A personal evaluation of knowledge and its practical application borne of this insight - Essay Example

? A personal evaluation of knowledge and its practical application borne of this insight BY YOU YOUR SCHOOL INFO HERE HERE A personal evaluationof knowledge and its practical application borne of this insight Introduction An effective knowledge management curriculum in the workplace requires an assessment of the self, the environment (i.e. organisational structure), and cultural variables existing in the organisational model. The most significant of the aforementioned factors is knowing oneself, identifying with one’s most effective learning styles, and then determining how intrinsic characteristics either require reassessment or restructuring so as to productively engage with others in order to disseminate, classify and make practical use of exchanged knowledge. Not everyone in the organisation maintains the same cultural characteristics or sustains the same learning styles, which can conflict the process of effective knowledge transfer and knowledge sense-making. Having identified the role of the self in knowledge management, this paper describes personal understandings of the self gleaned through the curriculum and attempts to apply these lessons, using theories of knowledge management as a template, to my personal role as a future KM facilitator, manager or human resource practitioner. Understanding of the intrinsic self The knowledge management process begins with effective communications processes. Knowledge, whether tacit or explicit, cannot be productively categorised, shared or transformed into practical and useful information without finding some variety of shared meaning within the communities of practice model. Knowledge is neither created, transformed or disseminated within a proverbial vacuum, meaning that knowledge management practices will not be successful without direct interaction with diverse organisational actors. This fact requires development of a knowledge culture in which a set of shared meanings or symbols is present throughout the organisational structure, something that can be significantly conflicted by differing cultural values, unique learning styles with individuals, or patterns of ethnocentrism, a type of cultural conflict, that conflicts decoding of knowledge communications. Stover (2004) supports the importance of engagement with others in the organisation to facilitate knowledge transfer, iterating that knowledge conversion can only occur through direct interaction with others. Hence, I learned the importance about understanding my own, inherent learning styles and how this impacts personality, worldview, willingness to engage with others socially and interpersonally, and even how the decoding process in communications would occur. Having completed Kolb’s Learning Styles Inventory, I discovered that I maintain intrinsic characteristics that are aligned with the Converger. The Converger profile is largely unemotional, maintains narrow interests, and appreciates active experimentation to make the abstract into concrete understandings through practical application of deductive reasoning (Smith 2001). The Converger is, inherently, less interested in abstractions that occur during the socialisation process, thus there is less emphasis on people and more on the scientific approach to problem-solving by legitimately applying theory to experience to make evaluations. The Converger would theoretically be the least social profile among Kolb’s four learning styles. Now, it has been established that effective knowledge management requires interventions with other organisational actors in order to make knowledge transfer productive and relevant to the organisation and its strategic objectives. However, having learned that I maintain much more pragmatic and sensible characteristics (far and above a social leaning), I realised that knowledge management could be conflicted by having an in-borne preference for self-motivated experimentation whilst others in the organisation might fit Diverger profiles that are more concerned with embracing culture and the social condition. Automatically, these different learning styles (that tend to influence attitude and personality) create difficulties in establishing an effective knowledge management model when there is such a high degree of variance between diverse organisational members (socially, culturally or psychologically) that will create difficulties in finding shared meaning in what is being communicated. The curriculum has taught me that knowledge is often contestable. There are constructivists that believe knowledge is factual and should be considered to be completely independent of personal values. Others believe that knowledge is largely constructed through social systems and, therefore, cannot be segregated from personal values. When this variance exists within the organisation, it is likely that conflict is going to occur about the practical value of knowledge. Therefore, knowledge (whatever its form and substance) can actually become a political problem in the organisation due to the constructivist versus practice-based perspectives and, essentially, a power struggle simply to define the relevancy of differing views of the importance of a piece of shared information. It seems to me then that personal values and the social condition, taking into account inherent personality factors and sociological beliefs, cannot legitimately be separated from the knowledge management equation. Hislop (2009) iterates the importance of establishing a