Kacophony - The K Factor

Solving a "wicked" problem

2005-07-31T05:15:00.000-07:00

Closing the achievement gap is not just a goal. It is a mandate that calls us to redirect our systems to accelerate student achievement and dissolve the increasing gaps among a diverse student population.

This will mean doing things differently, letting go of some past practices, opening our minds and classroom doors to collaboration, considering new ideas and refining our repertoire of solutions that work. Knowledge-management systems can serve as organizers for making the shared collection of knowledge and solutions accessible to the community.

Have we been on the right track with our strategies in attempting to solve the achievement gap? The solution requires a research-based and collaborative response on the part of educators at all levels. A solution process, supported by the efforts of professional networks and development teams, creates a new educational environment where resources are expended on proactive activities rather than on fixing a problem that should never have grown to the point of even being named.

Complete article at findarticle

Getting New Managers Up to Speed

2005-07-22T14:45:00.000-07:00

The usual employee-orientation process needs to be retired. In this article from Harvard Management Update, savvy companies explain how to jump-start the success of new managers. Tip: Set up meetings, use technology, and coach newcomers.

by Lauren Keller Johnson

When Jacqueline Lopez, a new program manager at Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, arrived for her first day on the job, Jessica Rocha, her boss, handed her a calendar bursting with already-scheduled meetings. These meetings had nothing to do with the usual employee-orientation process, through which new hires learn about Intel's values and HR procedures. Rather, Rocha had scheduled face-to-face interviews with people across Intel who had the technical expertise, cultural lowdown, and political "juice" Lopez would need to accomplish her work.

Complete Article at HBS

People Power: How to Measure It

2005-07-04T05:09:00.000-07:00

Companies own their capital assets, but (obviously) not their employees. Yet people-powered business is more important every day. In this Harvard Business Review excerpt, two Boston Consulting Group experts outline a way to measure true performance.

We are hardly the first observers to note the measurement and management challenges posed by the increasingly people-heavy and capital-light nature of business. But in our view, most efforts to take account of this shift focus on the wrong things. For example, attempts have been made to "fix" the balance sheet by including intangible assets. While these attempts certainly have value, they miss a crucial point: The critical resource of most businesses is no longer capital—that is, assets that a company owns and utilizes at as high a level as possible. Rather, the critical resources are employees whom a company hires and must motivate and retain. The fact that companies don't own their employees, as they do their capital assets, is why methods for valuing "human capital" on balance sheets are so tortuous.

Complete article at : HBS Working Knowledge

Wikis, Weblogs and RSS: What Does the New Internet Mean for Business?

2005-06-23T09:13:00.000-07:00

The Internet may be entering a new phase that will decentralize control inside companies, enable employees to collaborate more easily, and drive efficiency. But corporations that want to use the web strategically to build corporate value will not just need to make radical cultural changes, they may also need to master a new vocabulary with terms such as Wikis (software that allows anyone to update and edit web pages instantly and democratically); Weblogs (online journals more commonly known as blogs); and RSS (really simple syndication) feeds, which distribute content from the Internet.

Arcane as these terms may sound to anyone but the initiated, the technology behind them is hardly fancy. Wikis, blogs and RSS feeds are relatively simple tools that will have a huge impact on the way people -- and companies -- communicate and do business. So how is the Internet changing? How can companies seek to understand the technological effects of these changes? And what cultural adaptations should companies make to capture value from these new tools?

Complete article at: Wharton

OD and KM : Gautam Ghosh

2005-06-14T01:11:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking over the last few days...that traditional approaches to KM have followed the two approaches that are doomed for failure. These are the1. Expertise approach - The assumption being that people in the 'client' organization do not know anything and it's the expert's job to make them aware. The expert mostly does not do any implementation of his/her recommendations.2. The pair of hands approach. The 'client' is aware of what needs to be done, but lacks the time or money or both to develop the necessary skills. This is the approach most often taken by IT consulting organizations, and this is the reason that while KM systems often come up they are rarely successful. That's because the 'client' is usually the top management and not the user of the system.

Complete article on Gautam's Blog

Some HR Articles here

Boil a Consultant-Fastcompany

2005-06-01T00:12:00.000-07:00

Next Time, What Say We Boil a Consultant

Consultant Debunking Unit

According to consulting lore, corporate change all boils down to frogs.

