On Friday, I had a meeting with the Dean of the School of Graduate Studies to discuss future plans for integrating information literacy instruction into the curriculum. On several occasions I brought up issues that involved communication problems between the programs and the library. In response, he discussed the internal communication problems he’s seen. He said that it was so easy when there were only a few online graduate programs to get everyone in a room and frequently discuss what is going on. Now, with so many programs and so many employees, he only hears about things when they’re really bad or really good. Programs don’t know what other programs are doing. Even within programs, the communication isn’t always great. E-mails don’t go out to everyone they should and some people are just so inundated with e-mails that they don’t read them all. Clearly something needs to change to make sure everyone is on the same page and that knowledge is being transmitted better. But, as the Dean said, “it’s not like I can say, let’s get our R&D people on this” (we’re a small school and don’t have R&D people or really anyone who has the time to handle this).
A few months after I had started my job, the Dean discussed with me the idea of using blogs and wikis to improve internal communication. I had done a presentation on these tools and he could really see the potential uses for improving communication and collaboration. Terrific! However, when these ideas were presented to the entire group at a retreat, it became clear to me that blogs and wikis were not going to fly. Many people saw blogs and wikis as yet more tools that they would have to use and as a burden, rather than something to improve and streamline communications. Some people were just plain antagonistic to new technologies. A few people saw them as replacements to talking and believed that the best way to communicate was just walking to someone else’s desk and chatting with them (try doing that when there are 100 or more employees). Obviously the culture was very stuck on their ways of doing things, even if those ways were just not always working.
I found this myself recently, when I tried to standardize the way I and the copyright permissioning person receive required readings. I first have to check these readings to see if they’re available in our databases or on the Web. Then if things aren’t available through either means, I send it on to the person who handles copyright permissioning. We receive the required readings in all sorts of formats and often without much of the information we need to do our jobs. So I developed a spreadsheet that would help us to get the information we need and to easily keep track of where in the process the readings are. And we told them that we could do our jobs better and things wouldn’t fall through the cracks if they could use the spreadsheet. For the first few months, only two of the programs bothered to use the spreadsheet. This time around, I am going to refuse to work with any readings sent to me that aren’t entered into the spreadsheet template, so we’ll see what kind of a ruckus this will create. I just don’t know how to deal with this sort of antagonism towards any sort of change; even change that will improve things.
What this all really comes down to is knowledge management. How do you collect, manage, disseminate, and use the knowledge (processes, best practices, etc.) in your organization? Knowledge often lives in our heads and thus is much more difficult to manage than records (though that’s no easy task either). How do you get the old guard to share their knowledge with the new employees? How do you share best practices? How do you implement tools that allow people to share knowledge and disseminate news more easily? How do you get people to record how they do things so that the people who come after them won’t have such a tough learning curve? How do you get different departments within the same organization to communicate and share ideas so that they’re not constantly reinventing the wheel? I just found that every graduate program — all of which require APA format for student papers — has each created their own guide to APA. Things like this can be such a waste of effort. If these programs just communicated better, they would probably find that they could share a lot of the documentation and other things they created so that people aren’t constantly reinventing the wheel.
Clearly, though, the solution to these problems is not so simple as creating an Intranet or a wiki or whatever. There has to be a real change in culture or people won’t use the tools they are given. That’s really where the managers have to come in. Management style is so crucial to KM. The way you manage people will make them more or less likely to share what they know.
Knowledge management is something that I am increasingly interested in and concerned about. I see that our Systems Librarian is the only person who knows certain things and if he suddenly disappeared, no one would know how to do them. Heck, if I dropped off the face of the planet, I doubt anyone would be able to maintain or log-into the server I administer for the library. That’s crazy. This is why I’ve documented all of this stuff in a binder in my office. I’m not planning for my death, but I believe that it’s important to document this sort of knowledge, not only in case I forget it, but for whomever has my job in the future. It’s all about sustainability. But then again, if you’re the only person who knows how to do certain things, that can mean job security. So how do you break down that sort of attitude? How do you get people to share what they know when they have the attitude that sharing what they know makes them easily expendable to the organization?
I don’t really have any answers to these questions, but it’s something I am very interested in figuring out. Reading this case, from the blog Knowledge-at-work, at least makes me realize that we’re not the only ones struggling with these knowledge sharing issues. I think I need to start reading some books on KM. Any suggestions?
I work for a small consulting firm that supplies technical writing and knowledge management services for other businesses. By the time we see a customer, they have pain–an impending (or failed) audit, a key employee who’s moved on to a new job, their customers demanding documentation, and so on. Even then, often it’s hard to convince them that just buying some software tool is not the end-all, be-all answer; it’s really about their processes.
