People-focused knowledge management

Management Behaviors
(Cronbach’s 
a
= 0.98)
Workplace Respect
(Cronbach’s 
a
= 0.90)
Workplace Cooperation
(Cronbach’s 
a
= 0.92)
Effectiveness and Outcomes
(Cronbach’s 
a
= 0.92)
N = 175 
The Management Effectiveness Model
“The primary effect of supervisory behaviors
is on workplace respect.”
r
2
= 0.55
r
2
= 0.76
r
2
= 0.67
Figure 2-5
Supervisor behaviors significantly influence effectiveness and outcomes as
indicated by the management effectiveness model. © 2001 Wendell Brase and The
Regents of the University of California (Brase 2001).
6. Permission
Employees must be provided safe environments in which to
do their work. Authority that matches their capabilities and
expertise must be delegated to allow employees to provide them
decision rights to adjust actions to correspond to the require-
ments of the situations they handle. They must be given permis-
sion to innovate, improvise, and “stretch” enterprise policies
and practices beyond predetermined scopes and standards to
serve the enterprise’s and its stakeholders’ best interest. They
need to adjust actions given the enterprise’s strategy, tactics,
policies, and intents. At the same time, they must accept respon-
sibility and accountability, act creatively and responsibly, and
be accountable for their actions.
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The Effective Enterprise
51
Six Behaviors of the Effective Enterprise
No matter how intelligent a leader’s strategy for change, it will fail
without the dedicated support of the rank and file. Winning that
support often requires more effort than devising the strategy itself
(Hymowitz 2002).
Effective and intelligent behavior is important in all knowledge
work. People tend to think of such behavior as particularly impor-
tant in “valuable” problem-solving or decision-making situations and
other high-level tasks such as determining corporate strategy. How-
ever, contrary to that notion, intelligent behavior is equally — often
more — important on the factory floor and in detailed work through-
out the enterprise. As indicated earlier, most enterprise strategy is
determined in the boardroom but is implemented by the individual
actions of employees throughout the organization. Hence, improving
the quality of the myriad of “small” decision-making and problem-
solving situations that are part of every employee’s daily work 
cumulates into significant improvements in knowledge worker per-
formance for the whole enterprise. It makes the difference between
a high-performing organization and a well-intending, but stumbling, 
organization.
Many researchers have studied the relationships between behavior
in the workplace and enterprise performance. Wendell Brase identi-
fied relationships between management behaviors, workplace 
respect, workplace cooperation, and effectiveness and outcomes, as
was indicated in Figure 2-5.
As for the success factors discussed previously, behaviors are func-
tions of circumstances, traditions, availability of resources, and other
factors. More importantly, they are also directly dependent upon
what people know and believe and therefore are influenced by sys-
tematic KM. Among all the behaviors in the enterprise, six behaviors
stand out:
1. Ethical, Safe, and Approachable Behavior
Any enterprise that expects to survive over the long term
needs to adopt a governance model that minimizes internal
strife and countereffective behaviors. In the spirit of good senior
management operating philosophy, everyone responsible
should attempt to foster an ethical, safe, and approachable
environment that supports effective situation-handling by
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52
People-Focused Knowledge Management
employees. Specific aspects of the corresponding behavior tend
to be:
— Open, honest, and communicative to build solid under-
standing of issues with the security that there are no hidden
agendas or other problem issues.
— Helpful and approachable managers and coworkers who all
work to achieve enterprise success and viability.
— Managers acting as role models for personal attitudes, con-
ducts, and leaders.
— Ethical and fair treatment in dealing with problems and
opportunities.
— Trusting in the attitudes, mentality, and capabilities of man-
agers and coworkers.
— Responsible and accountable for personal actions with ten-
dencies to practice “The Buck Stops Here!” actions.