Elevator Speeches: No Magic Beans

Posted by Stephen Abram on 19 Dec 2017, Lucidea

Over the past few years we have heard a lot about the special role of elevator speeches—those sound bites you practice in case you have the ear of a key decision maker or influencer in your organization for a few floors. I love this tactic, but let’s remember that it’s just a micro-skill and we can’t leave our communication strategies up to chance encounters. Let’s learn how to make our own magical moments.

We’re told to craft a few engaging, short stories or facts and install them in the heads of decision makers during a quick elevator ride. Then, magically, good things could happen. There are even many examples of where this strategy worked.

But what are the next steps after you’ve baited the hook with your elevator speech—making sure to be interesting, intriguing, and to include a call to action? I like to think about the below as steps in developing a new relationship. Not quite speed-dating but definitely getting to know each other better.

The Starbucks Latté Chat
Nearly everyone likes one of the ubiquitous Starbucks™ beverages. Slyly insert, into casual conversations, a query about what someone’s favorite Starbucks is. Is it different in summer? Do they change their choice from morning through evening? Do they actually prefer Seattle’s Best or Tim Horton’s? Then, later, call them when you know they’ll be jonesing for a fix, ask them out for 15 minutes, and say you’ll treat them to their favorite Starbucks. What do you get? 15+ minutes instead of an elevator ride. It’ll be the best five bucks you ever spent. Be prepared to be social and listen and have your ideas ready too. Pick them up at their desk so you have the walking time as well. And don’t put all your eggs in one basket; make sure you repeat this with many key influencers and decision makers.

The Hot Dog
Graduate to the Hot Dog Stand. This is perhaps an urban trick where quick lunches of NY cut fries and kosher hot dogs on the street are part of the downtown and business district cultural fabric. Maybe there’s something similar on campus or in your town. Anyway, this gives you half an hour to chat and plan together. You also get to know each other better. Your goal might be transferring ideas, excitement and information—or planning a future larger meeting. Either way, you now have a deeper relationship with a person who matters. You might even make a friend, but in any event you’ll have a closer colleague. You’re entering the inner circle’s orbit. And you get 30 minutes!

Lunch, Dinner and Social Events
As you earn the right to be part of the networked team, you’ll have more opportunities. Just remember not to be all business, all the time. People want professional relationships with other people, not fellow employees. And these events give you the opportunity for longer interactions and multiple targeted conversations.

The Meeting
Now you’re there. Several people who matter are primed to hear your big ideas, delivered in a more fulsome manner than an elevator speech or a budget line item discussion. You’ve already confirmed they’re aware and interested. This is your chance to shine and bring in the big guns—formal PowerPoints and handouts and a request for more consideration and alignment with the organization’s bigger strategies. You can do it. You’ve already worked the room in advance! On the other hand, try to attend a meeting as an attendee first, rather than as a presenter. Get to know the meeting culture and players.

Keeping the Energy Flowing
Lastly, here’s just one more piece of advice. This isn’t a budget strategy—it’s almost always wrong to introduce new ideas in the formal financial side of the budgeting process. That’s usually where cuts happen, not investments. New program investments and priority choices happen throughout the year in thousands of small conversations and strategic planning meetings. Be political and keep your mind on the long term goal. Align yourself with the enterprise’s most exciting goals.

Elevator Speeches: No Magic Beans

No Collar, No Library Service? Surely Not…

Posted by Lucidea on 10/19/2017

The CKO of Microsoft Services Has a Surprising Perspective on Knowledge Management, KM blogger Nancy Dixon summarizes a conversation about people, process and technology with Jean Claude Monney, CKO of Microsoft Services. Mr. Monney touches on “no collar” workers, who should be added to “white collar” and “blue collar” when we talk about the people side of knowledge exchange.

The Gig Economy
The term “no collar” is really associated with the emerging “gig economy,” which is a trend resulting in the prevalence of short-term contracts or freelance work as opposed to permanent jobs.

