On The Train, May 7, 2010

I have been sharing and talking about Knowledge Management (KM) for quite awhile now since 1997. From the very infancy until what it is now. A lot have changed and still evolving. I could see an encouraging trends of Malaysian organizations wanting to ‘implement’/‘do’ KM. Though encouraging, one or two of them have been misled to understand and believe the wrong thing about KM. There are still organizations equating KM to a department setting up a KM Unit, KM is Document Management or KM is Portal. KM is more than that.

Another thing that came full circle and to my amazement few months back while attending a function I came across a printed slide presentation. When I browsed through them I could help to feel the slides so familiar. Until after a couple of pages I realised they were from my old slides that I used to teach. I have moved along since then and so did the slides, I thought. The slides were only useful a few years then and now some of the information are already overtaken by new developments in the subject areas. If anybody was to use the slides they should be used in perspective. Not in entirety.

Seminar KM: Reality or Myth, Feb 10, 2010, UMP Kuantan, Pahang

The opening went short and sweet as it should be. We know Malaysians tend to overdoing things to be too ceremonial.

Morning Session

Dato Pak Ray kicked off the morning session. Being the ‘old’ usual Pak Ray he flew away with his ever funny and impromptu punchlines. He touches on the basic framework and issues on KM. Of the 8 key focus of knowledge management practice. measuring knowledge is the most difficult and challenging Then following his Cik Cek Rosnah Ngah from UMT shared her perspective of her early research on the subject. Both papers gave a good perspective of KM to those new to the subject. both agreed that it is not a myth but something very real that the library community need to look at very seriously. To me the participants need to understand properly what KM is and what it means to them and their profession. If we are very serious about it more frequent get together and knowledge sharing need to take place. Especially on the realignment of the new development in the subject area. Opportunity for KMC @ SK to develop a program in this direction.

Evening Session

Prof Madya Dr Wan Maseri started the evening session with her perspective and experience on Knowledge Management System. Conceptually she covered most what it should be with her latest project with MKM as a case study. Listening to her and looking at the templates she used brought a sense of deja vu to me. They were all seems very familiar to me. My presentations and works in the early days came in full cycle. It was a nice feeling. I ended the day program by sharing our KBO journey and experience. At the end of it everybody were a bit quiet. I am not sure whether they understood what I said or confused. I’d like it to be positive and it was the former.

Overall to me the one day seminar was a success and something that we should od more often now.

The ROI of social technologies

It is hard enough to convince any management to invest on new technology what more Web 2.0 or social network tools. The connotation and assumption that such tools are something that nice to play with or tools for younger generations do not help at all. So to present the ROI for introducing such a thing is really something else. In the world where bean counters are the order of the day it is not only a challenge but an almost impossibility. Not only that the idea of the need for organization to embrace socialization as a good strategy would be difficult. No matter how it has been proven it would still be difficult. Research after research has been cited to the effect, just like this one, still it is a hard sell. By no means it is just any research but research conducted by MIT. The only way to do it is just to follow Nike ‘Just Do It’. To quote the report:

‘MIT research shows that 40% of creative teams productivity is directly explained by the amount of communication they have with others to discover, gather, and internalise information. In other MIT studies, research shows that employees with the most extensive digital networks are 7% more productive than their colleagues. Furthermore, those with the most cohesive face-to-face networks are 30% more productive.’

In the world of knowledge management we have to accept that something is just given. We know that knowledge sharing would bring benefit to any organization. The same with creating an environment in what ever form where conversation happens naturally.

On The Train, April 16, 2008

I guess the train was late again as there were a lot of commuters on the platform when I walked down. But I did not have to wait long like yesterday as the train came at 1945.

This morning due to the medication that I had to take before I went to sleep I slept through my entire journey to the office. At times in time like this I was thinking it would be fun and ok if I were to miss my stop and slept through to as far as Kepong or Sg Buloh. But that did not happen as I automatically woke up at KL Sentral. For five years all my subconscious mind and systems have been programmed to wake up at KL Sentral. Equally on the way home. I only missed once and that just because I was too engrossed typing on my laptop.

