Knowledge Matters™

Yesterday was my last day working on the TARDIS knowledge management system and for HolisTech® Pty Ltd . It was both a sad day and a relief. It's a relief because for the past fortnight I've been somewhat schizophrenic. I've been schizophrenic because despite my best efforts I've found myself thinking and working (albeit unpaid) for my new organisation, and at the same time working in TARDIS and for HolisTech®. The net effect has been very long hours where I've been burning the candle at both ends, and is my defence for failing to blog in recent days! But I digress. I thought today (to stay with the medical theme) we would look at corporate amnesia.

Amnesia is a devastating disorder, which results in short or long-term loss of memory, and sometimes an inability to imagine the future . Amnesia is sometimes the result of a disease, but more commonly occurs from physical or psychological trauma. Now it seems to me corporate amnesia - the loss of collective organisational memory - is endemic these days, and is the result of both physical and psychological organisational trauma.

Organisations experience physical trauma when they resize, right-size, down-size, reshape, and even upsize. As project teams, sections, branches and divisions change shape established processes and procedures are broken. Policies and procedures can be amended but the amendment process inevitably takes time, and often is an after-thought. Similarly organisations experience psychological trauma when restructuring results in people leaving or relocating. Every person who leaves or is retired walks out of the door with knowledge. Often this knowledge is irreplaceable and cannot be captured because it is expert knowledge, which is the result of experience. Fractured relationships also introduce uncertainty, because people no longer know how to respond.

I'm watching a public sector organisation that is restructuring at the moment. Some elements are being down-sized and others upsized, but the fact of the matter is the new organisational structure cannot be accommodated in the existing building, and there is no intent to move to another. Sadly this organisation has resized, right-sized, down-sized, and reshaped five times in the last ten years! Staff cannot imagine a stable future, and the air is pungent with a miasma of despair. I am reminded of the quote most often attributed, quite wrongly, to Petronius Arbiter :

"I was to learn later in life that we tend to meet any new situation by reorganising; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress while producing confusion, inefficiency, and demoralisation."

Now I'm not advocating that there should be no change. But we must recognise that change inevitably results in some corporate amnesia. We must plan for this eventuality. Like major surgery change must be carefully and meticulously planned, and just like major surgery we shouldn't undertake change too often - it's detrimental to organisational health. I suggest corporate memory matters and is a necessary prerequisite for organisational well-being.

Regards Graham