I am currently working with Birmingham City Council (BCC) developing their IM & KM Strategy and this involves the creation of a central IM/KM team to harness, categorise, store and disseminate vital information and knowledge for the council.  No mean feat when you consider there is 56,000 staff to service!

With regard to the subject matter I spoke about earlier in the year, I am finding repeatedly when I enter organisations, that the business “needs” of the coal face worker s is severely neglected when determining how information and knowledge is to be managed.  The managing bit normally involves the development of a very expensive and complex IT system (EDRMS has now become a label for such things!), which have no regard for the way people ACTUALLY work!

Normally when these dynamic systems (which are hailed as providing the ultimate business solutions) fail to deliver what the organisation needs, someone like me gets called in to start the consultation and determination of what has gone wrong.

The “what’s wrong” syndrome has become an integral part of my organisational review process.  But funnily enough, the only way you can find out what is wrong, what needs to change and how to make it happen, is by talking to the people who make the wheels of the business turn.

I am currently writing a book about my experiences in addressing this fundamental issue in the workforce, not only about how engagement can shift culture and have dramatic results in turning a business around – but also how gleaning the knowledge that exists WITHIN an organisation can normally give you all the answers to make things work well.  The valuable assets in any organisation are that of the minds and hearts that make it all possible, the value of these assets is sometimes underestimated and this can be costly.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 22nd, 2009 at 12:02 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.