Knowledge Management - The Viking Way
©Karl-Erik
Sveiby October 2000, updated August 2001. Quotes
from Havamal and Viking King’s Mirror.
Contents:
The Vikings believed that when a
Fighter died and arrived to Valhall food would be in abundance. The boar
Särimmer, which was eaten everyday and recreated every night, provided a
never-ending flow of their favourite food, pork. In a society where a spell of
bad summer weather could wipe out a whole community this was the Viking image
of Heaven a thousand years ago.
Never a friend more faithful,
nor greater wealth, than wisdom
|
The Vikings
valued Knowledge highly. Yet, living in the 1000th century they
couldn’t even fathom a society where the most valuable resource was infinite.
Yet this is what a Knowledge-based economy is proposing. The ultimate scarce
resource in a knowledge-based economy is an organisation’s ability to create
new knowledge. We know that human beings are born with an infinite ability to
create knowledge, but we are using only fractions of our brains.
How can we
release this infinite resource?
Better weight than wisdom a traveller cannot carry. |
The Vikings also knew that when they shared
their scarce money or little food with someone it was a zero-sum game, their
loss was the other party’s win. Sharing your knowledge - on the other hand – is
not a zero-sum game and it never has been. Unlike conventional tangible assets,
knowledge grows when it is shared. Each time a flow of knowledge between people
takes place the resource is doubled.
How can we
tear down the man-made barriers that prevent knowledge sharing?
The
questions are simple, but the implications mean a revolution in the way we
manage our society, our organizations, and ourselves as individuals. Knowledge
Management is about finding answers to these two questions. KM is about
leveraging knowledge: re-using existing knowledge and creating new knowledge.
Words of praise will never perish nor a noble name. |
The
reputation of a Viking was worth more than perishable coins. In a world where
customers are more interested in the knowledge and the intangible benefits
provided the intangible (knowledge) flows become more important for the success
of the business than the tangible flows of goods and money. The customer
relations become partnerships and your product delivery becomes a co-creation
of solutions. Customers bring more than financial revenues; they also bring
intangible revenues: your image in the market place, product ideas, competitive
intelligence, feedback, referrals, etc.
Treat it as an honour to learn as much as you teach, if you wish to be called fully wise. |
Knowledge flows both ways; The Vikings knew that the teacher often
learns more than the pupil. You learn as well as the customer. If you are a
manager you know this, of course. But do you know how large the intangible
revenues are? Whether they are growing or reducing in value? Have you put the
intangible revenues into the strategic plan? Do you see your employees as
revenue creators, not as cost items? If you try to find answers to these (new?)
questions, you will take the first steps towards making your organisation more knowledge
focused. To be knowledge focused is to take the intangibles seriously, to
see your organisation as if it consists of primarily the intangible assets and
the flows of knowledge between them.
The knowledge-focused Manager
The knowledge-focused manager creates
learning opportunities, encourages knowledge sharing, sees staff turnover as
loss and considers recruitment too important to be delegated to the HR
department. Knowledge focused organisations do not maximise sales volume in
$$$, but select customers according to how much total revenues they bring, both
tangible and intangible. Products and services are developed for on the
knowledge they bring to the customers and how they enhance the customer’
capabilities to serve their customers. Information systems are developed for
measuring intangibles and knowledge flows and the purpose is learning, not
control.
I felt rich when I found company. Man delights in man. |
A knowledge
focused top management recognises trust as the bandwidth of knowledge sharing
and have made investments in building a collaborative climate one of the top
priorities. Hoarding of knowledge and information as a means of career
advancement is actively discouraged.
Make your ship attractive and good men will join. |
The Vikings knew the value
of an attractive working environment! Knowledge focused managers do not manage
knowledge (it is impossible), nor people (it is less and less possible), but
the environment in which knowledge is created.
This space
is both the intangible culture and the tangible environment, such as the
office. The layout of the office thus pops up as a top priority. Knowledge
focused top managers recognise the value of the informal information networks,
so they leave their hide-aways on the top floor and move their desks on the
same floors as the knowledge workers. The corner rooms are used intensively for
knowledge creation; they are no longer empty symbols of power occupied by
bosses who are seldom there. The coffee machine is recognised as a catalyst of
creative encounters, so it is placed in the centre with ample social space and
not tucked away in a corner. Such environments attract the best people and can
be the beginning of a virtuous cycle.
A log's flame leaps to another. The shy stay shallow. |
The list
can be made longer, but my intention is to show that the knowledge-focused
organisation is different and that it is not an easy place to control with traditional
Industrial Era means. How do you stay in control when the primary production
factor - creativity of the staff - flourishes best when you don’t control it?
How do you exercise power when your level in the organisation´s formal
hierarchy becomes irrelevant and the Internet and collegial networks usurp your
primary power tool; the control of the information flow? How do you motivate
your people when the knowledge workers value the approbation of their
professional peers more than the approval of their leaders? How do you know
that you are on the right track, when the management information system does
not report knowledge flows and the financial results are hopelessly out-of-date
by the time they reach you?
