KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND INNOVATION | Dr Kondal Reddy Kandadi | TEDxUniversityofBolton
Summary
TLDRThis talk explores the critical role of knowledge management in fostering innovation. Highlighting the wheel as a pivotal human innovation, the speaker emphasizes the necessity of collaboration and knowledge sharing in today's fast-paced environment. The speaker identifies culture, process, and infrastructure as the three key components for effective knowledge management, illustrating how they enable organizations to adapt and innovate continuously. The talk concludes by stressing the enduring importance of people in the face of technological advancements.
Takeaways
- 🔄 Innovation is an ongoing process that requires continuous knowledge creation and application.
- 🚀 The wheel is considered one of the greatest human innovations due to its requirement for conceptualization and practical application.
- 🌐 Knowledge management is crucial in the modern era due to the collaborative nature of innovation across individuals and organizations.
- 📈 The rapid pace of obsolescence in products, especially in technology, necessitates ongoing knowledge creation and innovation.
- 💡 Innovation is not just about creating new products; it also involves solving problems and finding new ways to do things.
- 🤝 A culture that encourages informal knowledge sharing and networking is essential for fostering innovation within an organization.
- 🏆 Recognition and appreciation of contributions are more important motivators for knowledge sharing than monetary rewards.
- 📝 Effective knowledge management involves capturing both success and failure stories to learn and improve.
- 🛠️ Infrastructure in knowledge management includes not only technological tools but also physical spaces that promote interaction and idea sharing.
- 👥 The three key components for successful knowledge management are culture, process, and infrastructure.
- 🌟 People remain the central aspect of knowledge management and innovation, regardless of technological advancements.
Q & A
What is considered one of the first or greatest human innovations according to the speaker?
-The speaker considers the wheel to be one of the first or greatest human innovations because it requires the creation and application of knowledge to make it functional.
How does the speaker describe the pace of innovation today compared to the past?
-The speaker describes the pace of innovation today as rapidly growing, with numerous gadgets, televisions, and watches, and highlights the International Space Station as one of the greatest human innovations.
Why is knowledge management important in the current context of innovation?
-Knowledge management is important because it involves collaboration, knowledge creation, sharing, and application across individuals and organizations to innovate and produce world-class products.
What is the problem with the rate of obsolescence in products today?
-The rate of obsolescence, or the speed at which products become outdated, is about 5% per month, cumulative. This means that products can become obsolete within a year or two, requiring continuous innovation and knowledge creation.
How has the approach to innovation changed from the past?
-In the past, innovations were often developed in isolation by R&D teams and then marketed. Today, innovation is more about interacting with customers, solving problems, and identifying new market patterns, involving more than just R&D.
What are the three core components of effective knowledge management according to the speaker?
-The three core components of effective knowledge management are culture, process, and infrastructure.
Why is organizational culture critical in knowledge management?
-Organizational culture is critical because it needs to encourage flexibility, informal knowledge sharing, and networking among employees. A culture that does not support these aspects will hinder knowledge management and innovation.
What role do informal interactions play in innovation according to the speaker?
-Informal interactions, such as chatting over coffee or lunch, are where most innovations happen. These interactions facilitate the sharing of knowledge and ideas, leading to new solutions and products.
How should organizations capture knowledge from both successful and failed projects or products?
-Organizations should have processes to capture stories of success and failure, documenting the experiences and lessons learned, which can then be used to guide future projects and prevent repeating mistakes.
What is the speaker's view on the role of technology in knowledge management and decision making?
-The speaker views technology as a tool that supports decision making, not as a decision maker. It is important to use technology as a means to facilitate knowledge management, but human judgment and interaction remain essential.
Why are physical spaces like water coolers important in knowledge management?
-Physical spaces like water coolers are important because they facilitate informal interactions and discussions among employees. These interactions are crucial for knowledge sharing and can lead to innovative ideas and solutions.
Outlines
🚀 The Evolution of Innovation and Knowledge Management
The speaker begins by discussing the concept of innovation, highlighting the wheel as one of humanity's most significant innovations due to its requirement for knowledge creation and application. The talk then transitions to the rapid pace of modern innovation, exemplified by the International Space Station, and emphasizes the necessity of knowledge management in today's collaborative environment. The speaker points out the challenges of the fast obsolescence of products and the need for continuous knowledge creation and sharing within organizations. Historical examples, such as the single car model available in India for 20 years, are contrasted with the current market's diversity, illustrating the shift in innovation dynamics.