Tonight the train was as packed as yesterday and it got worse when a lot more commuters boarded at Tasek Selatan. I was just lucky I was not staring at butts incah away from my face. One lady leaning to a holding pole was actually sleeping. I hope she had a nice dream accompanying the swaying of the train as we speed towards Serdang. We arrived at Serdang at 2015 and the coach got a little bit comfortable. Looking at the faces that left around me I would be wrong to summarize that Malaysian are not a happy lots at the moment. I would not blame them when economically the prices are going up most of them have to work longer hours to survive. When I was at my sister’s up north last weekend I really was jealous of the people. They can have a quite, decent and contented live with just a quarter of what I earn. Things are relatively cheaper and no one unnecessarily rushing you to do something. The pace is slower, the traffic is slower and life environment in general is not stressful. Living in KL, being on the road alone can get your stress level in a mess.

Can KM be a tool to improve or remedy stress? Yes if it can make us work smarter, provide opportunity for us to make decision faster or getting our answer by just asking or looking for it once that resulting for us to have a not complicated and clouded mind to take home everyday. The real work life balance. Economist would probably analyze it through the whole value chain to prove that this is so.

Knowledge Angels (KA)

KA is someone that is proficient in the area of information works and knowledge management. His or her IT skill is good enough for them to understand how certain technology is useful to their area of works. Of course they are comfortable with technology and would have any problem in adapting or learning new technology. KAs also have a good personality, people person, and could communicate comfortably in both Malay and English with their stakeholders. They are knowledgeable enough in the domain area of the organization. They take serious consideration on the need to really understand their stakeholders – not only their information needs but the behaviour and preference as well.

On The Train, Jan 15, 2008

Since I was going to Renaissance attending an IBM KM Blueprint Workshop I got down at KL Sentral this morning. It was around 0715 when I got there and way too early to go to Renaissance. So I decided to have breakfast at KL Sentral. After awhile on indecision and moving up and down I settled for Mc D simply because of the coffee and muffin. I sat the at McD reading while having breakfast and my eyes could not escape looking at long distance train travelers arriving with their bags and what not. I saw two person actually carrying two big ‘kuali’, could be ‘kawah’, going down to the Komuter platform. When I looked at these I suddenly became excited and wished I could take the next train out of KL. I knew I could not do that but there always a possibility in weeks to come.

After a while I uprooted myself out of the McD and walked to the Putra LRT entrance. I did not realize it before but this was what I witnessed. When I arrived at the platform going downtown as usual I saw two nice long lines on each sides of every entrance to the oncoming train. I continued to read while standing behind one of the lines as I knew I was about three trains away before there would be space for me to board in. Whenever the train comes I just moved along the line without taking my eyes of the book that I was reading. However when I sense that I was moving closer to the edge I looked up and I saw commuters were alighting from the train that just arrived. Nothing amazing there but what amazed me was when I looked closely there were these two lines on each sides and the commuters came out in the middle. It was exactly like a two-line VIP welcoming parties. If all, at least most, of the out boarding commuters smile it would be really neat.

My other observation of this Putra train was when I was standing reading on the moving train. Of course the train was packed and more commuters that were standing were putting one hand up to hang on to something and in front of my nose was a Chinese lady’s hand smelling onion. I did not know whether Body Shop has come up with new fragrance but it was definitely onions. The lesson learned here was if you were boarding a pack train make sure you wash your hands properly. Especially if you just came out of a restroom LOL.

