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[Applause]
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today I thought today I thought I'll
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focus on innovation but particularly how
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knowledge management managing knowledge
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of the people's how that helps
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innovation may I ask in your view what
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do you think is one of the four most
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important innovations of mankind a lot
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of people will say it's fire but fire
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was already there and some people say
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hunting tools but stones were already
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there personally
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I think one of the first or greatest
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human innovations is the wheel because
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it requires creation of knowledge and
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application of that knowledge to
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actually make a meal because we didn't
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exist on the seashores or anywhere else
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so somebody has to think about it about
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the concept of wheel and actually in a
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way dot and so on so I regard that as
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one of the greatest and for the forced
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innovations of mankind
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people say it's about six thousand years
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ago when humans started making wheels
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we moved far from that and today our
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innovations are it really really growing
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at rapid pace
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we got our gadgets we got televisions
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forms watches and you know at the
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foremost and probably you could say one
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of the greatest human innovations now is
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probably the International Space Station
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okay we moved quite a bit from that to
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actually here everything is great so
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what about this knowledge management
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stuff why do we need to do that now we
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didn't needed to do knowledge management
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then nobody has actually asked well go
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to that website or look at the
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concepts learn and then produce a meal
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where do we need to do knowledge
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management or anything like that now why
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is it important the problem today is a
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single individual cannot produce all of
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these aspects
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it requires collaboration not only
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knowledge creation and application but
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it requires knowledge creation sharing
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that knowledge with other people other
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organizations in many instances and then
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applying it to innovate so that's quite
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a lot and because it requires a number
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of people and organizations to create
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world-class products today organizations
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whether it's universities Apple
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Microsoft Merce these bands they require
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to manage knowledge in a formal way in a
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systematic way and that helps to these
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organizations and people to produce
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great stuff the another problem of today
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is absolutions okay and a few years ago
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probably until 1990s guys in research
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and development teams somewhere locked
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up in laboratories created ideas
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produced stuff and then the products
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came out the marketing and sales guys
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went into the world to sell those
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products for 5 10 15 20 years the same
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product could you do that now the rate
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of absolutions which is the products
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going outdated in basic terms the rate
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of absorptions in some of the technology
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products now is about 5% per month
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cumulative so within a year or two
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whatever great product you produce
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becomes obsolete and out-of-date and
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ends up there ok so what does that mean
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that means institutions companies needs
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to produce new products in a wage on a
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rapid pace continually that requires
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knowledge creation on a continual basis
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and that's quite important not only that
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it's not just guys in R&D locked up in a
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lab who produce new knowledge now it's
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how you interact with your customers how
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you solve problems
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you identify new market patterns and a
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number of things it's not just R&D
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problem anymore just give you an example
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when I was growing up in India for about
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20 years though only one car was
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available in the market one car just one
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car one model ambassador it was called
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for 20 years they sold the same model
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car just one car in the whole Indian
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market that's all I could remember now
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there probably 300 in the market in
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European markets it's quite high so the
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markets have changed the requirements of
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knowledge creation and therefore
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innovation have changed and we need
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knowledge creation at rapid rapid pace
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organizing the human knowledge at in a
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very systematic process and then
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applying it to produce great stuff like
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that so how do we do that how do we do
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good knowledge management okay and I
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have done about five or six years of
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research work on how to do knowledge
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management across a number of global
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corporations in Germany India and United
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Kingdom looking at how global large
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organizations create share and apply
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their knowledge and there were quite
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interesting patterns the three key
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elements that really helps knowledge
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management there are three core
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components and the three requirement the
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core components obviously have been
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saying create new knowledge share it and
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apply it for the benefit of your
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organization and yourself so what are
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the three components that makes
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knowledge management work one is culture
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you need to get your organizational
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culture right we'll go through what it
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means because it's quite easy to say get
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your culture right yeah but how do we do
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that the second aspect in knowledge
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management is process you need to get
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your organizational processes right
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and finally infrastructure when I say
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infrastructure it's not just about
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technology it's a
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but physical and other infrastructure
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that goes in so the three key aspects to