In case you haven't heard it (and who hasn't? the frog story ranks number one on the change hit parade), Manfred Kets de Vries published the fable in his recent book, "Life and Death in the Executive Fast Lane":

"Take a pot of hot water and a frog. Throw the frog into the pot. What do you think will happen? The obvious, of course: the frog will jump out. Who likes hanging around in a pot of hot water? Now ... [t]ake a pot of cold water, put the frog in it, and place the pot on the stove. Turn on the heat. This time something different will occur. The frog, because of the incremental change in temperature, will not notice that it is slowly being boiled. Unfortunately, many organizations, as they grow, begin to resemble the boiled frog."

Fast Company's investigative team, the "Consultant Debunking Unit", put the frog story to the test.

Complete article at Fast Company

Link to the HR Blog

Practical Advice from Jack Welch

2005-05-31T23:56:00.000-07:00

Want to Win? Here's Some Practical Advice from Jack Welch

Jack Welch, former chairman and chief executive of General Electric, loves to be heard. After retiring from GE four years ago and publishing an autobiography, he has now written a book on his management philosophy, titled Winning, which he is promoting through frequent speeches and media interviews. But, unlike most prodigious talkers, Welch is hardly boring. He advocates candor and practices it, strenuously.

Last month Welch visited Wharton to speak to students about his book, co-authored with his wife Suzy. In a packed auditorium, he participated in a fireside chat with Knowledge@Wharton, followed by questions from the students. Here are a few samples of the 'Welchisms' heard during the session:

· Distinctions between leadership and managing are "academic hogwash."

· "Don't take a job because your mother wants you to. Don't be a victim. You own your decision."

· "In the end, winning companies are the only thing that sustains societies like ours. Governments create nothing."

Complete article at: Wharton's website

Some HR readings click here

The Top 5 Reasons you Need KM — Today

2005-05-30T03:10:00.000-07:00

by Tom Tobin of Knova Software (formerly ServiceWare)

There are undoubtedly many projects on your corporate wish list, all tagged as “high priority.” Many of the projects sound good, some seem interesting and they all promise incredibly fast ROI. So how do you prioritize your opportunities and select the project that will deliver the most value?

While all of the projects you are considering offer varying levels of incremental returns, the difference with a knowledge management initiative is that it can offer exponential returns, due to its very strategic nature. Here are some compelling reasons to put it at the top of your list:

Complete article at : KM World

HR Readings click here

KM: Four Obstacles to Overcome

2005-05-28T23:37:00.000-07:00

There are four pitfalls to avoid in implementing a successful knowledge management program at your company. This article from the Harvard Management Update reveals what they are.

Knowledge management (KM) continues to be trendy and appealing — a recent conference in San Antonio, Tex., drew some 250 people from 109 companies — but so far it's a concept with a checkered career. A handful of organizations, such as the World Bank and Xerox Corp., have developed robust programs for sharing knowledge that are by now well integrated into everyday operations. But many others have launched initiatives that start with a bang and end with a whimper. According to Houston-based American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC), which has conducted several studies of KM, most programs are in danger of getting stuck in the pilot phase.

Complete article at HBR

Articles on HR click here

Mentoring—Using the Voice of Experience

2005-05-27T02:24:00.000-07:00

Companies crave experienced executives—so why don't they do more to make sure that wisdom is captured in the corporate DNA? Harvard Business Professor Dorothy Leonard discusses the differences between mentoring and coaching; why it can be difficult for "masters" to reach "novices" and who should be responsible for managing a corporate mentoring program.

Sometimes executive education has little to do with what happens in a classroom. Mentoring and coaching are the time-tested ways for wisdom and knowledge to be passed through an organization. Harvard Business School professor Dorothy Leonard and Tufts University professor Walter C. Swap, along with HBS research associate Brian DeLacey, are studying the processes of mentoring and coaching in entrepreneurial environments. Leonard and DeLacey discuss their findings with HBS Working Knowledge editor Sean Silverthorne.

Silverthorne: In the context of executive education, talk a little about your research.

Dorothy Leonard: There are two streams of research that are coming together here. One stream is the research that Brian and I started a couple of years ago: the use of technology in aiding learning processes both face-to-face and when people are in diverse locations.

The other stream of research, started in the year 2000, was aimed at understanding how an innovative team working together in a creative act managed the process of knowledge transfer between the more experienced and less experienced members of that team. The context was entrepreneurs learning from coaches who were either professionals in venture capital firms or who were cashed-out entrepreneurs acting as angels for small start ups. Both sets of people had certain expertise that they were trying to transmit to highly inexperienced entrepreneurs. (Sometimes the coaches were inexperienced and the entrepreneurs were experienced.)

