Helping your business survive for the long haul has never been easy. To survive, you have to navigate the endless volatility of the market, the persistent threats posed by your nearest competitors, and the ever-changing needs of your customers.

That’s a tall order in the best of circumstances. Today, however, the challenges business leaders face in ensuring their company survives and thrives are perhaps greater than ever before. The market is increasingly crowded and global economic conditions are fraught at best.

But there is hope, and it lies in the immense power of knowledge to drive business excellence across all domains. This article examines the vital role that knowledge management plays in supporting business longevity.

Efficiency Optimization

Let’s face it: Your company is not going to achieve long-term success if it’s hemorrhaging resources. Effective knowledge management helps project managers and decision-makers understand what attributes of the team in particular and the organization as a whole are working well. It also enables them to pinpoint specific areas where they are not.

For instance, a comprehensive performance analysis of your organization can help you identify redundancies that are wasting both your employees’ time and your project’s budget. This, in turn, enables you to formulate an evidence-based mitigation plan to ensure you are managing resources more effectively through organizational streamlining.

Your internal analyses can also help you recognize and capitalize on once-hidden assets. You might find, for example, that employee productivity surges at specific times, locations, and conditions. Armed with this information, you may implement scheduling strategies and working conditions to galvanize productivity.

Knowledge management provides the data you need to institute informed management practices. Make data-based decisions, and you can zero in on and eliminate (or at least substantially reduce) internal weaknesses. At the same time, knowledge management facilitates operational resiliency by defining and amplifying organizational strengths.

Optimizing Customer Experience

No matter what your particular industry is, the key to your company’s long-term survival is the capacity to provide your customers with a consistently exceptional experience.

Maintaining a high level of service excellence is a formidable challenge, no matter the field. However, the task can be more daunting in some industries than in others.

The healthcare industry, for example, is characterized by surging demand, shrinking budgets, and worsening labor shortages. In the face of such obstacles, patients and families may find themselves underserved and unsatisfied.

Knowledge management, though, can provide the essential insights needed to understand and redress clients’ grievances while building on their affirmations. Long wait times, for instance, are a common complaint of healthcare consumers, a complaint which may lead them to switch care providers or delay care.

Knowledge management can help healthcare administrators identify and remediate the root causes of extended wait times. Managers may, for instance, institute changes in patient scheduling or automate patient check-ins to expedite patient care. The result is not only a better patient experience but also improved patient loyalty and more consistent care.

Fostering Internal Communications

One of the most important attributes of sound knowledge management is that it precludes the possibility of knowledge hoarding. As every good project manager knows, knowledge is your best tool for optimizing outcomes. After all, project leaders can’t lead if they don’t have the information they need to make informed decisions.

And that’s why optimizing internal communications is the cornerstone of successful knowledge management. This is because good knowledge management isn’t just about getting the information one needs. It’s also about disseminating that information to the team members and stakeholders who need it.

This prevents the development of damaging information silos that substantially increase the risk of errors, redundancies, and inefficiencies. At the same time, enhancing internal communication through the strategic, efficient, and transparent flow of information helps to foster organizational cohesion.

As opposed to segmenting into discrete departments and divisions, interdepartmental collaboration prevails in the face of effective knowledge management. This, consequently, contributes to longevity by making the company as a whole more agile.

For example, as operating conditions evolve, managers may find themselves transitioning employees to other functions, roles, or divisions to support changing company needs. Sound knowledge management makes that process more efficient and more effective. This ensures that team members remain ever-attuned to the needs, functions, and processes of the company as a whole and of the various departments in it. 

The Takeaway

Knowledge is your company’s greatest weapon against challenging markets, rising competitors, and capricious customers. For this reason, sound knowledge management is essential to your company’s ability to survive and thrive in the long term.

Effective knowledge management can help you remediate inefficiencies while optimizing your use of resources. Knowledge management also drives loyalty and growth by increasing your teams’ capacity to provide a consistently exceptional experience to your customers.

Likewise, knowledge management promotes organizational cohesion and interdepartmental information-sharing. This is essential to driving resiliency and performance no matter the operating conditions — and there’s perhaps no better way to support longevity than that!

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In every Communication there is a Storyline and often as Knowledge Managers we are at the center of it giving updates to leadership, interacting with project delivery teams and mostly Employee Engagement. Did you know that employee engagement directly correlates with a company’s financial health? Studies show that a majority of employees don’t feel engaged at work and one way is through effective Internal Communication. Employees have key questions and it is through answering these questions that you can increase employee morale and make sure you’re a Top Employer.

Now imagine the CEO of the company wants to come up with a newsletter where he speaks to the audience and makes a Connection. Often as Knowledge Managers when we are given this opportunity it’s a once in a lifetime chance and we want to make a good first impression, the Elevator Pitch.