While many temporary employees find themselves in that role because of economic pressures, it’s true that gig workers often adopt gigging as a lifestyle, because they want flexibility and a particular quality of life; they don’t want to be chained to one organization and they want to do the kind of work they enjoy. Many are doing work within large entities, in roles such as software development, product research, scientific R&D—activities normally associated with being embedded in an organization, and which require access to (and creation of) intellectual capital. So, what happens to the knowledge produced, acquired or enhanced during a gig?

How can special librarians support gig workers?
Because special librarians are the custodians and managers of organizational knowledge assets, providers of information literacy training and research guidance, and play a significant role in making sure the right information is only seen by the right people, gig workers will likely present a unique challenge if the trend continues as predicted.

Three areas of impact that come to mind are:
Customized onboarding—role-based, timely, proactive and brief
Permissions management—leverage an ILS or KM platform with very granular access rights
Exit interviews—work with HR to develop a structured and mandatory knowledge capture framework for all gig workers

Have you been thinking about how special librarians may be affected by gig workers, and ways to share and capture the knowledge needed and generated by this new group of collarless employees?

If so, please comment below.

Build Versus Buy—3 Points to Ponder

Build Versus Buy—3 Points to Ponder

Posted by Ron Aspe, CEO on 12/16/2016

There are a few key things to consider when deciding between building your own library, KM or collections management system versus buying one: All it takes to develop your own solution is time, money, effort, and a willingness to accept risk.

Time
Developing a simple, well designed, properly documented, and fully tested system usually takes at least a person year of effort. Therefore, if you only have one developer, it will take a year to get the project done. More complex applications will take several person years of effort.

Reality check: Most companies in the business of developing software have a dedicated, full-time team of programmers. Is it realistic to think you can develop a good application in a reasonable time period?

Money
Software engineers, analysists, designers and project managers are not cheap. If a simple project requires a person year of effort, factor in salaries and benefits (or consulting fees) and you will invest about $100,000. You should expect to spend five times that—or even more—for a complex solution. Even if you do get ”people for free” because they already work within your organization, you still need to determine whether they are qualified, committed and, most importantly, can build a system that’s easy to maintain after it’s built.

Reality Check: True story—I know a library manager who hired a single programmer to develop a very basic system for her organization. The organization was forced to cut staff. They kept the programmer because nobody else could maintain the system. The role of the library manager, however, was eliminated.

Effort
Designing a system from scratch can be fun. The work is very creative and absorbing. It also requires a lot of strategizing and planning. Are you (or your teammates) able to perform your regular work assignments as well as make the effort it will take, working with developers, to envision, document and test a brand new piece of software?

Even if you choose open source (which is free up front), there’s a lot of work to be done to get the software to work the way you want it to. If you don’t have the resources on staff, you’ll need a consultant. And as with any application, it will need to be updated periodically by a qualified developer.

Reality check: There are many companies in the business of supporting open source software—and they all have lots of developers, technicians, and consultants on staff. If the software is already built, what are they doing? Implementations, maintenance and customizations. All of which will require your involvement and continued effort.

Risk
While some IT projects do complete on time and on budget—most don’t. And of those which do, most require the end users to accept some major compromises. What impact will not having the system done on time and budget have on your organization and your team?

Reality check: It is important to understand that there are six stages in most custom software development and implementation projects: enthusiasm; disillusionment; panic; search for the guilty; punishment of the innocent, and praise for the uninvolved.

Still want to do it yourself?
Your first step should be to take a long hard look at all off-the-shelf solutions that could do the job you want done. Then, get your development team or consultant to provide you with a feature-by-feature time estimate for replicating your favorites. This will save a lot of design cycles, and more importantly, allow you to understand how much effort building each of the functions will require. Lastly, once you are equipped with estimates, you can prioritize. Which capabilities are must-haves and which are nice-to-have?

And who knows? Along the way, you might find an existing solution that fits your budget and matches your needs. Happy hunting.

