Both The Great Epics, Ramayana and
Mahabharata, end not with celebration of victory but with transmission of
knowledge. In the Ramayana, 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 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 clearly what he had to say” 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 extreme humility and palms joined, 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 seduce one easily; One runs towards them impatiently. But things that are actually good fail to attract; one shuns them creatively, finding powerful excuses to justify 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.
Similarly there is knowledge transmission at the end of the Mahabharat war when Krishna advises Padavas to talk to Bhisma, their grand uncle, who lies mortally wounded on the battlefield. “Make him talk until his last breath. Ask him questions. He has a lot to tell,” says Krishna.
Sure enough, when prompted, the dying Bhisma spends hours discussing various topics: history, geography, politics, economics, management, war, ethics, morality, sex, astronomy, metaphysics and spirituality.
Ram asked Ravan for his wisdom before his death. The Pandavas listened to a lengthy discourse from Bhisma as he lay dying on the battlefield. This, in the context of organisations, is Knowledge Management.
Both these stories draw attention to the value of knowledge. In triumph, it is easy to claim the material possessions of the defeated, but it is not easy to claim their knowledge. Knowledge does not outlive death.
Every day, an organization churns out vast amounts of knowledge. Every day, people leave organisations, taking their knowledge with them – knowledge which they acquired because they are part of the organisation. They take with them knowledge of clients, markets, business processes, tricks of the trade. These may not be confidential information or patented information, but it is information that gives a competitive edge.
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 and 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 Pandavas who is 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(of today) can be 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 to make it available to 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 when they are leaving the organisation. An exit interview 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 full 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. Put a good system of knowledge management in place.
(From an email from a friend)
