Epic Think Tank

Blending Learning and Knowledge Management

7. Modelling the tall poppy

So supposing an organisation has the requisite culture to encourage and recognise knowledge sharing - what exactly should be shared? How can we be sure we are capturing the right things?

In the pharmaceutical industry, for instance, it goes without saying that knowledge about drugs and their effects is of vital performance, but a pharmaceutical company that doesn't also capture knowledge about its end-users - i.e. patients - will be at a distinct disadvantage to one that does.

At the other end of the scale, organisations that attempt to capture too much will soon be in trouble, because the important activities further down stream - refining and re-using - will soon be overloaded. We need to be selective about what we pay attention to.

So what should that be?

The words 'best practice' will no doubt be leaping into many minds at this juncture, although our delegates had severe reservations about the use of the superlative in that phrase. They preferred the term 'expert' practice. This may not be resonant enough for the average CEO, however, at the commanding heights of corporate strategy. Why model mediocrity, after all? The truly exceptional, the tall poppy, is what we want to record and replicate, surely? What we need to capture is excellence.

Next>>

Intro: Sven, VBM and the book under the counter
1. The personality of knowledge
2. Making the tacit explicit
3. Learning from war stories
4. The book under the counter
5. The convergence of learning and knowledge management
6. Reward systems in the culture club
7. Value based management and Sven's men
8. The Odyssey as quality manual

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