Enabling Knowledge Creation by Von Krogh Georg;Ichijo Kazuo;Nonaka Ikujiro.; & Kazuo Ichijo & Ikujiro Nonaka

Author:Von Krogh, Georg;Ichijo, Kazuo;Nonaka, Ikujiro.; & Kazuo Ichijo & Ikujiro Nonaka
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Oxford University Press, Incorporated
Published: 2000-09-15T00:00:00+00:00

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ENABLER 3

Mobilize Knowledge Activists

Siemens people pass by my office and ask me about the future. They are interested in the things I do, and every day I get more supporters in the company.

—Helmut Volkmann, Senior Director, Siemens

Imagine you are part of a team that is developing a new service for your local customer group. Over the course of time, you start to feel that the project is doomed. Your boss tells you he has heard a rumor that another team tried something similar for a different customer group and had no luck. You call up a person from this earlier team, and she tells you that yes, they attempted the same thing two years ago and got nowhere. She adds sarcastically that she could tell you exactly why it failed, but why bother? It was a lousy idea. Discouraged, you go back to your team and break the news. Your teammates sigh, frown, express irritation for wasting so much time. One of them even mutters, “No more knowledge creation in this century!” No matter what you say, they have lost their sense of purpose. And all of you feel that no direction has been set for overall knowledge creation in the company, let alone your own project. You are discouraged that coordination of innovations happens so sporadically and ineffectively.

What this team desperately needs is a knowledge activist. If a manager is part of the team, he or she may be required to play this role. Alternatively, all the members may need to push for such activism in the company. Regardless, we believe that enabling new knowledge depends on the energy and sustained commitment an organization puts into knowledge creation. That is why our third enabler, mobilize knowledge activists, matters so much to the process. Knowledge activists are major players in at least four knowledge-creation steps. At the beginning of the process, they often form microcommunities of knowledge. They smooth the way for creating and justifying concepts, as well as for building a prototype. Most of all, activists are essential for cross-leveling of knowledge, since they are the people responsible for energizing and connecting knowledge-creation efforts throughout a company. Although they are seldom directly involved in the sharing of tacit knowledge within microcommunities and smaller groups, knowledge activists help establish the right enabling context—the essential space and relationships that allow tacit knowledge to be unleashed.

In other words, they are the knowledge proselytizers of the company, spreading the message to everyone. Knowledge activism can reside in a particular department or with a particular person; it can be situated in already existing departments and functions, or may be taken on as a special assignment by individuals or departments. It is not necessarily a job for one senior manager, although visionary executives like Helmut Volkmann of Siemens, Yoshinaru Fukuhara of Shiseido, Leif Edvinsson of Skandia, and Jack Welch of General Electric have certainly played this role.

Middle managers may also be knowledge activists. Indeed, they can be instrumental in forming the microcommunities that share tacit knowledge.

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