10 Human resources management policies to support innovation

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1 10 Human resources management policies to support innovation 10.3 Knowledge Management for Innovation Keywords Knowledge-management, tacit-, explicit-, -sharing Learning objective After reading the component, you will be able to determine key points for your management (KM) concept. You will know that KM is a continuous process. You can start smart, with tools of a richly equipped toolbox which are fairly easy to apply. After reading, you will feel more competent to identify key in your company and to identify tools to generate, to distribute and to keep. You will also feel more competent to see connections to motivation, to the atmosphere in your company and how to promote sharing. You will know better how to explore the creative potential of among your staff. You will have learnt why KM is relevant also for small and micro companies because it can make your work more efficient, save time and strengthens competitiveness coming from your most important recourses your staff. Introduction Do you like to communicate, to speak about your experiences to others? Than for sure, you unconsciously use management yet. Storytelling is a management technique. Most of us enjoy listening to short stories or case studies. Therefore, why not starting this introduction with a story? The manager of a small company and his all-round right hand master craftsman have just come back from a seminar entitled Knowledge Management for more success in your Company. Both have learnt that management is highly relevant also for small companies and application is much easier than they had thought. Almost bursting with ideas, the manager looks now for finding a starting point. However, when he types management into Google he gets about results. 1 Frustration! Do they think that we have time to read hundreds of pages? What we need is a bit of guidance to tell us about the most important issues and practical tools on how to introduce and develop management in our company, says the manager. We get too much new information every day on competitors, producers, regulations, materials and offers. We have to find more efficient ways to filter, categorize and store information. It is important to find it quickly afterwards when we need it and we must be able to better provide relevant information to the employees and customers. 1 October

2 Do we have to ask a business consultant to start or can we start smart on our own as they had told us in the seminar? The Master Craftsman reminds his manager, that management, according to the seminar experts, is not only about the improved organisation, categorisation and storing of information. Instead, it also refers to Human Resources Management issues such as staff motivation and sharing as well as several other organisational and cultural issues. What we need now is some more information on management and how to start he agrees to his boss. After some online searching he finds the InnoSupport Guide and the module on Knowledge Management. I think this is exactly what we are looking for he exclaims! Was this short story providing you some interesting information? That s one way how KM can work! This module has been designed to provide a general understanding of management and related issues. It informs you about basic techniques or processes that can be used - in micro or multi-national companies! After reading the content you will be in a better position to make a sound decision on the usefulness of certain management tools for your own purposes and working environment. The module goes well together with others in this guide. 2 It helps you to consider and to implement appropriate measures in order to improve management step by step within the organisation. Innovation rooms that you can find in this guide for online-brainstorming allow provide wider possibilities for finding and sharing ideas and in another room you can use Mind mapping to structure. Please stop and think: what is the situation in your work environment? Have you ever thought about if is properly organised and stored in the company? Go through your staff and imagine that somebody would not appear tomorrow and would be absent for the next six months due to an accident. Is key organised in the company in a way that serious disturbance of processes can be avoided? What does management of mean? When we want to manage we first have to define what type of we intend to manage. Different cultures have different words and we find many definitions. In our context, we will use the term KNOWLEDGE for having information about subjects, processes and skills for dealing with them. This includes our acquired experiences. This which we want to manage can be our own, 2 Please see the contents on creativity techniques, the management of internal proposals (modules in chapter 4 of the guide) or on cooperation for finding innovative solution (chapter 11) 2

3 personal. It is inside us, others do not see it. Than we call it TACIT. Knowledge that we can find in other sources, like books, instructions etc. we call EXPLICIT. This sounds theoretical but as it is a basic distinction for understanding different strategies in KM. Therefore, we should know the difference. Tacit stored in the individual brain therefore: difficult to transfer and to make useable to others. Explicit stored in documents (handbooks, instructions) therefore: easy to transfer and to make useable to others. It is clear from this distinction, that management of tacit and explicit requires different concepts and tools! In a company there is an experienced welder who always is required to do a complicated welding which only he knows to do in a perfect way. He is getting retired in one year s time. What would you suggest in order to save the (tacit!) expert in the company? Please stop and think and afterwards read the footnote please. 3 Knowledge Management aims to organise the acquisition/generation, the transfer and the use of in the company systematically in order to exploit it. As a consequence better use of innovative potentials, higher degree of involvement and satisfaction of staff and raising competitiveness can be achieved. Please stop and think: What is the situation in your work environment? Check list Do employees have all information they need for motivated, high qualified? Performance in order to feel involved in processes? Feel employees free to make critics and suggestions for yes no 3 What solution have you found? We suggest building up a tandem, in the way that another worker does the complicated welding more and more autonomously guided by the experienced welder over a longer period of time. Sounds simple, but so many companies forget to identify key and to transfer it by time. Often they have to ask retired employees to come back to solve the problem. Building up a tandem to transfer tacit is a management tool. 3