🌟 Key Components of Effective Knowledge Management
The speaker delves into the three core components essential for successful knowledge management: culture, process, and infrastructure. Culture is defined as the organizational environment that encourages informal knowledge sharing and networking, which is critical for innovation. The process involves capturing and learning from both successful and failed projects or products, ensuring that knowledge is not lost. Infrastructure is not just technological but also includes physical spaces that facilitate interaction and knowledge sharing among employees. The speaker argues that while technology is a tool, it should not replace human decision-making, as illustrated by the story of an oil company's failed reliance on a computer program for exploration.
🤝 The Importance of Organizational Culture in Knowledge Sharing
The speaker stresses the importance of a supportive organizational culture for knowledge management, where employees feel motivated to share knowledge informally. This culture is contrasted with one that stifles innovation by discouraging interaction and networking. The speaker shares insights from research indicating that the majority of innovations occur through informal knowledge sharing rather than formal meetings. The talk also touches on the misconception that monetary rewards are the primary motivator for knowledge sharing, highlighting that recognition and appreciation are far more impactful.
🛠 The Role of Process and Infrastructure in Knowledge Management
The speaker discusses the role of processes in capturing knowledge from both successful and failed endeavors, emphasizing the need to document stories and lessons learned. Infrastructure is highlighted as a critical component, including both technological systems and physical spaces that enable interaction. The speaker uses the example of 'water coolers' to illustrate how informal spaces contribute significantly to knowledge sharing. The talk concludes by emphasizing that while tools and technologies have evolved, the central aspect of knowledge management remains the culture of the organization, which must prioritize people and their interactions.
Mindmap
Keywords
💡Innovation
💡Knowledge Management
💡Wheel
💡Collaboration
💡Obsolescence
💡R&D (Research and Development)
💡Organizational Culture
💡Process
💡Infrastructure
💡Absorptions
💡Water Cooler
Highlights
The wheel is considered one of the greatest human innovations due to its requirement for knowledge creation and application.
Innovations have evolved rapidly, with the International Space Station being a current example of significant human achievement.
Knowledge management is crucial in the modern era due to the need for collaboration in knowledge creation, sharing, and application.
The inability of a single individual to produce all aspects necessitates a systematic approach to knowledge management in organizations.
The rate of obsolescence in products, particularly technology, has accelerated, requiring continuous innovation and knowledge creation.
Innovation is not just about creating new products but also solving problems in new ways and inventing new solutions.
Organizational culture plays a critical role in knowledge management, with flexibility and informal knowledge sharing being essential.
Formal meetings are not the primary source of innovation; rather, it is the informal interactions and networking among employees.
Recognition and appreciation are more important motivators for knowledge sharing than financial rewards.
Processes are vital in knowledge management, capturing both success and failure stories to learn and avoid repeating mistakes.
Technology and infrastructure are tools that support decision-making, not replacements for human judgment.
Physical spaces like water coolers and cafes are crucial for informal knowledge sharing and innovation.
The speaker's research across global corporations revealed patterns in how organizations create, share, and apply knowledge.
The three core components of effective knowledge management are culture, process, and infrastructure.
The speaker emphasizes that culture is critical, as it influences how people interact and share knowledge within an organization.
The transformation in tools and technologies over time has not changed the fundamental importance of people in managing knowledge and innovating.
Transcripts
[Applause]
today I thought today I thought I'll
focus on innovation but particularly how
knowledge management managing knowledge
of the people's how that helps
innovation may I ask in your view what
do you think is one of the four most
important innovations of mankind a lot
of people will say it's fire but fire
was already there and some people say
hunting tools but stones were already
there personally
I think one of the first or greatest
human innovations is the wheel because
it requires creation of knowledge and
application of that knowledge to
actually make a meal because we didn't
exist on the seashores or anywhere else
so somebody has to think about it about
the concept of wheel and actually in a
way dot and so on so I regard that as
one of the greatest and for the forced
innovations of mankind
people say it's about six thousand years
ago when humans started making wheels
we moved far from that and today our
innovations are it really really growing
at rapid pace
we got our gadgets we got televisions
forms watches and you know at the
foremost and probably you could say one
of the greatest human innovations now is
probably the International Space Station
okay we moved quite a bit from that to
actually here everything is great so
what about this knowledge management
stuff why do we need to do that now we
didn't needed to do knowledge management
then nobody has actually asked well go
to that website or look at the
concepts learn and then produce a meal
where do we need to do knowledge
management or anything like that now why
is it important the problem today is a
single individual cannot produce all of
these aspects
it requires collaboration not only
knowledge creation and application but
it requires knowledge creation sharing
that knowledge with other people other
organizations in many instances and then
applying it to innovate so that's quite
a lot and because it requires a number
of people and organizations to create
world-class products today organizations
whether it's universities Apple
Microsoft Merce these bands they require
to manage knowledge in a formal way in a
systematic way and that helps to these
