denotes premium content | May 23 2013 Inside Knowledge Magazine /Knowledge Management Magazine Archive
Volume 2 Issue 5
Features
Clash of the Titans: or how to develop a knowledge friendly organisational culture
The influence of culture on a companys decision making is more powerful than we realise. It may be time to do a cultural audit; to try and bring to the surface possible defects in the corporate wide personality. Stephanie Pugh suggests some ways of helping knowledge management create a real and positive change through a knowledge friendly environment.
Creating a knowledge sharing culture
It is often said that it is essential to create a Knowledge Sharing Culture as part of a knowledge management initiative. An Isolated knowledge management program looked after by a privileged few is a paradox in itself and will not survive for long. Only effective collaboration and communication which spans across the whole company structure will give knowledge management the boost it really needs. In order to enrich a company's current culture, David Gurteen believes that change must start with the individual. Every employee has a sphere of influence along with their own individual knowledge, and this is where he believes a knowledge sharing culture can begin.
Discovering the Values Factor
Is it possible to leverage the dimensions of a companys implicit belief system, to place a spot light on all the skeletons in the corporate cupboard; on old traditions and dated ideas? Over the last ten years, Dr. Brian Hall has developed a system which will expose these values and evaluate the percentage of real communication going on across organisations.
Freeing Tacit Knowledge
The whole corporate ethos of a company; its traditional structures, systems and relationships sometimes seems to create a corporate cultural straitjacket, stifling creativity before any new attempts have even been made. In this article, Professor Guy Claxton promotes the need for unthinking and space to reflect in order to refresh stultified imagination. Creativity does not need to be the casualty of an out of date culture.
Knowledge Work And The Culture Trap
According to Victor Newman, benchmarking your company against the external indicators of success in others will give only a small idea of where you are going wrong. Comparing company culture is like comparing individual people; they may have the same essential functions but their belief systems, cultures and goals are totally different. Here, a new direction for transforming culture is given, a divorce from old technology in order to nurture creativity.
Preserving culture in an expanding company
When a small cottage industry type of organisation expands rapidly, it is easy to lose touch with the culture that was previously maintained just through conversation and working relationships. Expansion means that a company ethos needs support to continue growing in the right direction. Quidnunc, a software consultancy won the Culture section of the 1998 Knowledge awards and here, Martin Cheesebrough outlines the key to sustaining success in a growing company.
