Are the consulting firms partly to blame for the fact that only a relatively small minority of companies have adapted their internal culture to the knowledge intensive economy?

Last month (Dec 09) I posted this question on Linkedin:

Are the consulting firms partly to blame for the fact that only a relatively small minority of companies have adapted their internal culture to the knowledge intensive economy?

In so few companies are collaborators incentivize to internally share freely their valuable knowledge (and rewarded for it). I would think that if consultants were to start advising "en masse" their clients about the benefits of such cultural change, "knowledge focused companies" could become the norm, not the exception.  This question concerns only the companies that do call in consultants (however, the others do get to learn of successful cases so could benefit indirectly). I am assuming also that most consultants would be aware and agree about the knowledge sharing benefits but maybe this is being optimistic. As for the competitive advantage of a knowledge focus culture, I believe it is not an assumption but a fact.

This question received 16 answers.  About 5 disagreed with the suggestion that consultants have to share the blame for the lack of organizational knowledge-sharing.  A couple seemed “neutral” on this point.  So, a majority seemed to agree.

I particularly liked how Nerida Hart put it: <<I think that what is happening is that the 'big' consulting companies only tell their clients what they think they want to hear - rather than - guess what guys you have a massive cultural problem and it won't matter what I write in the final 'report' - unless you want to address these issues nothing will change.>>

As the best answer, I chose Nicole Marchand’s:

<<Thanks for raising a subject that I really believe organization should all practice. Here is my take!

There are a few issues here that I believe contribute to the lack of buy-in, to adapt a knowledge focus culture. Are consultants responsible? As mentioned above, I believe it is a partnership between the consultant and the CEO but most importantly success is proportional to the leadership commitment to implement such an initiative. The lack of involvement at the senior level has proven to be a barrier in building a knowledge focus culture. Commitment from Senior Management is not restricted to the allocation of resources but also requires them to champion the initiatives, model the desired behaviour through the enhancement of their own learning, participation in the collaborative process, in essence; the promotion of knowledge sharing through concrete actions and consistency. Knowing that, I am honestly curious to know if senior leaders are willing and capable to commit to that extent. Could this be part of the lack of collaboration to implement such an initiative?

Another factor, because knowledge is an intangible asset, the business requirements to produce a return-on-investments and cost/benefit factor is often a huge challenge and tough sell. KM (knowledge management) practitioners need concrete evidence both qualitative or quantitative including a special place in the organizational financial statement to enhance the value of this intangible asset. (that will be my next question!) Experts report that 80% of organizational knowledge lies in the head of individuals, a fact worthy of attention.

A knowledge focus culture is a newer way of doing business. If leaders and managers keep thinking that water cooler conversations are a waste of productivity and not part of sharing knowledge and building trust and relationship, its implementation will be difficult. It requires a change in mind-set and behaviour and yes trust.

Implementing a knowledge focus culture takes considerable time, effort, energy and resources, it is the consultant’s responsibility to enhance the value of knowledge management, provide an accurate and informed assessment of the present knowledge manipulation situation, present a solid implementation plan and educate leaders on its present status and benefits. The success of the execution though, at the end of the day lies in the hands of the leaders. According to Bossidy & Charan (2002), “no company can deliver on its commitments or adapt well to change unless all leaders practice the discipline of execution at all levels” (p. 19).

There are many other factors affecting a successful implementation but I have hope I have managed to bring a contribution to your question. >>

My position is also that the responsibility is shared and successful cultural change depends on a partnership between the leader(s) and the consultant(s):  “…it is the consultant’s responsibility to enhance the value of knowledge management, provide an accurate and informed assessment of the present knowledge manipulation situation, present a solid implementation plan and educate leaders on its present status and benefits.”  The leader then makes it happen.  However, I believe that only a minority of consultants initiate this change unsolicited.  The consultant should not wait for the leader to ask them “help initiate a knowledge-focus culture”, as he unlikely knows that this is indeed what the organization needs to gain competitive advantage in a sustainable way.

Could it be that knowledge-focused companies less need to call on consultants? Since these companies make much better use of their human capital by leveraging internal expertise and talents for creativity and innovation, maybe they can do away with consultants for most problem-solving situations.   I do not want to initiate another conspiracy theory but what if many consulting firm partners are aware of this and consciously refrain from spreading too quickly the knowledge word?

Corporate cultures not conducive to knowledge sharing and collaboration

I thought of reposting my list of cultural traits that identify an organization where the corporate culture is not conducive to knowledge sharing and therefore creativity and innovation. This list combines the 16 from this post and 4 from this one.

And here is a challenge to anyone reading this: Do you know one medium or large company with an internal culture not bearing a single of these 20 traits? If yes, please post a comment with its name.

1. A strictly hierarchical top-down structure: The “you should not share knowledge outside your department without your manager’s approval” syndrome.

2. Focus on short-term objectives: the “no need to share knowledge since once objectives are met, it wont be needed anymore” syndrome.

3. Reward achievements of each individual based solely on personal objectives: the “you are judged on what you achieved, not on what others have achieved with your help” syndrome.

4. Organizational silos that do not (or poorly) communicate/collaborate: the “we cannot possibly need help from anyone outside our very experienced and specialized group” syndrome.

5. Lack of trust: the “why should I take the risk to help whom I compete with, I wouldn’t get the recognition for it anyway” syndrome.

6. Internal politics: “Knowledge is Power so I retain it” syndrome.

7. Lack of Awareness of internal knowledge: The “I do not expect anyone in the company to have the experience/skills I need” syndrome.