organizations and people to produce
great stuff the another problem of today
is absolutions okay and a few years ago
probably until 1990s guys in research
and development teams somewhere locked
up in laboratories created ideas
produced stuff and then the products
came out the marketing and sales guys
went into the world to sell those
products for 5 10 15 20 years the same
product could you do that now the rate
of absolutions which is the products
going outdated in basic terms the rate
of absorptions in some of the technology
products now is about 5% per month
cumulative so within a year or two
whatever great product you produce
becomes obsolete and out-of-date and
ends up there ok so what does that mean
that means institutions companies needs
to produce new products in a wage on a
rapid pace continually that requires
knowledge creation on a continual basis
and that's quite important not only that
it's not just guys in R&D locked up in a
lab who produce new knowledge now it's
how you interact with your customers how
you solve problems
you identify new market patterns and a
number of things it's not just R&D
problem anymore just give you an example
when I was growing up in India for about
20 years though only one car was
available in the market one car just one
car one model ambassador it was called
for 20 years they sold the same model
car just one car in the whole Indian
market that's all I could remember now
there probably 300 in the market in
European markets it's quite high so the
markets have changed the requirements of
knowledge creation and therefore
innovation have changed and we need
knowledge creation at rapid rapid pace
organizing the human knowledge at in a
very systematic process and then
applying it to produce great stuff like
that so how do we do that how do we do
good knowledge management okay and I
have done about five or six years of
research work on how to do knowledge
management across a number of global
corporations in Germany India and United
Kingdom looking at how global large
organizations create share and apply
their knowledge and there were quite
interesting patterns the three key
elements that really helps knowledge
management there are three core
components and the three requirement the
core components obviously have been
saying create new knowledge share it and
apply it for the benefit of your
organization and yourself so what are
the three components that makes
knowledge management work one is culture
you need to get your organizational
culture right we'll go through what it
means because it's quite easy to say get
your culture right yeah but how do we do
that the second aspect in knowledge
management is process you need to get
your organizational processes right
and finally infrastructure when I say
infrastructure it's not just about
technology it's a
but physical and other infrastructure
that goes in so the three key aspects to
do great knowledge management and
therefore to innovate better is culture
process and infrastructure let's look at
culture a culture of a company or a
university or a charity or a country all
of these is quite critical
what kind of how do you treat your
people in your organization for example
if you say you know a couple of people
your coworkers are chatting in the
corridor and say what are you doing in
that country go back to your computer
screen go back to your office and go to
work if that kind of culture exists
forget it
knowledge management knowledge sharing
is not going to happen
why because you don't know what they're
discussing they may be discussing a
recent customer problem innovation is
not just about creating new products
innovation is how do you solve problems
in new ways how do you actually do
things in new ways and of course invent
new products so if you treat people like
that if you have a culture where there
is no flexibility there is no that
informal knowledge sharing flexibility
then it's a wrong culture so you need to
encourage people to develop those
informal networks to develop those
informal knowledge sharing attitudes
okay and out of the companies like I
have studied like Merce these bands
hewlett-packard or a key corporation
National Health Service every
organization I have studied during my
research work in knowledge management
everybody said only probably less than
1% of innovations happen in real formal
meetings have you ever come across a
meeting where end of a meeting yes we
invented this product through this
meeting it just doesn't happen like that
innovations happen in people networking
sharing the knowledge informally because
if you go to you know sharing a coffee
with the colleague unit canteen and says
I had this great problem today this
customer is pestering me to modify this
product and the design guy might say
while sharing the lunch well we could
actually change
that may be good for other customers as
well innovations happen like that all
the global corporations every one of
them said 90% or 99% of innovations
happen through informal knowledge
sharing so why do we force our people to
go and look into the computer screens
right
burying under the computer into the
computer screen doesn't create
innovation it's helpful of course you
need to do their two-day jobs but
organizations need to have culture where
it motivates people it gives the time
and flexibility for the people to
actually share knowledge and create
those new ideas through those informal
networks
that's quite critical and organizations
which don't do that will end up probably
like Nokia today where they were the
number one mobile phone company where
are they now
they're trying to produce you know
products from 20 years ago to make it
come back anyway so it's a culture
that's critical of course you need to
pay well but what you may not realize is
people don't share knowledge because you
pay them well a lot of research shows
that its appreciation its
acknowledgement of people's contribution
much more important than actually
rewarding for developing a new idea in
the initial days of knowledge management
a lot of companies do you know what they
did they said right we're going to do
knowledge management now guys this is
the early 2000 and so on and so forth
what we do is and let's collect all the
PowerPoint slides of the company let's
upload these ideas into the website we
have the company website and we'll give
you air miles for every presentation you
upload or we give you cash
if you upload this thing they actually
thought it would work and those were
