Fostering Individual and Collective Expertise

All of knowledge management is divided into two parts – knowledge creation and knowledge reuse. All of a firm’s future capability and profit is locked into these two components. Even inventory in stock must be sold using the knowledge that has been gained of marketing and sales by those employed by the firm. This whitepaper will focus on each of these areas in turn, giving a simple model and a few suggestions for tools or methods that might be employed to strengthen each component of the models.

Knowledge Creation
Knowledge creation, in this case process discovery and development, can be thought of as being the convergence of four factors, as illustrated in Figure 1. These factors include expertise, creative skills, network, and opportunity. Each of these must be present in order for innovation to flourish and the firm to be able to adapt to changing circumstances.

The first factor is expertise, although the factors need not come in any particular order. There are many measures of expertise, almost as varied as the types of expertise to be measured. Some may be expert financial analysts, others expert engine mechanics, still others expert designers of organizations. Each of these areas of expertise is measured and valued quite differently. Competency measures, based on behavioral-event interviews and expert evaluation, allow a consistent measure of expertise for comparable positions in the company. Additionally, competencies allow a convenient and reliable way of cascading strategic objectives through the organization. It should also be noted here that the more diverse the expertise is the more opportunity there is for novel solutions.

Figure 1: Knowledge Creation Model

The second factor is creative skills. Of all of the factors this can be the hardest to pin down. These skills are most closely related to personality factors and usually creative skills must be recruited and sought out rather than developed. These skills include regularly combining seemingly disparate ideas into new combinations, seeing opportunities where others do not.

The third factor is that of network. Even Newton acknowledged that his discoveries came because he “stood on the shoulders of giants.” In order for innovation or process discovery and development to be consistently renewed in any organization, a network for idea vetting and forming must be created among those that have the expertise and creative skills to foster the ideas. There are a number of ways to foster these types of networks, but often it is enough not obstruct the formation of a network. Creating and fostering gathering places for these types of employees to discuss their ideas will create an environment where the network can grow and strengthen.

The fourth factor in knowledge creation is the opportunity. This refers, not only to the opportunity to innovate but also to the ability for an employee to take a risk and try a new and possibly successful new process. It is also possible that the new process could fail. The biggest obstacle to success in creating renewable knowledge creation in a firm is punishing these failures because it punishes the taking of risks and trying new ideas. Not every idea can be successful, but expertise, experience, and network mitigate the risk and can lead to well managed risk and a constant flow of new process creation and development.

Knowledge Reuse
Once the knowledge has been created, the process discovered and developed to the point that it is ready to be shared with the rest of the organization, it must be somehow packaged so that it can be reused by those not in the originating network. The activities of knowledge modularization and reuse make up the majority of most firms’ activities.
The model for knowledge reuse is even more simple and concise than for knowledge creation. This model, as seen in Figure 2, consists of three factors – expertise, network, and modularization skills. These factors, though similar to those of knowledge creation, play a different dynamic in this case.

The first factor is that of expertise. Where as above, the expertise mix sought was diverse in order to find novel new solutions, the expertise mix here is more narrowly confined to those competencies needed in order to make use of the knowledge quantum or module that has been handed off. This is the most common use of competency modeling in organizations, to make sure that everyone is competent to do their job. Here the same is true; we are seeking a minimal standard in order to ensure a quality job is done.

The second factor in knowledge reuse is network. In knowledge creation the value of the network is in the conversation within the network culminating in new ideas. Here the focus of the network is on distribution of that new knowledge through the rest of the organization. This network consists, not only of the relationships necessary to convey the new idea, but also of the relationships needed in order to ensure the proper execution and learning of the idea in the proper context. The network provides the context for the implementation of the idea. This network is best fostered by keeping the creative network somehow connected with the rest of the organization so that the ideas can expand outward.

Figure 2: Knowledge Reuse Model

The final factor in our knowledge reuse model is that of modularization skills. When knowledge moves from an implicit state to an explicit state it necessarily is quantified. This isn’t to say that it can now be tallied and calculated, but rather that now it comes in some discrete bundle of ideas and subsets of ideas that convey, within the context of the network and expertise, the new knowledge. In order for this knowledge to pass readily it must be modularized, and this is a skill set quite different from creative skills. Modularization is closely related to pattern recognition, in that it requires the ability to take new and abstract ideas and re-craft those ideas into structures that are more familiar to the intended audience, i.e., the rest of the network that is to receive the ideas.

I would like to conclude by suggesting one method that captures these elements and helps with the process of taking new ideas, testing them, and then passing on the gained information in discrete bundles. This concept is taken from the field of medicine – the Mortality and Morbidity Meeting. This meeting occurs on a weekly basis in most hospitals and is completely isolated from involvement of anyone that is not a doctor or resident. Its purpose is to discuss any critical events or near misses in the previous week, identify what went wrong, who was involved, and what should have been done. It is not meant to blame or accuse, but rather to teach. This meeting creates an environment where risk can be discussed without fear of reprisal, where experience and failure can be learned from without blame, where reflection on mistakes can lead to new insight and better practice.

An M&M meeting like this fosters the creativity network, the opportunity to take risk, the communication from the creative team to the rest of the organization, and the expertise and context of more senior members with more junior members to facilitate knowledge transfer. In essence, it is a simple process that an organization can use to foster a renewable and innovative environment.