I'm Mary Beth Deans (aka "MB") and I helped start up and continue to work
for a management consulting company called Axiom. The focus of our work
is an approach to business re-engineering which we call Business Renewal*.
My job specifically is to help clients evaluate their training/learning
programs and modify, incorporate or otherwise redevelop them to support
re-engineering efforts. To that extent, I've developed a series of
learning programs that clients can either license or purchase from us for
a one-time delivery. To us, a large part of any enterprise's needs is
what we call "knowledge management"; the learning organization plays a
major part of this.
We try to "walk the talk", so over time we've developed an infrastructure
to ensure that what people learn is made available to everyone in the
company (as well as to selected clients). We started out trying to
implement a fairly rigid, technology-oriented solution, but that just
never worked well. What we have now is an informal arrangement that works
surprisingly well. It includes a repository for project work that can
include an overview of the project, project deliverables, and a write up
on "what we learned". (I use the term "repository" very loosely -- some
of this material is available in electronic form, some exists only on
paper.) We also have a small central group -- of which I am a member --
that is responsible for knowledge management. We don't have to know
everything, but we do know where to find it. e-mail is our primary
communication method.
Up until about a year ago, my responsibilities also included managing all
internal training and conducing a two-week boot camp for all our new
hires. I considered it an important part of my job to introduce the "new
kids" to our core team as well as to senior, experienced consultants who
could act as informal mentors. It was not my intention to cram the new
hires' heads full of "important" facts; all I really wanted them to walk
away with was names and faces -- who could they call if/when they needed
help?
Then my client responsibilities became so overwhelming that all the
internal training was taken over by our HR department. The decision was
made that all this glad-handing and partying that I encouraged was a BAD
thing and knowledge should be tightly controlled. (You know, learning has
to hurt to be worth anything. Goddess forbid anybody have any fun doing
it.) Our core team was no longer called in to meet the new people;
commucating with others outside your home office is discouraged. As a
result, we've noticed a marked drop in requests for information and a
concomitant increase in poorly designed proposals and poorly thought out
workplans.
Interestingly, a recent company-wide survey recently pointed up increasing
dissatisfaction in the way information is communicated. (I should add
that the people now in charge of the internal training firmly believe that
knowledge is power -- to the point that they part with any information
only in the smallest of parcels, never really answering any questions.)
Lessons learned? The learning organization worked well for us for a long
time because, conciously or not, it was part of our corporate culture. We
did not need any high-tech solution as long as we retained the commitment
to communicate openly. That included the responsiblity not only to answer
questions and provide information when needed, but also to ask questions
rather than flounder. And a small core team acting as the "repository"
worked just fine for us. (Interestingly, a couple of our clients -- who
are much larger than we are -- have borrowed our model. So far, they all
seem to be fairly successful.)
One last lesson: one or two people can undermine 6 years of hard work very
quickly.
MB
Mary Beth Deans
Axiom Management Consulting
San Francisco, CA
(415) 546-6800
mbdeans@axiom.com