People-focused knowledge management

Comments: Joe Hanson was very experienced and did not
always believe what he was told. In addition, he had been edu-
cated in systems dynamics and was personally interested in the
higher order consequences of actions. In this situation, Joe
received conflicting information and opinions. However, the
symptoms indicated that there were underlying factors, and he
was therefore motivated to uncover them.
The primary knowledge-related aspects of this case are related to
the value of Joe Hanson’s own expertise. A more permanent and
strategic aspect related to the needs for greater and broader knowl-
edge for production line workers and new management and super-
visor understandings to support the new practices.
Enterprise Situational Awareness
Many enterprises are caught off guard as a result of misunder-
standing situations and misinterpreting perceived consequences.
Their Situational Awareness has been limited — the enterprise’s ref-
erence models and the mental reference models of its employees have
been limited — and therefore have become constraints in ways that
lead to problems. Along the same lines, when enterprise management
teams are faced with difficult situations that fall beyond their previ-
ous experiences — such as accidents or management failures — they
may immediately execute self-preserving responses based on human
reflex models instead of engaging in proactive Problem-Solving that
examines implications from broader perspectives. Also, in many
enterprises the information management function lacks the means,
or have not been designed, to deal with issues beyond the expected.
As a result, in these cases, the enterprise’s intelligence assets lack the
capabilities to deal with unanticipated challenges, hence leaving the
enterprise vulnerable.
The extent of an organization’s Situational Awareness often dis-
tinguishes a higher performing enterprise from one that only follows
170
People-Focused Knowledge Management
ch06.qxd 5/3/04 2:34 PM Page 170

---

the industry leaders. Situational Awareness to a large extent is deter-
mined by the understanding and breadth of knowledge. When focus
is narrow and understanding is limited, it may lead to significant busi-
ness problems as illustrated by the following example.