What is it that we know, exactly?

John L. Gordon – April 2007

One thing that seems amazing about business and business knowledge is that organisations get on really well without knowing very much about it. It all just seems to work out OK. Well at least until things go wrong and financial pressures force an organisation to sell off some of its knowledge to reduce costs. Unfortunately, when they have sold off some knowledge they aren’t really sure what they have sold so survival after that point is a matter of luck. For a lot of the time though, things do seem to work out OK. As a knowledge specialist, I would wish to argue that if managers knew more about the organisational knowledge resource; this would lead to a more effective organisation; and I am sure this is true. Unfortunately it is really difficult to demonstrate this truth, before some work is done, that is, without making claims that are not really justified given that the organisation seems to get on OK without knowing much about its knowledge resource.

Just before continuing, it should be made clear that at least as far as I am concerned, it is people that know things, not documents, not books, not data bases, not intranets, but people. The business knowledge resource is stuck inside the heads of people, whether the company directors like it or not. If the company can operate solely through the use of information and data that can be properly documented, then there may not be too much need for knowledge; but such companies are probably the exception. ‘I know’ is a statement of authority. It is much stronger than ‘I think’ or ‘I believe’. ‘I know’ can be said whilst thumping the table or pointing menacingly at someone. Either action may not have quite the same impact when accompanied by ‘I think’ or ‘I am almost certain’. To know implies correctness; knowledge is something to do with the way things really are. Which organisation want’s a ‘knowledge base’ that is populated by things that are not true?

Getting back to being amazed again, looking inside larger organisations that may make aeroplanes or cars for instance, there is probably nobody within those organisations that actually knows how to do it. Some of them may know how to design parts others may know how to fit the parts together in a design. But the people making the parts probably don’t know how to do this and they probably sometimes feel sure that the designers don’t know how anything is actually manufactured. When a part of a knowledge resource is investigated, it often turns out that the knowledge actually used is not really the same as the knowledge that seems likely to be used. For instance, when a part proves difficult to make to specification given the design parameters provided and the equipment and materials specified, the experts in the manufacturing area have the knowledge of being able to find out how to do it or work out how to do it and not, initially, the knowledge of how to do it. The people that know how to make sure that all of the parts come together during assembly and make sure the equipment and other resources are all available when needed probably don’t know how to make aeroplanes or cars either. It is likely that none of these people know how to work out a new starter’s tax code and deal with the PAYE system.

People build a knowledge resource that suits their own purpose. This usually includes knowledge that they need to do their work but often extends far beyond that knowledge. When I made the point about people not knowing how to build a plane or make a car, it can look like there are people that do know this. For instance, there are automobile, aeroplane and engine enthusiasts that completely rebuild old planes, cars and engines from a simple shell. They often manufacture all of the parts themselves from original designs and then fit them all to make a fully working and complete unit. Because of their extensive experience of a particular unit, they could probably also draw up a design plan for many of the parts of the original. As extensive and impressive as such knowledge is, it is not the same knowledge as that required to design and make new, mass produced cars, aeroplanes or engines for instance and of course, make a profit from the sale of such cars, aeroplanes or engines. However, the extent and significance of the knowledge acquired by the true enthusiast can be far greater than the knowledge acquired by an individual worker within the working environment of a large company. It could be that large organisations could learn a lot from the enthusiast about development of the organisational knowledge resource. The key is probably within the word ‘enthusiast’.

The knowledge applied by a large organisation is truly diverse. This is most likely to be true for a small organisation also. I once studied the knowledge of how to run an off-licence (properly), and the people contributing to the study, a few expert off-licence managers, were also amazed at the knowledge that they needed and they actually applied, when they finally saw it presented before them. In very small companies, the luxury of delegating certain responsibilities to other staff may not be an option. In such cases, one person may have to know everything about running a company, Corporation tax, PAYE, VAT, Annual Returns, Directors Tax, National Insurance, not to mention, marketing, sales, IT, leaflet design, web site maintenance etc. Clearly, knowing everything is probably not practical but such people do have to know how to find out the minimum that they need to do to satisfy legal requirements and stay in business. I didn’t mention that they also have to have expertise in the particular business discipline, if they get time to practice it.

