A knowledge worker spends a good portion of the day communicating – meetings, status reports, emails, phone calls, water cooler talks. Much of this activity is considered unproductive overhead; when you look at a calendar full of meetings you wonder when you’re going to get any REAL work done. And while many popular forms of communication may be inefficient and ineffective, communication is work; perhaps the most important work knowledge workers do.
Knowledge work is aimed at turning information into something decisionable and actionable; too often reports, presentations, survey results are mistaken for such. While they are a key part of the decision equation, they are not enough. They don’t provide insight. The only thing they’re good for on their own is filling repositories.
Knowledge, unlike the data and information contained in reports, is a living & breathing thing. It can’t be put in your enterprise content management system. It exists in the heads of employees (often referred to as ‘tacit’ knowledge), constantly being shaped by different stimuli: articles, blog posts, pictures, models, books, conversations with colleagues, etc… Communication is the process by which this constantly evolving knowledge is applied on data and information to a decisionable end. This process will generate insights on how to take advantage of the information you have gathered. Unless the reports, presentations and survey results are subjected to scrutiny and analysis through communication, no insights are created and decisions are delayed or malinformed.
Communication is more than just a block of time on your calendar. It’s an opportunity to share knowledge, gain insight, make better decisions and create for your company a competitive advantage.
What does communication look like where you work? Is it enabling the application of knowledge to data and information? Where do your company’s insights come from?
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The connection between communication and knowledge management is something often overlooked in organizations, yet is a critical element to any business. I agree completely that communication is more than just a block of time on your calendar.Businesses need to understand that optimizing how tacit knowledge flows through an organization (via improved communication methods) can lead to more more informed decision making and other benefits. I almost see the need for there to be a formal role for someone to serve as the bridge between knowledge management and communications, especially in professional service organizations that are all knowledge-based, since those two functions usually sit in separate silos.
However, this point and those made in your piece are not easy to drive home. As an internal communications professional, who in the past has also worked in marketing, knowledge management, and even IT, I’ve been fortunate to have the perspective that makes this linkage very clear to me. It’s something I’ve tried to preach in the organizations I’ve worked with and have at times informally served as that “bridge”. But successfully and consistently “enabling the application of knowledge to data and information” through effective communications still escapes most organizations.
Internal social media offers the opportunity to change that as long as leadership can be made to see beyond social media’s obvious tie to marketing. That’s why I like the Dachis concept of “Social Business”. Extensive communication and collaboration through the right tools (not necessarily new tools, just the right ones that fit the culture) must be pervasive in any company hoping to succeed in businesses that rely on knowledge workers. Use of social technologies, including both communication and collaboration tools, must be built into a firm’s strategy.
Successful development and implementation of such strategy requires the skills of both communications and knowledge management professionals, which leads to another organization problem these days (and the potential topic for another piece) — who leads social media/technologies? Should it be communications, marketing, IT, knowledge services (if the company has such a group)? This can sometimes be a contentious issue that can make matters worse. My two cents is that no group should really lead it. It should be championed by leadership and be pervasive throughout all groups, divisions, etc. In reality though, especially in this early stage of social business enterprise adoption, some group will lead it and the danger is that they may not understand this very important connection between communication and knowledge.
Hi, Rob. Thanks for the thoughtful comment.
I think what we’d really like to see, regardless of whether or not there is a tool involved, is more communication and collaboration in general. From that standpoint, it’s more a matter of building the case that communication and collaboration actually produce better business decisions. And then, if appropriate for your team/organization/company, is there a tool that can enable better/faster/cheaper communication and collaboration.
Last night at the office we had a perfect example of how collaboration greatly improved a process redesign we were working on. (not to give too much away, b/c I’m working it in to another blog post) The gist of it was that when a colleague and I were forced to take our whiteboard out of a conference room (silo) and into a heavy traffic hallway (dynamic signal) we immediately had additional colleagues taking notice of what we were doing, stopping in the hall and adding their thoughts and experiences to what we were working on. We ended up with a much more robust (and I would say ‘better’) result than if we had stayed in the conference room and not shown our work to anyone.
We need more examples like this to show the value of collaboration. Once the case is made we can use tools to scale from hallways to international organizations.
To your second point of ownership, I agree with your distributed approach. I think each of the organizations you mention are going to play a role, some roles will be purely tactical (say tool maintenance and hosting), some will be more strategic and drive business requirements. It’s going to be different at each organization, but I believe business requirements should lead the way. Identify business problems, prioritize them and let them guide you.
Dave,
Thanks for your response. I love your whiteboard example! Personally I think office walls should be whiteboards so that innovation and collaboration can happen anywhere, all the time. (There’s actually a paint called IdeaPaint that turns walls into whiteboards. I have it in my home office)
Thanks,
Rob
David,
That really is a great example. Taking your thinking out if the protected space into a dynamic and constantly moving environment. I’ll have to keep that in mind for future brainstorms.
At the company I work at we use Skype….too much. I noticed that for the smallest thing we would use Skype, even when they were 5 steps away. A new colleague joined us who was adamant to walk over with all her questions. This face to face contact was so strangely refreshing, that now I walk over for as much as possible.
I guess the way an organization collaborates is key to it’s character and DNA. I know that all my face to face collaborations have been much quicker, and more insightful than over Skype.
Great post David.
Hi, Erik.
Glad you liked the post.
Understanding your company’s DNA is important when it comes to determining how best to collaborate – whether that’s Skype, some other tool or face to face. It’s also important to understand how each person likes to communicate or collaborate individually.
Some people stay on top of their email inbox and that’s the best way to get a message to them. Others have an inbox with thousands of unanswered messages and would rather talk over the phone. And still some prefer IM or wiki or microblogging, etc…
To be an effective communicator you not only have to have the right message but you have to understand the best medium to get that message out.
Communication looks like this in one project team @ IBM many years ago. Nodes colored by “organization”…
http://orgnet.com/email.gif
Can you spot the communication problems???
Valdis
Valdis – looks like the different colors don’t talk to each other much. Although, grey seems to be giving it a go. What were the mediums of communication used in the study?
Communication is a extremely important when it comes to business. Social media has grown quickly to become a great way for businesses to communicate with their customers and other consumers. Palo Alto Networks has put together a great whitepaper to help you understand how this new firewall technology works. It’s called “To Block or Not. Is That the Question?” and you can find it here: http://bit.ly/d2NZRp. Let me know what you think…kelly@briefworld.com