Can you manage knowledge? (part 2)

I was at two more presentations/discussions this week, one talked about creating space in organizations for knowledge, the other was on followership, and really had nothing directly to do with knowledge at all, however both have made me think that I need to continue my writing on managing knowledge, not to mention the wonderful replies that I got to my original post. At the “Followership” event the other night we were given a copy of Barbara Kellerman’s book, “Followership” and were treated to her speaking about it, so I may have another post once I have actually finished the book. In the meantime, some more thoughts on managing knowledge.

At the Knowledge Worker Toronto event on Tuesday, we had Rivadávia (Riva) C. Drummond de Alvarenga Neto speaking about creating space for knowledge in organizations, the link to the event is https://www.meetup.com/Knowledge-Workers-Toronto/calendar/10314795/. Riva argued, among other things, that models of the organization don’t handle knowledge-based firms, that the models that exist are only good up until the early 1990’s when things started to really shift towards knowledge work, and technology (read the internet and email) started to get a foot-hold in organizations. Since then, as we all know, it has become an increasing critical part of the business and we now have social media and social networking taking up a lot of time and attention.

Riva proposed a model that goes from Strategic to Environmental/Tactical to Toolbox/Operational, to try to address how knowledge-based organizations think/work, i.e. they develop a strategy and then they are open to new ideas and innovations to get the strategy implemented, ultimately pulling on various tools from a toolbox of technology, process, and people activities to execute said strategy. He spoke about structure, culture, and rewards as enabiling knowledge sharing, and I don’t disagree with him, I just don’t think he goes far enough. He’s using old models to try and explain current and future situations.

I felt the same way after listening to the “Followership” presentation on Wednesday. It is using old thinking and assumptions to try to describe/predict current or future situations. The “Followership” discussion seemed much more focused on maintaining the status quo and passing judgement on good leaders and bad leaders, and good followers and bad followers, but the reality is that these are judgement calls and are related to a person or society’s values/elthics/morals and don’t necessarily apply globally.

As we are seeing in organizations that focus on knowledge-based activities there is a “flattening” of the traditional org chart and the old “command and control” style of management is starting to wane. This waning of  the “Command and Control” style of existing is something we see in everyday activities too, e.g. university students calling their professors by thier first names, people no longer taking what their doctor tells them as the truth–whether it’s by getting a second opinion or by researching diseases and illnesses on the web. Social networking and media allows anyone with internet connectivity access to pretty much anyone they want whether that’s Oprah on Twitter or your next hire on FaceBook.

Anyway, all of this would seem to be a long way from my “Can you manage knowledge question?” but it’s not really, it brings us back to yes, but it’s all in how you define manage and accept that the way that you manage knowledge is not through “command and control” type structures, but by recognizing that to manage knowledge you create the space for it to be created and shared and that’s through trusting knowledge workers to do their jobs and giving them the tools they need to do it, whether that’s through training and education, processes, or technology. So we’re right back where we left off last time.

Any thoughts?