How Publishing Negates The Impact Of The Crosstown Bus
We’re all here to make money. Nothing wrong with that. Making money requires discipline, and discipline means guidelines. Rules and norms. Systems and processes. Because the machine doesn’t work if the various inputs aren’t synched to produce the desired output, right?
As a consultant, I find myself continually reintroducing myself to new people and insinuating myself into existing / ongoing processes. It is not unusual for me to be brought in (sometimes surreptitiously) to change an existing process that’s not quite working. Or sometimes I’m there to create a new process, put it in motion, and then leave. Like the Lone Ranger. Or a sex worker.
Most of the people I have encountered in my 2-plus decades of work experience genuinely like to work. The reasons vary, but in general people like being able to combine steady income with a sense of purpose wherever possible (“If you love what you do it’s never work”). It makes a worker satisfied.
In the course of consulting with private equity investors evaluating acquisition opportunities – where notions of worker satisfaction are regarded with suspicion if not outright hostility – one often encounters the term “institutional knowledge.” This refers to company employees who know where the bodies are buried. Workers who possess institutional knowledge are often long-term, and usually at the higher-end of their pay scale. Conquering investors grumble about the expense, but these are the workers you want to keep on board through the (often difficult) transition so that the systems and processes – the machine – keeps working long enough for new ownership to profit from it.
It often goes unnoticed that these workers go home at night, and they take their knowledge with them. If they live to see the morning so does the knowledge, and the company nets out. If an employee with deep institutional knowledge is hit by a bus, a good part of the knowledge is buried with the body and the company loses. Often that loss is significant.
It doesn’t have to be this way.
When planning a product or writing a proposal or researching markets employees create significant amounts of knowledge. This happens every day, through discovery, the synthesis of previously discovered ideas, discussions in meetings or casual conversations in the hallway. A product that hits the shelves went through countless iterations before the final version. The final proposal from an architect reflects an approach that has been refined and edited from the original. Knowledge that was created in bulk is refined, pared down, and delivered.
What happens to the rough drafts, the ancillary knowledge developed but not incorporated in the final product? This knowledge is discarded: stored in a file cabinet, archived on a server, or even shredded to prevent anyone else from having it. Like scrap from a machining operation, unused knowledge is treated as waste. The creation of waste knowledge is treated as a cost of doing business. Now add to this the cost of storage or destruction of the waste knowledge. One is left with that much less profit as well as an asset that has no value reflected on the balance sheet. Not to mention the risk of the bus.
Companies seem to be remarkably dull-witted when it comes to institutional knowledge. Machining operations capture their waste and recycle it. When it comes to waste knowledge, most companies do not. There are all manner of collaborative software suites engineered to facilitate collaboration, but the root of the problem is not technical, it’s managerial. Companies must start viewing waste knowledge as an additional product of their businesses. An architect designs structures and talks about what goes into the design. A machine tooling company mills parts for OEM manufacturers and talks about problem-solving in 3-D. A dentist fixes teeth and talks about doing detail work in small spaces.
Today this “talking” can be very quickly and easily propagated for general (or restricted) consumption globally. Knowledge is monetized indirectly when its general, free use enhances the reputation of the company or its brands. Companies can directly monetize knowledge by charging a subscription for its publication. By adding a new category of “goods” to its offering – publishing its work – a company will also expand its audience. Having an active, ingrained publishing initiative also adds significantly to the company’s intellectual property asset base, which can be directly monetized at sale, sold on its own, or spun off as a separate profit center.
Perhaps the most compelling reason for a company to pursue publishing its work, however, involves employees and institutional knowledge. The build-up of institutional knowledge no longer occurs inside someone’s head, but rather out in public. It becomes something that all employees can add to – or pull from – at any time. When ownership transfers the new management has the freedom to evaluate staffing not out of fear but from a perspective of opportunity: “If we bring in some fresh eyes what could they do with all this information we now own?”
When knowledge is published, it adds value, increases revenue, and enhances the efforts of the people who built the company day after day. Not only does publishing knowledge give the company more ways to make money, it ensures that the company’s work will live on long after the brake lines on the bus have given out.