Complete article at HBR

The Re-routing Routine

2005-05-26T01:58:00.000-07:00

Routines Evolve Into Dynamic Capabilities

Maurizio Zollo , Sidney Winter

How do companies learn to learn? Maurizio Zollo, Associate Professor of Strategy and Management at INSEAD, and Sidney G. Winter, Professor at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, investigate this topic in their working paper. “This research aims to improve our understanding of how companies develop their competencies,” says Professor Zollo.

From run-of-the-mill routines to definite dynamism – how do organizations find the right route? The authors identify three consistent catalysts building and reshaping organizational routines: how an organisation builds experience, how it articulates knowledge and how it codes that knowledge into task-specific tools. The combination of the three mechanisms result in the development of expertise specific to the manipulation and improvement of routines, what scholars call "dynamic capabilities."

The relative effectiveness of the three catalysts, however, can vary depending on several factors, such as the characteristics of the process considered (e.g. its frequency, diversity and complexity), of the organization itself (its attitude towards knowledge exploration, its organizational structure, etc.), and of its environment (e.g. fast paced high-tech industries, or slow-moving commodity businesses). This paper identifies limitations to the functioning of these three mechanisms and produces relevant guidelines for managers interested in developing their organization’s learning capability.

"The ‘grand finale’ in my Mergers and Acquisitions course is dedicated to the problem of developing an organisational capability specific to the management of acquisition processes," Professor Zollo says. "The notions and the arguments used in this paper are theoretical in nature, but highly applicable to several key managerial challenges."

Source: INSEAD

some reads on HR Click here

Getting to Know You

2005-05-25T02:30:00.000-07:00

It’s time to trim down and cut costs in your organisation, but where?

Some say you should tighten the belt around projects that don’t show immediate profitability. In professional services, that’s likely to be Knowledge Management (KM). True, investment in KM may be the key to long-term success, but in the short-term, perhaps the high salaries of the specialised KM executives are too tough to manage.

But others argue that when it’s slow-going externally, it’s time to turn to internal strengthening. In that respect, KM is more of a preventative measure, because it will pay off later by preventing another slump.

What could explain this KM dichotomy? Elie Ofek (Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School) and Miklos Savary (Associate Professor of Marketing, INSEAD) say it may stem from the two conceptual categories of KM: Knowledge Exchange and Knowledge Creation. These two branches have scale economies of different types with varying implications for competitive dynamics.

KM processes may facilitate Knowledge Exchange in the firm, leading to more efficient operations and lower costs, i.e. supply-side scale economies. They can lower the firm’s marginal costs and increase efficiency, making it easier for professionals to access and adapt previously-generated solutions. Many firms do this in a centralized (through electronic documents of client and project information) or decentralized way (through communication, directories, and general sharing of information among colleagues).

Complete article at Knowldge. Insead

Articles on HR click here

How Business Schools Lost Their Way

2005-05-24T23:36:00.000-07:00

Too focused on “scientific” research, business schools are hiring professors with limited real-world experience and graduating students who are ill equipped to wrangle with complex, unquantifiable issues—in other words, the stuff of management.

Business schools are on the wrong track. For many years, MBA programs enjoyed rising respectability in academia and growing prestige in the business world. Their admissions were ever more selective, the pay packages of graduates ever more dazzling. Today, however, MBA programs face intense criticism for failing to impart useful skills, failing to prepare leaders, failing to instill norms of ethical behavior—and even failing to lead graduates to good corporate jobs. These criticisms come not just from students, employers, and the media but also from deans of some of America’s most prestigious business schools, including Dipak Jain at Northwestern University’s top-ranked Kellogg School of Management. One outspoken critic, McGill University professor Henry Mintzberg, says that the main culprit is a less-than-relevant MBA curriculum. If the number of reform efforts under way is any indication, many deans seem to agree with this charge. But genuine reform of the MBA curriculum remains elusive. We believe that is because the curriculum is the effect, not the cause, of what ails the modern business school.

Complete article on HBR

More on HR

The House That Reliance Industries Built

2005-05-23T02:45:00.000-07:00

Construction of the world's largest petroleum refinery built from the ground up -- along with the rollout of a national telecommunications network -- required Reliance Industries, India's largest private-sector company, to devise new management and technology solutions to develop its mega-projects.

