Does your organisation “Know what it knows”? How can we share effective practice in our organisations?

I was at the  Enhancement of Learning Support ( ELS) event last Friday, at a rather snowy RAF Cosford Museum,  where we considered some of the alternative ways of approaching CPD. In many of the workshop discussions, we came to the conclusion that a lot of the solutions to our everyday issues are already within our organisations, we just need to find ways of tapping into them more effectively. The aim of the ELS  programme is to examine ways of delivering alternative approaches to CPD  to get this information and knowledge moving about organisations more effectively.

What struck me, was that what we are really talking about here, for want of a better phrase, is “knowledge management”. Often when you say “knowledge management”,  organisations  reach for the IT solution - warehousing data on the organisation’s IT intranet -  a process that often creates electronic fences, information overload but does  not promote the sharing of effective practice. In addition, it tends to prioritise data which can be counted, but in practice, much of the information we need to improve quality is, not surprisingly, qualitative rather than quantitative.

Knowledge is not just data or information and so simply sharing data and information will not give staff greater  knowledge and understanding, and for that reason, we shouldn't get fixated with data and systems, but concentrate instead on the importance of human interaction.  Knowledge is not simply information,  it contains belief, values and commitment and  it is social groups that  create knowledge flows  - and for most of us over 20 years old, we mean real social groups - face to face with other people,  not in cyberspace space somewhere!

Knowledge flows best when it is not too tightly prescribed or imposed by the organisation - structures that are  self organising or informal but supported by management often have the best results.  A good example is the copier company Xerox  that discovered that the service engineers fixing copiers got the best results when they  departed from the formal processes in the manual. What they also discovered was  that, rather than using the standard operating procedure,  this knowledge was being routinely swapped at ad hoc breakfast meetings  where itinerant service engineers  swapped experiences and stories. Through this informal socialising, the engineers developed a collective pool of immensely useful practical knowledge which saved them time and improved their performance – Xerox’s approach was to  facilitate the process by making the "Tips" available to the 25000 in their worldwide workforce.

But sharing knowledge is tricky, for most organisations, if they knew what they knew they would undoubtedly  be more effective..........or even more effective.  Knowledge management  has a lot to offer in promoting  organisational learning  but we don't necessarily  give it the  priority  it deserves, in spite of the huge potential benefits. How much of your CPD budge last year was directly allocated to helping  your organisation know what it knows and getting that knowledge to where you most need it?

The resources being developed  in the West Midlands are a contribution to an alternative approach to promoting and sharing effective practice.   I am not suggesting that staff should be sharing experiences and knowledge over  morning coffee and croissants (although this sound like fun!!)  but  it is worth spending some time thinking about how your organisation could make greater use of the social context in the workplace to harness the full potential of its collective knowledge?

Alison O'Brien