The reasons behind change management failures is an intensely debated subject. Research studies indicate a failure rate of up to 70 percent transformations fails.  A Google search on “why change management projects fail” will list thousands of articles describing the reasons for failed change projects. A common theme behind many of the failure reasons is stakeholder motivation to participate in the change project. The content critiques end-users and upper management’s motivation to work through knowledge generation issues to develop process changes and knowledge adoption issues for implementing process changes.  However, attempting to improve participation by motivating stakeholders to take risks with changes could be as futile as herding cats. Concerns about taking risks is not a motivation problem; it is a confidence problem. Project teams can stimulate better participation by building stakeholder confidence with knowledge support about the process changes.

This knowledge support approach modifies the project focus from trying to prepare the stakeholders for knowledge changes to the viewpoint of preparing knowledge changes for the stakeholders. This simple adjustment of providing knowledge support on process changes will enable stakeholders to take a more active role confidently. 

Stakeholder Confidence

Change management can be challenging and intimidating for stakeholders. They have to adapt to moving from established, well-known processes to new uncertain, and unfamiliar activities. Coping with all the change details can get overwhelming and negatively impact confidence.   

End-users exhibit confidence issues as change resistance and low engagement. Confidence is affected by feelings about not being included in the change process or not being informed of the change reasons, and there are trust issues caused by a  history of failed change projects. Upper management confidence issues include lacking leadership, limited involvement or interest, and insufficient communication of the change vision.    

These issues are symptoms that the stakeholders need support to build their confidence in participating in the change project. A knowledge support resource will provide the necessary assistance to enhance their confidence.  

Building Confidence

To build confidence, stakeholders will need a support resource to access the company’s organizational knowledge during the change project phases. Organizational knowledge is the knowledge necessary to operate processes.  The projects will use the knowledge as a platform to identify and update the process areas affected by the change.  

Pre-project Phase

Before the change project kicks off, stakeholders will have a support resource for reviewing the current knowledge content.  This access will build confidence by enabling the stakeholders to check and confirm that the existing knowledge is up-to-date.  The support resource also ensures comfort that project team members are all using the same process knowledge basis.

Change Development Phase

Having support access to review development changes is critical for stakeholders’ confidence about the project’s progress.  Stakeholders can check the knowledge details as the team is making adjustments to meet the business change objectives.

During the progress of this phase, stakeholders can keep tabs and review:

• The job procedures affected.
• The employees impacted.
• The details of the change.

Change Adoption Phase

By completing and approving the modifications, the team generated a new updated version of the company’s organizational knowledge.  It contains the process changes to kick-off training.  The impacted stakeholders will get notified and informed about their changes details.  The stakeholders will use the knowledge as a support resource for on-the-job learning to sustain their confidence in adopting the changes.  

Future Change Projects

Using organizational knowledge during change projects reinforces stakeholders’ participation with the projects. Access to a support resource solidifies their confidence that future projects will continue to maintain process knowledge integrity.

Implementing change in an organization can be intimidating for employees.  They have to move from established, well-known activities to new work that is uncertain and unfamiliar. A change project’s success is often determined by how well the individual employees embrace, adopt, and use new processes, tools, or techniques. To help teams improve success with change projects, we will explore merging a leadership approach using the ADKAR model with a quality support approach using organizational knowledge.

ADKAR Model

The ADKAR model is a widely used framework that promotes change management by understanding change on the individual level. The Prosci ADKAR Model was developed by Jeff Hiatt in 1996 to inspire team members to become change leaders. ADKAR is an acronym for a framework with five phases on guiding employees to work through their resistance to process changes: (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement).

Quality Support

Quality support involves providing the team a support resource to the organizational knowledge necessary for the operation of processes. The quality system maintains the integrity of the process knowledge and keeps the content accessible throughout all stages of the change management project. Quality support focuses on using organizational knowledge to build employee confidence about the process changes.

Merge Quality Support with ADKAR

ADKAR and quality support provide two different viewpoints to change management. ADKAR’s view is about preparing employees for the process changes while the quality support viewpoint is about preparing the process changes for the employees. To merge these two viewpoints, we will explore using organizational knowledge to provide quality support during the five ADKAR phases (Awareness, Desire, Knowledge, Ability, Reinforcement).