David Gurteen was at the workshop and the first person that I met after registration was him. We chatted catching up on each other for a while until others arrived. As for the workshop proper in attendance were old mates Riduan and Yazid from the SC and others that I have met before. David started the workshop given the current perspective of KM. Mainly historically from Techno-centric KM, to People-centric KM and Blended as it is perceived today. Since the workshop was fully sponsored by IBM, David also embarked of the social tools of Web 2.0, Enterprise 2.0 and eventually KM 2.0 that he summarized as mostly Conversation. Looking at Web 2,0 it can be loosely said that KM 2.0 tools available today comprises of;

• Social tagging
• Social networking
• Blogs & Wiki
• Instant Messaging
• RSS Feeds & Readers
• Blogs

To be exact of the tools that we took for granted today are Facebook,, MySpace, Friendsters, You Tube, Flikcr, Fotopages, Google widgets like Google Reader, Blogspots and others. The rest of the morning IBMers took us through the landscape of these specific tools.

I agree that it is Blended today but we have to be very careful not to be too gung-ho about it as at the end of the day it has to meet business needs. This to different organizations could mean different things of which would mean different approach and strategy to achieve the bottom lines.

After lunch was David’s Knowledge Café and the topic of the discussion was stated as ‘The barriers of implementation social tools in our organisation’. However, because of the composition of the audience it became a little bit of KM implementation issues or barriers conversation. In essence a lot of the participants see KM from technology perspective and looking for the best approach to start the ball rolling. My advice was it is not necessary to push for holistic and big bang approach if they find it difficult but to concentrate on a smaller scope where at least success rate is better.

I went back to the office for a late evening meeting and eventually went home later then before. The rest of the journey home was totally me and my laptop.

On The Train (Blogging), Oct 30, 2007

Yesterday my dear wife remarked that my I have not updated my blog for a while. Indeed I got caught up with a lot of thinking on writing something else that I neglected this blog. That is the challenge really; it is easy to start a blog but not that easy to keep on writing if you have no passion to do it. Blog is somewhat different to a diary although a lot of people treat and write is as a diary. Writing a blog you are writing on one particular subject of your interest, generally something that you good at and you are most of the time writing for an audience or readers. My blog is about Knowledge Management and I am using my daily commutes on the train to work or my travels as a metaphor and examples to share my thoughts on the subject. Blog is of course one of the tools that you could use for KM.

A small girl, I think slightly older than Mar, is sitting, rather standing on the seat now, in front of me. Just like any normal kids she is active and her eyes are wondering around the coach trying to find something interesting to explore. She is now leaning back watching a man ‘texting’ on his handphone. She is so engross at times watching and must be wondering what exactly the man is doing. What she is seeing, judging from how things moving now, would be a museum piece when she grow up. Just like when I was four or five all that I knew were paddy fields, rivers, fish, birds (the feathers kind) and a lot of toys that we made ourselves from whatever we can get hold off. So to us creativity and innovatively were never an issue as we practically invented the words. We learned to survive very early. The thought of using a tool like my laptop that I am using now was the farthest as the farthest star in the sky. Just imagine what this girl going to get in 20-30 years from now? No matter what she will survive and know how to deal with her world. As parents we sometimes worry too much about our children’s future. We forget what carry us through so far. That is the beauty about knowledge and the importance of instilling good knowledge behaviors into our children. Through out history it has been proven that way. The better, stronger and richer individual or nation have been the one at the forefront of knowledge. So the question then why do we need to manage knowledge now? We can’t. What we are doing is only trying to manage the process and discipline to ensure we learn continuously, quickly and learning the right things.

