Building the Enterprise of the Future:

Making the Transformation to a Knowledge-Sharing Enterprise

by Art Murray, D.Sc. and Jeff Lesher, M.A.

Knowledge-sharing is a key attribute of any organization wanting to compete in a flat world.  Part of building the Enterprise of the Future is encouraging and enabling people to share what they know.  These are critical steps in transforming organizations from knowledge-hoarding institutions into knowledge-sharing enterprises.

Working with Kent Greenes, we have defined the purpose of the Enterprise of the Future as follows:

“For any business seeking to remain competitive in a flat world, the speed of innovation must match or exceed the rate of change in the marketplace.  That presents both a formidable challenge and a unique opportunity.”¹

The formidable challenge is getting people to change.  We’re talking serious change here.  Competing in a flat world demands unlocking your organization’s knowledge, and letting it flow across internal and external boundaries.  This not only means changing the way we work, but changing the way we think about work.

The unique opportunity is that in most cases, the rewards of sharing far exceed any that may come from hoarding.  The reason is simple: the problems of this world are too complex, and the changes too rapid, for knowledge to be hoarded.  No one person, no one organization, can have all the answers.  Teams working in close collaboration are the only way to keep up with the accelerating pace of threats and opportunities in the marketplace.

How much sharing are we talking about?

Just to clarify, we are not suggesting that you leave all the doors to your building unlocked.  Before hopping on the knowledge-sharing bandwagon, here are some important considerations:

• What knowledge should be shared?
• Why should you share it?  What is the value in sharing?
• Where is it?  What form is it in?
• How do you share it?  Can it be shared, given that you want to?

You don’t want to share all of your knowledge.  Some things, as they say, are best left alone.  But what knowledge should be shared?

Before you can answer that question, you need to clearly establish the end result you are trying to achieve.  This can be a strategic goal or objective.  A response to a crisis.  Or overcoming a more typical day-to-day problem, such as how to improve productivity or deliver better customer service.  A better way to put it might be, “How do you define success?”

Next, you need to ask, “What’s the best way to achieve that result?”  If defining success is the what, then this is the how.  By repeatedly asking, “How?,” you will begin to uncover a lot of “I don’t know”s.  These are your knowledge gaps.

Even if you know how best to accomplish the result, you still need to ask, “What’s preventing us from achieving that result?”  The answers usually reveal obstacles in a number of areas, such as a lack of communication or coordination, politics, inadequate resources, etc.

These obstacles can be broken down further, into the following three areas:

• Capturing and maintaining knowledge
• Sharing knowledge
• Applying knowledge.

It doesn’t do much good to promote knowledge sharing, if the knowledge to be shared isn’t even known or available.  This is what is meant by: “Knowing what you know.”  But even if you know what you know, or you know where to find what you need to know, it won’t do you any good if you can’t access it (there’s that old hoarding problem again).

If the right knowledge is available, and is being shared with the right people, it may not be properly applied.  This is the problem of planning vs. execution.  Many well thought-out plans are sitting on bookshelves.  The knowledge is there, but when the time comes to use it, everything falls apart.  When this happens, it is often because the knowledge has not been properly internalized.  Or as Nonaka and Takeuchi put it, the transfer from explicit back to tacit has not occurred.²

Once you apply the knowledge, it doesn’t do you any good in the future if you don’t learn from it.  Did it work or didn’t it work?  Why or why not?  Are you going to share your lessons learned with others, or are you going to keep them inside your head?  This is a continuous cycle.  In a knowledge-sharing organization, the application of knowledge automatically involves the capture of new knowledge.

Breaking old behavior patterns

Successfully linking these three elements of capturing, sharing, and applying requires, more than anything else, a major shift in behavior.  This brings us back to our original premise.  Creating a knowledge-sharing organization requires that people change the very way they think about their work.

And how do you accomplish that?  First: practice, practice, practice.  You need to make the knowledge transfer “stick.”  Second: measure and reward.  People respond to what they’re being measured against.  Plus, the level of commitment increases when people see positive, measurable change.

When it comes to creating a knowledge system that enables organizations to adapt to the reality of our flattening world, buy-in means not merely endorsing, but also becoming active participants in capturing, sharing, and applying knowledge.  Far too often, the people who really need to contribute to and use a knowledge system are conspicuously absent.  Without their involvement, these systems will fail.  That is why measurement and reward are essential ingredients for success.

There are other barriers as well.  A consequence of our flattening world is a notoriously overworked workforce.  A common complaint, no, make that a demand, we hear is, “What ever you’re proposing, it cannot involve any extra effort.  We are already maxed out.”  What they are essentially saying is, “If I don’t have to do anything, great.  Otherwise, forget it.”

Well, the tooth fairy isn’t going to come along and wave her magic wand.  Change does require effort.  If time is their main concern, then they need to realize that lack of knowledge is the biggest time drain for knowledge workers.  The main motivator is getting them to see that the pain they are experiencing will only get worse, until one day, it will be too late.

Leading by example

That is why these steps are so important.  By focusing on the end result, the likelihood is greater that the changes will produce significant, measurable results.  Results that will bring rewards which more than offset the time and resources invested.

Finally, like Mahatma Gandhi once said, you must become the change you are trying to create.  Or if you prefer Warren Buffet, you must learn to “eat your own cooking.”  Regardless, the leadership element of “walking the talk” cannot be overemphasized.

The pace of change in our ever-flattening world is only going to increase.  Your choice is not a matter of if to change, but when.  And the when part isn’t going to wait.  The time to get started is now.

¹Art Murray and Kent Greenes, The Enterprise of the Future, KMWorld Magazine, March 2006, Vol. 15, Issue 3.

²Ikujiro Nonaka and Hirotaka Takeuchi, The Knowledge-Creating Company, Oxford University Press, 1995.

©2006 Applied Knowledge Sciences, Inc.  All rights reserved.