Looking Beyond Tomorrow
A prescient post from Matt Moore inviting us to look beyond tomorrow’s bad news. That’s challenging, when tomorrow seems to be so bleak, especially for KM. But Matt has words of encouragement:
“The good news: KM really began as a movement after the last major recession (and the BPR-related blood-letting) of the early 90s. Organisations will fire too many people, just as they probably hired too many people in the recent past. They will be awash with ignorance. Fertile territory for those whose job it is reduce the dead weight of ignorance. Hang on.”
I don’t generally consider myself an optimist or a rosy spectacled person when it comes to KM. The urgency of its lack of self esteem is pressing.
But when Matt puts the case like this, I actually think we’re in a better position than we were in the last economic crisis… Yes, trigger happy managers are all too willing to make deep cuts on a mechanistic assumption that organisational life is a matter of scale and numbers, not organic relationships, but this time round there are more leadership teams I think that are wiser to the roles that knowledge, trust, and culture play in being successful. And that might be enough to let those organisations compete/survive visibly better than the autistic amputation enthusiasts. And that might be enough to get KM recognised as a strategic and competitive force. Whether current incarnations of KM deliver to that standard is another question. A tad too many “mights” in that thought for comfort, but it’s worth holding onto.
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I was in my Economics lecture (still completing my masters, all because of a start up that didnt quiet kickstart) discussing about the recession, one of my friend asked our professor - “So what is the solution to this economic meltdown”?; the answer was “Time...and only time can be a healer”.
However, atleast in India I have seen an unusual trend - few sectors have been affected, while few sectors are in a good financial position.
You keep hearing about companies that are winning new clients, few companies are laying off employees. Its all very confusing.
Fuel prices have dropped, inflation is a little low. One airline has deducted paychecks of 20% (only for the top management), while the others are stable.
But all KM practitioners in here are a lil scared, there is a constant paranoia about how pleasant, the next morning sunshine will be.
Posted on December 18, 2008 at 07:18 PM | Comment permalink