On The Train (KM as a career), Sept 20, 2007

KM as a career is something subconsciously always on my mine. Not that I do not believe in it but trying to convince people that you have a future in it. In any organization creating a new post is not easy let alone introducing something a lot of people do not understand enough and know about. I was asked once if we were to introduce such a position what is the career path. To be honest there are a lot. To begin with we can have a junior KM person to work at operationalising certain technical and processes like operationalising certain knowledge systems and tools. Or managing and ensuring certain knowledge process like capturing and disseminating of information taking place properly. This is what we call the operational level of KM work. The next level would be manager where the KM person would be responsible to look at the strategic positioning and solutioning of KM in meeting the business goals of any unit or department. This role could grow to the senior manager level and then on with the competencies gained so far the person would be suitable for any management position as I believe the competency is very useful to them in managing strategic issues. Even without this straight forward career path I believe anybody with two or three years knowledge management experience could go into any line of management position. I said this because they will be equipped with the right attitude towards knowledge, being comfortable determining their learning and knowledge requirement and the best of all they know where the source and how to get the knowledge required. Even if they were being deployed throughout the organization it would be beneficial to the whole organization as the more people understand and believe in KM the better the organization going to be.

On The Train (The Bus Tragedy), Aug 15, 2007

Late in the office today my colleague drop in my office to discuss about work and wile trying to analyze the issues at hand he suggested to use the recent Bus Tragedy as an example to explain about the problem of KM, even taxonomy. He was right of course it was so clear the symptoms of not knowing of what they know, no proper organization of knowledge, no collaboration among agencies and plain simple of not making the right decision at the right time. Firstly all the agencies at fault have or knew about the driver and the bus. The JPJ should have the record of the ill fated bus and they should know also about the driver. The police obviously have the records of the bus and the driver as well. The licensing board as well. But no one was aware of the value chain and the potential effect of them not taking the right decision on time. Had the police taken action the driver won’t be on the road or had the JPJ and the Vehicle Licensing Board grounded the bus the tragedy could be avoided. It could be as well that all the information stored it the respective systems were not organized using a standard taxonomy so visibility was not there for all to see the inter-linkages. So who’s at fault? All the agencies within the value chain and they all should own-up.

On The Train (Knowledge in Action), July 3 2007

The realization that we are actually in the fourth year of our project really surprised me today. From the inception and conceptualization of the idea, project scoping, RFP preparation, vendor evaluation to the current state of the implementation no wonder the sign of fatigue exist among the project team members. The faces in the project team changed overtime and the problems that we faced and currently facing came in almost several forms. Nevertheless most of us still believe in the project and the benefit that it would bring to the organization. We are still committed. The human dynamic and the learning journey that we are in now is something that I really want to talk about here. From the point of view of subject domain knowledge we have learned tremendously. Our contribution to the development of competency level of the subject matter I would say is at the highest level. We were involved through the entire value chain of the knowledge cycle. We acquire knowledge from different sources like reading, research, workshop, learning from the experts, benchmarking visits, on the job training. The whole bit of learning before, learning during and learning after. At the other end of the spectrum we also created a lot of knowledge to bring about collective organizational knowledge acquisition. The knowledge are embedded within our processes, systems, artifacts and collaborative mechanisms, like the taskforce, meetings, presentations and briefing, that we are part off. All these I believe, without us really account for them or even realization is valuable to the organization. Someone may ask what all these have got to do to the bottomline of the organization? On the surface probably no but on close scrutiny maybe worth the whole organization.

Mistakes and problems, issues if you term them as such, spread faster in the organization. People talked about them and would remember them better and would learn from them. Of course if we are not careful we created wrong perception. This is what happened to our project and hopefully the rest of the organization would indeed learn together with us. The pressure on us in our efforts to resolve the problems and be successful created an opportunity for us to be innovative and creative. By necessity the situation forces us to think and learn beyond what we know. In the end we learned in practice the idea of allowing room for ‘organized ‘chaos, if there is such a thing, to happen.

On The Train, Feb 23, 2007

I was at the meeting today helping one government agency with their ‘knowledge centre’ initiative. As usual they started out with the right set of problem statements to necessitate KM program but tried to find solution with technology. I can understand where they are coming from and I can certainly understand their predicament as it is not their fault to think that way. If I were to be in their position I would think and do the same as well. The attendance of the meeting was interesting to me by itself as it got me connected with my colleagues from past working lives. We are definitely connected socially and getting the meeting going and to come out with great dissuasion and input was easy. In a way we are communities of practice that just got together by the situation and invitation. Because of the connectedness as well the environment was conducive for knowledge sharing and transfer to happen.

