case KM (Monsanto)
Creating Fertile Ground for Knowledge at Monsanto
There are various paths by which organizations
come to the realization that they must
do more to manage their knowledge. For
many, it follows in the wake of reengineering and
downsizing: with fewer people to do the work, they
need to equip each to work smarter. For others, it’s a
wake-up call from a major customer, taking their
business to a more state-of-the-art competitor. But at
Monsanto, the motivation is more positive, if no less
pressing: here, in the midst of prosperity, the driving
concern is growth.
White Spaces and Gray Matter
When our Chairman and CEO Bob Shapiro took
office in 1995, his first priority was to make
Monsanto more growth-oriented. The demands of
an increasingly global economy were making it clear
that profits for the foreseeable future were not
enough; world-class competitors would be vying for
share, and Monsanto would have to grow faster to
remain a dominant player.
Mr. Shapiro stresses two major themes in his quest
for growth: more agility in existing businesses; and
faster recognition and exploitation of new business
possibilities. With an eye to the first, he effected a
“radical decentralization,” transforming Monsanto’s
four huge operating companies into fifteen business
units—each of a size more conducive to flexibility,
focus, and speed of adaptation. To help with the
second, he charged one of those units to focus purely
Creating Fertile Ground for
Knowledge at Monsanto
on growth opportunities. Called “Growth Enterprises,”
the unit’s mission is: “to grow existing business within
business units and create new business by exploiting
‘white spaces’ where core competencies exist to
increase the overall profitability of the enterprise.”
The “white spaces” concept is an important one
drawn from the work of Gary Hamel and C.K.
Prahalad, but it raised immediate challenges. How
would we find such spaces? What determines
whether they are unexploited opportunities, or
truly barren ground? How can priorities be set
among the opportunities? The key is in the reference
to “core competencies”: growth at Monsanto will be
driven by how well we are able to apply and build
on the knowledge our people already have. The
mission of the Growth Enterprises unit was soon
accompanied by a vision: “to create and enable a
learning and sharing environment where knowledge
and information are effectively used across
the enterprise.”
What Knowledge Management Can Do
From the outset, there has been no quibbling at
Monsanto about the need for more explicit
knowledge management. Our Board of Directors
readily approved a significant investment in it.
But the way to apply that investment was not immediately
apparent: what would do most to make individuals’
knowledge more accessible to others? To
ensure that the best knowledge is being applied
to decisions? To uncover knowledge gaps and to
fill them?
In considering the right approach to knowledge management,
it helped to consult the available literature
on the topic and, even more so, to share ideas with
other managers focusing on knowledge. Our current
thinking is that knowledge management at Monsanto
should focus on five objectives:
T Connecting people with other knowledgeable
people
T Connecting people with information
T Enabling the conversion of information to
knowledge
T Encapsulating knowledge, to make it easier
to transfer
T Disseminating knowledge around the firm
It also seems clear that, despite the claims of some
technology vendors, there are no “silver bullets” to
accomplish any of these objectives. In our knowledge
management efforts, as in any major business
initiative, lasting change can only come about
through a sustained and balanced interplay of
process, technology, and people.
Knowledge Creation as a Process
Most managers today would agree that managing an
area requires an understanding of the basic processes
involved. Certainly I, as a manager tasked with
improving knowledge management, felt I needed a
better understanding of knowledge processes, and
particularly of those involved in knowledge creation.
How does a business become knowledgeable about a
new area (a “white space”)? What’s the difference
between collecting data points and advancing
knowledge? How would Monsanto know if it were
becoming more knowledgeable in net over time?
An excellent resource in thinking about these
questions was the work of Ikujiro Nonaka and
Hirotaka Takeuchi, who wrote The Knowledge-
Creating Company. Their starting point became
Monsanto’s: that, “in a strict sense, knowledge is
created only by individuals.” That observation,
simple as it seems, has served many times as a touchstone
for proposed initiatives. Far from denying the
value of organization-level knowledge management, it
emphasizes the need for explicit efforts to make
knowledge more widely known. In their words,
“Organizational knowledge creation should be understood
as a process that ‘organizationally’ amplifies
the knowledge created by individuals and crystallizes
it as a part of the knowledge network of the organization.”
That process, as Nonaka and Takeuchi describe it, can
seem chaotic—yet there is some orderliness to it.
“Externalization” involves putting knowledge to use;
this happens when the organization makes a decision,
for example, or states a goal. “Combination” is the
bringing together of diverse pieces of knowledge to
produce new insight. And “internalization” happens
when an individual, exposed to someone else’s
knowledge, makes it their own.
The interesting thing is that the process can start in
any of the four quadrants, and will trigger activity in
the others. “Organizational Knowledge Creation,”
explain Nonaka and Takeuchi, “is a spiral process in
which the above interaction takes place repeatedly.”