So by realizing that, at least you’re ahead of the curve. 🙂 But you’re right, changing attitudes and processes is the hard part. Part of the difficulty in your case sounds like the “pain” is mostly invisible to the people whose minds you need to change. If they don’t see a problem, you can’t get them to buy into a solution (any solution).
I totally agree with what you just wrote, Jonathan. I think the very few people at the top of the organizational ladder do “get it” and realize that something needs to change. But they’re so busy with the day-to-day stuff that they don’t have time to make changes. Everyone else doesn’t really seem to see a problem. And I, as a librarian who works with their programs but who really isn’t seen as a “team member”, certainly can’t do much of anything for them.
Still, I’m definitely interested in learning more about KM for the future. One day, I may be the manager, and I want to be cognizant of what I can do to better manage my employees and to encourage knowledge sharing and business process documentation. A good manager can make all the difference in how hard employees work, how well they work together and how well they share knowledge. A bad one can screw everything up.
Meredith, I’ve just started poking around in knowledge management lit as a way of thinking about blogs in academic libraries. There is, quite frankly, a lot of really unhelpful stuff out there. I don’t know where you are with knowledge of km, but I found two things helpful as I started out (knowing nothing):
“Knowledge Management,” in _Encyclopedia of Management_, Helms, ed. (Gale, 1999) – there might be a more recent ed., but this is what we have. It’s a basic intro, with some suggested readings, but sets out the issues in the literature.
_ Encyclopedia of knowledge management_, Schwartz, ed. (Idea Group Reference, 2006), esp. “Intranet and Organizational Learning” and “Incentive Structures in Knowledge Management”.
If you don’t have access to these, let me know.
I’ll let you know if I come across anything particularly interesting.
I’m partially playing devil’s advocate here, but surely if these people don’t see blogs and wikis as useful and relevant technologies, then they aren’t – for _those_ people, anyway. Personally, I love blogs and like wikis, but introducing them in my workplace would be futile, because most of my co-workers just don’t like working online, and some have difficulties even with email and MS Word.
Isn’t the best technology the one that people are most comfortable with?
Simon, I agree completely that people need to be comfortable with whatever technology is implemented, but the problem is that the population isn’t comfortable with anything different including even an Excel spreadsheet. It’s not at all about technology; it’s about the lack of recognition that there is a problem (even though there have been some major problems caused by poor communication this year) and the fact that there needs to be a change in culture and business processes to really improve communication and knowledge sharing. Technology is a tool; it will never change attitudes, which is what needs to happen here.
John, thanks for the recommendations! 🙂
I’ve been doing change management for a long time. One of the things that I would encourage you to remember is that it doesn’t take a LOT of the people in an organization to make change happen. The cultural shifts happen very subtly, when a small core of forward thinking people adopt new tools and processes and start to demonstrate successes with them. Don’t use up your energy trying to convince the change resistant — find allies who think like you and come up with some fun projects that can demonstrate to the others the kinds of results you can get.
And be very patient.
I agree with T Scott–starting with those who are interested and going (slowly, if need be) from there. Sounds like setting a goal of just working on the culture, without any mention of wikis or blogs, could be the place to start. Perhaps you could give a talk that just addresses the email-me vs the visit-me approaches of newer & older university or library staff? Could that be incorporated into a faculty workshop on teaching or some other topic?
This is a great description of a common organiational problem.
One thing I would try is to enlist top management to create real, high-priority projects or activities that are by definition cross-departmental and cannot be solved or addressed without cooperation and knowledge sharing among people who don’t normally communicate. Then provide the teams with the resources (people and technology) to help communication and sharing of information. DO this cyclically to (a) create real solutions to real problems and (b) demonstrate the value of appropriate technologies and suppport.
I don’t see this so much as a big organizational problem as a problem of perceptions and misunderstanding. I don’t think that IT or KM should ever replace face-to-face conversations that people enjoy so much. Too many times, when people talk about technology it seems to be an all-or-nothing proposition. Or even worse: a more-and-more proposition, as evidenced by the reaction of people who are already overwhelmed with information and technologies.
A different path might be to get everyone to agree that communications are important, with F2F being the preference of many in your organization. But with the size, it’s getting to the point that something else is needed. What would they like to see? How would they like to be informed of what’s happening in other departments? How would they like to hear about those bigger announcements (other than those that are printed and dropped into mailboxes)?
For example, rather than asking people to fill out a spreadsheet when requesting reading materials, why not ask them to send you the reference in APA format, since that is a standard across the school. Then you can enter the job in whatever tracking system you have and let them know status.
What Meredith is looking for is to simply get all of the information she and the copyright checker need in order to ensure that students have access to materials they need for classes.
