The New Book “Digital Fit: Manifest Future of Business with Multidimensional FIt” Chapter IV Introduction: Knowledge Fit ~ Future of CIO

Thursday, September 21, 2017

The New Book “Digital Fit: Manifest Future of Business with Multidimensional FIt” Chapter IV Introduction: Knowledge Fit

11:26 PM Pearl Zhu No comments

Knowledge Management is a human problem and not a technological problem.

Knowledge is power, it couldn’t be truer in the digital era. On one hand, the fresh knowledge can be captured from the abundance of information, on the other hand, it doesn’t take long for the knowledge to become a commodity and even outdated soon. Thus the only sustainable competitive advantage is the people's learning agility and how quickly they can keep updating knowledge to capture insight through it, and how well businesses can adapt to changes via managing their information and knowledge effectively.

Information fit: Nowadays, organizations large or small, collect an enormous amount of data. Data is a raw material, information is processed data. When businesses manipulate information in meaningful ways which give you something to interpret and utilize, then you have established the value from the information you get. Information is a key enabler to help you achieve your strategic business objectives - have the right information to make informed management decisions to develop the right products for serving the right customers. There is no limit to the value of information in our economy or better stated in today’s digital business ecosystem. Information Management fit is the key differentiator between digital leaders and laggards, high-performing organizations and mediocre companies.

Insight fit: The gap between knowledge and insight is about the depth of understanding. Because knowing something is not equal to understanding it, understanding it doesn’t mean you can communicate and coach it effectively. Knowledge is limited and can be out of date shortly, but insight is more universal and transcendent. A masterpiece of work, either literature, art, science, or philosophy, etc, is rested on insight. The insight of situation requires in-depth understanding. The more complex the situation is, the more different approaches and role gaming is needed to reach for understanding. Too often people may take an easy path, think and work at a superficial level rather than spend the time to understand what is going on underneath. Insight is an understanding of cause and effect based on the identification of relationships and behaviors within a model, context or scenario. Such insight should lead us not only understanding, but also predicting; not just managing problems, but also pursuing solutions and purpose seeking, as a mode of thinking and action.

Knowledge Management fit: Perhaps in organizations there seems to be the expectation that if you have a great business in one place and it’s working OK, then knowledge, ideas, solutions, and advice will easily transfer and that piece of the jigsaw will fit snugly into somewhere else. In less complex situations, people can see how this easily work. However, organizations become more complex than ever, knowledge needs to be facilitated and managed more systematically. Knowledge Management is a human problem and not a technological problem. It is important to prioritize efforts and take a phased approach to addressing Knowledge Management objectives and identify problems accurately. It is also practical to take the hybrid knowledge management solution to balance the two ends - centralization and decentralization to achieve effective knowledge management.