Knowledge Harvesting? Why?
Knowledge Harvesting? Why? Once something is harvested it’s on it’s way to decay. It has a very limited shelf life. It must be eaten right away or else it rots. So why are companies spending lots of $’s harvesting knowledge? And, the process for harvesting knowledge from individuals is extremely costly and time consuming.
Then, if you add to it the following principle from David Snowden:
- We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down. This is probably the most important. The process of taking things from our heads, to our mouths (speaking it) to our hands (writing it down) involves loss of content and context. It is always less than it could have been as it is increasingly codified.
Knowledge Harvesting (KH) really doesn’t seem to be the most effective way of solving the problem. And, of course I am assuming that the primary problem that KH is solving is brain drain from organizations – regardless of whether it’s boomers or Gen X, Y and Millenials moving around. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to keep these knowledgeable people connected to your company for as long as possible? Especially knowing that you can never really get their knowledge out of their heads in any valuable way for future use. And, in light of the ever increasing change in technology and how we work, how relevant will that information be 1-2 years after it is documented.
Why aren’t there more KM strategists in companies asking better questions about the knowledge in their company and establishing better ways to nurture it? I like the agricultural metaphor, because nurturing knowledge growth, planting knowledge seeds, knowledge fertilizing, knowledge grafting… all really resonate for me. But, harvesting just doesn’t work for me. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems so final, cut, broken, pulled out, and we all know that as soon as we cut flowers, pull out a carrot, pick an apple, it’s on its way to total decay. Hmmm.
If companies are really afraid of losing the knowledge in people’s heads, then why not just maintain a good relationship with that employee. (Duh) We share knowledge with people we like. We share knowledge when people are in need. How about playing up on that instead of thinking we can put a straw to people’s heads and draw out the good stuff. Why not use social networking tools and communities of practice to maintain these connections? Isn’t that cheaper and more efficient? The more we can create the contextual opportunities for people to ask questions and solve problems, regardless of whether they continue to get a paycheck from a company, the better we have reduced the impact when people leave.
No, I don’t think I will be doing any knowledge harvesting. I am going to stick with knowledge nurturing, knowledge seeding, knowledge fertilizing, knowledge pollinating….
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