Managing the People Managing Knowledge - Essay Example

Managing the People Managing Knowledge Knowledge management is an essential aspect in any organization today. It is this knowledge that adds value to products and services of the organization. Workers in an organization are a product of education, advances in technology, and some have extensive experience in the field of business practice. These workers are the people who manage the knowledge in an organization. Therefore, it is important for any organization to manage the workers effectively, to ensure that this knowledge benefits the organization. Many organizations are trying their best to manage the knowledge available among their workers, but are facing a challenge in managing the people holding this knowledge. The management should present the knowledge worker with an opportunity to collect, verify, validate and apply knowledge learned from his experiences and from the corporate records, and be able to share it with other workers. Such knowledge, when effectively disseminated in the organization, adds value to the organization or can aid in problem solving. According to McFarlane, despite the knowledge and experience a knowledge worker has, he or she needs exposure to tasks that will encourage personal growth. The management should realize that this is a need to the knowledge worker and has to be satisfied. Tasks assigned to these workers should present an opportunity for them to apply their criticality, skills, and experience. The tasks must pose a challenge to them, so that they can grow. Giving knowledge workers easy tasks will be under utilizing them and they will look for more challenging opportunities elsewhere. According to Serrat, an organization should define task objectives clearly. In addition, the management should ensure that each worker understands the performance standards. An organization seeking to manage the knowledge workers effectively should formulate critical mission vision statements. Mission vision statements of an organization determine the mission vision statement of an individual in an organization, as well as the values an individual will display. If the mission of an organization presents great responsibility, the knowledge worker will be pushed to give his or her best and share knowledge with other workers in an effort to achieve the set goals of the organization. Setting challenging goals will push the workers to be more creative and critical and this will bring new ideas into the organization. The vision of an organization gives the knowledge worker a clear picture of the direction in which the organization should be moving. When the knowledge worker has a sense of direction, he performs better. According to Serrat, knowledge workers need knowledge managers. This is critical for any organization, because it requires a change in the type of managers hired. Organizations should no longer look at the ability to exercise power in a manager, but rather an ability to lead a team. A manager should have skills that enable him handles issues in his or her team effectively. A knowledge manager should be able to appreciate the talent of the team, mentor, and efficiently give feedback to the team. Knowledge workers need good working relationships with their managers. It is critical for the organization to ensure that managers provide a good working environment to the workers. Organizations should therefore do away with the traditional boss who spends time in supervision and giving orders. A knowledge manager should focus on organizational learning to ensure exemplary performance of the organization. The knowledge workers deserve space and time for them to work on their own. Constant supervision limits creativity and creativity. This does not mean that the management should allow them to do things their own way, but poses a challenge for the smart manager to realize when to supervise, or when to give them their space. It is not easy for an organization to quantify the amount of work done by knowledge workers, as it is n form of knowledge and quite invisible. However, the quality of their work is more essential and very important to ensure that the organization is able to compete in the competitive business world. Some organizations may wrongly mistake knowledge workers as a cost to the organization. However, without the knowledge worker, there is no creativity in the organization. Organizations should realize that these workers are the source of innovation in the organization. Innovation enables the organization to apply knowledge in existing products to make them better. When products and services of an organization are better, the organization can compete with others and survive to make profits. The management of the organization should therefore regard knowledge workers as assets to the organization. This requires a change in attitude for the management. The knowledge worker needs motivation. Motivation is a need that if not satisfied, the knowledge worker may not give his or her best (Griffin, 2011:296). Many organizations fail to give the necessary motivation and that explains why the levels of innovation from these workers are falling day by day. According to Petroni and Colacino (2008:2), each organization should have formal motivational structures that give direction on the company’s arrangement and organization. These structures include policies and procedures that keep the worker motivated and willing to apply knowledge and become more innovative. One strategy of motivation is allowing a worker to advance in the third career progression that allows the worker to move from one challenging project to another. This presents the worker with more challenging opportunities than those previously handled. It is natural for them to get more innovative when faced with new challenges and this leads to growth for both the organization and the individual worker. A second motivational strategy for an organization would be organizing incentives and reward schemes. The management should recognize workers with exemplary skills and reward them. Different organizations have varying reward schemes for their workers. This motivates workers to a good level and enables them to be more creative. Managers should apply other informal mechanisms of motivation on their teams. This is a critical issue and organizations should hire managers who have the ability to motivate a team effectively. Organizations should realize that not all individuals receive motivation from the same factors. Therefore, motivation in an organization should be specific to each