4 improvements? Is there a culture of helping each other and sharing? Is there rather an atmosphere to see own as a competitive factor and to protect it? Do you think that you get all information in order to make sound decisions? Do you sometimes spend too much time to find information in your files? Do you know what your employees did before starting work in the company and which special (professional skills, networks/clients information ) they have? Have you tried to make advantage from this special? Do you know who was responsible for a project or service provided to a certain customer two years ago and how it was done? After filling in the check list have you detected yet any potentials for better management in your environment? What will be the profit of Knowledge Management? All of us will remember situations where we spent time looking for a file or document which we had stored but could not remember where. Or we composed a document knowing that a similar had been written yet but could not find it. Or a colleague did a job in a wrong way because the information did not reach him properly. Or a colleague left the company from one day to the other and nobody knows how to find specific information or to do the job properly (we speak of losing of critical then). You will perhaps also remember situations where you were angry because relevant information did not reach you. All what has been mentioned above has to do with proper Knowledge Management. Knowledge Management will not completely exclude such situations but considerably help to avoid them and improve identification, flow and sharing in the company. This is not only relevant regarding efficiency but it is also highly relevant for satisfaction, motivation and commitment. Motivation and commitment are crucial for using the innovative potential of the staff. 4 From the statements above we can conclude that it will be difficult to calculate in money the profit of KM. Therefore, the management has to be convinced about its usefulness and support it. 4 See also module 4.6 Management of internal innovative proposal 4

5 The following graphic summarizes some key ideas of profit from KM: Figure 1: Potential profits from Knowledge Management Better internal flow Save time (Find faster) Avoid double work Avoid loss of Profit from KM Identify critical Higher degree staff commitment Better exploration of existing We had learnt before yet, that feeling informed and good flows of information are important factors for a motivated and satisfied staff crucial for an innovative atmosphere. We have to know about specific skills and interests of staff members, also acquired in former jobs or outside company activities. These sources are important when looking for innovative solutions. Knowledge management has to do with building up self-esteem you and your are appreciated. Self esteem is fundamental for creative and active participation in generating ideas and finding innovative solutions 5. Appreciation to promote motivation depends on the company culture, on management styles 6. 5 see module 4.1 on creativity and the following chapters of creativity techniques 6 see module 10.2 on company culture 5

6 KM also means managing information coming from outside organisation. This can be information from abroad that brings the breakthrough for solving an innovation problem. Or we want to sell our idea and need to find network partners to market an idea. For gathering and sharing information abroad foreign language and intercultural competences are crucial. 7 Here we see again the complexity of proper innovation management. Success depends on knowing, respecting and combining various, related factors Where does Knowledge Management apply? In the chapters before we have mentioned several fields yet where Knowledge Management applies in the innovation process. It applies at every stage, in the way as communication does. In the following graphic we are going to highlight aspects of KM for the first three steps in the innovation chain: Figure 2: KM in the Innovation Chain Analysis Innovation Needs Gathering information inside and outside company, information sharing in the company Generating ideas buying ideas from outside, management of internal innovative proposals, creativity techniques, information sharing Evaluation of potential solutions Decision making and transfer of the information on the decision, benchmarking KM applies to each step in the chain. In this short introduction we could show this only roughly How to (further) develop Knowledge Management in the organisation? 8 In the same way as the other modules in this guide we intend to provide basic about a topic. This will help you to make sound decisions about further, more detailed dealing with the issue or not. This chapter will provide information how to determine a basic strategy for KM which is the precondition for planning KM as a process and choosing adequate tools. 7 See module 12 on Foreign Language and Intercultural Competences for Innovation 8 For this chapter we have used aspects from the practical approach to KM presented in Lucko/Trauner,

