected groups and individuals
were more effective at implementing dramatic reforms, while
those with cohesive networks were better at instituting minor
changes.
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
http://www.animalleague.org/assets/images/feature-window/adopt-a-dog.jpg

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What’s your favorite KM framework?
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frame·work
ˈfrāmˌwərk/
noun
noun: framework; plural noun: frameworks
: the basic structure of something : a set of ideas or facts that provide support
for something; a conceptual structure
: a supporting structure : a structural frame
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/framework

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Sources
 Battilana, J. and Casciaro, T., `The Network Secrets of Change
Agents’, Harvard Business Review, July 2013 (Available at:
https://hbr.org/2013/07/the-network-secrets-of-great-change-agents)
 Hansen, Morten T., Collaboration (Boston: Harvard Business
Press, 2009)
 Hislop, Donald, Knowledge Management in Organizations
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013)
 Snowden, Dave, `Rendering Knowledge’, Cognitive Edge
Network Blog, 11 October 2008 (Available at: http://cognitive-edge.
com/blog/entry/5576/rendering-knowledge)
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Questions?
Further Discussion?
V. Mary Abraham
Above and Beyond KM
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https://twitter.com/VMaryAbraham
KMAdvice@gmail.com
www.linkedin.com/in/vmaryabraham