Awareness

Awareness is the first ADKAR element for working on resistance. This initial step is for developing awareness of the need for change. This element answers the question of why change is essential and communicates the risks for not changing.

During this awareness phase, introduce the team to the organizational knowledge quality system for the current state.  The information provides both the employees and the change team a common knowledge foundation for launching the change project.  The quality system also supports awareness about how the future version of the organizational knowledge that contains the changes will operate at the end of the project.

Desire

Desire is the second element of the ADKAR model. This element is about building individual interest and motivation for change. This phase reviews the nature of change and explores the benefits for employees and the business.

During this phase, the change team can start identifying the portions of the business process involved with the changes. Identifying the parts helps with employee acceptance by demonstrating that only subsets of the organizational knowledge will need changes while the rest remains untouched.

Knowledge

The knowledge element of ADKAR focuses on preparing employees for change with training. This phase is about employees learning the knowledge they need to perform the changes.

With quality support, this phase involves preparing organizational knowledge with the necessary details to transition from the pre-change version to the post-change version. The preparation starts with identifying the list of technology and job tasks involved with the change.  Then the team can determine and record the process details required for the changes. After preparing the new knowledge version, the team plans and delivers the necessary training.   The training is more focused on instructing the affected employees for their portions of the modified process.

Ability

The ability phase refers to the learning curve period where employees are developing their skills and mastery of the new changes. During this period, employees will need support to help them improve their productivity with the updated process.

The updated organizational knowledge provides employees with on-the-job support to be productive while still learning the new changes. Having quick access to the job role knowledge enables employees to be self-sufficient in improving and sustaining their performance.

Reinforcement

The ADKAR model’s final phase is about reinforcing employees’ momentum with learning and adopting the process changes. The model suggests a series of tactics to sustain the progress of the changes and keep employees from resisting the change and reverting to old practices.

Reinforcement for quality support is about reinforcing the integrity of the knowledge in the quality system. Business teams can take ownership of the quality system and maintain knowledge accuracy as they continue to improve the process with fine-tune adjustments. With the quality system, they are continuously administering turn-key process changes with the knowledge necessary for additional updates.

Conclusion

Although these two change management approaches have different viewpoints, they complement each other by providing employees with both internal and company support. With business changes, individuals will go through their challenges of trying to accept the modifications.  ADKAR provides leadership guidance on supporting individuals through their internal motivation to adopting changes.  Quality support addresses the employee’s confidence in the business environment. The integrity of the knowledge demonstrates that changes are part of the stable progression of how the business grows and evolves.  With a quality system, employees can rely on the company for knowledge support while adapting to the new changes.

Michael Gerber’s book “The EMyth Revisited” coaches business owners on being successful by shifting their thinking to working on their business, not just in it. In this article, we will follow a parallel theme on coaching employees to work on their roles and not just in them. Michael Gerber encourages a paradigm shift of moving from an owner dependent company to a system-dependent business. To accomplish this shift change, owners need to evolve their beliefs to depending on systems to run the business. Employees can shift to working on their roles by evolving their beliefs to depending on a support system for role knowledge.

Don’t be the knowledge expert

The most significant step employees can take to work on their roles is shifting from the belief that they have to be the knowledge expert. Knowing 100% of all the role-based knowledge details is a burdensome state to reach and sustain. Knowledge details are easy to forget, and they quickly become outdated when processes are changed. Trying to be a knowledge expert on all the details creates a barrier that keeps employees stuck with working in the role. Employees are working on their role when they can provide the following answer about knowledge details “I’m not sure, let’s look it up.” They are demonstrating more control over their role by using a support system.  They are shifting control to reviewing accurate details rather than struggling to recall partially memorized information.

Support Resource System

Michael Gerber suggests writing an operations manual for modeling a turn-key operation to build the business into a franchise. This approach supports just the documentation flow of process information. The owner is responsible for generating the procedure documents, and the employees are required to memorize the content for training.  Gerber’s document approach missed the opportunity to empower employees.  Providing an organizational knowledge application empowers employees to be more self-sufficient in using and developing role-based knowledge.