I had thought that the simplest sort of knowledge is the knowledge that a person uses in a television or pub quiz. A person either knows an answer or does not know it. Oddly enough, when the television quiz candidate fails to give an answer to the question ‘what is the third highest mountain in the world’, others may shout at the television, ‘that’s easy, he must be stupid’. The knowledge needed is straightforward; the person either knows or does not know. Well maybe things are not always that simple with humans. People often know that they know the answer but just can’t think of it now. How could you get a computer to behave like that? I was recently watching an episode of Egg Heads on the television and noticed that on quite a few occasions, the expert quiz candidates did not know the answer but could work it out from other things that they knew. This was not simply knowing other related things, but knowing how to apply a strategy to use this other knowledge to work out an answer to the current question. So maybe even this apparently straightforward knowledge is not so straightforward when we look at experts applying it.

An owner and MD of a software company based in Scotland once told me that he preferred to recruit people that are dedicated to a hobby and pursue it with vigour. Like the person that enjoyed riding a bicycle. This person planned a cycle tour across America and organised the resources for the tour as well as taking part in it. The MD felt sure that whatever difficulties may confront his company, he had the right staff to deal with them. But that is another very interesting area of knowledge, knowing how to deal with a new and previously unknown problem. Does a manager know that certain staff have such knowledge and if so, what exactly is the knowledge that they have. If the manager does not know this, how can he or she develop the knowledge or protect it or recruit new people that have it? Again, the knowledge that the manager needs to have may not be the knowledge that the expert problem solvers have but the manager may need to know what this knowledge is, without knowing the knowledge. Otherwise, the knowledge may get sold off at the next financial difficulty or the next retirement etc.

The business knowledge resource has risk attached to it. Not all of it has the same risk and the risk associated with separate parts of the knowledge resource can be controlled by managers to some extent. Whilst studying the knowledge of an advanced manufacturing process in a large manufacturer, I came across what appeared to be a conflict in the knowledge needed to do a part of the job. The knowledge related to controlling the temperature of a part that was being formed in a large industrial oven. The operator told me that one of the things that he needed to know was how to compensate for misplacement of the part in the oven by controlling the details of the oven operation. When this was reviewed by the manager in charge, he stated that this knowledge was not necessary since parts were never misplaced. When I queried this with the operator, I was shown data of actual cases where misplacement necessitated expert control changes. This bit of knowledge was truly high risk because the company, through the manager, did not know it existed but the company, through the operator, held the knowledge and applied it regularly. It was not a trivial task either. Although the risk associated with this element of knowledge was very high, it could easily be reduced by proper management intervention.

For a great part of the business knowledge resource, company directors or managers can not be absolutely certain what their staff know and apply on their behalf. This is because knowledge is not that simple. It is popular to talk about ‘knowledge transfer’ in knowledge management circles. But ‘knowledge transfer’ seems to imply a copying, even though transfer implies moving, of knowledge from one head to another. Incidentally it would be much worse if knowledge transfer really did mean knowledge transfer. Knowledge cannot, yet at any rate, be copied from one head to another. The knowledge that ends up in the recipients head may not be quite the same as the knowledge that was in the donors head. The knowledge must be translated twice during the process of copying. The first translation is from its neural representation in the donor’s brain into some common language. The second translation is from the common language into a representation that matches the requirements of the recipient’s brain. The first translation is performed by the donor and the second by the recipient. In each case, the knowledge that is the subject of the copy process lives now within two, probably completely different, knowledge structures and these structures are likely to affect that knowledge in different ways. I met an interesting situation once when looking at knowledge related to innovation in a large company. The issue was in the use of ‘brainstorming’ sessions for innovation. The problem was that whilst everyone knew what brainstorming was, they did not share a common meaning for the term and consequently applied it in different ways during meetings, leading sometimes to unproductive meetings.

The Knowledge Resource is a complex yet very valuable thing that can mean the difference between the success and failure of a company. That is, the knowledge resource that lives within the heads of the staff of the company is very complex. Companies can however, do things to manage this resource more effectively. The first step is to see it for what it is.