Let’s begin with discussing the Biggest Elevator Pitch Myths and make it relatable to Knowledge Management Practices.

Prospects want consistency not creativity

MYTH:  If you give the same 30-Second Elevator Pitch to the same audience more than once, people will be bored.

TRUTH

• Repetition reinforces your message.
• The more times prospects hear the same message, the more likely they are to respond.
• Consistency implies integrity and trustworthiness.
• If you keep changing your Elevator Pitch your prospects don’t have time to respond

As Knowledge Managers, we conduct many train-the-trainer sessions for our KM Champions. Some of our Champions even record these sessions and look at it each time they engage with their internal stakeholders. Each time they are asked a question like the Benefit Realization of KM Contribution, they would look at your pitch and this repetitive sense making increases their understanding and consistency. In-time many of them don’t even have to come to you for a new joiner induction on introducing the portal, as they have now internalized the pitch and are confident. So, as Knowledge Managers we should work on perfecting our pitch the very first time and believe in our messaging, to ensure we are engaging a wider range of stakeholders through the community we engage on a daily basis.

Catch people at the right time

MYTH:  Once you’ve heard my Elevator Pitch, you don’t need to hear it again.

TRUTH

• There are always different people in the room.
• The people who already know you are in a different frame of mind today than they were last time.
• Your message strikes a different chord today than it did before.

Consulting Leaders often present Webinars and the KM team enables these sessions and anchors them. I remember during the last 10 minutes giving a short brief on the benefit realization to the audience a mix of Consulting, Sales and Delivery teams. My safe assumption was on an average there would be X leads generated as I was confident that there would be an average number of sales people who are responding to the proposal or delivering a client project and the solution presented helps their client. All of these sessions would be recorded and uploaded on the KM portal and after many weeks I would still get enquiries from a sales leader who attended the session then and now wants to engage with the presenter because as on today the solution meets his client demand. So as Knowledge Managers it’s important we focus on user personas and present out KM solutions Elevator Pitch as the messaging will eventually land and connect with our community at a later time if not today.

Focus increases opportunities

MYTH: Casting a wide net creates more opportunities

TRUTH

• Prospects are distracted.
• Prospects are busy.
• Prospects are being bombarded with messages.
• Narrow focus makes you stand out.

Many KM Professionals start with the Overview slide and then onwards dwell into the KM Offerings and benefits and go so wide that the audience has lost the plot. According to this blog post by Dan Steer we need to answer 3 questions.  

• What’s your point? Knowledge Management is often a relatable subject and hence it’s important we break the ice through Conversation ensuring we introduce ourselves and talk about What We do for our larger Community?,  the ways we enable business value through execution enabling self, teams and larger enterprise.  
• What’s in it for me? Knowledge Management Governance frameworks define the span of control and if a user is outside this circle then it is obvious they would want clarity on the reason they should be involved in enabling Knowledge Management.
• What do you want me to do?  This question aims to involve the user and engage them in contributing to KM as a Decision Maker (sponsor), Implementer (KM Team) or Influencer (KM Governance Team including the Steering Committee at times)

 
In-Summary to Put it all Together

As Knowledge Managers we make an Elevator Pitch each day in ensuring through our Conversations we enable our leaders to build trust through Internal Communication Digital Channels. Leaders are looking for Connecting with the larger enterprise and building trust to increase employee engagement and morale indirectly impacting financial performance as employees feel wanted.

There are myths of an elevator pitch and how as Knowledge Managers our behavior should be contrary to ensure we deliver impact. It is important we reinforce how KM can enable our teams and in-time help our community to elevate their understanding of how KM is beneficial.

We are called to Practice-Practice-Practice our Elevator Pitch and make it consistent rather than confusing our audience each time. In-time our km champions likewise leaders should recognize elements that ensure they revisit the KM portal and apply the knowledge rather than have us catch them or practice a pull-based rather than push-based KM. 

With time we should focus on ensure a strong KM governance framework and ensuring our internal stakeholders find KM relatable to participate in driving the adoption and we as KM practitioners can focus on capturing more business value of use-cases that they partner with us to capture each day.

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.

For years, it has been proven that Storytelling helps audiences connect with a Brand. Storytelling has helped products connect with diverse audiences by enabling them to emotionally connect and become loyalists. Leaders have used Business Storytelling to Humanize a Business and increase profits, which in turn helps establish the values and messaging, creating a sustainable business model. Now, how can Knowledge Management learn from Business Storytelling and if we are already using it effectively, do we identify with some of its elements?  Let’s find out.

There are 5 elements of an Effective Business Storytelling framework; let's correlate these to our 5-C KM Roadmap.

