I have a few important questions.
How does one institutionalize the
knowledge and expertise gained by an individual? Why is it important for the
Organisation? Does sharing these insights bring insecurity to an individual?
Well, we shall try and discuss
the first question. How does one institutionalize the knowledge and expertise
gained by an individual?
In 1985, product developers at
Osaka based Matsushita Electric Company were hard at work on a new home bread
making machine. They were having trouble
in getting the machine to knead the dough correctly. The crust of the bread
used to get overcooked and the inside was hardly cooked.
The gist of what was done is as
follows.
The best bread making hotel was
identified. An engineer from Matushita electric understood the process in
detail from the master chef who was an expert in making the best bread in town.
The engineer then translated the understanding to the project team responsible
for making the bread home machine.
The knowledge transfer may happen
in one of the four ways.
1. Tacit to tacit: One person shares his
knowledge with the other person. In the bread making example, it’s the sharing
of knowledge, process and skill by the master chef with the engineer. Look at
some of the skills like that of a blacksmith. One person passes on the
knowledge and skill to the next generation and so on…
2. Explicit to explicit: This is when one
individual puts discrete pieces of information together to form a new whole. A
project management office for example may ask for different kinds of
information from various teams/department and create a new insight altogether.
3. Tacit to explicit: When the knowledge
known to one individual is shared in such a way that it can be translated into
a process. In the example of bread making machine, when the engineer is able to
articulate the learning from the master chef to the project team, it can be
termed as tacit to explicit knowledge transfer.
4. Explicit to tacit: The new explicit
knowledge is shared across the Organisation. When this is done, the other
employees begin to use it, internalize it and broaden their capabilities. This
enables them to reframe their own tacit knowledge.
Today technology plays a very
important role in the manner in which the knowledge is created and captured in
the company. Many companies have kept innovation at the center of the strategy.
This becomes one of the big differentiators for them.
So we find Organisations using
many innovation models or concepts or practices. Some of them are innovation
councils, hackethons, innovation champs, Idea incubations, crowd sourcing and
many more. This allows them to generate new ideas effectively, fail cheaply,
get the filtered ideas and incubate them. Finally leading the chaos to a
concept and scale it into a new business opportunity.
I am sure you have come across
many such examples. From small process change innovations that help reduce time
and better customer experience to paradigm shifting innovations like a car @
$2000 (Tata Nano) or manufacturing a portable imaging device at one-tenth of
the cost that can be taken to patients for health check-ups (GE).
So does it help us as consumers
and contributors to knowledge creation and innovation?
As consumers these innovation
practices helps us with more and more innovative options and access on products
and services.
As an Organisation citizen it
allows us to participate in the process and enhance our own tacit framework.
It allows us a great opportunity
to contribute and make this world an even better place to live.
