Introduction

Today, for many organizations Community Engagement is celebrated; leaders are investing in enabling their Vision and driving Transformation through Community Managers.  When creating a rewarding Community Experience, we often forget why individuals engage in a Community and eventually focus on driving Community Engagement. This ‘Know-Why’ is the start of what can truly engage Experts, drive Collaboration, and enable a KM Culture to Innovate if we recognize the four stages of Group Dynamics.  Let's find out how...

As per Tuckman, there are four key stages of Group Dynamics. Each of these engaged stages is based on a defined set of traits and behaviors, and if we understand this, we can use it for driving Effective Community Engagement.  

Recognize how Forming Can be the start to Community Engagement

As a seasoned KM Practitioner, do you feel you are often met with a lack of understanding of KM and practitioners stating an unclear (or unmet) need for engaging in KM Conversations? If your answer is yes, then often we learn to deal with this as a first step by giving Guidance and Direction. These are traits of the Forming Stage. In this stage you are often meeting people for the first time and there is a positive and polite atmosphere.  Here is where we need to step away from individually driving motive and instead foster Collaboration.

As a KM Professional, one powerful tool I always use is a Team Charter in bringing together a diverse group of Knowledge Seekers with a Common Need to Collaborate and Lead them into Community Engagement.  To define a Team Charter, we need focus on Context Building and through powerful tools like Knowledge Café’s, we can engage in ensuring we discuss why we have all gathered, how the problem seems relatable to the larger set of team objectives, and define a Mission that becomes our Lighthouse to achieving our individual goals and share our resources to enable each other.  This Knowledge Building behavior ensures we engage more often and understand each other better.

Storming: How to Move from Conflict to Coaching Mindset while driving Community Engagement

Knowledge Management Strategy must be aligned to Organizational Culture that is easier said than proven. Through years of driving Community Engagement its proven that to truly build rewarding outcomes we need to limit the number of CoPs such that Experts don’t feel overwhelmed. Also, at times we are so busy with analytics and reporting that we forget to manage the chaos. In yielding to the Power Struggle many Experts are driven away as the feel the sense of no increased clarity of purpose on why they are engaging. It is important for Community Managers to resolve these Power Struggles and define how to ensure the experience is more rewarding in building something.

Now imagine a Community is like a Project and the Members are like Project Teams with their own Roles and Responsibilities. So if we manage to define the right Projects that the Community should engage then that build a defined purpose which aligns to the Mission and Objectives of the group. To do this It’s important for KM Professionals to build User Persona’s and align them to balancing the Composition (Right Mix of Skills and Expertise) and Roles (Stakeholder Mapping aligned to Customer Journey Mapping is called for) to build an engaging experience. It’s important we move from just moderating how the Community is systemically driven to becoming a Coach and enable shared understanding through purposeful action navigated by the Organization Mission.

Norming: The Sweet Spot for turning Knowledge Management into Innovation Management

As Community Managers we are driven by results. We all want to showcase how through consistent culture building we are driving our leaders and their Community Vision. In adding this Knowledge Speaking Behavior of our leaders we often fail to diagnose those real elements of Idea Sharing that can turn into real Innovative Solutions. When a CoP is active and thriving and KM Policy is being enabled and Rule Based Structure are being respected this is the Ideal State to realize there is a need to start capturing those real problems where teams can engage and come together. Remember the Knowledge Café during Forming its time to repeat it and briefly introduce those organization wide projects which truly can take a firm to the next level and Innovate.

With reference to the Team Charter model there is a clear need for Authority defining Boundaries where the Leader is seen as enabling KM with a budget to drive Engagement. Many culture building exercises fail to go beyond just Knowledge Building as there is no rewarding benefits, clear mandate in terms of focused time and effort and this is where there is a hijack and loyal followers limit their shared understanding to contribute to something big.

This is where there needs to be a clear budget outlined and revisiting our Lighthouse the Mission revisited for driving those Projects we spoke about during the Storming stage. The KM team has to be provided with a budget to fuel this shared passion and go beyond and recruit passionate team members for driving the Engagement and elevating their Roles towards the organization strategy. This included travel and briefing meeting and anything that drives the culture. Imagine if there was a large global Knowledge Community Engagement Team but the recruits were all passionate about the larger Mission which is the Ideal state where the CXO Leaders would enable more.

