KnowledgeManagement.pdf

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AUDIOSCRIPT

A radio interview with a human resources manager

Interviewer: Hello. Today on Business Focus I am talking about Knowledge Management with Ms.

Twomey, who is the Human Resource Manager for a large, multi-national company. Ms. Twomey, has

Knowledge Management changed the way your company works?

Ms. Twomey: Oh yes, since adopting Knowledge Management strategies, we have had to make many

changes to the way we work, from changing the technology we use and the way we use it, to changing people’s

ideas about the best way to work.

Interviewer:

And what has been the biggest challenge?

Ms. T: Without a doubt it is has been trying to get our staff to accept and adopt knowledge

management practices. This was a tough challenge because our company had a culture which was not

particularly open to the idea of knowledge management. So, I would say definitely the people side required the

biggest change.

Interviewer:

You mention a company “culture”. Can you explain what you mean by that?

Ms. T: Yes, certainly. Imagine you start work for a particular company. In the beginning you are not

sure what you can and can’t do. For example, can I go for a coffee break at 11? Or, who should I speak to if I

have a problem with the computer? Over time, you see what your fellow colleagues do – you take their lead –

and you adapt your way of working to how the other employees in that company work. You learn what is

acceptable behaviour for that company. One of the best definitions of company culture is “it’s the way things are

done round here”.

Interviewer:

Why did your company culture create such a challenge when adopting Knowledge

Management?

Ms. T: Well, knowledge management is often about knowledge sharing – the company wants to be

able to make the useful knowledge that one person has, available for other people to use. However, people can

be very protective of what they know, there is prestige in being a recognised “expert” and having people ask you

for your help. Obviously, if you share your knowledge so that it is freely available to everyone, you are giving up

some of that prestige and you may also feel that you are giving up some “power”. You may think that your

knowledge is the reason why you have a job in the first place. So for a company it is obviously not enough just

to say –“well, now we think you should share your knowledge”. And in our company, experts did have status

and there was also considerable prestige gained by thinking up new, original ideas rather than re-using the

good ideas which worked for other people in other offices. So in these 2 areas of trying to implement Knowledge

Management strategies, that of sharing knowledge and that of re-using knowledge, our company culture, the

way we did things round here, had to change.

Interviewer:

How were you able to overcome these problems?

Ms T: Well, first we had to make sure that our people understood the competitive advantage the

company stood to gain if we changed our way of working. We organised staff meetings in each of our offices to

introduce the aims of the KM strategies we were going to adopt. We also set up a group of Knowledge

Management Champions throughout our network of offices. The duty of the Champions was to help get people

on board and enthusiastic about KM and to be a point of reference on KM for the local offices. The Champions

were fundamental to spreading the KM message and also provided an important link between HQ and local

offices.

As well as the personnel aspect of KM, we also had to bring in new technology to help us. We set up special

pages on our intranet which provided information on what was happening in our offices and we asked

employees to advertise their fields of experience and interest so that it became much easier to find the

knowledge we needed – we put these on a special database which everyone had access to. We also invested

in new technology which made having online conferences easier to organise.

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KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AUDIOSCRIPT

Interviewer:

It sounds like it was a lot of work…

Ms. Twomey: Indeed it was and in the beginning there were some problems and hiccups but we are really

seeing the benefits of implementing Knowledge Management now, as there is greater communication between

the offices and people are realising that if we all work together, we can achieve much better results.

Interviewer: Well, thank you Ms Twomey, for agreeing to talk to us about Knowledge Management. That

is all for today from Business Focus. Next week we shall be talking to the managing director of a chemical

company who… (fades away)

www.britishcouncil.org/professionals.htm

The United Kingdom’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations. We are registered in England as a charity.

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