让所有知识触手可及

    汇总全部信息 要实现有计划的革新，首先必须把企业过去与现在情况的全部信息进行汇总。同时必须以企业的未来发展为目标，避免对过去的问题斤斤计较，纠缠不清。接着，要把这些信息转化为指导变革创新的知识，为个人及企业的学习和技能进步提供资源。最为重要的是，用企业的协作文化促进知识交流与学习。

    怎样整合企业知识与员工发展？

    让我们回过头来再以CSC为例。企业知识系统的核心是商务创新技术，员工可以随时接触到关键的技能、创意与实践经验。系统的六大创新领域包括：经营程序、组织、分布、应用、数据与技术。

    "经营程序"介绍企业的业务范围与经营方式。这一部分的创新会带动其他所有方面的变革。"组织"主要包括企业中与人员有关的问题，如企业文化、人员素质、任务、团队构成与支持系统。"分布"介绍企业设施的分布情况以及对货物运输能力的要求。"应用"主要涉及技术结构、设计、软件能力所需的相关人员因素。"数据"包括企业所需信息的内容、结构、关系与作用。"技术"则是指企业必需的硬件、系统软件与网络支持。

    总的说来，这些领域囊括了满足客户要求所需的全部信息。这些互动的因素结合在一起构成了一套完整的经营方法，使CSC赢得了巨大的竞争优势。公司主要从五个方面对"知识规划"项目的价值进行评估：员工保持率、员工效率、投资回报、企业灵活性与经营业务成功率。

    知识与学习机制相结合 最后的决定性问题就是如何使"知识"与"学习机制"相互结合并且发生作用。如果企业缺乏足够的合格人员承担现有的和拟议中的责任与职务，企业就需要努力提高现有人员的技能水平。企业通过"知识"与"学习"相结合，并充分利用电子网络的联系优势，就能够建立起优秀的能力培养系统，在同类企业的竞争中脱颖而出。

    经验的交流是所有知识规划的核心因素。CSC的知识团队就是专门为满足公司人员的一般兴趣与专业知识而成立的。人们非常愿意与身为专业人士的同事进行经验与新创意的交流。一个专家小组负责对员工进行思想上的指导、咨询与培训。人们可以进入专家网络，就自己感兴趣的问题参与交流。CSC公司已经培养出这种鼓励并回报协作的企业文化，而其中的回报正是大多数知识分享项目所不具备的。
 
让所有员工有效学习

    将数据转化为有效信息 所谓知识，首先是来自企业经验与企业在市场和业界地位的相关数据。但是，这些数据源源不断而且数量巨大，企业很难完全掌握，充分吸收。因此，第一项任务就是先确定数据收集管理的原则。下面就是一些数据方面的基本问题：

• 相关领域的总体现状如何？企业内部情况又如何？
•  哪些类型的信息对企业的现在与未来最有用处？
• 我们何时需要这些信息？我们是否经常需要这些信息？
• 我们怎样把数据转化为信息和指导实践的经验？
• 企业获取了这些信息之后，哪些人员应当得到这些信息？哪些人员应当能够定期接收信息？
• 企业如何鼓励员工利用信息并索取他们所需要的信息？

    必须记住，如果不能把数据转化为有价值的信息情报，单纯地收集数据必然是徒劳无功的。认清这一点对于保持正确的学习与研究方向意义重大。

    明确学习内容与方式 接着就需要明确学习的内容与方式。下面是有关员工发展的基本问题：

• 企业中各个职务与各个级别的人员需要掌握哪些知识？
• 通过哪些媒介才能有效促进各个职务与各个级别的人员的知识学习？
• 怎样才能使企业员工认识到，重视组织学习是工作中不可分割的部分？

    对于上述问题，有一个最基本的解决方法。如果你希望让人们去做一件事，就必须让他们明确他们可以获得的好处。人类的第一本能是生存，第二是舒适，第三是发展与成长。无论何时何地向人们灌输某种思想，牢记这三条简单的原则，就可以无往而不利。