Circumstances (Communication Strategy)

Each conversation in KM can be a different story, and as Knowledge Managers we engage with Leaders, Delivery Teams, and New Hires with have different knowledge needs but fail to recognize these as different plots. Each user has a very different circumstance on how KM can impact their need. Many times as Knowledge Managers we fail to go deep and want to go wide, and rely on our proven KM framework to deliver results for our teams and report ways KM is benefiting our communities. However, the result is our users fail to acknowledge how KM is enabling them, as they have not been engaged by us as KM Professionals. Is having a strong Communication Strategy the key?  Let’s find out more from KMI Blogger Amanda Winstead, who calls out 5 ways of Building effective Knowledge Management through Communication, to ensure we can deliver improved outcomes.  The key takeaway is to contextualize knowledge and encourage more open dialogue, which encourages networks to make people help each other and who are passionate to share their Critical Knowledge.

Curiosity (Critical Knowledge)

Curiosity is the most important element of Storytelling. Today, users want instant gratification and often it's the realm of the unknown as the need and the outcome are different. So, as Knowledge Managers how are we to develop these users into believers? We can definitely start with defining what is Critical Knowledge and speak to Leaders and Experts, and engage our teams to ensure we are defining it correctly. The larger question is how do users get access to this knowledge and acknowledge that it’s truly benefiting them and their KM Needs? This is where Communities of Practice, Lessons Learned Practices and other proven techniques help engage users and influence behaviours so users accept these proven methods each time they are looking for something.

While there are a host of KM Tools, Mind-Mapping is a great tool to understand the diverse user personas and reasons impacting KM Adoption. It’s important that we don’t exclude KM Teams, Leaders and IT/HR teams enabling in sharing Critical Knowledge.  Below is a simple graphic of Play-in-Action that is a great starting point to develop a Content Strategy.

Characters (Content Strategy)

Every Story has to have relatable Characters. Often, if a user looking for something they know in their subconscious mind then they form a Connection that helps them want to participate in the experience. 
Often Knowledge Management is narrowed down to just Collecting Content and building a heavy Knowledge Management systemic processes to keep it up to date. We fail to go beyond and KM is embedded in the organizational practices and slowly begins to demonstrate tangible value and align to what matters to the business. We need to draw a fine balance and be seen as People Leaders, and then make systemic approaches work to Collect Knowledge that can be aligned to our Content Strategy. It’s also important to not reinvent KM Best Practices and acknowledge teams who are practising KM in different ways that the methods or tools we are suggesting.

Conversations (Culture)

A story should be capable to evoke emotions and your audience will Share-It.  Imagine if our user community shares the impact that KM has enabled through expanding organizational networks. As Knowledge Managers, we should practice Conversational Leadership and ensure KM is aligned to the Culture Setting of the organization. We should shift our own behaviours from providing answers to developing systemic thinking to enable our leaders to explore critical issues and encourage our teams to participate and ask more questions. KM Tools/Systems have to be seen as Collaborative Social Technologies that facilitate this process and cannot be done away with. The ultimate goal is to guide collective intelligence towards effective action, ensuring capacity development of leaders to believe in KM as a platform to drive change.

Conflicts (Change Management Strategy)

A Story is incomplete without a Conflict that encourages the audience to think of possible options to solve the plot. Many times leaders fail to acknowledge KM and it’s seen as an overhead many strategic KM initiatives fail. It’s important as leaders / KM practitioners that we continue to align and capture KM Success Stories and align them to Organizational Metrics and make these visible. These Knowledge Nuggets will help our community of users see value and invest in showcasing how KM is a value-enabler within their teams. The goal is to go enterprise-wide but most initiatives fail as they fail to create unique business cases that KM can resolve. 

In –Summary to Put it all Together

People seek our great stories as much as food and water. Leaders for years have used Business Storytelling to improve their narrative on how they augment business value to organizational performance. As Knowledge Managers we enable them through our Conversations and support embeds a Cultural shift mind-set. It’s often that no two Circumstances are the same, and this is where the disconnect happens as the leaders see Conflict with KM and hence don’t develop the believers' mindset to support the KM team. It is during these times that an effective Change Management Strategy has to be enabled where we capture Knowledge Nuggets and share with our user community, resulting in Success Stories being showcased linked to organization performance.

Finally, as we align to KM Maturity and there is acceptance, we as Knowledge Managers need to ensure we continue to define user personas and don’t limit it to discounting our known experiences for developing Critical Knowledge. It’s important we are seen as important Characters and create avenues to recognize KM practices that are enabling teams to share passionately and practice continuous learning. It’s important we bring our own Curiosity to each Conversation and indulge our community to develop organizational ethos of being Conversational Leaders and enable teams to ask critical questions and aid in improving the collective intelligence. The final goal is to help our leaders in Capacity Development helping our leaders to believe in KM as an enabler for Change,

If you are embarking on a Knowledge Management journey then it is important to set it up for success from the beginning. Here are my 7 key components for a successful Knowledge Management strategy. 