Employees can work their roles by recording role-based knowledge in support resource system. Using an organizational knowledge application for a support resource shifts the employees’ role responsibility from being a knowledge custodian to being a knowledge power user. When the employee only knows 90% of the details, they can depend on the support resource for the remaining 10%. Using a support resource provides employees a knowledge foundation to perform the tasks for their role confidently.

Improve the Role

The ultimate goal behind having employees work on their roles is to encourage the development of process improvements. When employees can review their procedures, they are more open to examine and scrutinize the details for areas of improvement. They are now able to step out of the role and take an objective view of their process knowledge. Instead of mentally juggling the knowledge details, they can analyze the procedure information and apply their talent to implement improvements. To sustain the practice of role improvements, employees administer the updates to their role-based knowledge and maintain support for future use of the improved process information.

Knowledge platform for team members

Employees are members of the business team, and they need to be able to share their role-based knowledge with other team members.  Many process improvements can affect procedures from multiple roles.  The role members need to collaborate to determine the details for the procedure changes. Without a support resource, these sharing sessions can become cumbersome with getting everyone in sync about procedure details. Using the support resource improves collaboration with a central knowledge platform.  Team members can review and work through all the details necessary to implement the process improvement changes.

Empowering employees will empower owners

Michael Gerber’s life’s work has been to empower business owners to enjoy the benefits of working on their business and not just in it. This article has been about empowering employees to work on their roles and enjoy more success with their jobs. We explored the benefits of using a support resource for role-based knowledge. By using the support resource, employees have improved success with their job tasks, implementing improvements, and working with team members.  The support resource for employees also empowers owners with more time to work on the business.

The Five Moments of Learning Need model describes five moments where employees need support for their role-based learning. Authors Bob Mosher & Conrad Gottfredson developed the model as a learning strategy to sustain effective employee performance. Therefore, supporting these events of role-based learning enhances employees’ ability to share, review, and use the necessary knowledge to be proficient in their roles.

Organizational knowledge systems are a support resource for the task details that are necessary for employee roles. It provides a platform where employees can interact with role-based knowledge to satisfy the specific needs defined by the learning moments. Below is a review of how administering an organizational knowledge system can support the five moments of learning need.

1. First Time Learning 

First time learning moments is when employees get introduced to pre-existing practices for performing their job tasks. Onboarding is a typical example of a first time leaning. The first-time exposures provide employees a start to the learning process. Employees may still need additional learning moments to become proficient in performing their job tasks. 

Organizational knowledge supports first time learning with a platform to introduce employees to the instruction details necessary for their duties. The first-time moments also show employees how to used the support resource to review the task knowledge for future learning.

2. Expanding Learning

Expanding learning moments involve employees enhancing knowledge content by developing or improving the standard practices for job tasks. Although being involved with developing new knowledge does provide the employees with an intense learning experience, the expanded information is still in a fragile, isolated state. Employees need to take steps not to lose this knowledge and make it available for future learning.  

Organizational knowledge systems support expanding learning by providing a method for employees to preserve this new knowledge. The systems have a platform where the employees can use their current information as a basis to support both developing and sharing the changes. With organizational knowledge systems, the expanded improvements are made available as a support resource for future learning.

3. Problem Solving Learning

Problem-solving moments are when employees generate solutions to unintended problems that are outside of the standard process conditions. These problem-solving solutions are additional details to learn on top of the core role-based knowledge. Problem-solving is similar to expanding moments in that solution knowledge is fragile and needs to be recorded and made available as a support resource for future learning. 

Organizational knowledge systems provide branching logic where the solutions to problems are attached to the core job task instructions as a branch. Using branching separates and organized the knowledge by process conditions. With branching, employees can follow the core instructions during the standard process of routine tasks, and only review and apply the branch instructions when they encounter the problem conditions.

4. Change Learning

With change learning moments, employees focus their learning on just the modifications implemented during expanded or problem-solving moments. Change learning moments are quick informative sessions that keep employees up-to-date with modified portions of their job tasks. The learning moments provide an introduction to the modification to improve employees’ awareness of role-based changes. Like the other learning moments, employees may still need future learning to become proficient in performing the change portions. 