The massive Jamnagar petrochemical refinery complex and the company's information-communications business illustrate a willingness to tackle huge undertakings with big payoffs for the company and India, according to Hital R. Meswani, executive director of Reliance Industries, who spoke to a campus audience earlier this month on the topic: "Ideas That Worked: Creation of World-class Businesses through Management of Technology." Reliance Industries is part of India's largest conglomerate, the Reliance Group.

"Both these businesses have demonstrated to us that value creation is possible through effective management of technology, building competencies around people and placing trust in them," said Meswani, who has degrees from both Wharton and the University of Pennsylvania's engineering school.

Meswani, the top manager of both projects, is the great-nephew of Dhirubhai Ambani, a former gas station attendant who founded Reliance in 1968. He died in 2002 and his two sons, Mukesh and Anil, now control the firm, although recent media reports have highlighted differences between the Ambani brothers over the running of the company. With sales of $23 billion, Reliance's businesses include textiles, synthetic fibers, petrochemicals, petroleum refining and marketing, oil and gas, power, and information and communications services.

Complete article at Knowledge Wharton

For latest on HR click here

KPO: Whats Cooking Up There

2005-05-21T23:05:00.000-07:00

A growing number of Indian companies believe that the next big opportunity waiting to be tapped is knowledge services (KS) - also known as knowledge process outsourcing (KPO). Knowledge services involve the efficient use of IT tools and techniques to create, collect, and synthesize data and information to improve decision-making.

Over the years, BPO has proved that standard process-oriented work can be outsourced to destinations like India, Philippines, Brazil, Russia and China. Knowledge services will enable organizations to move from BPO to KPO, where a highly skilled pool of knowledge workers can deliver results that require decision-making and perspective analysis.

The knowledge services market is expected to hit US $17 billion (Source: Industry) by 2010, and should offer new opportunities to professionals like MBAs, CFAs, PhDs, lawyers, doctors, statisticians, economists and other knowledge professionals. However, as the industry matures and new services are defined, this market projection could be revised upward to the region of $50 billion. It is estimated that Indian KPO providers could provide direct employment to 300,000 people by the end of 2010.

Read Complete Article here

Some latest articles on HR available here

The Knowledge Coach

2005-05-20T00:02:00.000-07:00

I have been hawking the HBS webiste in the past 2-3 days, here comes another intresting read from HBS.

Many times in our lives—both professional and personal—we need either to transfer knowledge we have built up over years of experience from our heads to someone else's (our children, a junior colleague, a peer) or we have the reverse need: to somehow access those bits of wisdom accumulated in someone else's cranium. Every time we take over a new job or leave an old one, there is an immense waste of knowledge. Not that a newcomer wants to use everything that was in her predecessor's head—some of it was mere flotsam and jetsam, and some was obsolete. But the good stuff? Her mental Rolodex would be handy—whom to call when something breaks down or needs expediting. And how about her uncanny ability to decode behavioral cues—subtle signs of disagreement or even hostility among subordinates in meetings? How does she do that? That storehouse of unwritten process details—the way that certain software or hardware does or doesn't work—maybe that know-how could save some time. The real story not contained in the files on those customers? Definitely neither flotsam nor jetsam. These are her deep smarts—the knowledge that is vital to preserve.

Full article on HBS

Some useful stuff updated on The HR Blog

The Zen of Management Maintenance

2005-05-19T01:04:00.000-07:00

How can leadership be so rich in information yet so poor in knowledge? Hundreds of books and "models" purport to advise on the best way to become a leader. Yet many people, asked to name a leader they admire, struggle to identify more than a few individuals.

According to Jagdish Parikh (HBS MBA '54), the gap between what everyone learns about leadership and what they actually experience exposes a fundamental flaw in leadership models today. The qualities that genuine leaders possess—and what makes inspiring leaders so rare—are not innate characteristics. Rather, he believes, they are skills that aspiring leaders can and should actually teach themselves, such as self-knowledge and self-mastery. Self-knowledge and self-mastery can be developed through conscientious practice.

"Unless one knows how to lead oneself, it would be presumptuous to lead others," Parikh said.