Vision / Scope / Strategic principles

Defining the organisation's vision for Knowledge Management is an essential first step. Make sure it is linked to the organisation's strategy and helps tell the story of where it wants to head with Knowledge Management. A clear scope and boundaries regarding what is in/out of the KM Strategy are also vital. It's also essential to agree on KM Strategic principles or guidelines that the KM program team and stakeholders will adhere to from the outset. 

• Where - Vision helps set the KM destination,
• What - Scope determines what will be achieved. 
• How - Principles are the rules to follow to get there successfully.

For a successful strategy, you will need to define the current state, the ideal future state (based on the vision) and the tasks involved to get to that future state for the six components below.

Content

Content will likely be the most time-consuming component and critical to the success of any KM strategy. You'll often hear "Content is King" in many Knowledge Management industry forums, and from what i have seen on all my KM deployments, I agree - Content is indeed King. 

Content will need to be Identified, Analysed, and Prioritised. Editorial standards will need to be defined and agreed. Taxonomy approach defined. Then comes the task of creating and curating content in a way that works for the frontline users and customers and managing it successfully on an ongoing basis.

People 

It's crucial to identify all the critical stakeholders in a successful KM strategy and be clear about the roles and responsibilities of each and how they influence the overall strategy. Here are some examples: -

• Customers and Customer-Facing users
• Senior Stakeholders and Decision Makers
• Knowledge Champions
• KM Manager and Team
• Knowledge Architect
• Approvers (Legal, Compliance, Regulators, Product owners, Process owners etc.)
• Key content collaborators and SMEs
• External Vendors
• Technology teams (IT, Digital, Developers, UX designers)
• Relevant business stakeholders (HR, Training, Back office, Finance etc.)

It's also essential to map the current organisational structure for these stakeholders and highlight opportunities to improve in line with the broader KM strategy

Technology

Knowledge Management initiatives are often seen as IT or Technology implementations, which they are not. Technology is an enabler for the other components of KM to be successful. Technology can be a headache, so it is essential to take a step back and define requirements as to what it is you want from technology to help you achieve your vision. Assess your organisation's existing technology against your needs to highlight any opportunities. For example, what already exists in the organisation to support the end users accessing knowledge? What exists to support the curation, creation, and lifecycle management of knowledge?

Engage your relevant technical stakeholders in this process to ensure buy-in to the strategy and ensure the KM strategy aligns with the internal IT strategy.

If necessary, engage with the relevant vendors (existing and new) to talk through your requirements and see what they can offer.

Its always useful to attend industry events and participate in Knowledge Management forums to keep up to date. 

Process

Analyse existing processes to identify what's working well and what needs improvement. When going through this process, it is often easier to build KM practices into existing processes rather than creating new methods from scratch. Some process examples could be: -

• How is the end-to-end content lifecycle managed? 
• Where does content originate? 
• How is it captured? 
• How is it reviewed and validated? 
• How does it get published to the end user?
• Is there an end-user feedback loop?
• How are end users trained on using knowledge?
• How are users notified of knowledge updates?
• How is knowledge circulated and shared?
• What is the continuous improvement process to review, improve or remove content?
• What are the ongoing Engagement and adoption activities?
• How is the KM team trained and coached in their roles?  
• How do you onboard new starters (identified in the people section) on the KM culture?

Governance

Governance is needed to ensure that the KM strategy is on track and delivered as planned. For example, there could be a steering committee of various stakeholders to make critical decisions (in line with the strategic principles) to ensure the strategy is delivering value. Ongoing Senior stakeholder engagement and buy-in are crucial to the continuing success of KM, and the overall Governance structure must make sure this happens.

Consider creating a KM centre of excellence within the organisation, focussed on sharing best practice and keeping up to date with the latest KM industry trends around Content, Technology and Business process.

Metrics and Benefits

Metrics and benefits often get overlooked, but very important to keep on track against the broader KM Strategy and show the value it is delivering. Define the key metrics for your KM implementation and how you can measure against them. This may combine initial benefits against a business case and ongoing BAU KM metrics.

Culture 

Culture is far less tangible than the other KM Strategy components. However, it is vital to assess the existing Culture within an organisation. For example, are people motivated to share knowledge and participate in knowledge exchange sessions? Do people feel like they can freely challenge and give feedback on knowledge? Is there a problem with knowledge hoarding amongst more experienced employees? Ultimately you want the organisation to move to an open knowledge-sharing and knowledge-management evangelist culture. 

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