For this spiral to remain active and ascending, it must
take place in an “open system,” in which knowledge is
constantly exchanged with the outside environment.
And it must be fueled by seeming contradictions and
paradoxes; by constantly challenging the existing
knowledge, these infusions will force higher discoveries
and syntheses. (It’s important to realize that
good knowledge management is not about making
everyone’s life more comfortable. Better to make it
uncomfortable! The knowledge creation process
should generate more questions than answers.)
Reflecting on any typical work week, it’s clear most of
us vacillate between upward and downward spirals.
As might be expected, the downward trend is set in
motion when knowledge activity does not culminate
in “internalization.” Meetings may be called, opinions
may be vocalized, decisions may be made—but if a
significant number of individuals do not leave the
table with their own knowledge enhanced, there is no
lasting gain. For Monsanto, the process laid out by
Nonaka and Takeuchi made the management
challenge clear: to stay in an upward spiral.
Modes of Knowledge Conversion
Externalization
Figure 1
Knowledge
Socialization
Internalization
Combination
Adapted from Nonaka and Takeuchi, The Knowledge-Creating Company.
The Well-Read Manager, pg. 85 Murray Gell-Mann, pg. 75
Innovation
in Action
37
Technology: Building a “Connection-Making
Machine”
Socialize, externalize, combine, internalize. At its
heart, the knowledge creation process is about
making connections. The objective of Monsanto’s
knowledge work, then, is to facilitate those
connections, first, among knowledgeable people (by
helping them find and interact with one another) and
second, between people and sources of information.
Information technology, of course, is a key enabler of
connections, and this has been a big part of our work
to date. Through a variety of information initiatives
we have implemented data warehousing, full-text
search engines, internet/intranet capabilities, collaborative
workgroup software, and major new operational
systems (SAP). More broadly, our work in
information management has three thrusts:
T To create repositories (data warehouses, operational
systems) to house important information,
both quantitative and qualitative;
T To cross-link those repositories so that navigation
is easy and the technology is transparent to
users; and
T To improve our capabilities to perform analyses in
support of decision-making.
Our IT focus in knowledge management has been
on infrastructure—that is, on creating enterprisewide
capabilities and not on delivering information
systems per se. Together, the systems we have implemented
comprise a logical architecture by which enduser
applications tap the structured and unstructured
knowledge available to the organization.
The People Aspects: Networks and New Roles
As consuming as some of our technology implementations
have been, we have tried to keep in mind
at all times that any information system is simply a
means to an end. Information technology may be a
necessary but will never be a sufficient condition for
knowledge creation and sharing. Coming back to
Nonaka and Takeuchi’s observation, we realize at
Monsanto that knowledge is fundamentally about
people management—equipping and encouraging
people to generate knowledge important to our
future and share it with others in the organization.
Accordingly, much of our work has been directed at
the creation, care, and feeding of networks, or “communities
of practice.” Networks of people are not
only mechanisms for communicating; they help to
advance collective understanding by providing a
forum for “sense-making.” In so doing, they create
value for their individual members as well as the
organization. What is needed to sustain a vibrant network?
We believe it takes information, permeable
and natural communication, dynamism in the network
itself, and some key supporting roles: what we
have come to call “stewards” (or “shepherds”), topic
experts, and “cross-pollinators.”
Knowledge is created through socialization, externalization, combination, and internalization. The challenge is to
support all of these processes so that the organization enjoys an upward spiral of knowledge creation. Since
all of them involve making connections among people and information sources, the objective of Monsanto’s technology
and people-oriented changes has been to turn the company into a “connection-making machine.” New IT
capabilities have been implemented to create knowledge repositories, cross-link them for easy navigation, and
support decision-making. At the same time, people are connecting more effectively through networks or
“communities of practice.”
article abstract
whose perspectives help the network “make sense”
of the information before them, by recognizing
patterns and providing context. “Cross-pollinators,”
finally, are the conduits to and from other networks
and other sources of knowledge. Their activity
supports synthesis and “outside the box” thinking
by the networks.
Supporting all these functions at Monsanto is a web
of knowledge teams, tasked with creating and maintaining
a “yellow pages” guide to the company’s
knowledge, and serving as points of contact for
people seeking information about different subjects.
These teams are far more than information “help
desks.” They are proactive and creative in thinking
about Monsanto’s knowledge needs in their
assigned topic areas. If a business manager asks for
information, they know not to stop simply at fulfilling
the letter of the request. Instead, they probe further
into why that information is valuable, how it will be
used, and therefore who else might find the same
information—or access to the requester’s increasing
knowledge—of value. Because these teams must cast
a wide net, covering internal and external, qualitative
and quantitative information, their composition is
similarly diverse: each brings together people trained
in information technology , library science, and relevant
content areas. The teams are geographically
dispersed and self-directed.
