How Hard Can It Be?

We do a fair amount of work trying to help organisations influence their cultures for the better. Some of this work involves helping them develop clearer policies and guidelines to encourage consistent, open behaviours.

But it’s typically a slow, hard journey. I sometimes wonder if we’re all being too soft and sophisticated for what should be a very simple nut to crack. Why should the short code of behaviour given below be hard to implement? Isn’t our problem simply that we’re just too tolerant of bad behaviours?

PS: Do you want to test how committed your senior management team really is to KM? Don’t look at the KM budget; ask them if they are prepared to fire anyone (ANYone) who doesn’t adhere to the Code – and then hold them to it.

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Posted by Patrick Lambe on 12/03/08 at 11: 21 AM | Categories: Change Management, Information & Records Management, KM Applied, KM Critiqued, Leadership | Permalink

5 Comments so far

Shawn Callahan

We have managed to convince two large organisation to reverse No. 3 to read something like: Get permission/authorisation to not share private, confidential or sensitive information. It changes the mindset completely.

Posted on March 12, 2008 at 01:08 PM | Comment permalink

Patrick Lambe

I love it!

Posted on March 12, 2008 at 01:21 PM | Comment permalink

Graham Durant-Law

Hi Patrick,

I agree your post.  For some time now I have been saying a missing link in KM is discipline - see http://www.durantlaw.info/Learned+Helplessness+and+Selective+Non-Compliance and http://www.durantlaw.info/Disciplined+Knowledge+Management .

Regards Graham

Posted on March 12, 2008 at 02:03 PM | Comment permalink

Patrick Lambe

Yes, and I’ve been influenced by your approach Graham…

Posted on March 12, 2008 at 02:08 PM | Comment permalink

Graham Durant-Law

Well I am flattered Patrick!

I suspect in our environment many would still fail the test, and I doubt there is the will to sack anyone in the senior management team.  A lot of the time it is a case of “do as I say, rather than do as I do”.  That said we have just managed to get the new most senior manager in the organisation to use the document management system, by removing all other options, which is a discipline measure in itself.

Regards Graham

Posted on March 12, 2008 at 03:30 PM | Comment permalink

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