Organizational knowledge systems address change learning moments by notifying and informing employees about the changes. For reviewing the changes, the modified portions of the instructions get marked for easy identification.  They are also accompanied by change notes to explain the reason for the modification. Like first-time moments the notifications also identify the locations of the changes to support employees with future learning.

5. Apply Learning 

Apply learning moments are the on-the-job learning events where the employees are productive while they are still learning the job knowledge.  The moments of apply learning are the most significant of the five moments since they complete the learning processes started by the other four. It represents the final moment where employees need and use knowledge from the first four learning moments to perform their business operations.

Organizational knowledge systems aid apply learning by providing quick, just-in-time access to job task instructions through the use of performance support portals. While employees are performing their jobs, they can retrieve answers to job questions within a couple of seconds.

Moments of Learning Summary

The five moments of learning need are interdependent, and sometimes overlapping activities that chart the employees’ journey to becoming proficient with their roles. Organizational knowledge is the compass employees follow on the journey to master the knowledge for job success. It provides the employees with a support tool to improve, review, and use role-based knowledge as they journey through their learning moment activities.

Does your business follow a tribal knowledge or an organizational knowledge style of management for process administration?

Tribal Knowledge

Most businesses start out using a tribal knowledge style of management, where there is no system to administer process details. The company is simple enough that the process details for operating the business are passed along to team members through sharing around the campfire events. Employees pick up on the knowledge from a series of activities like training, meetings, emails, conversations, and workplace experiences. With this management style, the responsibility of knowledge preservation permeates across the memories of the employees.

The effectiveness of tribal knowledge starts breaking down when the business grows and becomes more complex.   Using employee memories to preserve process details undermines efforts to manage changes; it becomes difficult to gauge which portions of the process details are known by the employees.  There are risks that the knowledge is spread too thin, and details become lost when someone either forgets or leaves the business.  Employees can become less confident about the work because they’re uncertain if their understanding of the process details is up-to-date and accurate.

To compensate tribal knowledge practices,  companies started documenting this information in knowledge base articles, procedure files, PowerPoint slides, training materials, emails, and other forms of documentation.    The inconsistency of these documentation methods adds complexity issues with administering the knowledge. They generated additional concerns about where the information resides and if it is still up-to-date and accurate.  There were also timing issues, where the knowledge content was not easily accessible to users at the times when they needed to use it.  These documentation methods still kept employees in the unsupported position of having to practice tribal knowledge.

Organizational Knowledge

The organizational knowledge style of management involves using a central interactive software system for maintaining and administering process details.  The system provides employees a support resource to record process details which relieved the burden of their memory being the sole knowledge source.  With organizational knowledge, employees can perform their work confidently, knowing they have quick access to a support resource for the latest process details. The risks of knowledge losses were minimized by having a system to retain process details. Using a central system for reviewing and updating process details simplified the change management efforts on planning and implementing business improvements.

Organizational knowledge is another example where a software system improved the productivity of business operations.    Software systems enhance productivity by reducing the work effort needed to convert data into the information employees use to be successful at work.   An organizational knowledge system reduces the mental effort of having to memorize all the process details by supporting employees with quick access to the knowledge they need to be successful at work.

Knowledge management and organizational knowledge are two types of knowledge applications that organizations often administer in one general system.  However, when you examine their use and the functionality they provide, it becomes apparent that they serve significantly different purposes. Reviewing the following ten differences between knowledge management and organizational knowledge will aid organizations in determining how the two systems can address their knowledge needs.

1)  Repository vs. Support Resource

Knowledge management systems serve as repositories, where users store and preserve knowledge information for future use. The system’s function is to provide users with knowledge content for investigating and solving business problems.

Organizational knowledge systems serve as a support resource for providing users the knowledge necessary for operational activities. The system’s function is to refresh the user’s memory on the knowledge details for performing their job tasks.

2) Subject vs. Job Tasks

Knowledge management systems organize content by subject articles.  They are a repository for knowledge items on a broad range of subject topics.   Most knowledge management systems are very open to letting the users determine the type of subject content they want to store.

Organization knowledge systems organize content by job tasks. With these systems, the content purpose is for supporting users and is limited to the knowledge necessary for business operations.