Complete article at: HBS

Also, read some intresting stuff on HR at The HR Blog

IP LICENSING IS A TWO-WAY STREET

2005-05-18T00:21:00.000-07:00

Says: McKinsey Quarterly

Many companies have ambitious goals for increasing their revenues from
licensing intellectual property, but few actually achieve those goals. The
companies that derive the greatest benefit from the licensing of IP understand
the value to be gained not only by licensing it to other companies but also by
licensing it from them to spur innovation and improve products. For more on how
some companies make the most of IP--their own and others'--read this month's
Chart Focus: "IP licensing is a two-way street."

The relation between knowledge sharing and distance

2005-05-14T00:19:00.000-07:00

Just came across this intresting article:
Joy London at excited utterances repeats some interesting reader comments about human behavior and knowledge management. Keep Your Knowledge to Yourself?

One of the principal impediments to participation is the time and effort necessary to compose, edit and refine a contribution for internal "publication" so that it can be clear to all potential readers. If you post a note about your specialty (e.g. your practice) for your own use, it can be short and cryptic. If you know that only trusted senior members of your practice group will see it, you may be a little more thorough, but you still have confidence that others of equal experience will understand it.

What KM and Legal Outsourcing Have in Common

2005-05-13T02:22:00.000-07:00

My loyal correspondent Rob Hyndman pointed out a feature article in Legal Affairs, "Are Your Lawyers in New York or New Delhi?," which takes on the pregnant issue of outsourcing with, to my mind (and Rob's), fairly underwhelming levels of insight. In fact, if you only read one of the two cited pieces, read Rob's. Aside from some truly bone-headed mis-statements in the Legal Affairs piece ("The market for outsourced legal work is expected to reach $163 billion by next year...," for example, which is a figure higher than the total revenue of all U.S. law firms last time we looked), it amounts to a compendium of anecdotes, vignettes, and conspicuously self-serving quotes from vendors side-by-side with double-talk from presumed, or should we say accused, outsourcing clients, such as this blather from Microsoft: "[as] a global company, we are constantly working to improve our ability to serve our customers worldwide in the most cost effective, efficient manner." I mean, who writes this stuff? Are they on drugs?

Social Networks Are Smarter Than Org Charts

2005-05-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

In a recent study at Hewlett Packard (HP), we have additional proof that bottom-up, self-selected groups may be the powerhouses of modern corporations: where actual work gets done. Org charts and formal reporting hierarchies may be completely irrelevant.

Knowledge management comes to philanthropy

2005-05-11T23:50:00.000-07:00

Foundations are endowed with intellectual as well as financial capital. Now is the time to use it. says Mckinsey Quarterly...

Philanthropic foundations are knowledge-intensive bodies. Almost everything they do, from identifying innovative nonprofit organizations to evaluating grants and publishing policy-shaping reports, depends on the use of human and intellectual capital. But many philanthropies, fearing that a dollar spent internally is a dollar wasted, have neither the organization nor the systems to manage their knowledge properly. What they fail to understand is that knowledge is a cornerstone of effective philanthropy

The Independent on Consultancies

2005-05-10T04:08:00.000-07:00

The Independent recently carried this intresting piece on Management Consultancies.

Think outside the box: don't waste money on advisers

They give us solutions we may not need, systems that may not work, at a price we shouldn't pay, in a language we don't understand. David Craig asks when we will get wise to the ways of management and IT consultants

McKinsey management consultants are we
We take all our clients' money
We can earn many a million
Because our clients have no vision
From a song reportedly sung at a McKinsey party

Indian Students win in US

2005-05-10T03:25:00.000-07:00

I came across this site :http://www.effortsunited.com

A website built by a team of students from Gurgaon in Haryana, is one of two winning sites of the US Department of State's 2005 Doors to Diplomacy Award.

The site explores international security by considering global realities and threats while celebrating the mutual cooperation and celebration that support diplomacy.

The awards recognise the websites that best teach about the importance of international affairs and diplomacy.

KPO in India

2005-05-09T05:48:00.000-07:00

India is all set to become the new knowledge process outsourcing (KPO)
hub, according to a press release by the Confederation of Indian
Industry (CII) based on its paper "India In The New Knowledge
Economy." The paper has revealed that "KPO would grow at 46% to
reach a staggering US$ 17 billion by 2010. Besides, the study points
that the growth of services sector would be 8%+ and its contribution
to India's GDP would be 51%+, affirming that India's
transition from being a BPO destination to a KPO destination is
imminent." Check the press release at

http://www.ciionline.org/news/newsMain.asp?