I.T. Manifesto: Know What People WantI.T. Manifesto: Know What People Want

Knowledge management and Karl Marx share the same initials. Sure, it may just be coincidence, but that doesn't stop consultant Bijoy Goswami from describing knowledge management as too often ending up as the "communism of the enterprise."

And often, knowledge management is about as successful as communism, an essentially idealistic notion that fails in the real world. Goswami, CEO of a small knowledge-management consulting firm called Aviri, uses the analogy to argue that knowledge-management practitioners often defeat their own purpose by not properly considering that employees expect something in return for the effort they put into such a system.

Goswami doesn't buy the prevailing belief that a knowledge-management initiative is doomed if it relies on time-strapped employees contributing their knowledge. "Look at E-mail," he says. "It's so laborious, yet we do it every day." Workers have embraced E-mail because it offers clear value. If they get value from knowledge-management tools, they'll happily spend time with them. "Every human being is wired for reciprocity," he says. "We don't give something without getting something in return."

Goswami puts people into three categories of knowledge personalities that determine the rewards they seek:

Understanding how your knowledge workers break down into these categories should help a company develop an effective system, Goswami says. He boils it down to a simple blueprint: "Put your people at the center, think about how they behave, and then give them the technologies that can help them."

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Illustration by Terry Miura