Knowledge in Action Leaflets Download

Issue 38 - Embracing difference: 3 strategies for change agents

For change agents, resistance to change is a fact of everyday life. But how best to respond? Henley Forum research suggests a strategy: respond with empathetic sensitivity to gain insight into how different interpretations make a meaningful difference to involvement in change.

Issue 37 - Embedding change

Organisational change is difficult. And making those changes ‘stick’ is even more difficult, despite the existence of change management methodologies that purport to help with this.

Issue 36 - Technostress: mobile technology in the modern workplace

Work can be stressful. And modern mobile technology – smartphones, laptops, and tablet computers – bring the workplace into the home, the weekend, or the holiday. Attention spans can fragment, work-life balance is affected, and users of mobile technology can – literally – find it difficult to ‘switch off’.

Issue 35 - Enhancing collaborative partnerships through gamification

Collaboration is a vital competency – especially when it comes to effecting change within an organisation. And, although such collaboration can be challenging, individuals and teams can become better at it, as previous Henley Forum research has shown.

Issue 34 - Developing partnerships for change

On their own, it’s difficult for individuals or even teams to effect organisational change. They need help – and help in the form of others, working to the same broad objective, albeit perhaps for different reasons and to further their own agendas. But how best to create those partnerships, and locate the right people to partner with?

Issue 33 - Energising the squeezed middle

Organisations’ middle managers perform two critical roles: delivering ‘business as usual’, and transforming strategic aspirations into operational change. So it’s vital that those managers are energised and engaged. But perversely, the very duality of the role that middle managers must play can have the opposite effect through the tensions that are created.

Issue 32 - Navigating through change

Based around real-life knowledge and organisational learning change initiatives within five real-life organisations, research undertaken by the Henley Forum ‘road tested’ three well-regarded change management methodologies. The result: practical insights into what worked, what didn’t – and why.

Issue 31 - Evaluating communities of practice

Communities of practice are increasingly common within knowledge-based organisations. But how best to justify the investments made in supporting and fostering such communities of practice?

Issue 30 - Liking social business

Social media tools have been fabulously successful at enthusing and connecting consumers. So, not surprisingly, organisations are looking to harness those collaborative and knowledge-sharing technologies to reshape their business practices.

Issue 29 - Improving the uptake of lessons learned

Capturing lessons learned during projects is a well established practice. So too is the use of ‘lesson learned’ databases to store and disseminate these lessons. But many will be disappointed: a high proportion of ‘social business’ initiatives fail to deliver on their objectives.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elh-BmDgbL4&index=1&list=PLWUZlUFrgX60hPU6Cgmcdx5DhkKujyZms

Issue 28 - Thinking differently about evaluating knowledge management

What is the value of knowledge management to those organisations that have invested in developing a knowledge management capability? Knowledge managers are always being asked this question, with mixed results.

Issue 27 - Creating effective leader-inspired learning

For organisations to learn and adapt, their employees must also learn and adapt. Leaders in those organisations must develop the necessary relationships that encourage and facilitate individual learning. Leaders inspire learning – not just in respect of their own direct reports, but over a range of relationships with between peers – through interpersonal interactions that meet the learner needs.

Issue 26 - Knowledge-driven leadership agility

Leaders exert a considerable influence on their organisations’ knowledge management characteristics. Leaders’ behaviour can determine the extent to which knowledge is sought for, learned, retained and shared. Positive leadership practices reinforce good knowledge management; negative leadership practices undermine it.

Issue 25 - Bridging knowledge orientations

How organisations gather, value and share their knowledge differs widely. Barriers to knowledge sharing abound: one individual’s certain knowledge can be another’s hearsay and supposition.

Issue 24 - Knowledge-sharing 2.0

At the heart of social media implementation there are tensions for organisations. On the one hand it provides a fast-moving space for connecting flocks of intelligent individuals to promote better business performance. On the other hand it is notoriously difficult to control.

Issue 23 - Human capital management and the ambidextrous organisation

In a difficult financial climate, it is essential that organisations grow and innovate. However, at the same time they need to be lean and efficient to survive. Balancing the two requires organisational ambidexterity. The question is how to build it.

Issue 22 - Developing individuals to be knowledgeable decision makers

Henley's Knowledge Management Forum investigated how to improve decision making in organisations. The process generated real insights into how individuals can develop their personal capacity to become knowledgeable decision makers.

Issue 21 - Organisational decision making

Research from Henley's Knowledge Management Forum identified the five essential factors that must be worked on in an integrated way in order to improve the organisation's ability to make good decisions.

Issue 20 - Managing knowledge in a secure environment

Security-conscious environments traditionally operate on a 'need to know' basis, where the need for security of information has raised real challenges for knowledge management.

Issue 19 - Learning from external collaborations

It has never been more essential to collaborate with individuals or groups from outside the organization, to share expertise, create learning networks and help solve shared problems.

Issue 18 - Retaining expertise in organisations

With rapidly increasing professional competition for talent, an era of corporate
restructuring and a generation of baby boomers about to retire, organisations are rightly concerned about losing expertise...

Issue 17 - Swarm creativity

Historically knowledge management has focused on what we know and enabling critical knowledge flows...

Issue 16 - Creating a knowledge-sharing culture to maximise internal collaboration

As teams have become more diverse and geographically scattered, effective collaboration has become more of a challenge...

Issue 15 - Improving conversations to enable effective knowledge sharing

Conversations are the lifeblood of any organisation. They are where knowledge is shared most naturally and intuitively...

Issue 14 - Building effective knowledge-enabled innovation

Innovation lies at the heart of an organisation's ability to develop and flourish...

Issue 13 - Increasing value from improving knowledge flows

Organisations create value when knowledge flows from where it is generated to where it is needed...

Issue 12 - Joined-up learning

Learning matters. But the challenge facing many organisations is ensuring that the two functions most concerned with learning - human resources and knowledge management...

Issue 11 - Identifying knowledge value through electronic document systems

Electronic document and record management systems are increasingly seen as a way to effectively and efficiently store vast arrays of documents...

Issue 10 - Knowledge management and social software

Increasingly, tools like wikis and blogs are finding their way into the corporate world. But while many organisations have greeted such 'social software' with enthusiasm, others are struggling to identify its value...

Issue 9 - Working with national cultures for better knowledge management

Does national culture have any impact on knowledge management? ...

Issue 8 - Sharing knowledge with other organisations

Sharing knowledge inside the organisation can only deliver so much additional benefit...

Issue 7 - Building and sustaining communities of practice

Communities of practice help experts to share their knowledge with their peers. But while successful communities of practice can deliver real business benefits, they are surprisingly difficult to build and sustain...

Issue 6 - Identifying valuable knowledge

Knowledge is one of an organisation's most important strategic resources. But ironically, organisations don't always know what knowledge is valuable to them...

Issue 5 - Sharing knowledge on the front line

The high-pressured front-line environment isn't always conducive to the reflection and learning involved in good knowledge management...

Issue 4 - Knowledge management in project-based organisations

For project-based organisations, knowledge management presents an awkward dilemma...

Issue 3 - Sharing knowledge in the virtual world

Technology is increasingly enabling geographically-separate employees to work together as if they were in the same office...

Issue 2 - Making the most of knowledge activists

In organisations where knowledge management is fundamental to business success, 'knowledge activists' play an important part in underpinning that success...

Issue 1 - Building effective knowledge-sharing behaviours

An organisation's ability to unlock its people's knowledge - and then share that knowledge - is increasingly fundamental to business success...