At the meeting as well I got to know that more or less our organization is the benchmark in Malaysia as far as KM is concern. I would want to believe it is because of our holistic implementations which internally some of us do not understand still. Otherwise we are a good talker and seller of what we are doing to the outside world. The lack of this understanding probably we do not see how far we have gone with our initiatives.

On The Train, Feb 14, 2007

On the way home I got to think about KM and Learning, and realized how little one can separate the two. If we look from the point of view of outcomes Learning would try to enhance performance that ultimately translate to better decision making and innovation. At the same time what KM is trying to bring to organizations are also better decision making and innovation. If we look at the process, although the initial discovery would be a bit different, the actual process of learning and KM would almost be the same if not intertwined with each other. The mere process of learning is also knowledge creation and acquisition to KM. Teaching is knowledge sharing, transfer and also a form of mitigation for knowledge lost. Coaching and mentoring are also knowledge transfer, sharing and mitigation for knowledge lost. I could go on and on.

On The Train (Chicken and Egg; KM or Learning), 13 Dec, 2006

Every now and then in our lives we are grappling with this basic question or rather the situation of whether it is the chicken or egg first. Another one was brought to my attention recently and the debate is whether KM or Learning first. Obviously the two ‘competing’ parties would want to have their say. However if we are not careful it would be our lost collectively. Not trying to be too philosophical about it to me it doesn’t mater what we have first? If the egg that we have gotten fry it or make an omelet and if it was a chicken we roast it. What I am saying make the best and strategizes on what we got and most of the time both could co-exist. The same thing with KM and Learning, for quite sometime already I see this one coming. There is no way we could separate these two and one can never be on top of the other. They overlap, synergize and important in their own right as well. Both however are about better decision making, productivity and performance. From learning point of view they based their strategy on whatever competency model that the organization has and try to meet the learning gap by introducing learning intervention like customized learning program, providing the right tools and environment. To KM practitioners it is about managing the knowledge assets, intellectual capital, of the organization. When they say intellectual capital they mean human capital, structural capital and stakeholder or customer capital. First and foremost there is the need to identify what are the knowledge assets exist and in what form within the organization. Once identified strategy to make the knowledge works for the organization has to be developed. That means aligning the management of these assets with the overall strategy of the organization. This could mean, from the point of view managing human capital, introducing learning intervention to encourage knowledge sharing, acquisition and creation.

At MidValley station came on board four young men that I would judge to be from affluent family. Initially I thought there were only two of them and one sat next to me. The two close to me started to converse in English with that twang and talked about live that only familiar to them. New year party, BBQ, no money and that kind of things. Their dressing already shouting out to say they are different and I would say they do not belong in the train. At Bandar Tasek Selatan few people alighted and another two passed by us and one of them said ‘joining us’ as they moved to the end of the coach. Only then I realized there were four of them. I was not sure where their stop was but my guess was UKM initially. I was right they got down at UKM and I was convince they were somebody rich’s children.

KM Asia, SUNTEC Convention Centre, Singapore, Nov 8, 2006

Woke up early as usual and walked over to Suntec at 0845. The highlights for the second day were two live conversation with Tom Stewart from Boston and Dave Snowden from Canada.

Tom Stewart, Live from Boston

Tom started with the question ‘who are we to talk about creativity’? In his assessment KM seems to be fighting creativity. To him conventional KM works are not focusing on codifying what we do not know.

He explained the interesting position he is at, at HBR where he could observe trends, understand them and to share his thoughts on them world wide. Some of the trends he observed are cost of raw materials are going down but wages increase. Sometimes with no real creation of what he called as wage wealth. Another trend, based on observing at the expenditure in US, people pay and spend more on knowledge compared to food. He saw opportunities of creating wealth through innovation using brain power. He believes ideas are Capital and everything else is just money. To him the role of manager is to look at certain continuity and change accordingly which to him means being innovative.

