People-focused knowledge management

Intellectual Work Is Indeed Complex
Preparing people to work effectively in complex environments
relies on recent cognitive science findings on how people build knowl-
edge, make decisions, and implement actions. In the past we may have
had an improper understanding of how to prepare and support people
as decision makers and implementers. That is changing as research
and practical experiences provide new insights. We also increase our
knowledge of how to manage intellectual capital, particularly through
adoption of people-focused knowledge management.
Obviously, integrative management and integrative analysis that
attempt to take into account all issues can lead to “analysis paraly-
sis.” That clearly must be avoided since timely and proactive deci-
sions must always be the goal. Time is always of the essence. How
then, with the need to coordinate and consider wider implications of
decisions, can managers pursue integrative management effectively
— and what is required?
Good managers must make quick decisions based on established
judgments, while considering broad implications and the novelty of
the situation at hand. Such behavioral models must remain our ideal.
For integrative management to be effective, several conditions must
be present. Managers — and every employee with any level of
responsibility, including factory floor workers — must be provided
with the awareness to consider the broad consequences of their deci-
sions — upstream, downstream, adjacent operations, over the longer
term, and while taking into account how relevant stakeholders are
affected. As achieved by Chaparral Steel, workers must be provided
with an understanding of what is expected of them (Wiig 1999). They
must have clear communication of their role in implementing enter-
prise strategy, objectives, and direction, and they must be able to
explore what it will mean for them, personally, in order to build oper-
ational mental models and understanding. They must also under-
stand service paradigms that spell out the nature of the services they
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People-Focused Knowledge Management
are asked to provide. These communications and discussions can be
conducted through “knowledge cafés” and similar processes.