KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT AND QUALITY OF PEOPLE FOR ENDURING COMPETITIVE DOMINANCE

Lionello Negri
Italian Research Council (CNR) Department for Scientific and Technological Activities (DAST) Services and Companies Liaison Office (Servizio IV) Via dei Taurini No. 19 - 00185 Rome (Italy) Tel. (39 - 06) 4993 7454 - Fax (39 - 06) 4993 7440 - E-mail: l.negri@dcas.cnr.it

Abstract: In order to integrate individual with organizational new requirements, knowledge creation has to be inspired by the water logic construct and focused on what could be rather than on what it is. In this respect, the paper deals with some advanced tools, which may contribute notably to stimulate generative learning, creative problem solving, and self-management. Continuous innovation and quality improvement imply competence up-dating, new skill development, job redesign, and labor reengineering. As a consequence, managing the human side of change depends fundamentally on training, which has to enhance the capacity of going beyond conventional reference mind patterns and to help people to assess, to participate in, and to appraise critically the change itself. An open, creative, multidimensional, and not absolute approach is needed, thus assuming that any problem demands ad hoc solutions. Therefore, the effectiveness of the Quality Management System is consistent with a way of working life, which interests all of the functions and is based on quality wise people. Keywords: Quality, innovation, training, thinking mode, organizational learning, creativity, job enrichment, competitiveness.

Introduction
In the knowledge era, joining innovation and quality, thus applying systematically their best practices in Daily Routine Work, is the most important driver of continuous improvement nurtured by creativity, generative learning, heuristic thinking, people enablement and empowerment. "Innovation" and "Quality" were the buzzwords of organizations' visions in the Sixties and in the Eighties, respectively. Today's worldwide buzzword is "Innovation and Quality Partnership", which strengthens the scopes of both and leads to establish favorable mutual relationships within the full-spectrum of the creativity frame. In fact, leading-edge organizations distinguish because of the management of their people, i. e., the most valuable non-cash asset, which has to be encouraged to take responsibility, authority, decisions, and actions. Therefore, the management style has to be radically rethought and directed towards emerging topics, such as transformation of knowledge into competencies, integration of explicit with tacit knowledge, and development of knowledge spirals, which combine top-down and bottom-up viewpoints and tune finely two-way communications.

From workforce to human asset

Linking business planning with human resources management represents the key factor to successfully compete in the global arena, matching customers' expectations and desires related to quality, reliability, and value. Hence, education and training constitute the leverage for making the organization instantaneously responsive to marketplace stimuli. As far as people are concerned, lets underline that the common use of the term "resource" derives from the traditional manufacturing culture, which pursued, and often still does, profitability by exploiting labor and capital at their fullest. The lesson learned leads to overcome the idea of labor as a simple production factor and to recognize people as an inherent asset and a core component of the organizations image and identity. To stay competitive, organizations have to incept the essence of the new value metrics of end-consumers, thus refining their foresight capabilities and metabolizing the prosumership philosophy. To cope with this challenging objective, organizations have to continuously renewal themselves, to rethink their mission, to achieve ever stretching knowledge, to enhance their innovation and creativity orientation, to increase their flexibility, elasticity, and agility. Conventional "people building" is improper and inadequate to accomplish organizations demand due to the above issues, which require attitudes to continuous learning, knowledge acquiring and processing, and interdisciplinary developing (Bonato e Negri 1996).

Designing the shares of mind for the new skills

Organizations are become conscious that the domination over the competition will be more and more subordinate to the implementation of the innovation and quality dual concept. In this view, the experience gained in managing innovation and providing people with convenient enablement offers a sound methodological platform in order to promote changes in individual and organizational mental models, adopt new working procedures, introduce new process specifications and benchmarks, catch new opportunities. However, training devoted to shape abilities and expertise necessary to reach operative goals effectively involve the operational knowledge (i. e., know-how) more than the scope-related" one (i. e., know-why), which entails the conceptual learning at both the individual and organizational levels. Moreover, the university-industry interaction is still weak and the gap between the education system (skills offering) and the business sector (skills demand) is keeping large. As illustrated in Table 1, the technological and technical skills encompass three strongly interrelated macro areas, dealing with technological capability, technical ability, and technicality. Education and training patterns to fulfill the different items related to the involved macro areas are widely experienced and accommodate suitably the requirements of growth-oriented organizations, which need to sustain the coreknowledge portfolio, instill the long-life learning concept, refine the necessary occupational standards and working methods, and eventually to couple continuous and discontinuous improvement, i. e., kaizen (bottom-up) and paradigm-breaking change (top-down). Furthermore, the design of any technological and technical skill has to be referred rigorously to process analysis, technology plan, state of the art recognition, and technological foresighting and visioneering. The emphasis on quality as a "way of working life" throughout the complete organization, the idea that the main differentiation factor arises from quality

