(Social) Business Design: The New Ways
As I am teaching the topic Knowledge Management for bachelors at the Hague University in the Netherlands, I have created my own program through which I explain students about the history of the discipline, the future and how businesses should design themselves to embrace knowledge sharing initiatives. The final lecture, with the title 'KM and (social) business design', is a kind of wrap up of the complete program. In this blog post I summarize the highlights from this final lecture.
New ways of ...
In my lectures I show students new ways to think, new ways to work, and new ways to design.
In the part of the new way of thinking, I emphasized on the evolution of KM. Starting in the scientific revolution, running through the industrial evolution and introducing the concept of the New Economy (Bell, 1976). Continuing with Dave Snowden's division of three KM generations which started in 1995 where businesses were trying to make tacit knowledge explicit, carried on by Ralph Stacy in 2001 with the notion that knowledge never ever can be managed in such a way, to the understanding of Dave Snowden himself that it is about focusing more on context and narrative, rather than only on content. In other words, organizations “must become better at learning if they are to succeed” (Bennet and Shane Tomblin, 2006) in KM. Additionally, I also explained more about the world that we are facing now or will face soon. A world that is characterized by globalization, an increase in competition and an aging of workforces in especially North America and Europe. We will already, or soon to face extraordinary challenges which can be characterized as complex, because this world is increasingly becoming more networked through the latest Internet and (mobile) communication. This outline was necessary to understand the new way of thinking about the businesses of the future, and also how KM fits in this (making sense of and decide over new situations in a fast and innovative way, before competitors are doing it for you). I made a video-clip out of this lecture, which you can find here
In the part of the new way of working, I emphasized on Web 2.0 tools and storytelling techniques to improve the sharing of knowledge. Questions are being asked like 'What is Web 2.0 now exactly' and 'how could it benefit the business'. As businesses are increasingly understanding the value of these tools, it is important to first create an understanding what it is and what it does for you before implementing it because 'it is sexy to do'.
In the part of the new way of designing, I emphasized on (social) business design. I used the brackets around social because I do not want to argue that businesses were not social before and highlight that sexy things or ideas are being overhyped too soon. Everybody is talking about social media, so let's use the term social business design. We also saw it with Web 1.0, Web 2.0, Web 3.0, Web 4.0 and so on. However, the essence was to show that we should rethink and redesign businesses in order to adapt to the new way of thinking and the new way of working. New tools and processes that enhance knowledge sharing activities cannot be adapted in 'old' structures and cultures. A new structure and culture is needed with a change in the covenant between top management and staff members.
Furthermore I stressed out that this does not mean that we all should embed social media tools in the organization just for the sake of. Businesses should carefully consider what kind of value it brings in the situations it is facing. Therefore I introduced the Cynefin framework which is describing problems and new situations faced by the business in four different contexts (simple, complicated, complex and chaotic). Each of the contexts will focus on different ways to handle a situation. If a business is facing a problem in the simple context they already know the known and can sense, categorize and respond to that situation. In the complicated context, the business will known the unknown and with a bit of analyses it can make sense of it. There is time to do the analysis and make a grounded decision. In both contexts businesses should more think of applying information management systems and practices, rather than immediately focusing on Web 2.0 tools. Analytical thinking, which is based on inductive and deductive logic, exploits the existing knowledge and is trusting their decision on past data, information and knowledge. Therefore, analytical thinking is suitable in the simple and complicated contexts.
However, the complex and chaotic context are referring to the first lecture about the new way of thinking. Situations are changing faster and businesses in especially Europe and North America are facing a decrease of the workforce. So with limited people, businesses should make sense of and decide over new situations faster and faster. Therefore businesses do not have time to analyze situations and follow the way of analytical thinking. Businesses should encourage intuitive thinking; the thinking where you are following your 'guts feeling'. But have you ever experienced businesses that promote this way of thinking and decision making? I believe that the use of Web 2.0 tools, which help to create networks that work across organizational and topical borders, can help to pick up the signals that are needed to make sense of possible new situations. And when you are encountering a new situation, you do not do the analyzing, but will be probably experience one of these 'A-HA' moments. This will especially be useful in contexts where you do not have the time to analyze. These are the complex and chaotic contexts.
So to make sure the business is ready to decide over all these different situations, it should focus on both analytical and intuitive thinking, formal and informal learning, information management and knowledge management. However, to be be successful in this, businesses should rethink and redesign its structure and culture.
Knowledge management, University