Before taking any action, it is generally agreed, that one must know the context. Although you will shortly see, in this write-up, that we have a category of Knowledge called ‘Context Understanding’, broadly, all knowledge (and information), in a sense, is context understanding.
As philosophers have observed, what we know belongs in the past. Even emergent information and juicy gossip, which we are told, actually tells us about events and developments in the past.
The other characteristic of knowledge is that it is accumulable. It can be visualised as a pile lying on a table, such as, a set of documents (however, in practice, not all of what is known at a given point in time can ever be documented).
Another characteristic is that Knowledge revolves around terminologies and jargons. When we claim to know a subject, we basically are able to speak coherently using these uncommon words (often nouns) – only those who also know the subject are able to follow what we say (although they may disagree with what we say). This leads school children to show off their vocabulary – long words that they can use correctly. Whether uncommon words should be used in a piece of conversation is a separate matter. It depends on the audience being spoken with – we are not trying to promote the widespread use of arcane verbiage!
A fourth characteristic of what is called Knowledge is that, despite it being conceivable as a pile, it is typically better visualised as an invisible network or map that exists in a person’s mind. It may not entirely be held in the mind, though. Typically, long lists are not held in the mind. However, the person knows the meaning and relevance of the list inside that map. They will also be able to recall at least two-three items from it, and will know where to look to see the rest of the items in the list. A sales person selling loans knows that, as per the ‘Risk Rules’ of the company, customers should not be sourced from ‘negative areas’ (those are two examples of terminology / jargon). For their own territory, the sales person knows the names of certain negative areas. And they know where to look in the set of resources provided by the organisation, to confirm the authoritative, updated list of such areas.
With this much background, let’s look at the Knowledge ‘Categories’ that we typically use in our models.
Context Understanding
In any function, there is typically only one role that primarily delivers the basic value of the function – that which its central capability is designed to deliver. Typically, in retail business models, it is the lowest level that delivers value in some of the major functions. Think of Sales, Operations, Procurement, Hiring, Accounting, Bills Payables, etc. It is typically the lowest tier role that actually delivers on the expectations from these functions. In institutional models, the value-delivering layer typically is somewhere in the middle. A young engineer joins a site team at a firm in the construction industry and supports the manager who actually interfaces with the main contractor’s team, takes decisions, and instructs our young engineer to get specific fabrications, etc. made by a certain date.
This value-delivering layer, wherever in the hierarchy it features in a function, delivers value by performing units of value-adding work: processing an order, installing a machine, selling a unit of product, running a training program, etc. For this unit of value-adding work to be performed, it takes certain inputs, and then carries out certain processes to deliver the value. It is easy to see that customer requirements is one such type of input, for a Sales team. For an in-house trainer serving a certain Department, it is that Department Head’s briefing on the learning requirements of the forthcoming batch, plus perhaps an online survey of expectations administered among the to-be participants.
Apart from value addition, every function also continuously seeks to protect itself from becoming irrelevant – change itself so that people continue to find value in what it delivers. The Sales person would take pricing data of competition and details of competitor offerings to her manager, and ask for pricing flexibility, and call for new product launches and better communication materials. For internal functions (such as the trainer just described), it is not so much about protecting against irrelevance. There could be that as well, in which case it would typically be triggered by anxieties regarding participants’ ratings. It is more about scanning the environment to look for more value-adding approaches. So that trainer might want to look at outsourcing some types of programs, taking some of the modules online and delivering them in an asynchronous mode, etc.
Whether it is value-addition or value-protection, there are specific spheres outside the work unit that the value-delivering layer, and others in the function, need to enter into, to draw relevant inputs and cues. These are characterised as spheres as a lot tends to happen in them, much of it unpredictable to the uninitiated. Customer expectations can change with the launch of a great product by competition, the decisions regarding construction phasing can change at a site due to various other factors, there can be an organisational announcement that is likely to change things significantly for the Department that the trainer was preparing to deliver a session to. Unless one is specifically seeking to stay aware, one can be taken by surprise. These spheres are what we call ‘context’ when we use the term ‘Context Understanding’.
Another characteristic is that Knowledge revolves around terminologies and jargons. When we claim to know a subject, we basically are able to speak coherently using these uncommon words (often nouns).
For Sales functions, typically, Context Understanding is about the territory and the competition. This is easy to agree to. But what about functions that are deeper inside the organisation? For the Operations function of a power plant, we found that environmental regulations form a part of context understanding (remember that for them there are various regulations to mind – release of gases and particulate matter, temperature of released water used for cooling, ash disposal, and others). Also, the generation schedules issued by the relevant Load Dispatch Centre forms part of their context understanding. They remember the transmission lines available in their area and, based on news of outages at generating stations, can predict the demand they would likely have to meet for a given period of time. For an HR Business Partnering function, we found that understanding the functions and businesses they serve form a part of their context understanding – the outputs and the processes, the ebb and flow (e.g., monthly and seasonal cycles), and the pulls, pressures and anxieties of those working in them.
Stepping back, what we can say is that this is the sort of knowledge that a lot of people, who think they are working hard, do not focus on acquiring. They consider it a waste of time to ponder over these issues. This diminishes them over time. Later, they are unable to contribute beyond what they already have learnt to contribute. And, to our mind, there is typically no fast ramp-up possible for such knowledge – it is often a rich picture held internally, that cannot be conjured overnight.
Product / Process, Policy Understanding
Knowing about the products and the processes one deals with, and about the related policies, is the most obvious form of knowledge a person in a role ought to have – hopefully this is easy to agree upon.
Also, it is typically not difficult to determine the types of knowledge to be included in this list. For Sales, it is the basket of products, the sales and the fulfilment processes, and the related policies. For Operations, it is the set of processes to be run, to produce the defined outputs. Policies for them tend to comprise of various elements, e.g., conditions for making deviations to the planned schedules, or changes to processes and so on.
Company Operating Systems
Another category of Knowledge that employees typically need, comprises of knowing the systems and processes of the company outside their function, that they need to coordinate with. There are two universal candidates of this category. People in every function must know the business planning and review systems of the organisation, and they must know the people management policies and practices of the organisation. These apart, different functions need to know different sets of systems and processes.
Sometimes, we take this category of knowledge for granted. However, in our experience, the proportion of Department Heads who know how to write out a Job Description is small, and the proportion of monthly departmental presentations that do not conform to formats is high. There are times when urgently needed spares have had to wait for long periods at the gates of factories because administrative procedures were skipped. Quite apart from delays, issues and conflicts, working with the agreed systems of the organisation in the correct way just keeps the larger setup working correctly and predictably, leading to various positive consequences all around. And this need not mean that we become slaves to the existing systems and processes.
Related Readings :
LEONARDI N. Terminology As A System Of Knowledge Representation: An Overview, Universita di Macerata, Italia
CABRE T. ( 1998 ) Terminology: Theory, Methods and Application, John Benjamins Publishing Company