Performing: Linking KM Operations to KM Culture Building and Beyond

Imagine you have everything setup for driving true Collaboration through a Community but no one shows up. This is possible only when there is a failure of KM Operations. In the Performing phase it is important for each key member driving the Team Charter to play out their designated Roles to perfection which means slowly the Community Manager or the Leader takes the back seat and there is a sense of urgency that is owned and governed by them but the rest is driven through a passionate Champion Network. It’s important in this state there is a lot of Best Practice Sharing, Lessons Learnt and basically openness for Coaching with New Leaders evolving and driving the Engagement forward.

Adjourning: Making sure the best is celebrated as a Community Experience

Many a time we see senior leaders 'eat the cake,' as they are the ones with the highest risk leading the Team Charter. It is their skill-based leadership that identifies passionate leaders to deliver on key goals, and as time goes they want to be seen as visible icons. Most of the time shared credit leads to the system prevailing and this is where Community Engagement can be elevated to what I call Community Experience - where the leader believes that he is rewarded through the Knowledge Management Community Culture enabling larger organization wide transformation.

In-Summary

What comes to mind when you see the below graphic. Today as Communities thrive in organizations many leaders see them as a source of Innovation. True to its purpose it is interesting to wonder what if someone asked you are you Engaged in a Community or Engaged with a Community  or Engaged for a Community. Well, our answers would mean we relate to Community Engagement in different ways. 

Source: Principles of Community Engagement – Institute for Community Studies

As Community Managers we strive to make available Resources and Assets and enable Culture such that Knowledge flows and there is a sense of ownership, accountability, and shared understanding. We serve leaders and engage in aligning Community Metrics to Organization Strategy however the missing elements are to move ahead and create a Community Experience.

Through understanding each of Tuckman’s Stages of Group Dynamics and relating it to the above Team Charter elements we can truly build a rewarding KM Culture enabling Innovation.

Disclaimer: These are purely my own views and experiences as a seasoned KM practitioner in driving employee engagement and operationalizing the KM strategy through helping employees Connect & Collaborate.

After finishing one of my previous blogs on user engagement with customer facing staff, I couldn't help but reflect on how brilliant the brain of a call centre agent is. When a call comes into a contact centre and is received by a top-performing call centre agent, amazing things happen in the agent's brain.

The Real AI (Agent Intelligence) 

Before the customer comes through on the phone, agents analyse what the customer might need based on the context of what is shown on the screen. As the customer starts talking, the agent deciphers which systems to use and knows how to answer the customer's question best without navigating the knowledge base. They get to the answer far better than any AI system would (at this moment, March 2023), and the customer is delighted.

Even when they don't have the answer, they know exactly where to look and what to do to get the information they need.

They end the call, and 10 seconds later, they do it again and again for 50+ calls in a day.

How does the agent do this? I'm full of admiration for customer-facing frontline staff.

Why should KM Professionals care?

"I've created content with the legal and compliance teams and agents just need to follow it. I know best!!" No No No hypothetical KM professional, that won't do.

I've always been a firm believer that KM professionals should be engaging with the frontline staff constantly. In customer service, agents are the ultimate "Customer" of Knowledge Management, and as such, Knowledge professionals should be asking how they can continuously offer more value from a KM perspective.

Agents' brains contain brilliant information; if KM professionals can utilise it correctly, everyone benefits.

• The gap between the worst and best-performing agents will reduce.
• Agents are happy to get the proper knowledge at the speed of conversation.
• New starters are not overwhelmed by jargon and can be more productive sooner.
• Tenured agents feel valued and offer more to the business than just answering calls.
• Customers get excellent service more consistently.
• Leadership teams achieve their intended benefits. 
• Knowledge Professionals get direct access to users' brains, so they don't need to guess what will work.
• Agent feedback could benefit customers across all customer channels.

What are the practical ways of doing this? 

