James Dellow helps all kinds of businesses create human-centred workplaces. He has an interest in what happens when we don’t keep track of the knowledge we’re creating, using, adapting and working with in our organisations, and sees a particular issue with this in the hybrid world.
One issue is about how people learn, and another is with how they are managed by their leaders. In both of these situations the dominant way of managing the knowledge in that situation has been to be physically present – for example, apprenticeships for learning, and ‘management by walking about’ for leadership and management.
How do we manage these situations when leaders, colleagues and team members are no longer physically present all the time? This is where knowledge management comes into its own by tracking and organising the knowledge that needs to be kept track of.
James talks about how some information in organisations has a social life, similar to content on social media – it moves around and many people see it. However that can mean that its value expires over time, once the people who needed to see it have seen it.
We loved that James talked about how to create serendipity with access to information – such as publishing drafts for the rest of the organisation to be able to search to see if a colleague is working on a similar problem.
Tune into the podcast for a thought-provoking conversation that will get you curious about the value of knowledge management in the hybrid workplace.
“We actually have to have a social layer [to knowledge management in hybrid teams].” James Dellow
Key moments
1:11 – How James got into Knowledge Management
3:10 – Understanding the value of information distribution across an organisation
8:00 – How intent is important
12:25 – How physical location affects knowledge transfer
13:39 – Where the line in the sand is between in person connectedness and virtual
15:50 – What’s the solution to back-to-back meetings?
23:43 – How people’s decision-making affects knowledge management
27:30 – How work management is more than just automating work
30:49 – When having meetings is not enough
31:45 – How to overcome barriers to key information with hybrid
Connect with James
On LinkedIn
Resources mentioned in the show
Examples of nudge tools: https://www.donut.com/
The Workplace Makers podcast explores workplace making – building modern workplaces that people are drawn to, wherever they work from
Workplace Makers – the podcast about people building workplaces that attract a crowd
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