Should knowledge sharing be accessible for employees at all levels of the organization, or restricted to only senior staff? What recommendations does Ashton make to improve learning in high-performance work organizations?
Knowledge is one of the vital elements that help an organization maintain a leading edge in the business that it is involved in. However, the kind of knowledge that a company has in its respective business is fundamentally stratified, and, therefore, for the company to use this information profitably, it needs to develop proper sharing frameworks. Most companies are usually divided into sections with each department having its leadership. As such, the structure of information sharing should be drafted in such a way that it flows well with the structure of the organization.
For example, a company such as Kentucky Fried Chicken (KFC) has its head office, which hosts the managing director. Under the managing director, there are procurement, human resource, and finance departments. Each of the named departments has its own leader/manager who is tasked with the responsibility of ensuring that everything that falls in his docket is well taken care of. Below department managers, there are assistants, secretaries, and messengers. The same structure is replicated in each of the company’s outlets across the world. For such a huge organization to run efficiently there needs to be a smooth flow of information from the senior officers to the waitresses. However, this information needs to be distributed in such a manner that each individual in the hierarch only receives the communication that pertains to his/her role in the company. This hierarchical framework demands for the codification of knowledge such that individuals on the same level of command receive a certain message from their heads, analyze it, and filter it before trickling it down to their juniors.
For instance, in our KFC example, the managing director through his various informers may have found that hygienic standards are not maintained in the company’s various restaurants resulting in a reduction in the number of customers. To get the issue well addressed, he (the managing director) will convene a department heads meeting where a discussion on the agenda will be placed on the table. The various heads in the meeting will explain how their departments are performing in comparison to previous years, before presenting the challenges they have had to work with. This will furnish him with the knowledge that may help him understand why the laxity in standards comes from. After getting all the information about the company’s operation, he will then present the case of reduced hygiene and ask the department and restaurant heads to point out the areas of weakness, as well as offer proper solutions.
Ideally, this session should be held in the form of a discussion, because most of the individuals present in the meeting will be peers and, therefore, see the company from the same point of view. Once the solutions are presented, it will be the task of every person who leaves the meeting to find a way of revealing them to his charges. However, the information conveyed will be broken down depending on the group of persons being communicated to. For instance, a branch head might know all about the company’s overall financial situation but will not necessarily disclose this information to his juniors. Knowledge of the company’s profitability might lead the workers to revolt, complaining of underpayment. It is, therefore, necessary that the information reaching an individual be directly linked to his role in the company. The release of information will continue to trickle down in this format until it gets to the cleaners, who might only be informed that unless they raise the cleanliness standards of their respective sections, they might soon be out of jobs.
This format of information sharing has been well documented by Ashton, in his article, where he recommends that every institution develops a structure that suits their needs and ensures that all employees clearly understand their level of influence. The company’s senior administrators should then allow each individual to exercise authority in his/her respective office. This form of psychological empowerment allows the workers to feel appreciated and continue to raise their output levels. Ashton also encouraged organizations to allow their junior members of staff to continue learning by setting up clear promotion frameworks. This is after he found out that in most companies, senior members of staff are encouraged to continue learning, while their juniors only learned whenever the situation called for it. In general, Ashton found out that most companies constrained knowledge acquisition by junior workers. In essence, Ashton intended to point out that the sharing of knowledge across the various departments of an institution was important in ensuring that the company’s operations ran smoothly. By ensuring that each person understands the need to sufficiently equip him/herself with information about the business, efficacy would be maintained across the institution’s various departments.
Reference
Ashton, DN 2004, ‘The impact of organisational structure and practices on learning in the workplace’, International Journal of Training and Development, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 43 – 53.