7 At the beginning we had said that KM is a process. We can start smart and develop it step by step. What does mean we here? If you read this module from the manager s perspective you should not try to add this as an additional task. KM needs continuous action. Management will hardly find enough time in the daily business. KM needs your continuous support and supervision. Check (with) your team: Identify a person who is accepted in the team, who is communicative, shows commitment and is reliable. This can be your worker. He or she should not see this responsibility as a burden. Provide time for KM related activity and to gather expertise on the topic and tools. Recognize and appreciate activities as what they are: An important contribution to the company s development! Identification of possible fields for starting and first steps in KM: Please check the situation in your organisation: We store in a structured way We use structured devices to store information We evaluate and store results of finished projects We transfer lessons learnt from finished projects We use a data base where we record which tasks were done when by whom We use a data base where we record information about cooperation with partners and clients We have created our own yellow pages where we have stored information about specific expertise (work experience, special and interests) of staff and outside experts yes partly Not yet 7

8 The KM Triad When we want to introduce and further develop KM we always have to regard the KM Triad: Successful development of KM has to regard related factors: Human being Technique Organisation 9 - KM Triad Human being Technique Organisation Needs motivation for sharing 10, Incentive systems, esteem and self esteem, KM culture in the company ICT can be part of KM but KM can also work without ICT Procedures/tools that allow acquising, generating, sharing, applying and storing. 11 Places and time for sharing, further education If we have identified from the check list before that it would be nice to have lessons learnt from finished projects stored on the data base this would mean the following: Technique we have created a database. Organisation we have informed all colleagues that they should store lessons learnt in the data base. So let s check after 2 months: Is it still empty?!? What can be the reason? We have to check all three factors. The data base is there and works. What about human being and organisation? Have we given an introduction how to use the data base? Have we organised time for inserting data? We have ask to fill in important individual, why should employees share it with others so have we done something for motivating them? In another case we have done all this but the technical side might be too complicated or time consuming so we have to think and check always all three factors together! How to find criteria to select KM tools? 12 There is an almost endless catalogue of KM tools. How to choose relevant tools? We want to assist you to find the right decision for tools. 9 Lucko/Trauner, See 4, particularly 4.1 Introduction to Creativity and 4.6 management of internal innovative proposals for motivation and incentive systems 11 See chapter 4 Finding innovative solutions, for further information 12 Lucko/Trauner,

9 Figure 3: General KM strategies Personalisation and Codification What does our key business require? Personalisation & Codification Routine, repited tasks Standard offers, products and services Employee need primarily explicit from data bases, handbooks, guidelines Codification Focus on storing for using it again. Effective use of available Individual, tailored solutions Innovative products and services Employees need and use primarily tacit expert Personalisation Focus on exchange. Generation of and sharing of tacit expert is the best way for innovative tasks and solutions. In practise, there will always be a mixture of both tasks and activities in the company. But analysing and finding key business activities of individuals and teams will make decision easier to find and to introduce proper KM tools. Due to the orientation of this guide to innovation, in the guide mainly tools related to the Personalisation strategy are presented. You will find detailed presentation of tools primarily in module 4 - creativity techniques for generating ideas) and in module 11 networking, exploring and sharing tacit and working together on solutions e.g. in CoPs Communities of Practise. Guidance for tools in the frame of the Codification concept (data bases, structured devices etc.) will be available from the internet or further education offers. We have seen from above that it makes sense to distinguish tools a) that are more suitable to support Codification that means helping to store and to transfer explicit and b) those which support Personalisation to make visible and to transfer tacit, expert which is stored in the expert brains. Another approach to identify proper tools is to have in mind different tasks of KM: Figure 4: General KM tasks and appropriate tools (selection) KM-Task Awareness raising for KM Identify/generate Suggested KM Tools Intranet, incentive systems Yellow pages, data bases, benchmarking, 9

