In the bible, there is a known story, about how the Jewish people leave Egypt. Time after time, they ask Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, to set them free, and he insists on holding them on as slaves. The lord, sends his hand, and punishes Pharaoh and Egypt. Ten times, we see this cycle, of requesting to leave, Pharaoh remaining stubborn and God punishing. After eight times, Pharaoh's servants understand the theme and recommend Pharaoh to change his mind, based on the information they have. Pharaoh insists on taking the incorrect decision: "And Pharaoh's servants said unto him: For how long shall this man (Moses) be a snare unto us? Let the men go and serve God their God! Knowest thou not yet that Egypt is lost?" (Exodus, 10, 7). The servants already know. Pharaoh does not.
Decisions were always taken. We made decisions in the past and we make decisions today. However, within the years, and our employees becoming Knowledge Workers, decision-making gets complicated: More decisions cannot be taken without relying on the information and knowledge of our employees; some decision-making we distribute to our workers. It is much more difficult to manage and control decisions made by our employees.
These are the issues I wish to share within my post.
Three main points, independent, but interconnected, characterize decision-making, whether taken by me or by my employees:
First, people take many decisions. Job descriptions are widely defined, and employees are expected to decide for themselves on many daily issues.
The second point has to deal with the information and knowledge assisting the decision making process. We are over-flowed with data, information and knowledge. The worker, while taking a decision, or even when bringing us the information, for our decision, filters the proposed information focusing only on the most relevant parts, as he or she understands.
Last, but not least, in most cases there are no right or wrong answers. The world is complicated and answers are not black white colored. Most alternatives include pros, cons, and many gray variants in between, all influencing the right decision.
In result, we the managers, have a difficult time trying to control quality of decisions taken by our employees. This stands true, before the decision is made, as in most cases, we have less information and knowledge than our employees have (and what we have is subjective, as they, when handed to us, filtered it). It stands true, also after the decision is made, as in many cases, we do not have the tools to examine how good was the chosen alternative as compared to other alternatives. To make a long story short, our life as managers trying to manage decision making of our employees is not that simple.
Several tips I can share from my experience:
Do not try to control each decision made. Let the employees act independently and let us focus on controlling only main decisions.
When trying to control and taking part in a decision made, ask not only about the decisions recommended, but also about the rational that caused this recommendation. A technique, for complicated decisions, may be, requesting the employee to describe others alternatives, their pros and why after all they were not recommended.
High level observe, along time, the mechanisms of decision making of the employees, to be sure our employees know how to make decisions. Maybe even bring someone in and tutor them. We should remember that decision-making is a central part of our employees' job.
Easy? Not at all. Possible? Of course. However, I can say for sure that we are not permitted to try taking the decisions instead of our employees. It is tempting, but forbidden. Making decisions by our employees is right professionally, and is part of their personal development. Sometimes, our employees will take decisions other than what we think is correct. In most cases, however, this is not an excuse for changing the decision and overriding them. This is not an easy process (I can speak for myself- not easy at all to stop myself from telling them what to do!) but it is part of being a manager of a Knowledge Worker.
Who said life is boring?
Yours,
Moria
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4 comments:
OK, knowledge should be managed. How should it be managed so an organization will be more effective and efficient?
Here is a process for improving how well an insurance agency or insurer manages its knowledge of the agency’s or insurer’s markets:
1. Subject matter experts should document their most important and most time consuming processes. They should create illustrations with explanations to be used for training new employees and evaluating experienced employees’ performance.
2. Managers should review process documentation to improve agency/insurer processes relating to their key result areas to find opportunities for ease of doing business.
3. Agency/insurer management should arrange for one or more knowledge management consultants to evaluate their information technology infrastructure and determine whether or not it will support serious knowledge management efforts.
4. A super sales rep, who is qualified, should be released of most of her/his duties and be authorized to act as the agency/insurer knowledge management officer “KMO” for from six to nine months. Another great sales person should be selected to replace the out going KMO at the end of his/her term.
5. The KMO should:
- Draft a strategy for knowledge management subject to the agency/insurer management’s approval.
- Design knowledge management architecture and plan implementation of the strategy.
- A successful knowledge management architecture should be:
o Available (if knowledge exists, it is available for retrieval)
o Accurate in retrieval (if available, knowledge is retrieved)
o Effective (knowledge retrieved is useful and correct)
o Accessible (knowledge is available during the time of need)
- Implement the planning using the architecture
- Facilitate continuous improvement of the knowledge management architecture
- Create job packets with templates, lists, directions, etc. so that when a new employee is hired or an employee is enlisted to work overflow, the employee will have all the necessary job aides, be able to call for needed systems support, etc. to start working accurately immediately instead of making mistakes immediately and having to learn as he goes. (I missed putting this on the original list)
The best candidate for the role of KMO would be someone with great sales experience, relating directly to the agency/insurer, who is willing and able to learn knowledge management techniques such as:
- diagramming business processes to use best business practices,
- creating indexes of team meeting minutes to help teams know what has been stated, improved, etc.,
and
- contributing whenever a new line of business is rolled out or moved.
Logical?
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