knowledge culture to facilitate more effective knowledge exchanges, which includes having a positive attitude in the face of changes in the organisation as a set of shared values. This has always, it seems, been a challenge for human resources practitioners due to the disparity occurring between cultural and social values of diverse organisational members. Hislop (2009), however, suggests that this commitment culture is necessary in order to ensure effective and productive knowledge transfer and codification of information. I learned, through mature self-reflection and examination of my inherent characteristics, that adopting the empathic model of knowledge management would be vital as a starting point for attempting to motivate knowledge workers in a commitment culture model. Though I realised that I maintain many ethnocentric characteristics, which is judging another culture against my own beliefs of the legitimacy of my own cultural perceptions, in order to make knowledge management worth the investment I must be more adaptable socially and culturally which requires perspective taking to build a positive empathic experience. Without being willing to suspend the self, when appropriate, and allow an empathic experience, conflict is likely going to occur during experiences with communities of practice due to many diverse attitudes and beliefs. I can apply these lessons to any management system or in a leadership role that demands showing empathy for others to build better followership and loyalty, however it will take some personal adjustment. Without an empathic experience, disagreements on knowledge relevancy can occur and any effort to strongly reinforce my own opinion on others (founded on ethnocentrism) will likely lead to resistance. Thus, when considering the communications process supported by the SMCR model, it is likely that my own ethnocentrism and personality factors founded on my primary learning style will inject noise into the communications process that will negatively impact the decoding process of others. Having established the importance of cohesive communities of practices as a vital instrument to achieving effective knowledge transfer, it would seem that it is my own responsibility to develop an empathic approach in order to build the foundations of a commitment culture. Again, this is relevant in the role of human resources manager or a leadership position in the business and it will take some marked adjustment to remove ethnocentric values that are so strongly embedded in my personality. Cultural theory teaches about collectivist cultures, ones that value group membership, where personal identity is built on group sentiment and belonging, and where saving one’s face (reputation) is a critical expectation (Hofstede, Hofstede and Minkov 2010; Cheung et al. 2008). A subjective, yet supported assessment is that the nature of the commitment culture would be one that evolves from individualism to collectivist values in order to create a cohesive set of shared values and beliefs. Now, it has been established that I maintain much less need for the social condition based on inherent characteristics associated with the Converger profile. Therefore, I would not be intrinsically motivated to actually desire to gain social belonging or would find strengthening of my own identity through group affiliation and group opinion. Reflection in this area continues to reinforce that I legitimately do not maintain a psycho-social need to gain favour from groups nor would I, inherently, be largely concerned with maintaining the reputation (saving face) of group members. This poses difficulty when maintaining more characteristics akin to the individualistic culture when there are constant reiterations of mission and vision aligned with an attempt to create a KM commitment culture. I would, personally, find this type of emphasis on the importance of group sentiment and opinion about the relevancy of knowledge to be noise in the communications process and likely be resistant and contest how knowledge is being codified by collectivist group members. If struggles in the group were to occur as a result of this resistance, it would not be a political problem (a power struggle), it would be a social conflict whereby I am viewing the social constructs of knowledge production to be largely irrelevant to a mindset that demands concrete and not abstract learning that is often applied through experiential learning. The abstractions of a social creation of knowledge would pose many intrinsic de-motivations to continue with the knowledge transfer process if I felt that psycho-social factors were determining the relevancy of ambiguous versus concrete knowledge production. Instead, based on my primary learning style and cultural characteristics, I would demand more sensibility and realism in knowledge evaluation and knowledge production wanting others to negate values and cultural attitudes in the process of KM. So, it is here that changing my isolated tendencies socially and trying to apply more collective strategies to build a foundation of social belonging. In the business environment, this will facilitate better knowledge management as a manager or leader since interaction is crucial to the KM process. Giving people more credit as valuable contributors will be an excellent way to apply learning. Herein creates a difficulty under most respected models of KM that strongly reinforce that necessity of group affiliation and consensus as a foundation of creating productive knowledge transfer processes. Grieves (2010) reminds the