individual. This is a challenge to the management, as it requires a clear understanding of the factors that motivate each worker. This may be time consuming and quite costly for many organizations. However, by analysis of the factors that affect innovation in different departments, an organization can address more specific motivation needs (Petroni and Calacino, 2008:22). The organization should budget for the rewards to ensure that incentive programs are effective. Organizations that plan for incentives without sufficient finances end up killing the motivation in workers. Managing knowledge workers requires effective problem solving. Involving the knowledge workers in problem solving is very critical. Problem solving should be a cooperative task between the management and the workers. Many organizations fail to understand this, and face a great challenge. According to Bennet, the management should ensure the involvement of the worker, in both the diagnostic and therapeutic stages of a problem in an organization. Problem solving should present a learning opportunity for the knowledge workers (Lowe). They should acquire new skills and potential and therefore an organization should ensure that every worker participates in problem solving. In any case, the knowledge these people have is the greatest asset to an organization has. It should count on this intellectual capital when problems arise. Since the knowledge workers are creative and innovative, they are likely to come up with potential solutions to the problem at hand. The information systems should allow input from all members. Every organization must encourage knowledge workers to share and disseminate quality information. Organizations face a great challenge when sharing of poor information among employees occurs. This calls for organizations to draw rules governing collaboration. Sharing of poor information leads to reduced productivity as the value the information adds to production is low. In addition, sharing of poor information may mislead some workers relying on such information to make critical decisions. If this habit advances, the organization may lose its ability to compete effectively in the markets (Economist Intelligence Unit, 2007:12). Therefore, it is necessary to regulate information shared to ensure that employees in the organization benefit from the available information. The organization must feel the value added by the information. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (207:17), an organization needs to ensure that workers classify the information they share into different fields so that other workers will get the right context. From the example of the Boston children’s hospital, the realization of this led to their success story. The hospital is a 396 bed, specializing in pediatrics. The hospitals adopted the SAP business solutions program. The clinicians in the hospital had large volumes of data to deal with yet they needed to ensure that all executives and clinicians had all the information required to optimize patient care. They also needed to ensure compliance and process optimization. The hospital established data marts unique for each department. Each of the data marts contained concepts and processes that each department used. Implementation of the extensive data software took the hospital six months but currently, the hospitals offers better services to all patients. All workers have an easier time at work. Prescriptions are much easier to give and since all customer details appear in the system, adverse drug effects have reduced greatly. According to Shaw, the hospital services are much faster and this is the value of knowledge management in the hospital. Organizations should realize that it is quite impossible to establish standards for quantifying the output of knowledge workers. Attempts to measure their work is likely to result to more problems in the organization (Amar, 2002:238). The value added by knowledge workers to an organization creates impact on the quality of products and services an organization offers to the market. Knowledge management is clearly very critical in an organization. The knowledge workers have the intellectual capacity that an organization relies on to compete effectively in the ever-changing market trends. Organizations need innovation and creativity that leads to new business ideas, new marketing strategies and better products and services. The knowledge worker needs autonomy for him or her to be more effective. The management of any organization should not leave out motivation and effective collaboration (Hislop, 2009:295). Organizations should hire knowledge managers who are able to motivate other knowledge workers and contribute positively to collaboration in the organization. Despite the fact that the work done by knowledge workers is invisible, they are an asset to the organization. It is critical for an organization to encourage each worker to practice self-management, which results to more organized collaboration in an organization. The management of people managing knowledge is indeed a great challenge to organizations. Bibliography Amar, D. A., 2002. Managing knowledge workers: unleashing innovation and productivity. Westport: Greenwood Publishing Group. Bennet, D. Knowledge Management, Learning and the Knowledge Worker. Retrieved on december1, 2011 from http://www.mountainquestinstitute.com/Knowledge%20Mgmt%20Learning%20and%20the%20KW.pdf Griffin, W. R., 2011. Fundamentals of Management. Belmont: Cengage learning. Hislop, D., 2009. Knowledge Management in Organizations: A critical introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lowe, S. G., 2004. Leveraging the skills of knowledge workers. Retrieved on December 1, 2011 from http://www.longwoods.com/content/16995 McFarlane, A. D., 2008. Effectively Managing the 21st Century Knowledge Worker. Retrieved on December 1, 2011 from http://www.tlainc.com/articl150.htm Petroni, A. and Colacino, P., 2008. Motivation Strategies for Knowledge workers: Evidences and Challenges. Retrieved on December 1, 2011 from http://www.scielo.cl/pdf/jotmi/v3n3/art03.pdf Serrat, O., 2008. Managing Knowledge Workers. Retrieved on December 1, 2011 from http://www.tlainc.com/articl150.htm Shaw, D. CHILDREN’S HOSPITAL BOSTON: ACHIEVING CLARITY TO IMPROVE INSIGHT, COMPLIANCE, AND EFFICIENCY. Retrieved on December 1, 2011 from www.sap.com/contactsap The Economist Intelligence Unit, 2007. Enterprise knowledge workers: Understanding risks and opportunities. Retrieved on December 1, 2011 from http://graphics.eiu.com/upload/SAP_InfoWork.pdf Read More