Codification in an Individualistic World ?

KM Session Group

Codification in an Individualistic World ?
Mr Gary Oliver, Lecturer, University of New South Wales, Australia

PART ONE

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT

Thanks for joining us, Gary, Gary Oliver from the University of New South Wales (Australia)
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Wilson Tay -
We were just talking about the transitioning of the adult workers and the young.
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Gary Oliver -
I think that is not only vital.

But... the other comment that I heard in the discussion was this sense of individualism versus community. And I think that is a problem people are not addressing. And it's not a Malaysia problem. It's a global problem.

I used to be the chairman of a precinct group back where I used to live. That was a council -assisted but not -funded group where local residents got together and talked about the directions of the local area, in any way that interested them and alerted council to these kind of guidelines.

And I stopped it about five years ago...because of my studies and things... and the thing that concerned me was we had stopped getting young people coming along. There was a division that suddenly under 30 no body was coming along any more. Whereas 5 years ago before that we had people in their 30s coming along. But suddenly there is this demographic and individualistic...
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Australia is very typical of that , isn't Gary ?
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Duncan -
... eventually when people started to realise that knowledge is power it will be a big, big pressure. They will ask themselves, "Why should I share my knowledge to you ?"
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Gary -
Which is my point about codification, that, when people realise that making explicit the tacit and, now I am moving into that question that you were talking about before, the truly tacit things, they are not getting recognition for the intellectual labour process.
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.... the years it took to get to that point.
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Gary -
Yes... in synthesising, summarising, expressing in a very...sharp sense all of this experience. They are expected to do it as part of their job and they are rightly putting up their hand and saying, "No, that is additional work outside my job description and unless you are giving me something for that I am not doing it."

And, of course, they(employees) have got a good right to do that because... in the past people have said that, "Oh, you're retiring...3 months or six months before you go, would you write down all your knowledge ?" And so you were getting recognition for that tacit knowledge and recognition for the contribution of making it explicit or codify it or sharing it out or personalised, however you did it.

And (so) organisations do deserve challenge for saying, "Look, that was your behaviour some time ago. Now, you just want to make it codified and explicit for FREE for you in addition to me doing the regular work !"
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Duncan -
So at the moment, what organisations do is, an increasing trend, is people with multiple skills. OK. [Job Sharing Assignments]

I don't know which is the cause or what is the effect. OK. But multiple skills on one hand can (be) people trying to strengthen themselves and make them more knowledgeable. But in many cases it is organisations trying to have more successes or contingency plans against those critical kinds of positions.

What I am trying to say is though...to address this point of non-codification... To some companies, OK... if they cannot codify the tacit knowledge or to become explicit, what they would try to do is build more persons in having knowledge within field or position, running the risk that of tacit knowledge, but having more persons...more the same.
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Gary - But that could be counter-productive...
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Wilson - Yeh... that is exactly right.
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Gary -
... Exactly for the reason you were saying... which is if they... If I am here (in this position) and you are hired, what is my reaction going to be - You're my rival.
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Duncan - Exactly, yeh.
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Gary -
... And if you and I have been pals in the company, I'm actually going to tell you that, "They've actually hired Duncan because they are going to get rid of me !"
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Collaborative environments versus competitive environments... How do we transform traditional competitive rivalries to into a collaborative type of organisation... because you win out when you share... because you are getting other nineteen gems from others...See... You see if you don't share you are not going to build up your expertise level in your
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Gary-
Spiro.... it doesn't matter, and this ties back to Duncan's comments. There's two things going on - there is the view of what the organisation sees as... I mean... as you were saying that you are a manager, you had a view of what you wanted to do and you wanted how the organisation to look and who you want and who you thought had the knowledge.

But there is (also) an individual view who is saying, "Mmmmm... my with this guy (manager) I'll give the company twelve months and then I want to move on."

Now if you can as management can harness this person and say, "Let's have a drink about this and tell me what you think." And I say, "12 months". And I say, "Even if he fires me tomorrow because I've let the cat out of the bag, I can go and work for them... If (the manager) says, "Oh, OK, Gary. I've only got you for twelve months. How can we best use you ?"

And if this guy then as a manager says, "I've got to take a different view of that guy. I was just going to have him metaphorically sweep the floors. Maybe I've got to take him to a negotiation meeting or maybe I've got to give him a project." And maybe the fact that he does that... Gary starts to say to himself..."I like this guy.. He is ... He is my mentor. I'm learning from him. I won't leave."
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It's a mutual thing.....
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PART TWO
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Can Today's Workers Adapt to the New Knowledge Worker Mindset ? -Dr Wilson Tay,	Can Today's Workers Adapt to the New Knowledge Worker Mindset ? - Mr Duncan Wong
Further Issues Towards adapting to New Knowledge Worker Mindset - Dr Wilson Tay	Codification in an Individualistic World ? -Mr Gary Oliver
Case Study Antidote to Individualism Attitude -Dr Wilson Tay