Change Guides Newsletter
In This Issue
A Good Knowledge Management Strategy Can Help Bolster a successful Change Initiative
6 Tips for Addressing Everyday Organizational Knowledge Management Needs
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Greetings 
We would like to introduce the newest member of our Team, Andie Wafzig.   Andie brings over 13 years of experience in Organizational Change Management and Knowledge Management to Change Guides.   Andie has broad change management expertise, including organizational communication strategy, social media engagement, best practice identification, and knowledge sharing and retention . Andie has worked with a big three consulting firm where her client industries included Federal and State Government, Fast Moving Consumer Goods and Chemicals.

Andie has written both of our articles this month and is focusing on Knowledge Management.  

Enjoy and let us know what you think! 
 
The Change Guides Team
A Good Knowledge Management Strategy Can Help Bolster a Successful Change Initiative
It has been said many times - "change is constant".  But for something so common in organizations today, change surely can elicit a myriad of discouraging reactions and responses ranging from fear to doubt to dismay.  So, what might be the missing link that can help make a constantly changing environment or organization feel less volatile and even more agile?   In a word, knowledge. 
 
I was recently at an amusement park with my five year old son for the first time.  In the first ten minutes, the size of the crowds and the extreme height of the rollercoasters had my anxiety on alert.  We rode some kiddie rides a few times and then decided to walk around to other parts of the park.  As we continued to walk, we came across more and more people with soaking wet clothes.  Looking toward the direction they were coming, we quickly found the source - a giant, twisty-turny water ride, complete with a looming drop and the consistent, collective screams of ride goers as their log boat teetered on the top of the hill and plunged into the pool below.  Much to my surprise came the arm tugging, pointing, jumping up and down and cries of "please, please, PLEASE" from my son.  My stomach lurched.  No way!  This isn't a kiddie ride.  We came for the kiddie rides!  He probably isn't even tall enough.  If he is, he will surely hate it, or be scared or heaven forbid fall out.  I don't want to walk around in soggy clothes the rest of the day.  I don't even like thrill rides anymore - I'm a mom! 

6 Tips for Addressing Everyday Organizational Knowledge Management Needs
"As we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns-the ones we don't know we don't know."   - Donald Rumsfeld
 
The above statement from Donald Rumsfeld, then Secretary of Defense under President George W. Bush, caused much controversy at the time it was spoken.  During a heated press conference in which Rumsfeld was asked by a reporter whether there was a direct link between a terrorist organization and an incident in Baghdad, Rumsfeld gave what many critics, and even his political allies, deemed an evasive answer or a non-answer.  To the non-politico, it reads more like a riddle. 
 
Yet, despite your political leanings or predilection for brainteasers, this statement is accurate and also rather profound, especially as it relates to today's organizations and the knowledge with which decisions are made or not made.    
 
The goal of an organizational Knowledge Management strategy is to gather-up the information, resources and expertise that exist within the organization in order to store it for future reference, leverage it for speed to insight and make better, more informed decisions.  Or in Rumsfeld-speak, the goal is to know what we know, know what we don't know and perhaps get closer to identifying what we don't know that we don't know. 

Did you know that the Change Management Pocket Guide is
available as an app?  Just like the book, the app uses the Change Management 101 Model to step you through three major
phases of managing change:  Plan, Do, and Sustain.