Building a business case for KM success

A business case enables KMer to articulate how the organization will profit from knowledge sharing and collaboration. Strong business cases are more likely to receive support and funding because, if you’re going to invest money, you want to make sure you get a deliverable and accountability. KMers can ensure their business cases attract interest by speaking to issues management cares about, such as:

1. How will the KM program help the organisation’s knowledge flow?
2. Will it allow the organization to innovate better/ faster/ cheaper?
3. Will it lead to process improvements?
4. Will it help us get products and services to customers more easily?

Instead of making vague claims or enumerating every potential benefit of KM, the business case should focus on specific goals the organization hopes to achieve. This helps ensure that the Km tactics being implemented are linked to targeted objectives and aligned with the organisation’s overall strategic direction.

Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises

Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study, conducted by Teleos in association with The KNOW Network. The Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study recognizes organizations that are outperforming their peers in eight dimensions of knowledge management, which are listed below.

Each year, the study seeks nominations of organizations that fit this description. Those submitting nominations receive the executive summary of the MAKE report, which identifies the winners (i.e., the most frequently nominated) as well as trends and findings among the MAKE winners and finalists.

In this part of the world we have -Indian Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) study again a part of Teleos’ MAKE research program. The Indian MAKE study was established in 2005 to recognize organizations (founded and headquartered in India) for their ability to create shareholder value (or in the case of public and non-profit organizations, to increase stakeholder value) by transforming new as well as existing enterprise knowledge into superior products/ services/ solutions.

The Indian MAKE research is based on the Delphi methodology. This research tool employs an expert panel’s perceptual knowledge to identify critical issues – in the case of the Indian MAKE study to identify those organizations which are leaders in creating organizational intellectual capital and value through the transformation of individual/enterprise knowledge into world-class products/ services/ solutions. After several rounds of deliberation, a consensus is developed among the panel’s experts. It is this consensus of expert opinion which provides the validity to the Delphi and Indian MAKE study results.

An Indian-based panel of Fortune Global 500 senior executives and leading knowledge management and intellectual capital experts selects the Indian MAKE Winners. In the Indian MAKE study there are three rounds of consensus building. In the first round, members of the expert panel nominate enterprises founded and headquartered in India.

From the list of nominees, each member of the expert panel then evaluates and selects a maximum of three organizations as best practice. Those organizations selected by at least 10% of the expert panel are recognized as Indian MAKE Finalists. In the third and final round, the Indian MAKE Finalists are ranked against each of the eight knowledge performance dimensions which form the MAKE framework and are the visible drivers of wealth creation:

• creating a knowledge-driven enterprise culture
• developing knowledge leaders and workers
• innovation (R&D, creativity and new product/solution/service design and delivery)
• maximizing enterprise intellectual capital
• enterprise-wide collaboration and knowledge sharing
• creating a learning organization
• managing customer/stakeholder knowledge
• transforming corporate knowledge into shareholder/stakeholder value

Six organizations repeated as Indian MAKE Winners: Eureka Forbes, Infosys Technologies, MindTree Ltd., Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel and Wipro Technologies. Infosys Technologies was recognized as the overall winner in the 2009 Indian MAKE study. This is the second time that the organization has achieved the first-place ranking.

Teleos
Teleos, an independent knowledge management and intellectual capital research firm, administers the Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) program. The KNOW Network is a Web-based global community of organizations dedicated to achieving superior performance through benchmarking, networking and best practice knowledge sharing.

The MAKE research program, conducted in association with The KNOW Network, consists of the annual Global MAKE study – the international benchmark for world-class knowledge-driven organizations – and regional/national MAKE studies.

The set of 2009 MAKE Reports – Asia, Europe, Hong Kong, India, Japan, North America and Global – is available from Teleos. Each report contains MAKE rankings, metrics, trends and analyses, and profiles of the winners.

The KNOW Network
The KNOW Network is a global Web-based professional knowledge sharing network. Its principal aim is to help you create the best possible level of performance across your organization by building on the know-how and skills of world-class knowledge-driven enterprises.

