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HUMAN LEARNING -
NATURAL DRIFT TO LOOSE COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
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What a fascinating study ! The researchers have discovered how humans behave differently under different organisational cultures. Secondly, the researchers have discovered new management strategies to turn around a destructive adversarial culture. These findings have major implications also to most Western organisations who in turn arguably are needing a major culture shift. Where do we start ? These researchers have summarised concisely the three major mental obstacles to learning to trust other knowledge workers to the point of sharing your hard-won expertise routinely. This can become a good KM Feasability and Audit tool or a Checklist of Symptoms whether our organisations have a defective knowledge sharing culture, a Knowledge Sharing Culture Inventory. But because organisational culture is largely determined by senior leaders I suspect this checklist is targeted more at this level than at operations staff level. Keep this in mind when using the 'checklist' prescribed to us. Again this checklist can be reversed in its meaning to identify high knowledge sharing cultures and this could be done without losing the credibility of the findings. The third mental obstacle, Not-Invented-Here, could be termed by the modern KM phrase, KNOWLEDGE INFLOW OBSTACLE... a knowledge worker's low rate of observing and internalising external ideas, skills and processes. What a blinkered, narrow-minded world one can live and work in when this mental obstacle is present ! If we can't routinely eagerly learn from our colleaugues, suppliers, customers and competitors how will our expertise ever grow ? It simply cannot ! The second obstacle, a Mistakes Reprisal Mindset, seems to be a sub-set of the first obstacle , Knowledge Hoarding, because its effect also is knowledge hoarding. So I am going to risk it by clumping them together and labelling them with a modern KM phrase : KNOWLEDGE OUTFLOW OBSTACLE.... a knowledge worker's low rate of sharing ideas, skills and processes. Therefore taking
the first two obstacles as the Knowledge Outflow obstacle, we need
look no further than the first indicator given, 'Protects Personal
Value'. This is a fundamental and legitimate knowledge
worker objective that can no longer be ignored from traditional
command and control/ autocratic leadership styles. Some managers
feel that if they practise participative leadership, ie., listen
carefully to their staff's ideas and consider implementing them,
then their job identity may appear to them and to their subordinates
(...and peers !) confusing and insecure. It would be better they
think about just giving commands. This seems to have been the default
management style the world over for decaded. Participative leadership
is perceived to be weak leadership by But when you do not give or take expertise....your personal value inevitably drops with all your customers, internal and external. What appears to be a Win-Lose strategy is in fact, a Lose-Lose strategy... the organisation's profits suffer and grossly underperform. Despite the basic flaws in a process, no one was prepared to challenge the decaying status quo...and thus many an organisation dies. Arie De Geus's famous 1998 study showed that most organisations die prematurely...never reaching even remotely close to their full potential, when compared to others in that same industry. Part of the reason given was the internal adversarialism that relegated the 'purposes' of the organisation to marginal priority. Agreed... in highly predictable environments like car manufacturing production plants in Detroit, USA or Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, a command and control leadership style "may be" adequate. Consistent simple outputs is all that is needed. However even amongst assembly/production workers most leaders have discovered that a participative leadership style develops superior staff motivation, staff retention and process improvements. At Nucor Steel, USA...they discovered that localised participative leadership styles in a commodity industry has largely made it the number one production company in its industry... for the last 15 years (see case study). When there are rewards and incentives...only then will a knowledge worker try new, encouraged if not enforced, behaviours at work. If it is not measured, supported and rewarded...no idea ever becomes habitualised. That is why most expensive training programs fail to stick after a year or even a month...no follow up ! In a traditionally punitive environment only punishment is an effective reward system to turnaround a culture ! The incentives and rewards schemes according to Western expats in Russia are so minor that they do not have any impact. But I suggest this only leads to survival sharing...not thriving sharing some would argue... doing the absolute minimum... and never think of using your creative faculties to do a better job. The proof of this is seen the researchers found that Russians are reflective on life but not at all on their jobs.This is known as being 'DISEMPOWERED.' So compliance to task not commitment to the job. Only a visionary leader who believes in liberating the determination and creative nature of knowledge workers, while still giving clear direction, can produce a knowledge-sharing culture. That is why most classic KM case studies declare that it was only through this type of visionary leader... a Buckman, a Welch, a Brown... did a knowledge-sharing culture flourish. Even at Amadeus (see case study), their radical departure from traditional command-control global leadership could only have been championed by the CEO themself, I submit for analysis. Do you have an empowering leader ? In crisis situations only a dictatorial leadership style may be the solution....even if it means enforcing workers to learn healthy collaboration attitudes and behaviours. In the early 1990's Motorola in Thailand (?) had to train their production managers and workers with totally culturally anti-thetical new behaviours of communication, such as eye-to-eye contact with all colleagues to develop mutual trust and revive a dying business. The business made a adequate turnaround, largely by these draconian methods to achieve a worthy goal. Much more can be said but one NEW LEADERSHIP COMMUNICATION SKILL this study is implying is that a manager must learn how to sell career-enhancing behaviours and practices to their staff...not by coercion or edict but by open dialogue and healthy persuasion. Unlike CRM,Competitive Intelligence or Quality Audits, KM is PERSONAL in nature. There is nothing creative about the other business processes. KM is personally-generated knowledge. You can buy a person's hands but not their brain nor their heart. Any new KM initiative can only survive by a Win-Win attitude amongst employees. Managers must constantly and consistently communicate not only the purposes of their organisation but how the individual truly benefits from their involvement. When leaders helps discover the intrinsic drivers of their staff (through ongoing dialogue and, yes, personality style inventories) and values them then and only then can they assist staff to maximise their effectiveness. This study supports the notion that there is a shared set of human attributes amongst people of all cultures. As posited in an earlier review article (Loo, 2002),
Russian workers could be said to be diligent knowledge workers but NOT ASTUTE knowledge workers...they've never been given the chance to... as yet. It starts with a Win-Win attitude whether you are overseeing a Walk on Mars mission trip, getting the P & L right or running a Scout troop. Many people may still prefer to remain disempowered and not self-directed... and research has shown this to be true. But a leader may be able to find and inspire, if not develop many 'informal' local champions they thought they never had when they adopt a proven view on human nature and motivation. Summary This study has
shown how debilitating an organisational and a national culture
can be towards the attribute or capability called knowledge sharing.
The key mental and structural obstacles to effective KM have been
further identified and supported by this study of a 'sick patient'.
A comprehensive checklist of diagnosing a sick culture has been
adequately provided. It is hoped that in this 'negative' example
the prescribed change strategies will be implemented and further
evaluated. The key implication is that KM practices survive only
when the individual is convinced of the benefits to themselves and
not just to the organisation. Leaders need to lead here by persuasive
word and deed. Initially they may very well have to dictate but
they must teach people to be job-, if not career-, empowered...
and then listen to them and measure, support and reward these new
desired attitudes and behaviours. Mmmmm, where can one find a leader
like that ? |
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RUSSIA'S
ANTI-SHARING CULTURE TRANSFORMED BY AUTOCRATIC LEADERSHIP
