This is a very
interesting article, sure it is long and will take time, but never the less
worthy… It should have been ideally placed in my CaPrIcIoUs... blog, but the contents of the article made me to post it here...
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An article by
Devdutt Patnaik...
IN BOTH THE
GREAT epics of India, Ramayan and Mahabharata, war ends not with celebration of
victory but with transmission of knowledge. In the Ramayan, Ravan lies mortally
wounded on the battlefield and the monkeys are celebrating their victory, when
Ram turns to his brother, Lakshman, and says, “While Ravan was a brute, he was
also a great scholar. Go to him quickly and request him to share whatever
knowledge he can.”
The obedient Lakshman rushes to Ravan’s side and whispers in his ears, “Demon king,
all your life you have taken not given. Now the noble Ram gives you an
opportunity to mend your ways. Share your vast wisdom. Do not let it die with
you. For that you will be surely be blessed.”
Ravan responds by simply turning away. An angry Lakshman goes back to Ram and
says: “He is as arrogant as he always was, too proud to share anything.” Ram
looks at his brother and asks him softly, “Where did you stand while asking him
for knowledge?” “Next to his head so that I hear what he had to say clearly.”
Ram smiles, places his bow on the ground and walks to where Ravan lies.
Lakshman watches in astonishment as his brother kneels at Ravan’ s feet.
With palms joined, with extreme humility, Ram says, “Lord of Lanka, you
abducted my wife, a terrible crime for which I have been forced to punish you.
Now, you are no more my enemy. I see you now as you are known across the world,
as the wise son of Rishi Vishrava. I bow to you and request you to share your
wisdom with me. Please do that for if you die without doing so, all your wisdom
will be lost forever to the world.”
To Lakshman’s surprise, Ravan opens his eyes and raises his arms to salute Ram,
“If only I had more time as your teacher than as your enemy. Standing at my
feet as a student should, unlike your rude younger brother, you are a worthy
recipient of my knowledge. I have very little time so I cannot share much but
let me tell you one important lesson I have learnt in my life. Things that are
bad for you seduce you easily; you run towards them impatiently. But things are
actually good for you fail to attract you; you shun them creatively, finding
powerful excuses to justify your procrastination. That is why I was impatient
to abduct Sita but avoided meeting you. This is the wisdom of my life, Ram. My
last words. I give it to you.” With these words, Ravan dies.
There’s similar knowledge transmission after the Mahabharat war is over and the
Kauravas are all dead. As the victorious Pandavas are about to assume control
of Hastinapur, Krishna advises them to talk to Bhishma, their grand uncle, who
lies mortally wounded on the battlefield. As a result of a blessing, death
would elude him for some time. “Make him talk until his last breath. Ask him
questions. He has a lot to tell,” says Krishna.
Sure enough, when prompted, the dying Bhishma spends hours discussing various
topics: history, geography, politics, economics, management, war, ethics,
morality, sex, astronomy, metaphysics and spirituality. Bhishma’s discourse is
captured in the Shanti Parva (discussions of peace) and Anushasan Parva
(discussions on discipline) that makes up a quarter of the Mahabharata. After
listening to their grand sire, the Pandavas have a better understanding of the
world, and this makes them better kings.
Long has this knowledge drain been recognised. Over the past decade, a whole
new business process known as knowledge management has evolved that seeks to
harness, store, transmit this knowledge. Every CEO agrees that it is a valuable
business process, that investment in it is critical. Policies have been made,
people have been hired and systems have been deployed. Unfortunately, for all
the initial enthusiasm, implementation has been lacking. Unlike retrieving
cash, retrieving knowledge from employees, both current and future, is not
easy. Often because they are like Sahadeva.
Sahadeva was the youngest Pandava and, in the South Indian Mahabharata, he is
described as an expert in many predictive sciences such as astrology, palmistry
and face reading. But he is cursed: if he ever gave any information
voluntarily, his head will split into a thousand pieces. That is why he is
silent throughout the epic. He knows every fortune and misfortune that his
family will go through, but he can never use his knowledge to forewarn anyone.
When Yudhishtira finally learns of his brother’s prowess he is furious. “Why
did you not tell me all that you knew?” All he gets in response is Sahadeva’s
silence. Most employees in an organisation are Sahadevas.
Sahadevas are of two types: either they are unwilling to share their knowledge
or they don’t have the means to do so. The former category knows that knowledge
is power and will not give it away under any circumstances. The latter category
is willing to share knowledge but either no one asks them for it or there is no
system where they can make it available for others.
Knowledge Management is leadership driven. Only a Ram, not a Laskhman can do
it. He must first believe in it. He must respect the fact that everyone in his
organisation, even those who he does not particularly like, are repositories of
great wisdom – not only knowledge of things that work but also knowledge of
things that do not work. He must make conscious efforts to capture as much of
it as possible.
The simplest method is talking to people, while they are on the job and
especially when they are leaving the organisation. An exit interviews must
never be a ritual. Neither must it be an exercise to just get the venom out nor
an exercise to expose the underbelly that has prompted the resignation. It must
be a concerted effort to gather what was the knowledge acquired between joining
and leaving the organisation. Interviews work if the organisation is small. As
the organisation grows in size one needs a more formal system, at the very
least a simple archival system managed by a clerk or secretary but on a larger
scale, a sophisticated knowledge repository, a kind of electronic cupboard
where at least the final version of presentations, documents and spreadsheets
of key business events can be stored.
This sounds very logical but most organisations do not do this. The effort
involved is huge and the rewards are neither immediate nor tangible. A brand
manager joining a reputed FMCG company, for example, once discovered that they
did not have the brand deck (plans, tools, research, messages) of the past five
years of a key product. What the organisation did have is the financial numbers
– but not a clear history of marketing messages it had put out before the
consumer. Previous brand managers had handed over all documents to someone and
it was kept somewhere. But no one knew who that someone was and what that
somewhere was. In the absence of a simple archiving system, the new brand
manager had to collate all brand related background information from scratch so
that he could define the future brand positioning; a fully avoidable waste of
energy and resources.
Every organisation has a very powerful Finance Department that works round the
clock to keep an eye on money flowing in and out of the organisation. Internal
and external auditors, controllers and
accountants keep a hawk’s eye on every bill and purchase order. But not even a
fraction of that energy is used by companies to manage their knowledge. This
indicates that most organisations do not believe that Lakshmi follows
Saraswati: they do not believe that existence of knowledge systems improve
efficiency and effectiveness and can provide raw materials to provoke new ideas
or prevent
old mistakes. Unless a leader believes that Saraswati is critical, he will end
up with an organisation of Sahadevas.
Take a step back. Check if you are creatively shunning this rather tedious
matter of knowledge management. If you are, then remember the wise words of
Ravan: it must be actually good for you.
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