224 Anand, Pauleen, and Dexter
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(Davenport, DeLong, & Beers, 1998). The initial vision had been shaped by the then
deputy governor, and mandated by the governor, it was important that this high-level
support was seen to be continued. Unlike many organisations embarking on knowledge
management initiatives, the relatively small size of the Bank was to prove advantageous,
as it was possible to sustain strong lines of communication. As the CIO points out:
There are about 215 people located in this building. If I can’t walk to everyone of them
and tell them something, there is a problem. In this way, it could be seen that the initiative
was being supported at the highest levels in the organization (Anand, 2004).
To further enhance the leadership role and embed knowledge management into the
organisational psyche, the Bank identified knowledge management as being a core
competency for all managers, and a key element of the appraisal process. Within the
performance appraisal, knowledge sharing was broken into multiple statements and the
employees measure themselves as to where they think they are at on a scale of one to
five, with one being “needs lots of development” and five being “walking on water.” The
manager then carries out the same assessment. The idea being that once both parties have
completed the assessment, they then sit down and look at any gaps or discrepancies in
the assessment. This method of assessment has been received well and has prompted
staff to look at how they are sharing knowledge in terms of documentation and both
internal and external networking. The appraisal is not linked to pay, therefore there is no
disincentive attached.
Knowledge management also became an integral part of the Bank’s recruitment
program, and was used during the recruitment process to capture candidates’ thinking
on knowledge management and determine their likely approach.
The second key area of priority in terms of changing the organisational culture was
to increase opportunities for collaboration. Prior to the onset of the initiative, the Bank
had begun to move to open-plan offices for the whole organisation. Only the chief
executive and the deputy chief executive retained their own offices. The driver for the
change had not been an overt attempt at increasing knowledge sharing. Rather, it was
the initiative of a new head of department in the policy area. One of his first observations
was that the current environment, comprising individual offices, was not conducive to
facilitating policy making, and did little to promote communication between staff. This
initiative initially met with strong resistance principally because staff equated offices to
status. By removing the offices, individuals felt that they no longer had particular status
within the organisation. Having observed the resentment toward the plan, the head of
department first took the time to explain the reasons behind the change. However, there
continued to be resistance within the workforce, with some staff feeling so strongly that
they threatened to leave. This did not eventuate and the change was made. Ironically,
three years later, with the Bank still located across a number of floors, the staff requested
that the Bank relocates to a single floor location to remove barriers to communication.
Another of the key concerns put forward by the staff prior to the change, was that an
open-plan layout would be noisy and interfere with their ability to concentrate. In the
initial stages, the open-plan approach was found to be noisier; however, complaints
about this soon died away and people were now talking far more than when there had been
the physical barrier of the offices.