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do great knowledge management and
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therefore to innovate better is culture
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process and infrastructure let's look at
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culture a culture of a company or a
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university or a charity or a country all
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of these is quite critical
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what kind of how do you treat your
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people in your organization for example
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if you say you know a couple of people
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your coworkers are chatting in the
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corridor and say what are you doing in
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that country go back to your computer
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screen go back to your office and go to
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work if that kind of culture exists
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forget it
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knowledge management knowledge sharing
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is not going to happen
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why because you don't know what they're
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discussing they may be discussing a
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recent customer problem innovation is
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not just about creating new products
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innovation is how do you solve problems
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in new ways how do you actually do
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things in new ways and of course invent
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new products so if you treat people like
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that if you have a culture where there
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is no flexibility there is no that
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informal knowledge sharing flexibility
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then it's a wrong culture so you need to
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encourage people to develop those
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informal networks to develop those
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informal knowledge sharing attitudes
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okay and out of the companies like I
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have studied like Merce these bands
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hewlett-packard or a key corporation
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National Health Service every
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organization I have studied during my
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research work in knowledge management
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everybody said only probably less than
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1% of innovations happen in real formal
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meetings have you ever come across a
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meeting where end of a meeting yes we
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invented this product through this
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meeting it just doesn't happen like that
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innovations happen in people networking
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sharing the knowledge informally because
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if you go to you know sharing a coffee
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with the colleague unit canteen and says
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I had this great problem today this
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customer is pestering me to modify this
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product and the design guy might say
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while sharing the lunch well we could
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actually change
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that may be good for other customers as
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well innovations happen like that all
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the global corporations every one of
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them said 90% or 99% of innovations
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happen through informal knowledge
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sharing so why do we force our people to
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go and look into the computer screens
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right
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burying under the computer into the
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computer screen doesn't create
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innovation it's helpful of course you
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need to do their two-day jobs but
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organizations need to have culture where
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it motivates people it gives the time
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and flexibility for the people to
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actually share knowledge and create
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those new ideas through those informal
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networks
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that's quite critical and organizations
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which don't do that will end up probably
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like Nokia today where they were the
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number one mobile phone company where
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are they now
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they're trying to produce you know
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products from 20 years ago to make it
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come back anyway so it's a culture
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that's critical of course you need to
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pay well but what you may not realize is
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people don't share knowledge because you
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pay them well a lot of research shows
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that its appreciation its
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acknowledgement of people's contribution
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much more important than actually
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rewarding for developing a new idea in
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the initial days of knowledge management
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a lot of companies do you know what they
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did they said right we're going to do
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knowledge management now guys this is
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the early 2000 and so on and so forth
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what we do is and let's collect all the
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PowerPoint slides of the company let's
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upload these ideas into the website we
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have the company website and we'll give
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you air miles for every presentation you
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upload or we give you cash
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if you upload this thing they actually
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thought it would work and those were
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ideas they came up with and then lot of
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garbage went on to the knowledge portal
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sort companies websites because it's
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useless because there is no quality
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control there is no and people who are
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just uploading for the sake of it
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because they will get a couple of air
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miles what people realized as knowledge
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management as a discipline matured is it
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sees not the actual money it is not the
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actual rewards it is
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the praise it is acknowledgement
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appreciation of people contributing
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sharing the knowledge with others coming
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up with new ways of doing things so that
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where process comes from so you need to
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have not only the right culture you know
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where you actually do the flexibility
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time provide good rewards recognition to
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people but processes are also important
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what do we mean by processes let's say
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one of the big engineering firms just
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finished a great project multi-million
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dollar project went successfully and so
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on another example another company
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created a product that utterly failed
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it's crashed in the market and so on
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after those things happen you need to
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learn from those whether it's success or
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failure you need to learn from those and
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your organization's need to have
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processes to actually capture not
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documenting every detail but you know
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tell tell us the story Bob you develop
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this product it's failed we know that
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but tell us the story why it happened
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and how it happened similarly success
