Knowledge Management
From A to Z
Quick Reference Guide To Principles, Concepts And Contemporary Practice
A.V Vedpuriswar
Vision Books 2009
Rs.280 Pp 232
In 326 BC, Alexander had to turn back after defeating Porus on the banks of the Indus (Puru and Sindhu, respectively for those indigenously inclined) because of information received about the military prowess of Chandragupta Maurya. All wars are known to have been won or lost on the extent of information available on either side, and military intelligence is perhaps the earliest form of knowledge management known to man. In more recent times, the Kargil ‘situation’ was a telling example …which also helps to bring out the basic difference between Information and Knowledge. Vedpuriswar says (and most thinkers on Knowledge Management would agree) that information is that which is fed to you after contextualising ‘Data’. Knowledge is what you make out of the information given to you. “It takes a clever question to turn data into information; it takes intelligence to use the result,” says Lauren Ruth Weiner, in a quote at the end of the book. Drucker supports: Information only becomes knowledge in the hands of someone who knows what to do with it. It is a kind of internalising process that converts Information to Knowledge. Then how does one manage Knowledge?
Drucker asserts that there is no such thing as Knowledge Management – only knowledgeable people. It is generally accepted however, that the need to manage Knowledge assumed importance when the rate of obsolescence went out of control. The leisurely passing of knowledge from one generation to another seemed to have worked very well till about the early 20th century. The incredible change in the rate of data-transmission itself became the major cause of rapid obsolescence of knowledge. The management of business came to depend more and more on the speed with which information could be collected and internalised for the generation of profits. And so arose the need to tap the knowledge available inside the organisation as well as whatever could be collected from outside. Drucker’s ‘Knowledge Worker’ has thus become the foundation of a whole new area of management literature: Knowledge Management. And A.V. Vedpuriswar, in his attempt to collate the available knowledge on Knowledge Management in a sort of dictionary of the terms used, has just added another volume.
The book is broadly divided into three parts. The first fifty pages are devoted to a pithy introduction to Knowledge Management leading up to its social dimensions. The ‘dictionary’ proper constitutes the central part. The concluding part consists of twelve case studies showing Knowledge Management in actual practice - twelve companies in short, telling accounts of their success in Knowledge Management initiatives. McKinsey, heads the list and mentions the role of Rajat Gupta’s mentoring plans in making the firm a benchmark in Knowledge Management. The case of Pfizer highlights how they have effectively combined Knowledge Management with succession planning, leading also to competence development among newcomers in the shortest possible time. Interesting to note how Pfizer taps tacit knowledge through some ‘basic questions’. The lesson from Kao is clearly that learning organisations do not happen without top management’s deliberate and conscious shaping. Toyota Silicon Valley experience shows that Knowledge Management is not restricted to moves within organisations but can also be seen in effective use over a large number of units located in an area. Canon and British Petroleum are among the others companies covered.
Bringing up the rear is an eight-page collection of quotes (54 in all) in an awesome range from Drucker, Senge and Argyris, Andrew Carnegie, Onassis and Bill Gates to John Adams, TH Huxley, Marcel Proust, Immanuel Kant, and Kahlil Gibran, among several others. Samuel Johnson also makes an appearance with his famous Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. That, dear Sam, was when life was simple and the grey strip between the black and the white was narrow – and as yet definable. Mankind has progressed since to levels of complexity where a book like the present one can, with impunity, have thirty-six entries starting with the word ‘knowledge’ (under the letter K) and at least one under almost every other letter of the alphabet!
Made in a non-threatening and handy size the book covers the major aspects of the subject. As a reference book it would be useful to practitioners as much as to corporate trainers.
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