ideas they came up with and then lot of
garbage went on to the knowledge portal
sort companies websites because it's
useless because there is no quality
control there is no and people who are
just uploading for the sake of it
because they will get a couple of air
miles what people realized as knowledge
management as a discipline matured is it
sees not the actual money it is not the
actual rewards it is
the praise it is acknowledgement
appreciation of people contributing
sharing the knowledge with others coming
up with new ways of doing things so that
where process comes from so you need to
have not only the right culture you know
where you actually do the flexibility
time provide good rewards recognition to
people but processes are also important
what do we mean by processes let's say
one of the big engineering firms just
finished a great project multi-million
dollar project went successfully and so
on another example another company
created a product that utterly failed
it's crashed in the market and so on
after those things happen you need to
learn from those whether it's success or
failure you need to learn from those and
your organization's need to have
processes to actually capture not
documenting every detail but you know
tell tell us the story Bob you develop
this product it's failed we know that
but tell us the story why it happened
and how it happened similarly success
stories captured both success and
failure stories and create the process
in such a way that whether it's a
project whether it's a and a great
product or failed product your
organization captures what went into it
and build those processes so that you
you create knowledge from that so that
people don't repeat the same mistakes or
people do good things that are learn
from good things that went wrong so
that's quite critical the process are
there infrastructure and again a pretty
good story here and one of my when we're
doing some research working knowledge
management and we studied an oil company
pretty global oil company who actually
thought again the computers knowledge
engineering approach where they wrote
programs they looked at oil exploration
patterns all the best practices that
went into oil exploration projects they
interviewed geophysics chemists and
everybody and they wrote very good
programs and you know developed a
software system and a computer so for
about five years after develop the
system they kept asking the computer
putting all the data geophysics data and
so on would we find the oil in this
site should we explore or not the
computer says no and in some time the
computer said yes so where the computer
said no they didn't drill where the
computer said yes there could be oil
they drill so if it didn't work it's a
mistake of the computer because it's a
computer who said it's nobody's decision
ok so everybody thought it's the risk
free approach let's go in the computer
for about five six years they actually
didn't find a single oil side okay so
what they did is they basically threw
that computer in the sea after five
years and they went back to their people
and say right let's work go back to the
model of actually people say look at the
data use the computer as a tool but not
a decision maker and then within six
weeks they found an oil site now
computers technology infrastructure are
tools they are not decision makers they
are decision supporting tools there's a
lot of talk that in five years 70% of
the jobs you've done by robots computers
and things like that yes they will have
more share in terms of the lot of stuff
done but could you imagine going to a
computer for diagnosis of a cancer or
treated by a computer chiming drugs to
you would you go and see well go to
restaurant to be served by a robot and
while it is true that the role of
computers robotics would improve but
they are not going to be decision makers
or decision decision making tools the
tools rather than dissing makers so
infrastructure is quite important the
next bit of infrastructure is quite when
I say infrastructure it's just not
technological infrastructure acknowledge
portals
there's database systems there are a lot
of good technologies that are helping
but this particular technology is also
quite helpful it's a body cooler okay
why is that helpful in knowledge
management knowledge creation and
innovation how many times you have
observed people catching up for a coffee
or near the
cooller talking and discussing about
organizational matters that could be
sometimes gossip but many times people
discuss things share knowledge around
water coolers okay there's a research
done that water coolers cafes informal
corridor meetings actually about 80
percent of our nation's knowledge is
shared through that so not only your
technological infrastructure you must
focus on your physical spaces how your
organization is designed your office
spaces are designed whether you have
water coolers don't throw them because
it wastes organize all time because it
doesn't let people to hit targets it's
actually their essential tools so that
these things enable people to criss
cross people from different areas to
talk people from different areas to meet
and share knowledge so that new ideas
new ways of solving problems new
products come out of those organizations
I haven't seen in 15 years of my service
ideas created in meetings very rarely
they happen in meetings or committees
okay there are quality control systems
not idea generation systems so it's
quite important that those three aspects
culture process and infrastructure
become great components of a knowledge
management infrastructure so it took six
thousand years from going from veal to
that International Space Station's
things have transformed the tools we use
have transformed probably people might
have used just stones and some sticks to
actually make a meal at the time but we
need lot more of course we can't do and
share knowledge similar way the people
or ancestors did six thousand years ago
we need tools we need technologies but
the central aspect is the culture of
your organization if you don't have the
right culture it's not going to be
happening so culture process and
infrastructure are critical culture
means people okay so we don't need to go
to too deeper into that so
transformation has happened we will
transform our lives even further will
humankind will go even further but the
way we manage
knowledge the way we innovate one thing
won't change that's people thank you
[Applause]
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