MMIM503 – Week 2 - Class 3 (Article Summary & Review)
The Eleven Deadliest Sins of Knowledge Management
Liam Fahey, Laurence Prusak. California Management Review. Berkeley: Spring 1998. Vol. 40, Iss. 3; pg. 265, 12 pgs
Review
The article highlights to the reader eleven errors (pit-falls) that can be avoided by having a proper understanding of knowledge itself and their key implications in an organisation settings. The significance of understanding these errors is that knowledge management does not become another management craze or even worse managing knowledge based upon faulty principles.
Summary
The focus is on fundamental errors, if left uncorrected will impede genuine knowledge from being developed and leveraged.
Error I: Not Developing a Working Definition of Knowledge
Error 2: Emphasizing Knowledge Stock to the Detriment of Knowledge Flow
Error 3: Viewing Knowledge as Existing Predominantly Outside the Heads of Individuals
Error 4: Not Understanding that a Fundamental Intermediate Purpose of Managing Knowledge Is to Create Shared Context
Error 5: Paying Little Heed to the Role and Importance of Tacit Knowledge
Error 6: Disentangling Knowledge from Its Uses
Error 7: Downplaying Thinking and Reasoning
Error 8: Focusing on the Past and the Present and Not the Future
Error 9: Failing to Recognize the Importance of Experimentation
Error 10: Substituting Technological Contact for Human Interface
Error 11: Seeking to Develop Direct Measures of Knowledge
What can be done?
Identifying and correcting these errors is important. There are three critical sets of actions that managers can take to avoid these errors and move their organization toward becoming a more knowledge-driven enterprise.
1) Reflect on knowledge as an organizational asset. Develop shared understanding at local levels; since knowledge tends to be a "local" phenomenon and only later do it at the enterprise level.
2) Understand the flow perspective of knowledge: substantial portions of knowledge content are always tentative, temporary, and subject to change. Reframe from the inevitable focus of a data- or information-dominated (stock) view of knowledge.
3) Must be vigilant about detecting and correcting errors in their processes of generating, moving, and leveraging of knowledge throughout the firm.
