Why Knowledge Management Doesn’t WorkIt’s not much of a challenge to think of a slew of clear reasons why
KM is a failed concept and why organizations have not realized its
lauded benefits despite the multiple billions of dollars being spent
annually on the effort.^4 I can easily think of nine of them. These
nine nails should serve to keep the lid on the KM coffin so that this
beast never again threatens corporate-kind.
- There’s No Accountability
If knowledge is adequately managed in an organization, who gets
rewarded? If it’s not, who gets penalized? Those questions define
accountability but cannot be answered by those who promote KM.
Although everyone wanted a piece of KM when it first emerged, no
one ended up with clear accountability.
The early battle for accountability pitched human resources
(HR) against IT as HR fought to claim KM as its own. Jack
Fitz-Enz of the HR benchmarking Saratoga Institute, stated, “The
open door for HR is that KM is not a technical issue. It is a human
issue. This is HR’s chance to be at the heart of the most important
force in the 21st century—information.”^5 Yet HR had then and still
has today enough challenges managing other employee data. HR
was not prepared to take accountability for the information resid-
ing in every employee’s head. Likewise, IT’s approach to classifying
and storing data, albeit potentially very efficient, ignores the fun-
damental human aspect of actually transferring knowledge. In the
end, no one has been accountable, so little has been accomplished.
- There’s No Quality Control
To paraphrase from George Orwell’s Animal Farm,“All knowledge
is equal, but some knowledge is more equal than other knowledge.”
As a veteran of knowledge database experiences at a Fortune 20
bank and a leading management consulting firm, I know that all
NEITHERKNOWLEDGE NORMANAGEMENT 41