To him the pillars of knowledge economy are.

• KM a strategy? How you buy and sell Knowledge? Stick in knowledge into products and processes. Turn knowledge into products and services. Selling high-end knowledge services
• Knowledge asset separate winner and loser. Discover and locate Knowledge Assets in your organization the analyse and invest on them. Understand the structure of your knowledge assets. As an example for us the Human Capital and the importance of Relationship Capital are growing rapidly. So we should strategise and capitalize on them.
• KM is to understand the jobs involve around these assets and how to deliver knowledge to the right people. Though it is important to store, transfer and share knowledge effectively it is more important to connect high end tacit knowledge.
• The returns of knowledge - Blue Ocean strategy

In summary he opined that ideas with assets will be the future. He sees KM role as in between ‘the suits’ and creative people. As for measurement he recommended to concentrate on values/measures at the output.

Dave Snowden, Live from Canada

Dave continued on his complexity theme and he delivered it this time with enough emphasis and examples that resulted in clarity that I thought was the best that I have heard from him.

• Now distributed knowledge and JIT KM – social computing (wiki, blog)
• Narratives Mgt rather then tacit management
• Knowledge ecology - Grameen Bank
• Shift to naturalistic management – Innovation

On The Train, Oct 2, 2006

I would probably the first person to agree that in order to know the future we should read and know the current trends. Based on my readings and understanding of complexity from Dave Snowden this is not true. To him it is almost idiotic to hope for idealism and futurology. That’s reminded me of what someone said about history being 14 seconds ago and to know the future is to look forward rather then back. Dave also debunked my belief in knowledge economy being based on intangible within the context of scarcity theory. The key thing is to me is to do something in moderation. Knowing a trend is sometimes useful but not all the time. I thought I knew a lot but reading a lot open up to a lot more possibilities and opportunities. That’s the beauty about knowledge in the truest sense.

Managing Discontinuity

Recently my friend who had just came back from KM Asia 2005 shared with that that the trend is shifting from managing continuity and discontinuity. What my friend meant was, using her words,

‘Most organisations spent tremendous effort and investment in building the infrastructure for knowledge, which at the end it becomes more like a routine process of coding, capturing and storing knowledge. But, how much of these knowledge are really useful for the organisation ultimately? How do we know the quality of our tacit knowledge? What is the real value of building KM tools based on yesterday's information?’

To me both have its merit. In order to have KM happening in any organization IM (Information Management) has to be there first. When they talked about capturing, coding and storing to me they are talking more of IM rather then KM perse and there is a very thin line separating these two now. I believe this is still the struggle in most organizations. The questions asked are valid. John Seeley Brown and Prusak also talked about intellectual and social capital where managing knowledge flow is even more crucial

My Calling - Part 1

I was walking into my favourite bookshop and immediately I saw the book on the shelf, as the New Arrival Section as the name implies is waiting for the customer’s arrival as well, especially someone like me. I picked the book, took out my wallet and headed for the counter, paid and went home smiling. It took me roughly one day to finish the book. If I can do that normally the book must be special. This one is indeed special – Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth Of Organization by Thomas Stewarts was what I subconsciously waiting for. I was not surprise of my reaction after reading the book mainly because it practically outlined on what I really believe in thus far. All my working live I have been working and dealing with information – acquiring, classifying, managing, leveraging and disseminating information. When I was not in the rat race I was utilising information in a great deal as well. This is not just saying in order to do my work effectively I have to know where to source out the information and how to use it effectively. But, I am saying that information and knowledge is going to be core component of my daily existence as well as for all Malaysian.

