Posted by Michael Kran on June 22, 1997 at 23:08:13:

In Reply to: Tom Davenport on 'Pitfalls of Knowledge Management' posted by Yogesh Malhotra on June 22, 1997 at 00:42:58:

I agree with all the points that Dr. Davenport has made.

I feel that his statement:

"For thousands of years knowledge has been associated
with hierarchy, and I see no end to that relationship
on the horizon."

is both true and wise.

Unquestionably, KM is political and you will be stopped dead in your tracks if you step on the wrong toes.

Yet it's not the whole story.

To over generalize, I think there have been three general ways to distibute power, goods and services since Socrates. And the Greeks had all three. The Market (the agora), the king (hierarchy) and the people (networks).

As Plato describes the last days of his teacher, Socrates, it is clear that the teaching of Socrates ruffled some feathers. He was given a choice. Socrates choose Hemlock. He might have been the first persons devoted to KM that got the boot.

In the almost 2,500 years since Socrates, networks have emerged as a form of power that is not strictly hierachical, but relational. It is not formal and legitimate, but informal and emergent.

I would suggest that while resistance from the top will stop a project dead (figuratively or literally), the invisible, subtle, resistance of informal networks is tougher to measure and tough to sway than top management.

I do believe that senior executive set the tone and have enormous impact on the success or failure of a project. However, in a democratic workplace with a rich set of unofficial channels there are the land mines and small arms fire that can imped progress. This relational jungle is the ultimate battle field. It is the tactical day to day victory of earning and deserving to earn the trust of each employee that must happen. This is in addition to the endorsement from the top, which is necessayr but not sufficent.

The concepts of "trust" and knowledge ecology pick up where the knowledge management drops off. Both are necessary.

We haven't had a chance to apply market forces to KM yet, because the valuation is difficult. With the right models, and the metrics, it might be possible to invoke "market" forces as the third force to coax organizations into knowledge sharing.

The three forces are:

1. I tell you to do it (legitamacy)
2. You do it because you want it (intrinsic reward)
3. You do it because I pay you (extrinsic)

Prestige and recognition would probably fit best under 3. It's extrinsic, because it is not inherent to the act itself, but separate. It's just another form of payment.

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Follow Ups:

• On Empowerment, Informal Networks, & Informated Workplace Yogesh Malhotra 19:13:28 6/24/97 (1)
  • Re: On Empowerment, Informal Networks, & Informated Workplace Shahzeb Ishtiaq 06:40:07 11/25/98 (0)

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