Well, this is documented one of my previous blogs 17 Ways to Engage Customer-Facing Staff in Knowledge Management. But to summarise:-

• Involve users when kicking off a KM initiative
• Pilot with users
• Let them name the new tool
• Launch party with users
• Give out branded items to celebrate.
• Get users to help write content.
• Involve Rogue agents.
• Use secondments.
• Observe frontline staff in action.
• KM staff could take calls or chats.
• Ensure a robust feedback process.
• Set KM sharing objectives.
• Make Knowledge Management fun.
• Regular Roundtable sessions with users.
• Create a community of frontline users for KM.
• Knowledge Champions.
• Locate KM workers with the frontline.

Agents are brilliant and when Knowledge Management professionals show agents they are valued, great things happen!

So you've successfully launched a new Knowledge Management initiative; however, several years later, it is deemed a failure!
What happened?

Here are my top 6 reasons Knowledge Management initiatives fail,
the underlying causes, and the best way to mitigate them.

1 - Lack of Senior Management Engagement

Sometimes KM is treated as a one-off launch, with lots of excitement initially; however, BAU lacks focus. Therefore, you must actively engage Senior Managers in KM and show its benefits to the business on an ongoing basis. It's crucial that if organisational restructuring or role changes occur and new Senior stakeholders arrive on the scene, they see the constant value of KM. Without Senior Leadership support, funding and resources for Knowledge Management are likely to reduce.

2 - Content Quality

If the quality of content that customers and frontline staff access is poor, end-user engagement will suffer. 

Quality issues typically occur when you don't have enough people with the right skills to manage the content lifecycle. Quality drops when content authors are under pressure to deliver content quickly. Quality also drops if the frontline is not actively engaged through continuous feedback, so keeping an ongoing dialogue with the frontline and customers is essential. 

Poor content quality will impact: Findability, Readability, Accuracy and the Reliability of the Knowledge Management solution. Trust will erode with the end users.

3 - Lack of Frontline Staff and Customer Engagement

As well as content quality, if there are no ongoing adoption and engagement activities with the frontline and customers, then Knowledge Management will not meet the user's needs on an ongoing basis.

Users will stop relying on it and find other means to get what they need, for example, asking a colleague or team manager or putting their notes on the desktop—leading to inconsistent experiences, upset customers, increases in complaints, escalations and quality issues. Frontline staff will lose faith in knowledge management, which could cause a high attrition rate. 

4 - Lack of responsibility / accountability for Knowledge Management

This could be caused by a lack of clarity on roles and responsibilities. For Knowledge Management to remain successful in BAU, it needs:-

Ongoing Knowledge Management vision. 
Ongoing Governance, with roles, responsibilities and accountability for Knowledge      management, clearly defined. 
Knowledge management practices embedded into everyday processes. 

5 - Technology Issues

These can come in several forms: -

Knowledge Management is delivered as a Technology solution rather than a Business or Cultural solution.
The KM solution is over-customised or integrated into other systems without      consideration of the technical debt or the end-user experience.
The gap in expectations between technical teams and business users. 
Lack of ongoing technology roadmap for continuous improvement and innovation.
Technology outages, slowness, and features needing to be fixed.
Finger-pointing and apportioning blame between different technical teams or vendors rather than working together and collaborating.
Technology teams driving KM can lose focus on the end user. Instead, KM should be business-led with support from Tech.

6 - Lack of Obvious Value to the Business

Without a clear vision and a clear way of measuring and delivering value, people will not be aware of the ongoing benefits of Knowledge management and its progress. Negative perception (rightly or wrongly apportioned) is a killer concerning knowledge management and is challenging to change further down the line.

How to stop this from happening? 

The Knowledge Management Team and Knowledge Manager roles are vital in managing the above. They should consistently show the value Knowledge Management brings, working with end users and Senior Leadership to keep them engaged. Ensuring the Tech, processes, culture, governance metrics, and content quality are all in place and continuously improving for the business in line with the broader Knowledge Management vision.

These guys are the gatekeepers for excellent Knowledge management. 

One of the biggest challenges in Knowledge Management for customer service is to keep frontline staff engaged and using KM. Below are my top tips for continuously driving forward user engagement and adoption.