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stories captured both success and
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failure stories and create the process
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in such a way that whether it's a
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project whether it's a and a great
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product or failed product your
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organization captures what went into it
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and build those processes so that you
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you create knowledge from that so that
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people don't repeat the same mistakes or
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people do good things that are learn
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from good things that went wrong so
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that's quite critical the process are
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there infrastructure and again a pretty
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good story here and one of my when we're
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doing some research working knowledge
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management and we studied an oil company
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pretty global oil company who actually
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thought again the computers knowledge
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engineering approach where they wrote
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programs they looked at oil exploration
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patterns all the best practices that
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went into oil exploration projects they
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interviewed geophysics chemists and
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everybody and they wrote very good
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programs and you know developed a
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software system and a computer so for
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about five years after develop the
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system they kept asking the computer
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putting all the data geophysics data and
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so on would we find the oil in this
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site should we explore or not the
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computer says no and in some time the
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computer said yes so where the computer
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said no they didn't drill where the
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computer said yes there could be oil
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they drill so if it didn't work it's a
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mistake of the computer because it's a
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computer who said it's nobody's decision
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ok so everybody thought it's the risk
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free approach let's go in the computer
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for about five six years they actually
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didn't find a single oil side okay so
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what they did is they basically threw
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that computer in the sea after five
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years and they went back to their people
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and say right let's work go back to the
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model of actually people say look at the
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data use the computer as a tool but not
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a decision maker and then within six
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weeks they found an oil site now
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computers technology infrastructure are
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tools they are not decision makers they
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are decision supporting tools there's a
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lot of talk that in five years 70% of
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the jobs you've done by robots computers
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and things like that yes they will have
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more share in terms of the lot of stuff
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done but could you imagine going to a
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computer for diagnosis of a cancer or
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treated by a computer chiming drugs to
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you would you go and see well go to
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restaurant to be served by a robot and
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while it is true that the role of
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computers robotics would improve but
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they are not going to be decision makers
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or decision decision making tools the
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tools rather than dissing makers so
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infrastructure is quite important the
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next bit of infrastructure is quite when
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I say infrastructure it's just not
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technological infrastructure acknowledge
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portals
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there's database systems there are a lot
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of good technologies that are helping
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but this particular technology is also
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quite helpful it's a body cooler okay
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why is that helpful in knowledge
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management knowledge creation and
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innovation how many times you have
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observed people catching up for a coffee
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or near the
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cooller talking and discussing about
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organizational matters that could be
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sometimes gossip but many times people
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discuss things share knowledge around
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water coolers okay there's a research
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done that water coolers cafes informal
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corridor meetings actually about 80
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percent of our nation's knowledge is
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shared through that so not only your
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technological infrastructure you must
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focus on your physical spaces how your
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organization is designed your office
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spaces are designed whether you have
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water coolers don't throw them because
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it wastes organize all time because it
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doesn't let people to hit targets it's
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actually their essential tools so that
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these things enable people to criss
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cross people from different areas to
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talk people from different areas to meet
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and share knowledge so that new ideas
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new ways of solving problems new
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products come out of those organizations
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I haven't seen in 15 years of my service
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ideas created in meetings very rarely
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they happen in meetings or committees
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okay there are quality control systems
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not idea generation systems so it's
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quite important that those three aspects
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culture process and infrastructure
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become great components of a knowledge
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management infrastructure so it took six
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thousand years from going from veal to
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that International Space Station's
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things have transformed the tools we use
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have transformed probably people might
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have used just stones and some sticks to
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actually make a meal at the time but we
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need lot more of course we can't do and
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share knowledge similar way the people
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or ancestors did six thousand years ago
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we need tools we need technologies but
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the central aspect is the culture of
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your organization if you don't have the
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right culture it's not going to be
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happening so culture process and
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infrastructure are critical culture
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means people okay so we don't need to go
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to too deeper into that so
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transformation has happened we will
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transform our lives even further will
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humankind will go even further but the
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way we manage
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knowledge the way we innovate one thing
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won't change that's people thank you
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[Applause]