Jack has an idea that might be less threatening by requesting the information in a format familiar to the staff and faculty. However, setting any requirement or standard still requires effort and change on their part.
I too have encountered change resistance. I have encountered those who will insist upon doing things in an unbeliably awkward and inefficient manner. In my experience, I have found there is usually a reason (often political, social, psychological or all three).
I agree with both working with “grassroots” and working with upper management. Working with the grassroots w/o managerial support can be futile if you are in a strong top down organization (which I suspect the university is!). However, working only with management can lead to implementations that users use as long as required and abandon for more comfortable means.
BTW, I’m a librarian who tripped into the world of KM/CM 5 years ago 🙂
The best reading in KM I’ve gotten from reading blogs, articles, conferences and other current info.
That being said:
Peter Senge is one of the primary movers behind KM:
He has written a number of items, but I’ve found his 5th Discipline to be a good insight guide.
Another oft quoted figure KM thought is Karl Popper. (You will find KM practioners referring to philosophy, as well as sociology, linguistics, and other scattered fields).
A good general Popper book is:
Popper Selections by Karl Raimund Popper, David W. Miller (Editor)
A more current book I find useful:
Knowledge Networks: Innovation Through Communities of Practice by Paul M. Hildreth
(much of what you are talking about could come about via CoP activities which opens the communication channels)
An old one that was one of the first I read 5 years ago, but still a good intro:
If Only We Knew What We Know : The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice. Carla O’Dell
I think the KM movement is interesting, but the literature on Knowledge Management (most of it) is horrible.
There are interesting things going on in the Community Development world that I think apply to this situation, and it involves F2F interaction at a grass roots level. For instance, there was this group here in Halifax that developed a project called “Cook.” The idea was that if you structure meetings around the preparation of food, it breaks down traditional hierarchical structures, and establishes new hierarchies. A fairly innovative business tried it out and it was very interesting how things worked out — the CEO was structurally not the boss, because he was not an expert at preparing food. This gave others the opportunity to speak up at the meeting and play a leadership role. This helped them understand how they were an integral part of the solution to the company’s problems.
There are other techniques as well, but the important thing is that, somehow, you have to get people to understand their situation without even mentioning technology. Then, as people talk about their big work annoyances (like poor communication, or messes of papers hanging around, or scheduling meetings for 10 folks, or whatnot), they begin to discover the role that technology can play in helping to solve those problems. They also discover that technology is only _part_ of the answer, since having a blog is useless if you have difficulty expressing yourself in writing.
The other part of the game that I am learning quite quickly is that Change also starts with a period of confusion and fear. No matter what, people are going to be scared and confused at what you are suggesting because, unlike you, they probably do not have a vision of what Library 2.0 is.
Thank you all for your excellent suggestiong. I’m in a rather difficult position considering that I am not really considered as being within their organization. I’m library and they’re the School of Graduate Studies. They seem to see themselves as existing as their own grouping of islands outside of the University and I (as the Distance Learning Librarian) am separate from all that. Even each graduate program is a distinct island unto itself. So creating change means creating change in each program that has its own unique way of doing things. There really isn’t anything I can do to make that happen; any standardization in the way things are done has to come from above. Just like information literacy. I can create tutorials until the cows come home, but if the program directors don’t say, “information literacy is important and needs to be integrated into the curriculum and pushed by faculty” no one will use my tutorials. It has to come from above.
Honestly, I think only when the administrators of the graduate program can get the individual programs to work together and see themselves single unit (where each can benefit from the knowledge and experiences of the others), there won’t be any way to improve communications.
Honestly, I think only when the administrators of the graduate program can get the individual programs to work together and see themselves single unit (where each can benefit from the knowledge and experiences of the others), there won’t be any way to improve communications.
It’s true that you need buy-in from the top, but is there any way to identify potentially-interested people from the individual programs and get them to evangelize within their organizations?
I’ve found you really need a combination of top-down and bottom-up.
Please have a look at following weblog which is the reference list of resources about KM & LIS:
http://kmlis.blogspot.com
I feel that sometimes, rejection of an idea such as using blogs as a means of communication could just be masking a deeper problem. I find that those of us who are techno-comfortable (we text, blog, im, can work a dvr & dvd at the same time) have no compassion for those who don’t have a working knowledge of a blog. We are dealing with changing from paper to a software for a helpline at work. Many have told me that a certain group will not move to computer entry and therefore stay with paper and leave entry to someone else…but after a comprehensive training and explanation, there was a complete openness to change. This won’t always happen, but it’s worth a try!!
Library 2.0 reference…
A a post from Michael Casey and and Meredith Farkas hone in on the loss of knowledge in libraries.
Libraries have a real value in mainataining a reference knowledge base as librarians are asked questions all the time, there is no need to re-invent th…