3) Just-In-Case vs. Just-the-Necessary

Knowledge management systems follow just-in-case criteria for determining the knowledge content. The knowledge content is added on a just-in-case basis, assuming that the information could be useful in the future.

Organizational knowledge systems follow just-the-necessary criteria for its knowledge content. The knowledge updates are to provide just-the-necessary information to support users with operational activities. Very often, outdated knowledge content gets replaced by new practice changes and improvements.

4) Infinite vs. Finite

Knowledge management systems have an infinite scope with the quantity of content stored in the repository. It is difficult to set parameters on the amount of knowledge because it is difficult to predict which information would be helpful in the future. These repositories can become very large with the volume of content stored.

Organizational knowledge systems have a finite limit with their amount of knowledge. The scope of the information gets determined by the job tasks for business operations.  The amount of data could still be a large considering the number and the complexity of the job tasks; however, the quantity does plateau because there is a set number of job tasks necessary for the operations.

5) Searching vs. Selecting

Knowledge management systems’ primary method of retrieving knowledge content is through the use of keyword searches. When users are in need of knowledge on a particular subject, they use keyword searches to find knowledge items with the content on the subject.

Organizational knowledge systems primary method of retrieving knowledge content is through selection.   When users need their memory refreshed on performing a job task, they are able to quickly retrieve the knowledge content by selecting the knowledge resource for the job task.

6) Increasing Knowledge vs. Reducing Knowledge

Knowledge management systems follow a philosophy of adding or increasing the knowledge into the repository. The understanding is that increasing the volume of subject articles provides users with more options for solving business problems.

Organizational knowledge systems follow a philosophy of reducing knowledge.  Once it reaches the plateau of containing the information necessary for operations, additional changes will refine and improve the operations process.   As businesses go through process improvements, existing content will get replaced with more efficient content that typically reduces the activity steps and knowledge needs for the users.

7) Loosely Attached vs. Strongly Attached

Knowledge management systems can contain knowledge content where the subject matter has only a loose attachment to the business operations. Knowledge management systems have open criteria on the subject material to encourage users to share their knowledge and build a repository that’s more beneficial in the future.

Organizational knowledge systems content has a firm attachment to business operations. Not only does the knowledge content have a direct connection to the job tasks for the business, but it also contains information details on the software screens/technologies used with the job tasks and information on the users that perform the job tasks

8) External vs. Internal Use

Knowledge management systems provide knowledge to users that are either internal or external to the business owning the system. Many companies offer knowledge systems to their customers that contain information on the company’s products. The subject base design allows both internal and external users to perform searches for information options to address business problems.

The organizational knowledge system provides knowledge to users internal to the business owning the system. The knowledge content is specific to the operations of the business.  Although the content could aid some external users, most companies will keep their organizational knowledge systems internal to their organization.

9) Pull Only vs. Push & Pull

Knowledge management systems typically operate with a pull only knowledge flow. Users are generally not aware of the knowledge contained within the system, and there are no notifications for new content added. To become aware of the knowledge content, users need to perform keyword searches to find information from the system.

Organizational knowledge systems operate with both push and pull knowledge flows.  When job tasks content is added or updated, the knowledge changes are pushed to the users to inform them of the information.  Users will also select or pull the knowledge resources to refresh their memory on how to perform the job tasks.

10) Development vs. Implementation

Knowledge management systems are more relevant on the side of developing solutions for business problems and process improvements. Users can perform searches on knowledge management systems that may be housed internally or externally to find lists of possible solution options.  From there, they can analyze the search results for information to develop the solution for the issue they are investigating.

Organizational knowledge systems are more relevant on the side of implementing the solutions for business problems and process improvements. While developing the solutions, users can identify which job tasks are involved with the implementation. They can update and modify the job task knowledge to carry out the activities for the solutions. From there, the system communicates the changes to the staff that perform the job tasks and then provide staff on-the-job support to sustain the solutions.

Recommendation

When your organization is evaluating knowledge needs, refer to these differences between knowledge management and organizational knowledge to determine how you can use the two types of knowledge systems to meet the knowledge demands of your organization.