Googling around – This has become a regular and accepted part of our work life where we use google to search for information in the World Wide Web. But I still believe there is one huge gap still despite the advances google has made. Google can never search the knowledge present in the human mind unless it is expressed in words and posted on the web. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we can somehow access the human brain as well and tap into the unwritten idea?
At the minimum, the expectation of any employer is that the knowledge present in the mind of its employees is completely accessed. But is this really true? I would argue that for any medium to large sized firm, this is hardly true. With the exception of very small organisations, where they operate out of a single room or building and the flow of information or knowledge sharing is continuous – in all other firms, the flow of information is restricted and obstructed by many barriers (internal groups, politics, structure, silos – I think you get the drift). So within a short period of time, people stick to their boundaries, reply when asked specifically and just learn to do their day jobs and “fit” into the system (which typically means find the power centres and keep them happy!!!).
So you may be thinking – how can we break the shackles and get to uncovering the real “brain” of the employee? Well, as always – there is good news and bad news.
- Bad news – Unfortunately there is no magic wand to wave and these problems will go away. Also any solutions put in place will require constant reinforcement and time before they can reap results – not something any decision maker wants to hear but there you go!
- Good news – It is pretty simple to start, costs very little, the potential for extracting value from your employees is unlimited and more importantly when this is done correctly, it has the additional benefit of leaving your workforce fully energised and engaged.
Ready to get started? - These are the simple steps you can take to start leveraging the true power of your employees’ brain.
- Establish a platform for this purpose – This can be a mix of both technology and change processes. Essentially an area where the “true” ideas of an employee can be explored without any boundaries.
- Encourage and reward – The encouragement could be simple items to start off with – for eg: peer recognition, recognition by a well known leader within the organisation etc. Also ensure that all attempts are encouraged not just the popular ones.
- Select broad themes – Remember – this is not a problem solving network – refrain from posting simple challenges which targets only a particular group. The challenges posted should be broad-based to appeal to the entire employee base and the goals should be clearly defined.
- Monitor and adapt – The evaluation process should be fair and transparent. Periodically review and take any corrections as per the usage and the feedback received. Communicate as much as possible about the goals and ensure that individual feedback is given as much as possible and the top contributors felicitated.
- Sustain – Finally remember this is a journey and the important thing is to sustain this for a long period of time. Start and Stop approach only tends to create confusion in the employee’s mind. If you feel, interest is dying down, rejuvenate by introducing new challenges or new rewards or publish success stories which will keep the interest alive.
In simple terms, every employee also wants to contribute his best to the organisation – nobody comes to work thinking that they want to do a lousy job. I also don’t believe that employees lack the motivation to “go the extra mile”. So what happens then? The problem is the environment at the workplace. Every employee has ideas and views – especially if they are coming from other organisations. Ultimately only a receptive environment within an organisation will help uncover all the ideas of your employees and help unleash the true potential of your employees.
Establishing a platform for your employees to contribute their best ideas will go a long way in freeing up your employees to think without boundaries and encourage open and free flow of ideas. So start today and you will be surprised by the true “brain” of your employees.
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ReplyDeleteNice post, Madhu. I'd like to contrast "searching the knowledge present in the human brain" from finding a way to get employees to "contribute their best ideas". When it comes to encouraging the "open and free flow of ideas", I believe just "knowing what we know" (the "expertise searching" problem) may be the most significant problem.
ReplyDeleteOne way of knowing what we know that you don't address involves developing systems that can *infer* such knowledge irrespective of employees' involvement in that process, thus bypassing a slew of sociological problems.
While companies such as LinkedIn address a broader market of human expertise (and do so pretty well), the data they provide suffers from various deficiencies that diminish the effectiveness of data mining. This is in part because they usually rely on self-description.
My company,ResearchScorecard Inc., relies on another approach that focuses on quantifying expertise in academic bioresearchers using "gated objects", defined as what researchers produce that others agree is valuable (research papers, grant awards, clinical trials, patents).
By tracking such objects and integrating their semantic properties, one can define profiles of researchers that provide quick, quantitative and credible views into what they know. The researchers themselves do not contribute directly to the knowledge base.
One might think that ResearchScorecard's approach is suitable only for publicly-funded research institutions. In fact, I believe meaningful metrics of value can be found or generated for many organizations, though not necessarily easily. A great book that makes this case is “How To Measure Anything”.