The traveller must train his wits. All is easy at home. |
In such a world managers´ power base is
their relative level of Knowledge. The manager role shifts from one of
supervising subordinates to one of supporting colleagues. The management
information system must be revamped and start reporting competence utilisation,
value added, knowledge flows, customer image and staff attitudes, etc. And the
recipients of this information are not just the managers. Trust and
collaboration start from the top and top managers must show that they trust the
employees with this information by making it available on the central network.
No choice – the new world is already here
Can you
deal with such a world? I believe you can and you have no choice – evidence is
mounting that you are already there!
Who could
for instance dream a few years back that the word Epistemology (the
theory of Knowledge) would enter mainstream management speak? “Knowledge” used
to be the exclusive realm of a few philosophers and religious thinkers. What we
see now is a large-scale exploration into "Knowledge" by the business
world’s sharpest minds and practitioners, and they are putting “Knowledge
Management” into practice on a global scale.
No battle is won in bed. |
When intelligent
people start drilling into what knowledge really is they begin to see the
limitations of human knowledge. They begin to experience - first hand - that
everything is connected, that the human efforts to split the world into
categories and concepts are doomed to fail and that measuring success in the
form of tangible profit is futile. So they either give up their quest, or -
like me - continue the exploration in awe.
Listen with ears, learn with eyes; such is the seeker of knowledge. |
The conceptual framework of Knowledge Management is unusual in its ambiguity, extraordinary in it’s depth, unfathomable in its rapid expansion and – best of all – it has no single ©®™owner. From a few seeds planted by a few of us a decade and a half ago, the framework and the practices are now growing exponentially through the efforts of hundreds of thousands of practitioners and thinkers worldwide who practice what they teach. The sharing of knowledge about KM is unprecedented in history. KM is a LINUX of management concepts. A “Movement” of people round the globe connected and contactable via the Net.
KM- The three
phases
So far KM has gone through at least three phases. The first phase was from around 1985 – 1990 when a few of us, not knowing of each other’s work were experimenting writing and thinking in isolation. We were taking our inspiration far from the business realm, from philosophers such as Wittgenstein and Polanyi and we were exploring the value created by leveraging the competence and skills of people, innovation and knowledge creation. “Knowledge Management” and “Intellectual Capital” were not known as concepts.
The second phase took place around 1991 – 1997. The IT revolution and the Internet started driving change in organisations and the pace was speeded up. The IT solutions and management processes during this time were about reusing (existing) knowledge and how to avoid re-inventing the wheel. The misconception that Knowledge could be “managed” enthused managers and consultants around the world and the terms “Knowledge Management” and “Intellectual Capital” became the highlights of conferences in both Europe and the USA. Both KM and IC were seen primarily as means to increase efficiency. Unfortunately KM became “hijacked” by the IT vendors and IC was misconstrued as a way of measuring intangibles and publishing information in Annual Reports.
Not all men are matched in wisdom, the imperfect are easy to find. |
KM and IC Management - as being practiced and implemented in the majority of corporations today – is however still in its infancy. So far it has mainly been a combination of IT investments and a bit of persuasive social engineering. Even if companies cite huge returns on such investments they are only scratching the surface. The benefits are small compared to the enormous leverage of intangible assets that a holistic knowledge focused approach can give. The most encouraging development today is that the corporations are moving away from technology solutions and beginning to understand KM as a whole new approach to doing business in the Knowledge Era.
The third phase is right now; knowledge creation and innovation are hot and the issues are becoming much more human again. More and more people have come to realize that efficiency is not enough; the real value for corporations and society will be generated only by creating environments that enable all people to create knowledge.
European approach
to KM is more human
No day should ever pass in which you do not learn anything of use to you. |
People are beginning to realize that human beings are at the core of value creation and not IT systems! For me the development in the last couple of years is a relief and I am particularly pleased to see that European managers seem more human oriented than many of their US colleagues. It bodes well for Europe.
The most
exiting knowledge companies today are probably found in Europe today. They are
the European companies born in the last decade of the 20th century
(dot.com and others), whose founders have a whole new approach to business,
customer service, people and community. Their young founders are implementing
knowledge focused strategies intuitively and they are forcing the age-old
industrial era monoliths with their machine-like structures to reinvent
themselves or die.
Even if I
cannot predict the future it is easy to see that there is a “new world”
approaching – a paradigm shift. “Knowledge Management” is pointing towards it.
KM is not an ideal term to use, but what this “new thing” will be called is not
up to us. After all, the dramatic changes in the world economy experienced by
those living in the late 18th century were not labelled “The Industrial
Revolution” until 100 years later.
And, maybe
the Vikings knew it all along…
Karl-Erik Sveiby