Implementing Knowledge Management

1 - Involve Users From Day 1 - When kicking off a Knowledge Management Implementation, involve agents in the discovery sessions. Including frontline users with different tenures is crucial to get a well-rounded view. Understand their needs and most significant pain points. Test content with them before launch and get their feedback on what works and what doesn't. Make sure whatever you deliver addresses the pain points. Make sure you thank the agents for their help.

2 - Pilot – This is a great way to test any new Knowledge Management solution with end users. Make sure they understand the value they offer, and their feedback will determine the future success of the knowledge management initiative. Reward and recognise agents on the pilot.

3 - Naming - Let frontline users name the new knowledge management tool. Ask agents for name ideas, and then get them to vote for the best option. Make knowledge management a system created by frontline users for frontline users.

4 - Launch - When launching Knowledge Management to the frontline estate, make it a BIG DEAL. Have a communication campaign beforehand to get frontline users excited. Have a launch party with celebrations and cakes. Have roadshows showcasing the benefits and functionality and how it addresses the problems of the existing frontline experience.

5 - Bits and Pieces - Offer branded gifts. For example, in the past, we have had branded Pens, Notepads, Calendars, Cakes, Badges, Fidget spinners, Magnets, Fans, Styluses, Battery chargers, Lanyards, Card holders, Cups, Mugs, Rubik's cubes, Stress balls, Stickers and many more. Do what the best cultural fit for your frontline population is.

Keep Engagement in BAU

6 - Content Writing - When analysing, and rewriting content, get frontline users involved in the rewrite sessions. In my experience, frontline staff are open and honest and will tell you what works and what doesn't. Don't get protective over your content. Make sure you thank the frontline staff for their help.

7 - Involve Rogue Agents - Some agents create "Cheat Sheets" or their mini knowledge bases on their desktops. They are making these things as they feel the existing system doesn't work. Don't punish these agents for it. Instead, get them involved in your Knowledge Management Strategy. They may know something that works. Please make sure you thank them for their help.

8 - Secondments - If there are peaks and troughs in workload, utilise seconded frontline staff as additional resources to support Knowledge Management activities. The benefits are that KM professionals get more resources to help, and the frontline staff get to do something different than just taking calls. Make sure you thank the frontline staff for their help.

9 - Look and Learn - KM professionals should spend as much time sitting with the frontline and watching them take calls and navigate knowledge. Look at what they are doing. How are they finding content? What are they searching for? Do they read all the content or just critical parts of it? What could you do better to support them? Make sure you thank the frontline staff for their help.

10 - Be an Agent - KM professionals could regularly take calls or chats with live customers to test the content and knowledge they have produced. It's a great way to get honest feedback. Plus, frontline staff appreciate seeing Knowledge Management professionals putting themselves in their shoes.

11 - Robust Feedback Process - Make sure there is robust feedback so frontline staff can leave feedback when there is content missing or something that needs improvement. Celebrate great feedback and always respond to the frontline users with every bit of feedback they leave. Actively encourage feedback and knowledge sharing with the frontline staff.

12 - Objectives – Make knowledge sharing and feedback a key component in frontline staff's goals and objectives. Reward a Knowledge sharing culture.

13 - Make it Fun - Create games in the knowledge base to encourage and reward great ideas and feedback. Think gift cards, vouchers, opportunities to work in the Knowledge Team etc. Make sure you thank the frontline staff for their help.

14 - Regular Sessions – Roundtable sessions with agents are a great way to get honest feedback and input into any aspect of Knowledge Management. Try to get views from both new starters and tenured staff. Make sure you thank them for their help.

15 - Agent KM Community – Create an agent community where frontline staff can raise their ideas and solutions for improving knowledge management. Perhaps implement Gamification to encourage knowledge sharing. Make sure you thank the frontline staff for their help.

16 - Knowledge Champions – Create a network of Knowledge Champions (who are frontline staff) that represent the needs of agents from a Knowledge Management perspective. People on the frontline work together to help drive KM forward from a user perspective.

17 - Location – If possible, physically locate your Knowledge Teams in the same location as frontline staff for direct access to them and raise Knowledge Management visibility for the frontline population.

