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Written by Håkan Ståby
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A change management overview by Gabriela Styf-Sjöman Change needs KnowledgeToday the focus on Change Management has increased. Many companies face difficulties, they find themselves in stagnation, and know that the only way to improve efficiency is by improving corporate organizational performance. Yet, we all know that this is one of the most difficult things to do. Why? Because this requires change, and that itself is one of the biggest challenges for most people. How is change related to the transfer of knowledge in an organization? Well, it is perhaps during change that the importance of knowledge transfer comes at its peak. I will use the metaphor used in "The Change Monster" by Jeanie Daniel Duck. "Change in an organization is like a journey. When traveling and getting instructions on how to reach a destination by a person who knows the way very well, instructions are not always that easy to follow. Because what we usually get is the information, but the person giving them also has certain knowledge that he learned along the way, that he takes for granted and does not give. It is mostly that specific knowledge that can make the journey take longer than expected or make us bump into more obstacles than if we had had the knowledge ourselves." Assess difficulty of the changeThe success of change depends on the capability of the Management Team to alter the mind-set of hundreds or thousands of employees to change the way they work. First step is for management to define the level of change. In broad terms there are three complexity levels of change. The first is pretty straight forward, companies act directly to achieve outcomes, without any requirement to change the way employees work. The second level employees might need to adapt their practices or to adopt new ones in line with their existing mind sets in order to achieve organizational goals. The third level of complexity is the most challenging one. This is where the organization knows that it cannot reach higher performance unless employees change the way they think in ways of performing their work. They have reached stagnation. Such a change often requires a complete change in corporate culture: cultural change. Key Factors of Change and Knowledge ManagementIn the phases of change there are a number of key factors that need to be considered when assessing the scope and complexity of the initiative:
These same key factors are critical in the consideration of Knowledge Management. The psychological challenges that face change management are similar to the ones that face knowledge management. It is easy to focus of the "hard" items such as organization, working processes, and IT systems. But if "soft" factors such as psychology are not considered, it will fail because the people that will make the success will not accept the change. One successful KM initiative that has addressed many of the key factors such as incentives, roles and responsibilities, as well as complies with company strategy and business model is Siemens ShareNet (http://www.tulsi.se/products/dotknw/). Other initiatives are the implementation of corporate portals that enable employees to share knowledge in an easy way. Hand-in-handIt is time to address these two together. They go hand-in-hand and key factors to success are similar:
Employees will alter their mind-set if they see the point of the change and agree with it. An organization must provide the tools to support the new behavior; these might be incentives and recognition. It doesn't stop there. Employees must have the skills and knowledge to perform change and to use the new tools provided to them. IT systems that support change and that enables sharing knowledge and encourages it by incorporating reward systems. Sources:
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