    当今的企业领导者必须努力学习，解决这些无法预测且难以控制的人员发展与知识分享的问题。不能把这些问题简单地推给人力资源部门来处理，企业全体人员都必须积极投入。人们愿意与那些兴趣与困难相同的人进行交流。人们希望不断学习和发展。进行培训不失为一个好办法，但是建立经验交流与业务专项学习平台更加有效。总之，对企业来说，要想在E时代取得成功，业务知识与学习的意义至关重要。 

原文经许可摘自The E-Aligned Enterprise: How to Map and Measure Your Company’s Course in the New Economy一书，Jac Fitz-Enz博士著。作者2001年登记版权。由纽约American Management Association, International旗下的AMACOM公司出版。朱小凡译。本书英文版本由McGraw-Hill Book Co.（新加坡）经销。

Jac Fitz-Enz博士专门从事企业及人员业绩评估与提高方面的工作与研究，并拥有国际声望。近三十年来著有大量专著、研究报告与论文，主要作品有The ROI of Human Capital, The 8 Practices of Exceptional Companies, Human Value Management与Benchmarking Staff Performance等等。此外，Fitz-Enz还是全球知名的数量业绩数据与培训研究机构Saratoga Institute的创始人和院长。

Facilitate the Way People Share Knowledge
  
作者：Jac Fitz-Enz 

CSC is a major technology consultancy headquartered in northern Virginia, United States. It has a knowledge/learning system that it claimed to be a critical factor in closing over $5 billion in business in the past year. CSC’s Knowledge Program Products and Services is organized around a three-part model. The parts are:
Knowledge communities that develop and share knowledge as a natural step in delivering services to clients

A knowledge database that preserves CSC’s core methodology and serves as a guide to the company’s expertise

A collaborative environment strongly supporting the use and operation of the knowledge base and encouraging formation of knowledge communities

CSC’s system encourages associates to access the knowledge base that houses tools and work products useful in their client assignments. Associates can download over 1,500 computer-based training courses to grow their theoretical knowledge and practical skills. Also, they can tap into the work of other associates as another means of accelerating learning.

As CSC demonstrates, successful change in today’s electronic business environment depends on a few key factors. Two of those factors are learning and knowledge. If you are looking to change something, you need learning and knowledge as initial enablers. Formal and informal learning processes empower change processes with the knowledge of which skills and resources are needed to make the change.

While knowledge and learning are management processes, a third factor in this scenario is a practice. That practice is collaboration. Effective change requires collaboration across units, functions, and levels. You cannot change one unit of a business organization without affecting other tangential units. Involving related parties in a change project increases its odds of being successful in terms of serving the larger goals of the enterprise.

Historically, many change projects have failed to produce expected results. This is usually because managers didn’t fully understand what they wanted to affect and what would be affected by change. Since change is a complex activity, it is more successful when it deliberately brings learning, knowledge, and collaboration into the equation.

It is much easier to implement change and grow an organization in which people are cooperating across business units. Collaboration is an enterprise value and a corporate culture trait. It starts with the actions of top management. When the CEO and the executive team speak and practice it, gradually everyone catches on, and it has a chance of becoming a cultural artifact. Collaboration aims to create a place where skills and knowledge are shared for the purpose of positive change.

Resolving the integration issue. For change to occur in a managed way, the first step is to gather information on past and current conditions. To keep the effort from being locked in the past, it must be focused on future goals. Then the information needs to be converted into knowledge of the state of the function undergoing change. This knowledge is matched with individual and organizational learning and skill development regarding how to manage the change process. Most important, the interchange of knowledge and learning is supported by a collaborative culture that reduces friction and inefficiency, speeds the process, promotes effective action, and achieves the desired change.

Arguably, many questions arise regarding the integration puzzle. Nevertheless, the solution lies within two basic questions. The starting point is this seminal question: How do you accelerate the capacity of the organization to compete on the basis of human capability and commitment?

Once you are clear that this is the real purpose behind the issue, you can then ask the follow-up operating question:

How do you integrate organizational knowledge and human development?