organisational environment that change must be negotiated and cannot be implemented properly in the organisational model when multiple stakeholders are attempting to exert their own agendas and beliefs onto others. I examined the different models of pluralism versus unitarist perspectives in an effort to understand what could conflict the process of promoting effective knowledge exchanges. The pluralist view illustrates a divergence of different values and beliefs, with disparate subcultures with their own set of loyalties and values (Geare, Edgar and McAndrew 2006). The unitarist perspective illustrates a more unified and cohesive organisational culture with loyalties toward a single entity, in this case management or the organisational culture (Ross and Bamber 2009). Inherently, I maintain characteristics that are more aligned with the pluralist organisation, where disparate values and beliefs manifest themselves at the individual level and where loyalties are established, to me personally, based on sensibility and rational assessments of knowledge importance and relevancy. Now, there are many models of leadership that are respected and applicable to the contemporary business world that attempts to remove individualism and focus more on unity as a desired outcome in order to create human capital advantages (Fairholm 2009; Emery and Barker 2009; Den Hartog et al. 1999). The curriculum taught me that culture is not inherited, meaning that in an organisational context it is embedded in leadership philosophy, rules and regulations, and also as a product of routines and rituals occurring in the organisational model. The Cultural Web Model (See Appendix A) illustrates the dimensions that contribute to organisational culture development, that include stories (sometimes utilising metaphors), symbolic representations, and even power structures. Many of these dimensions are related to psycho-social factors which, again, conflict with my own preferred learning style and personality constructs that favour autonomy and self-managed experimentation. Coupled with personal favouritism for the pluralist model of the organisation, I would inherently be resistant to the ambiguity provided by metaphors and social constructivism as a foundation of knowledge production and evaluation, even when the organisational governance team was attempting to create a unitarist culture that is closely aligned with the concept provided by Hislop (2009) about the KM commitment culture. Based on my own embedded cultural characteristics, I am highly sensitive to ambiguity, making me more aligned with cultures that have high uncertainty avoidance, or the level to which doubt or vagueness is tolerated (Hofstede 2001). I tend to grow frustrated with socially-driven knowledge production when I perceive it to be noise or otherwise gibberish that does not fit with my pragmatic tendencies and would, in most situations, find socially-embedded knowledge produced in groups to be inexact and, at best, tentative to the changing social condition within the organisation. Why does this matter when attempting to link KM best practice to my own personal knowledge of the self? Organisations that attempt to deconstruct formality and pluralism in an effort to transform into a unitarist organisation with more socialisation and shared decision-making would, if using respected models of organisational culture development, be attempting to infuse a cohesive set of values related to team-working and interpersonal relationship development. I am, inherently, hesitant and doubtful as my own cultural ethnocentrism tends to view others as scattered and incoherent when working with others socially. I have little trust in the competencies of others (just an honest and fair assessment of the self) within a social context. I find the symbolic and ritualistic aspects of group affiliation to be wasteful and largely non-productive in producing anything but metaphoric knowledge outcomes. Thus, my own inherent beliefs and values associated with the relevancy of social systems, coupled with a pragmatic approach to problem-solving that demands more formality, works to conflict the process of creating a unified set of beliefs that are, under most KM models, crucial to establishing a KM commitment culture. What it really comes down to, when providing an honest reflection of the self, is whether I can actually function and effectively codify and translate knowledge within a practice-based perspective of knowledge management. With my current social competency and ethnocentrism, the answer is largely no in this case. I believe that valuable knowledge is truth, under the constructivist perspective, and should be easily related to factual data, statistics, or tangible experiential learning that has been achieved by experimentation and the scientific approach. Thus, how I would decode knowledge would be highly dependent on the channel (the discussing group member) and what I refer to as noise being injected into the communications process. Is this a fundamental weakness? I would have to answer negatively, since the curriculum taught me that culture is relative and there is no singular framework to determine wrongness of a certain set of cultural values. This is why I have turned strongly toward the empathy model of knowledge management to try to deconstruct these views and beliefs about social competency in order to be more emotionally intelligent and empathic when working with diverse groups or individuals sharing more value toward the importance of socially-constructed knowledge and symbolic