People-focused knowledge management

ments of affected departments and operations. But when they
needed to decide and act, the broader perspectives seemed to be
forgotten, and that impacted the effectiveness of the whole 
operation. Bob could show that the unilateral behaviors cost
Bromley money and affected its customer relations.
What then, was wrong? Since Bob was at a loss, he asked
June Cousins, a Human Resources Department psychologist, if
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she could help. June took time to observe several people for
hours and talked with them about what she had observed. It
became clear that in most cases people engaged in operating
decisions and situation-handling that had aspects of uncertainty
in addition to multiple competing objectives. Information was
often limited or inconsistent, and judgment was required to
interpret the situation. Typically, situations presented dilemmas
by requiring balancing tradeoffs between conflicting objectives.
Common tradeoffs were needed for many kinds of situations
such as between scheduling competent teams for night or
weekend shifts while also accommodating personnel requests,
between production expediency and product quality, or between
minimizing short-term costs and building for the future.
Most found it difficult to make balanced, real-life decisions
under such circumstances. Nearly all the decisions June
observed also required quick resolutions. Hence, they were 
personal situation-handling cases that made it difficult to col-
laborate or use computer-based decision aids. Instead, they
relied on the mental models held by experienced personnel. Fur-
thermore, people handled most situations from concrete or, if
they could, from routine points of view. That is, the decision
makers attempted to frame situations from immediate and oper-
ational perspectives without considering decision implications
related to other objectives, such as those associated with other
departments or longer term effects. In effect, the decision
makers tended to quickly focus on “first-order objectives” and
to put “second-order objectives” aside, thereby creating single-
objective situation-handling cases.
June discussed her findings with Bob, who became concerned.
If this was how experienced people behaved, how could
Bromley expect the balanced situation-handling needed for
smooth and competitive performance? June suggested three
reasons for people’s tendency to simplify:
1. In general, most people tend to build practical mental refer-
ence models — expertise — that reflect immediate and con-
crete situations in which they are engaged and can observe.
Unless otherwise assisted or engaged, they do not observe,
or understand, implications or secondary effects outside their
direct operations or those that appear at a later time.
2. Within Bob’s operations, most had limited understanding of
Bromley’s intents and strategy. They did not appreciate how
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their own actions were part of implementing the strategy or
how they would benefit personally from achieving the strat-
egy successfully. Hence, they were not motivated to observe
or were not in a position to judge how past or present actions
affected broader objectives. Their focus was mostly on the
immediate operations.
3. Although most people to some extent generalize and identify
patterns when engaged operationally in complex situations,
they do not appear to build broad and abstract mental
models that can be referenced at later times. That is, they do
not tend to build scripts, schemata, and procedural and
declarative metaknowledge. Therefore, they become limited
in their ability to make balanced judgments and decisions
when similar complex situations occur.
June suggested that things did not need to be this way. She
referred to other organizations that assisted their employees to
build mental approaches to generating and implementing bal-
anced actions when handling complicated situations. That could
also be done within Bromley. What was needed was to help
employees understand the company’s strategy and intents and
how that related to their own work. To make that understand-
able, it would be necessary to engage in extensive discussions
and furnish material that included example cases — stories —
to facilitate quick mental model development. In this way the
employees would be motivated and able to consider the higher
order implications of actions and other changes.
In addition, people throughout Bromley needed to develop
integrative perspectives and be encouraged to break down the
existing silo mentality. They should be encouraged to learn more
about operations adjacent to their own by networking and, if
possible, by temporary personnel rotation. They needed to build
understanding and appreciation for the wider workings of the
corporate system. Only then would they be in a position to
judge higher order effects. However, that would not be 
enough. People also needed assistance to build a methodological
understanding of how to deal with uncertainties and conflicting
objectives. That would best be done though approaches such as
workshops and management simulation games. These did not
need to be expensive but could be performed in many ways, like
teams that competed during lunch hours with computer-based
games. Other approaches would require costly offsite sessions.
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