Consider CSC’s example again. At the core of its knowledge system is a business change methodology that puts key skills, ideas, and practices within easy reach. The system’s Six Domains of Change are: business processes, organization, location, application, data, and technology.

Business processes address what the enterprise does and how it does it. Change in this domain drives change in all other domains. Organization deals with the people in the enterprise-culture, capabilities, roles, team structures, and support systems. Location focuses on the physical facilities and delivery capabilities needed to perform. Application deals with technical structure, design, and software capabilities, along with the human factors required for effective use. Data addresses the content, structure, relationships, and rules regarding the information the company requires. Technology covers the hardware, system software, and network components needed to support the enterprise.

Collectively, these domains provide a common intellectual framework for approaching client assignments. They are interactive forces that create a holistic way of doing business that gives CSC a competitive advantage. The company assesses the value of the knowledge program from six angles: employee retention, employee productivity, return on investments, organizational agility, and win-rate on business. The decisive question remaining is how to make knowledge and learning work together smoothly. The objective is what is coming to be called "time to competency." Given that there are not enough qualified people to fill existing and projected jobs, companies need to accelerate the skills of their current staff. By combining knowledge with learning and taking advantage of the connectivity of the Web, companies can build a competency system that outperforms the competition.

The principal element in any knowledge program is the sharing of experience. CSC’s knowledge communities are formed to connect people of common interests and expertise. People are comfortable talking to professional colleagues to exchange experience and leverage innovation. An expert group offers thought leadership, guidance, and coaching. People can tap into expert networks and participate in communities of interest. The company has nurtured this knowledge-sharing culture that encourages and rewards collaboration. The key word is "rewards"-the missing ingredient in most knowledge programs.

Basic human development questions. Knowledge starts with data emanating from the organization’s experience and position within the marketplace and community. Data are constant and overwhelming to the point of being impossible to absorb and organize in their totality. Hence, the first task is to establish the rules of engagement with data. These are the fundamental data questions:

• What is out there in the electronic world and what is in here inside the enterprise?
• What types of information would be useful for us now and in the future?
• When do we need it and how often do we need it?
• How do we convert data into information and practical intelligence?
• When we have it, who should be able to access it and who should have it pushed out to them on a regular basis?
• How do we get them to use it and ask for what they need?

Keep in mind that collecting data is a useless expense until the information is acquired and converted into meaningful information. That leads you in the direction of learning.

Now you are ready to address learning itself. Here are the basic human development questions:

• What do people at various positions and at various points in their career need to know?
• What are the most effective media for facilitating the learning at those positions and points?
• How do we convince everybody to focus on advancing organizational learning as an integral part of their job?

There is one basic answer to the questions above. If you want someone to do something, you have to show them what’s in it for them. People are human beings whose first instinct is survival. The second is comfort, and the third is growth. If you keep these three simple criteria in mind when dealing with people anywhere, you will be successful more often than not.

Today’s leaders are going to have to learn how to deal with these unpredictable and uncontrollable human development and knowledge issues. They cannot be pushed off on human resources; they are everyone’s business. People like to talk with others who share common interests and problems. People want to learn and grow. Training can help, but communities of practice and business-driven learning are more effective media. In the final analysis, organizational knowledge and learning are core competencies that must be mastered for success in the electronic world.

Excerpted from the book "The E-Aligned Enterprise: How to Map and Measure Your Company’s Course in the New Economy" by Dr. Jac Fitz-Enz. Copyright ? 2001 by the author. Published by AMACOM, a division of American Management Association, International, New York, NY. All rights reserved.

Copies of the English-language edition are available through McGraw-Hill Book Co. Singapore.

Dr. Jac Fitz-Enz is recognized worldwide for his work in organizational and human performance measurement and improvement. He has produced definitive books, research reports, and articles for nearly three decades, including The ROI of Human Capital, The 8 Practices of Exceptional Companies, Human Value Management, and Benchmarking Staff Performance. Fitz-Enz is the founder and chairman of the Saratoga Institute, a leading global source of quantitative performance data and training.