meanings. I have discovered using a mature reflective process that I am highly versed in recognising codes from others that are related to body language and gestures, a very well-developed sense of emotional intelligence that easily recognises the emotional state of others (Weiten and Lloyd 2005). However, years of self-discipline and removal of emotional foundations from my assessment processes have created a personal distaste for those that are heavily reliant on their emotional state and fulfilment of their emotional needs. There is a model of psychology and sociology that describes a universal need for social belonging as a foundational catalyst for achieving self-esteem (Maslow 1998). Now, this ties in more closely to the collectivist model of culture where identity is formed through group consensus and group membership. Having established self-esteem earlier in youth, I have much less inherent need for social approval as a means of justifying myself. Therefore, models of participative knowledge management that are dependent on social constructions of knowledge, rather than practical evaluation of relevancy according to hard data and statistics, strongly conflict with my personal development as an adult. Would this create conflict in a KM system that is heavily reliant on symbols, social abstractions, and attempts to superimpose shared values over inherent values? Absolutely. This is why I have embraced the empathic model of KM in order to, slowly, begin absorbing ambiguous socially-constructed information as viable knowledge for the organisation. The obligations of an HR manager to facilitate an environment where knowledge management is imperative is to build inter-dependency between organisational actors, to build cross-functional collaborations, and promote informal communities of practice; as taught by the curriculum materials. However, motivating individuals to embrace these expectations for more teamwork and cooperation is dependent on the level by which an individual is willing to reject their needs for autonomous working and embrace social alliances. Such alliances, from a personal perspective, are defeating and produce not only noise in the communications process, but inject ambiguity into my personal work environment in which I strongly value no-nonsense and concrete data production rather than emotionally-charged knowledge evaluations. See Appendix B for the SMCR model of communications illustrating the cyclical relationship between sender and receiver. Determining how to use this knowledge of the self in relation to knowledge management best practices was not difficult, despite my legitimate views of the noise created by social systems under a unitarist organisational culture. Hislop (2009) reinforced the necessity to change attitudes in order to build a commitment culture, which means building an inherent willingness to embrace new working conditions, structures, and practices. This means that I, personally, must be more flexible to the social construction of knowledge even if it conflicts with my own values and beliefs about others’ social competencies. I should consider that some socially constructed knowledge could be applicable in such areas as marketing and human resources in which strategic development involves making appeals to the social characteristics of external stakeholders and internal organisational actors. Thus, if hard data illustrates that a socially constructed piece of knowledge has legitimate and measurable gains toward strategic objectives, then it was valid knowledge construction that has legitimate applications to the real-world organisational environment even though it was built on social ambiguity. Conclusion Since knowledge management involves cooperation, cannot seem to avoid the social condition and disparity of cultural diversity, and involves some level of consensus, I cannot allow my inherent learning styles and personality constructs (culturally driven and experientially driven) to create conflict when working with diverse members under a commitment culture. However, I find it a strength that I understand the realities of my views of social collaborations and am willing to take a more empathic approach in order to create and justify knowledge that has been built through communities of practice. By being more flexible and seeing socially constructed symbols, signs and codes as potentially more than just noise in the communications process, I will likely diversify my views of knowledge management and be more interactive and productive in communities of practice ideologies. This is absolutely necessary for effective KM to occur and achieve productive outcomes. References Cheung, F., Cheung, S.F., Zhang, J., Leung, K., Leong, F. and Yeh, K. (2008). Relevance for openness as a personality dimension in Chinese culture, Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 39(1), pp.81-107. Den Hartog, D.N., House, R.J., Hanges, P., Ruiz-Quintanilla, S.A. and Dorfman, P.W., et al. 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Appendix A: The Cultural Web Model This model illustrates the influences of culture that predict KM practices for socially-constructed knowledge. Appendix B: The SMCR Communications Model Source: MAU. (2012). Workforce Solutions Blog. [online] Available at: http://www.mau.com/blog/bid/77127/safety-news-update-safety-not-lost-in-translation This model illustrates how noise, in my personal case the social condition, contributes to problems with the decoding process and encoding process in this cyclical loop between sender and receiver. Read More