Patrick Lambe at Green Chameleon had an interesting post on "Corporate Alzheimers". Lambe described how rapid turnover of staff in public and commercial corporates could lead to loss of organisational memory, particularly for slow moving events, such as developing tax policy or running major engineering projects.
Clinical and cognitive neuropsychological memory research have some useful metaphors for corporate memory loss. Now I should immediately add that brain based anything is often nonsense, i.e. brain based teaching and brain based business. Consultants and trainers often use the status of the neurosciences to sell their pseudoscientific approaches to gullible clients. Alternatively they try so sell neuroscience based ideas long before stable bodies of research have been established and before practical applications have been demonstrated for said ideas. That's why I emphasize that in discussing the mapping of personal memory on to organisational memory, I'm using a metaphor. Granted, corporate memory is largely dependent on individuals' memories - the metaphor is thus a strong one. One proviso - those individuals will hopefully not be dementic!
This article on organisational memory has a useful way of mapping cognitive memory concepts to organisational ones:
Procedural memory - work routines (I would add technical skills)
Semantic memory - personnel & accounting records, policies
Episodic memory - stories & myths, critical incidents and other information related to a specific event or time
Lambe referred to corporate Alzheimers. Alzheimers Disease in its early stages typically affects declarative memory, which is considered to consist of semantic and episodic memory. Procedural memory deficits on the other hand, is more characteristic of Parkinson's Disease. Together I believe these dementic processes form a useful metaphor for corporate memory loss.
South Africa currently has major problems with the maintenance of its infrastructure. This affects the power network, the water reticulation and sewerage systems, the dams, the roads and much more. It is widely accepted that this is largely due to the wholesale loss of competent administrators, technicians and engineers since the early 90's. In the case of the electricity supplier, ESKOM, there was not only a turnover of staff, the workforce was almost halved.
As Patrick Lambe indicated, such staff depletion in organisations with activities that span generations, had to cause major corporate memory loss. As this happened at the time of the transition for apartheid to democracy, there was also bound to be attitudinal issues on both sides (outgoing and incoming staff) that could have compromised knowledge transfer. Those issues are now history and we have to look forward.
There seems to be a realisation among all concerned that the knowledge and skills of displaced administrators, technicians and engineers need to be captured and harnessed. The question is how to do it? How can the knowledge of those who left, be captured and lost corporate memories restored?
Two quotations by Dave Snowden from Cognitive Edge are applicable here. The first is:
"We always know more than we can say, and we can always say more than we can write down".
Following on this, I believe that the best way to capture lost individual knowledge and to restore corporate memories, is to capture the knowledge of those who left and who may be returning (even if only temporarily) in narrative form. Just contracting them to write things down (i.e. manuals) will help, but too much which is important will be lost.
The second is:
"Knowledge can only be volunteered; it can never be conscripted".
The full cooperation of not only displaced persons, but also of current incumbents will be crucial. Lost memories will have to be recovered, but will also have to be integrated with new knowledge and new systems. This will require tact, wisdom and leadership from the management of organisations who have suffered corporate memory loss. It seems to me that these processes will of necessity have to be outsourced - I cannot see how an organisation can recover its own memories. Therapy to recover memory in a brain injured person, can be seen as the metaphor for such a process.
Let's trust that South African state and parastatal organisations find ways to recover their lost corporate memory and return to sanity. They need not look further than Cognitive Edge and its South African affiliate, Sonja Blignaut, to assist them.
Clinical and cognitive neuropsychological memory research have some useful metaphors for corporate memory loss. Now I should immediately add that brain based anything is often nonsense, i.e. brain based teaching and brain based business. Consultants and trainers often use the status of the neurosciences to sell their pseudoscientific approaches to gullible clients. Alternatively they try so sell neuroscience based ideas long before stable bodies of research have been established and before practical applications have been demonstrated for said ideas. That's why I emphasize that in discussing the mapping of personal memory on to organisational memory, I'm using a metaphor. Granted, corporate memory is largely dependent on individuals' memories - the metaphor is thus a strong one. One proviso - those individuals will hopefully not be dementic!
This article on organisational memory has a useful way of mapping cognitive memory concepts to organisational ones:
Lambe referred to corporate Alzheimers. Alzheimers Disease in its early stages typically affects declarative memory, which is considered to consist of semantic and episodic memory. Procedural memory deficits on the other hand, is more characteristic of Parkinson's Disease. Together I believe these dementic processes form a useful metaphor for corporate memory loss.
South Africa currently has major problems with the maintenance of its infrastructure. This affects the power network, the water reticulation and sewerage systems, the dams, the roads and much more. It is widely accepted that this is largely due to the wholesale loss of competent administrators, technicians and engineers since the early 90's. In the case of the electricity supplier, ESKOM, there was not only a turnover of staff, the workforce was almost halved.
As Patrick Lambe indicated, such staff depletion in organisations with activities that span generations, had to cause major corporate memory loss. As this happened at the time of the transition for apartheid to democracy, there was also bound to be attitudinal issues on both sides (outgoing and incoming staff) that could have compromised knowledge transfer. Those issues are now history and we have to look forward.
There seems to be a realisation among all concerned that the knowledge and skills of displaced administrators, technicians and engineers need to be captured and harnessed. The question is how to do it? How can the knowledge of those who left, be captured and lost corporate memories restored?
Two quotations by Dave Snowden from Cognitive Edge are applicable here. The first is:
Following on this, I believe that the best way to capture lost individual knowledge and to restore corporate memories, is to capture the knowledge of those who left and who may be returning (even if only temporarily) in narrative form. Just contracting them to write things down (i.e. manuals) will help, but too much which is important will be lost.
The second is:
The full cooperation of not only displaced persons, but also of current incumbents will be crucial. Lost memories will have to be recovered, but will also have to be integrated with new knowledge and new systems. This will require tact, wisdom and leadership from the management of organisations who have suffered corporate memory loss. It seems to me that these processes will of necessity have to be outsourced - I cannot see how an organisation can recover its own memories. Therapy to recover memory in a brain injured person, can be seen as the metaphor for such a process.
Let's trust that South African state and parastatal organisations find ways to recover their lost corporate memory and return to sanity. They need not look further than Cognitive Edge and its South African affiliate, Sonja Blignaut, to assist them.
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