Deep down I always believe that information is one commodity that going to be very important for the future of Malaysia not to mention my own future. The book Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth Of Organization by Thomas Stewarts in a gist is telling me that the information commodity, now collectively called Intellectual Capital to emphasise on it’s economic importance, has been transformed into knowledge within most organizations today. So far corporations and organization have not been paying too much attention on their intellectual capital and we thought that we have to always create something new to be competitive. Also, we thought we have to go out of our organization to learn more of be effective. In actual fact we have spent a lot on technology, new methods of doing things and trainings to gain our competency. Indeed we know a lot and have learned a lot collectively as well. The problem is collectively we do not know what we know and have not been using of what we know effectively. The book suggests for all organization to look inwards to identify and leverage these ‘knowhow’ – knowledge..

Soon enough the concept of knowledge management came into being where the major part of the idea revolve around managing and leveraging the intellectual capital. If we looked closely at what actually had happened in our economy it is obvious that this is going to be something big in Malaysia and the announcement of the Vision 2020 and subsequently the introduction of the Multimedia Super Corridor project confirmed my theory. The knowledge economy is here and I have to be meaningfully in it.

Thus, that is how I got very passionate about knowledge management.

My Calling - Part 2

I’m sure all of you have been in a situation where you just slap your forehead and go…”Hey! Now, why didn’t I think of that?” Worse, it can hit you anytime, be it while you are in the middle of a conversation or while listening to a speaker at a talk or while quietly watching a TV programme.

In my case, the forehead slapping episode happened while reading the book ‘Intellectual Capital: The New Wealth Of Organizations’ by Thomas Stewart and in this issue I will elaborate on the profound effect the book had on me.

Lest you think this is a book review, it’s not because I know there are plenty of books like Stewarts’s in the market now but for the basis of discussion, I am using his book as a case in point.

I realise that the discussions may be academic, unavoidable at times, but in this column I’ll try to confine my thoughts on knowledge management to what the “man of the street” needs to know about this subject.

The gist of the book discusses about the other types of capital that most organizations have ignored until recently.

If you think about it, organizations spend a lot of money building business empires and always put priority on acquisition of the land, buildings and even blue chip stocks but fail to capitalise on their biggest assets in this new economy.

These assets, as Stewart explains succinctly in his book, are the three types of intellectual capital that exist within the organization that have often been left untapped. Worst still some organization couldn’t even bother to look at them.

Stewart opined that intellectual capital is divided into three types, namely human capital, structural capital and customer capital. (Another thought leader in the field, Karl Erik Sveiby uses the Competency, Internal Structure and External Structure.)

The “types” that Stewart describes makes a lot of sense and struck me as very logical, something I had always believed in and what I have always wanted to explore further.

What strikes me most (and my forehead gets slapped again) after reading the book is that most what Stewart said is something that we are already dealing with everyday, yet we fail to realise it.

Human capital basically is looking at what sort of competency and skills that an organization has, the wealth of knowledge within its employees. It is these core competencies that the organization has to manage and leverage upon.

Think about it. If you spend a lot of time and money to train an employee and to have them gain these core competencies, then you should know how best to make their knowledge work for you and to retain it within the organization.

Let’s face it, it’s just common sense really and, ironic as it may be, it is always common sense that somehow escapes us.

Just think about it: organizations spend a lot of money on employees training and learning but knowledge gained are not retained or shared.

Most organizations also spend a lot of money on trips, study tours and benchmarking exercises and yet again fail to leverage the knowledge gained.

With a lot of learning organization still make mistakes - worst still – keeps repeating the very same mistakes over and over again.

A lot of organizations claim to be a learning organization but the ‘Silo’ working environment still prevails, meaning that there is very little sharing and everyone is trying to be protective of whatever knowledge they have.

The organization does not realise that it has gained enough competence over the years but, probably due to poor knowledge management, it is willing to spend a lot of money to hire outside experts to do a job that it’s own staff is capable of.

To conclude, I would surmise that in many such organisations there has not been enough knowledge sharing and leveraging on collective ‘know how’. The question to ponder is, how do we leverage on this human capital? Stay tuned