Most importantly, always thank the agents and always make them feel valued. 

These tips should ensure end users are engaged and invested in effective Knowledge Management.

~~~

Knowledge management (KM) is all about using the best tools and resources to organize and make the best use of company knowledge. It only makes sense to utilize it to improve internal communications and ensure everyone is on the same page. When you’re able to streamline communication efforts between everyone in your business, you’ll see an increase in productivity and a boost in company culture.

However, that can be easier said than done if you aren’t sure how to make knowledge management work for you in that capacity.

With that in mind, let’s dig a little deeper into some of the benefits of knowledge sharing within your organization, and cover some knowledge management tips you can use to better foster internal communications.

The Benefits of KM to Improve Internal Communications

There’s no denying we’re living in a period of economic uncertainty. Coming out of the pandemic, so many aspects of our economy feel unstable, from supply chain issues to inflation rates. During these times of uncertainty, small businesses can benefit from better knowledge management as improved communication and collaboration will make it easier to deal with potential crises. The more in-tune your team is with one another, the easier it will be to create strategies that directly respond to economic uncertainty and increase cost-effectiveness.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to using KM to improve internal communications. You’ll also experience benefits like:

• Giving employees a clearer view of your entire organization;
• Keeping employees engaged;
• Extra dimension to the workplace.

A better work environment will also trickle down to your customers. Knowledge management that boosts internal communication can help businesses connect organizational silos. Doing so creates a more streamlined, seamless customer experience. When departments are siloed, there’s a greater risk of obstruction on the customer journey. Collaboration efforts and better communication remove those obstructions and help the journey move forward smoothly.

Best Practices for Better Communication

Understanding the importance and benefits of knowledge management to improve internal communication is only the beginning. How can you implement these strategies so they’ll actually improve your business?

Start by creating an internal knowledge base. A system that is strictly meant to be used by your team will help to ensure everyone is on the same page when it comes to specific projects and data analytics. You can put management tools in place to decide which employees have access to certain parts of the program, or specific documents. However, the more crossover you allow, the easier it will be to streamline communication efforts. Your company’s internal knowledge base should include:

• Basic company information and reports;
• HR material;
• Training material;
• Sales collateral;
• Documentation;
• Media;
• Design files;
• Legal files;
• Customer service information and documents.

In addition to having these things accessible to everyone, you can utilize programs like Slack and Microsoft Teams to ensure everyone can stay connected if they have questions or comments. Put practices in place that allow everyone to see when something is being edited, changed, or moved somewhere. To do this, train your entire team so they can know about the process for using your internal knowledge base.

In addition to building a strong base, some of the best practices for improving internal communications include creating two-way channels for feedback, making sure your communication efforts have a steady stream, and keeping things equal across the workforce. Obviously, there are some documents and programs not every employee needs to see. But, it’s important to strike a healthy balance so certain employees don’t feel like they’re being left out of the communication efforts.

Most importantly, avoid communication overload. Having a lot of information in front of your team is helpful, but too much can be overwhelming, especially if multiple people are communicating at once, or the programs and tools you’re using are distracting. Knowledge management should be used to keep things organized and streamlined, not chaotic and random. If you aren’t able to train your team properly, they could end up getting burnt out by a communication overload.

Integrate KM Into All Departments

The one caveat with KM is that you must integrate KM for all departments in a business — not just one or some. In fact, you may even find it’s easier to put the best practices above into place if you’re using the same tools and resources to better manage and share knowledge inter-departmentally. Having a solid KM system and training everyone on how to use it is the best way to utilize your resources and get the most out of your experience.

Things like customer relationship systems, automation systems, inventory management systems, and document management systems can all help to connect different teams throughout the workplace. Not only will that improve internal communications, but it will improve your productivity and customer experience. Specifically, KM tools will help to empower your customer service teams by:

●      Helping team members understand their roles;

●      Improving the decision-making process;

●      Creating opportunities,

The right system will improve your products, services, strategies, and sales. As a result, you’ll boost your profitability and stay one step ahead of your competitors. A company that works fluidly together is a successful one. Keep these tips in mind and utilize KM resources and best practices to improve internal communications while building a better brand environment.