The role of “knowledge steward” can be stated in
terms of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s emphasis on the
“upward spiral” of knowledge creation. Sustaining
that spiral requires focus and resources—and this is
the responsibility of the steward. Think about the
mission director’s role in Apollo 13, the famous NASA
moon shot in which a crew was nearly stranded in
space. His role was to clarify the most important
knowledge problem facing the group, marshal the
right resources and experts, and tighten their
collective focus on finding a solution. Importantly, at
Monsanto, the steward is not necessarily the ranking
member of a given team; playing the role has much
more to do with having the right instincts and
inclinations than having the right title. Similarly,
“topic experts” can come from all walks of the
organization; they are the knowledge workers
Various important “knowledge worker” roles are being recognized and formalized at Monsanto. These
include knowledge stewards, topic experts, cross-pollinators, and knowledge teams.
In its ongoing knowledge efforts, Monsanto will benefit from an emerging methodology that ties knowledge
management to business strategy. The methodology calls for mapping the business at successive levels, so
that the overall business model is translated into requirements for information, knowledge, performance
measures, and supporting systems. In future efforts, as always, the greatest successes will come from a
balanced approach featuring people, process, and technology-related changes.
article abstract
Mapping the Way Forward
If there is any such thing as a “knowledge management
methodology,” it is being invented on the fly
by organizations like Monsanto in the midst of
knowledge experiments. With the benefit of only our
experience to date, we would propose a methodology
based on a series of maps, charting the knowledge
challenges facing a firm at progressively finer degrees
of resolution.
First, it makes sense to map the overall business
model driving the firm’s performance and profitability.
What actions and decisions are most important
to its success? We have come to call a map
drawn at this level a “learning map”—mainly
because it is so useful as tool to educate the entire
organization and help them to internalize the
strategic aims of the business.
Once a learning map has illustrated what drives the
business, it is possible to construct an “information
map” noting the information required to support
that activity and decision-making. This information
map must consider qualitative (or unstructured)
information as well as quantitative, and information
from both internal and external sources. (See
Figure 2.)
A “knowledge map” can come next, illustrating how
information is codified, transformed into knowledge,
and used. Among the important uses of this map are
to highlight knowledge strengths and shortfalls in the
organization and to inform the creation and support
of knowledge networks.
The fourth type of map is something more widely
known as a “Balanced Scorecard”—that is, the set of
performance measures that top management should
use to gauge the health and progress of the business.
Such scorecards are “balanced” because they combine
traditional financial measures (which lag performance)
with important non-financial measures
(which are often leading indicators). Many firms are
implementing balanced scorecards with or without
knowledge initiatives. It’s important to include them
in a knowledge management methodology for two
reasons: 1) because knowledge fuels performance in
fundamental ways, and 2) because measures must
be defined to track the impact of knowledge
management efforts.
All four of these maps highlight needs for data and
information storage, manipulation, and integration.
Thus, the final map is an information technology map
reflecting the infrastructure and systems needed to
support the knowledge work of the organization.
This basic five-map methodology, stated here at a
very high level, is the framework we intend to apply
to our ongoing knowledge management efforts
at Monsanto.
Knowledge Management: The Essential Elements
If Monsanto’s efforts at knowledge management are
succeeding, it is probably due most to our holistic
approach. Rather than relying on a single bullet—like
knowledge-sharing incentives, for example, or groupware—
Monsanto is drawing on a whole arsenal of
people-, process-, and technology-related changes.
The first priority in terms of people has been to recognize
and formalize the roles of different kinds of
“knowledge workers.” The work on process has been,
first, to focus on knowledge creation, and then to
define ways in which individual knowledge becomes
an organizational asset. And the focus of technology
efforts has been to impose better organization on
knowledge and enable connections among people
and information.
Is it working? Certainly, Monsanto is growing
profitably, and our success in “exploiting white
spaces”—particularly in the exploding field of
biotechnology—has been proven. One of our most
interesting new products, for example, is BollgardTM,
which can properly be called a “smart product.”
Bollgard is a new kind of cotton plant, genetically
engineered for greater defense against a pest which
accounts for 80% of cotton plant destruction in the
United States. In fact, in one six-month period since
the firm began actively managing knowledge, it was
awarded four regulatory approvals to sell innovative
new products—this, in an industry where the typical
EPA approval process has taken over eight years.
Is this purely due to better knowledge management?
Of course not. The number of variables that come
into play in a regulatory approval process is great.
But does there seem to be a direct correlation
between investment in knowledge and better performance
in new product and business development?
Clearly, yes. Monsanto is moving ahead as a source of
innovation and effectiveness. And if stock price is any
indicator, the word is getting out that we have some
very productive units, and that we are figuring out
how to engage the collective intellect of our people.
Becoming a Knowledge-Based Business, pg. 9 A Prescription for Knowledge Management, pg. 26