10 Store Distribute and transfer structured devices, Creativity techniques, Communities of Practise, (social) networks Intranet, data bases, organise evaluation and lessons learnt from finished tasks, networks, incentive systems, handbooks, instructions, guides Intranet, internal meetings and training with (internal) experts, yellow pages (to know who knows what in the company), places where exchange of information is promoted, job rotation, incentive systems, internal/external education (with transfer of the acquired to colleagues), Communities of Practise (CoPs), storytelling, work in tandem, (social) networks and expert groups Good practice In a seminar to introduce KM in SMEs we presented creativity techniques from this guide Brainstorming and Brainwriting (635-Technique) and management of innovative internal proposals. The owners of an ice café decided to ask employees and trainees to bring in ideas for new and attractive products (sundaes). They used motivating awards as well as an introductory session analysing the situation of the company and asking for the employees commitment. They created a form for the idea description and provided this online and in paper version. The result was excellent they could create new and successful products. Particularly the trainees brought in very fresh ideas Summary of key points Knowledge Management aims to organise the acquisition/generation, the transfer and the use of in the company systematically in order to exploit it. As a consequence better use of innovative potentials, higher degree of involvement and satisfaction of staff and raising competitiveness can be achieved. Knowledge can be individualized. Than we call it tacit. It is more difficult to transfer. Knowledge that is stored outside and what we can e.g. find in instructions, we call explicit. Management of tacit and explicit requires different concepts and tools. KM helps to improve identification, flow and sharing in the company. This is highly relevant for satisfaction, motivation and commitment. Motivation and commitment are crucial for using the innovative potential of the staff. KM applies to each step in the innovation chain. It would be difficult to calculate in money the profit 10

11 of KM. Therefore, the management has to be convinced about its usefulness and support it. As KM needs continuous action, management should identify a person who is worker. Successful development of KM has to regard related factors: Human being Technique Organisation - the KM Triad. For the concept we have to analyse our core business. We distinguish codification and personalisation. Codification focuses on storing for effectively using it again. The personalisation concept focuses on exchange. The main objective of this component was to raise awareness about how important Knowledge Management in the company is. We have learnt that there are simple tools which make work easier, more efficient and contribute to create a motivating innovative culture in the organisation. We have also learnt how to determine basics of our KM strategy. We have seen that KM is a process that can start smart and which is relevant for each type of business not depending on the size of the company. Now, after reading and reflecting about this topic, we suggest initiating some concrete actions immediately. If you fail to do so some ideas and opportunities for innovation can easily get lost in daily routine Bibliography Sandra Lucko and Bettina Trauner, Wissensmanagement, 7 Bausteine für die Umsetzung in der Praxis. 2. Auflage, Hanser, 2005 Further reading Peter Pawlowsky and Rüdiger Reinhardt (edit.) Wissensmanagement für die Praxis. Luchterhand, 2002 Useful tools for management are presented in the guide. We refer especially to the modules presented in 4 Creativity techniques. Also 11 - Networking, present tools related to KM, such as 11.3 Communities of Practise (CoPs) or 11.4 Social network analyses. KM requires a culture in the organisation that promotes initiative and sharing. You will find information specifically in 10.2 company s culture but also in 4.1 introductions to creativity and 4.6 management of innovative proposals. These both chapters, 4.1 and 4.6 also provide detailed information on incentive systems which can be used for promoting KM as well as on other motivating factors. 11

12 Websites < viewed 8 November 2010 provides an introduction and a rich list of KM tools which are explained. The see also section provides numerous links for those who look for related resources. < idea.html > viewed 8 November 2010 e-coach offering relevant information on idea management and other issues related to innovation Glossary Job rotation is an approach to management development where an individual is moved through a schedule of assignments designed to give him or her a breadth of exposure to the entire operation. Job rotation is also practiced to allow qualified employees to gain more insights into the processes of a company, and to reduce boredom and increase job satisfaction through job variation. < Storytelling, sometimes called Narrative Knowledge, attempts to recount events in the form of a story within the context of an organization. Whether in or out of organizations, people often recount experiences in story-like forms and listen to stories of others. Organizational theorists have now become aware that much learning in organizations takes place through storytelling. They have also realized that there is much we can learn by studying the stories that people tell about each other and about the organization as a whole < Tandem learning is an efficient KM technique. An expert and an apprentice are working together for a longer period in order to organise the transfer of specific (tacit) expert knowlegde. It is particularly recommended if highly specialised staff is going to get retired. 12