8. Lack of Availability of internal knowledge: The “others probably could benefit from my experience but I’m too busy to check, let alone actually help” syndrome.

9. Too much Pride: The now too famous "not invented here" syndrome.

10. The confidentiality issue: The “we fear that some vital competitive knowledge can get into the wrong hands, so the least we share it, the smaller the risk” syndrome.

11. Job Description framing: The "No-one's paying us to have a wider vision" syndrome.

12. Groupthink effect: The "We'll define our stakeholders as the people we already know" syndrome.

13. Only money talks: The "those so-called stakeholders aren't actually funding anything directly, so they're not real customers" syndrome.

14. Perfectionism resulting from fear of being wrong: the "I won't share until I'm certain it's perfect" syndrome.

15. Modesty resulting from lack of encouragement: the "who am I to teach others, of course they know" syndrome.

16. Top-executives misunderstanding KM challenges: The "this knowledge sharing sounds great! Can you order everyone to do it tomorrow please?" syndrome.

17. Dominance of explicit over tacit knowledge sharing: The "we only truly value what is written down and validated" syndrome.

18. Lack of social networks: The "only the networks which are supporting business processes are important and encouraged" syndrome.

19. Lack of knowledge management strategy and sharing initiatives into the company’s goals and strategic approach: The "Intellectual Property is the only Intellectual Capital that is worth managing strategically" syndrome.

20. Intense internal competitiveness within business units, functional areas, and subsidiaries:
The "we only share knowledge within our team since everyone else is potential competition" syndrome.

You can test your organization against these 20 cultural traits. The more of them fits your workplace, the more of a challenge you will have to promote knowledge sharing. Some are more difficult to deal with such as internal politics, but I would conjecture that you will need to address all the relevant traits at some point in the process. They all have their importance and only one of them - deep rooted in the organizational culture - can jeopardize leveraging knowledge efforts.

The latest trends for Intranet development

This IBF blog post from Paul Miller about the coming of “Intranet 3.0” gives 3 very good examples of large corporate intranets pushing the boundaries of internal communication and collaboration.

Although I am not a fan of these meaningless numeric names such as Web 2.0 or Enterprise 2.0 (I’ve even seen Web 1.5 being used!) the eight Intranet 3.0 trends listed can - when combined - represent no less than a workplace revolution.

The 3 organizations given as examples are Sun, IBM and Nissan. The common theme I picked up between these cases is the strategic importance given to embedding the Intranet in business operations. This quote from Ethan McCarty (IBM) is spot on:

“The intranet is so deeply woven into daily life at IBM, it's part of every employee's day to use it,[..] You take a very mundane task and turn it into a social activity. Collaboration isn't separate from work. “

I particularly like this quote because the same thing should be said of Knowledge Management as a whole. KM initiatives are successful in the long term if they enable knowledge sharing processes that cannot be dissociated from operational activities. So, in other words, in such context, if you don’t share knowledge and collaborate intensively, you’re simply not doing your job. However, this requires a corporate culture not only conducive to knowledge sharing, but encouraging it.

Leverage the knowledge in your company by first transforming it into a "service" based organisation

[I recently realised that when I wrote this short post 11yrs ago, by "process" I actually really meant "service" based organisation.  I now replaced 'process' with 'service'] 

I am increasingly a supporter of the principle that it is more efficient and increases the chances of success to leverage organisational knowledge with a stealth approach, meaning not in a direct open way, but indirectly and without advertising it as THE objective. The less a company’s culture is conducive to knowledge sharing (see my list of corporate culture traits not conducive to knowledge sharing) the more this principle should apply.

In the majority of organisations today, performance is measured and rewarded functionally usually at department levels. This generates departmental silos where knowledge is at best hoarded for internal consumption.

But when performance is measured only through formally defined intra-departmental services, managers and staff will naturally focus on supporting the services as efficiently and effectively as possible. For each cross-company service, this will mean sharing all the relevant knowledge between all the individuals/teams/departments directly involved in the service and therefore responsible for part(s) of it. A service-based organisation naturally breaks down departmental silos: if a service fails, all participants fail.

So, in other words, re-ingeneering an Organisation’s operations and structure around clearly defined cross-company business services is an effective indirect way to foster value adding knowledge sharing.

The History of Maths and Knowledge Sharing

Yesterday, I watched a TV program produced by the Open University on the history of Maths. It started in China where Mathematics as a discipline really started. A book was written in about 200BC explaining among other things how to resolve equations. Then it moved on to India a few centuries AD where truly important advances were made such as the 9 Indoo numbers (ancestors to the Arabic numbers we use today), the creation of the number 'zero' and the first method for resolving complex equations to the power of 3 as well as the first method for an approximation of the value of Pi. Then came the Middle East and the Arabic countries where further discoveries were made in the Middle Ages. The point in common with most of these advances in Mathematics are that they were all made in the East well before they were either "rediscovered" or applied in the West from only about the 15th Century. And this is when it struck me! The lack of communication between these Eastern civilizations and the Western World prevented a valuable knowledge sharing that would have enabled a much faster worldwide scientific progress. What has enabled an exponential scientific and technological progress in the last 3 or 4 centuries is the increasing ease to share knowledge around the World. The Internet being the last of these inventions to contribute immensely to this. But then, if it is so obvious that sharing knowledge between distant civilizations, cultures or communities generates creativity, discoveries and innovation; why is it so difficult for most modern companies to recognize the value of fostering internal (and external) knowledge sharing between all employees and stakeholders?