The KNOW Network is not a ‘talking shop’ or an academic think tank. The KNOW Network focuses exclusively on helping you identify, adopt, manage and improve specific Knowledge Best Practices, ranging from increasing your organization’s Intellectual Capital through Innovation to developing Social Networks to creating a Learning Organization. Using the latest Internet technology, The KNOW Network brings you an array of Web-based services to expand and improve your organization’s performance by:

• developing new insights and strategies based on exclusive access to proprietary research, including the Global and regional Most Admired Knowledge Enterprises (MAKE) studies.

• conducting Organizational Knowledge Audits and Enterprise MAKE Assessments with proprietary KNOW Network tools.

• using The KNOW Network databases of Best Knowledge Practices to conduct regular self-assessment audits and external benchmarking comparisons.

• facilitating the transfer of Best Knowledge Practices quickly and efficiently into your organization.

• contacting the best minds in knowledge organizations around the world.

• learning from KNOW Network members with relevant expertise and experience – they will be happy to share it with you.

• keeping in touch with the latest thinking and approaches to knowledge creation, sharing and use.

• integrating your knowledge management practices into overall enterprise strategy.

"Innovation and speed have become the key differentiators in the market place and improvements in knowledge management processes in our companies is central to their being innovative and nimble footed." says Ratan Tata, Chairman, Tata Group.

KM and People Behaviour

Knowledge management initiatives will succeed only when people within the organization make the positive choice to contribute their knowledge, and to use knowledge to improve what they do.

The most important responsibility of corporate leaders is to influence people to satisfy their needs by sharing, adapting, and using knowledge to create new knowledge – that is, to do something with knowledge that will make a positive difference for oneself and one’s organization.

With this blog I am trying to briefly outlines a framework for understanding how people make those choices, and a guideline for influencing end users to contribute to and use knowledge systems

To create the knowledge environment where people make choices to contribute and to use/apply knowledge requires the following elements:

• An understanding of what drives people’s choices to share knowledge.
• An understanding that everyone’s “drivers” are different.
• Self-awareness throughout the organization of effective and ineffective knowledge behaviors.
• Use of encouraging behaviors to facilitate more effective contribution/use behaviors.

We need to develop a passion-based culture, and each team member should be challenged to remain congruent with the following three values in relationship with oneself, our clients, and our company:

• Integrity. Is what I’m doing congruent with my values and with the collective needs of myself, our clients, and the company?
• Responsibility. Do I do what I say I’m going to do? Do I live up to my commitments to other team members, clients, and the company? If I haven’t, what have I learned and what can I do differently going forward? Further, what consequences am I accountable to bear as a result of not being responsible?
• Self-awareness. What choices do I make, and why do I make them? Can I make more effective choices? How can I more effectively share with coworkers the knowledge of who I am and what I know?

What is motivating for one person is not for another. Leaders should communicate constantly to address each of the four needs, and build flexible systems for motivations and rewards. They banish fear from the workplace, lead by example, and honestly encourage participation, feedback, and the belief that employees and the organization can meet their needs simultaneously. Leaders should:

• Listen more than speak. People want to share when they’re truly listened to.
• Question more than explain. Explaining is the bane of most managers in their perceived role of “translating” what we do upward, downward, across, and outside the organizaiton. Explaining blocks the ability to understand others’ points of view and to learn.
• Move decision making down more than up. Expect employees to be responsible and acccountable for their behaviors and actions.
• Facilitate more than dictate. We can never do more than facilitate. In spite of what we dictate, people will still make their own choices.

Knowledge managers can also engender more effective behaviors by:
• Communicating about KM in multiple dimensions.
• Providing flexible rewards.
• Making knowledge more “explicit” by documenting and sharing.

Corporate investments (time as well as money) in KM systems and staffing are wasted if one doesn't start with people and behaviors. The first step in KM is to understand and influence people to make effective choices that will create new knowledge and innovation in their organizations.

For knowledge managers the challenge and opportunity is to banish fear from the workplace and create an environment of trust: be conscious about how often fear motivates decisions, and create a more stable, less reactive basis for moving organizations forward.