discipline and clear quality work that men and women throughout the organization understand, believe in, and are part of (Feigenbaum 1961), and the legitimation of the partnership between innovation and quality identify behavioral skills as part of performances. In fact, quality is people-dependent and it is directed to "motivate" people to "do a better job" (Caplan 1980), people really are a company's most important asset and the most flexible of all resource type, and the end game is an organization where all individuals are enabled and empowered through principles of entrepreneurship to the point of pursuing innovation and creativity, and being able to work constantly toward BreakPoints (Johansson et al. 1993). Table 1 - Education and training patterns to perform technological and technical skills
TECHNOLOGICAL AND TECHNICAL SKILLS INVOLVED MACRO AREAS MAIN ITEMS METHODOLOGIES AND TOOLS Education and training (conventional) Distance- / open- / e-learning Multimedia systems Technical specialization Technical qualification Technological up-grading Technicalities Technological change management Training off the job (formal) Training on the job (informal) Technical abilities Coaching - Mentoring - Tutoring Teaching thinking Organizational learning Knowledge creation (organizational culture) Knowledge and experience assimilation, fusion, and capitalization (leverage effect)

Scientific and technological basics Technological capabilities

The development of innovation-oriented and quality wise skills requires a "revolutionary" transformation, which has to cut across all boundaries and has to be resolutely sponsored and pioneered by the management. Table 2 summarizes the fundamental macro areas and relevant main items affected by this transformation. The methodological approaches and operative tools to be applied systematically in order to meet the listed items highlight the innovation and quality marriage in terms of management best practices and most advanced training paths. From this viewpoint, organizations have to assign an extra importance and implement at the maximum rate the following methodologies and tools: personal mastery, aimed at reaching the learning ownership and enabling the capability to realize coherently individual vision and knowledge-oriented spirit within the learning organization frame (Senge 1990);

Table 2 - Training paths to achieve innovation-quality partnership

1st MACRO AREA ORGANIZATIONS CULTURE, POLICY, STRATEGY, AND CLIMATE MAIN ITEMS People building as an investment Strategic looking-forward vision Knowledge- and time-based strategy Pursuing quality and purposeful innovation Job enrichment Stimulation of vocational continuous education Value creation Continual searching for new opportunities Continuous benchmark against competitors METHODOLOGIES AND TOOLS Charismatic leadership (envisioning - energizing - enabling) Reducing break-even and start-up times Enhancement of the full-spectrum thinking Enablement - Empowerment Learning from problems Learning (curious) and intelligent organization Knowledge-creating organization Value analysis - Value Engineering Managing by Value Inquisitive, exploratory, and investigative outward looking Benchmarking

2nd MACRO AREA ORGANIZATIONAL AND MANAGERIAL ISSUES MAIN ITEMS Change management Parallel vs. functional organization Cross-functionality - Cross-fertilization Flexibility - Elasticity - Agility Decentralization and virtuality Knowledge network Ad-hocracy vs. Command-and-Control Best practices - Search for excellence METHODOLOGIES AND TOOLS Gap alignment action plan Idea management - Active listening Internal customer-supplier chain Quality Circles - Team working and learning Multiple skilling -Total Business Integration Holism and both-and approach Fast response organization Shortening the time to change Knowledge processing and fusion Control through communication Benchmarking - Business technical skill review

3rd MACRO AREA PATTERNING BEHAVIOR AND MIND SET MAIN ITEMS Continuous learning orientation Information sharing / exchange Commitment and proactive involvement (avoid the I am right, you are wrong idea) Entrepreneurship and ownership spirit Self-management and self-appraisal Problem finding and problem setting Creative problem solving and lean thinking (simplicity and essentiality vs. complexity) Systems thinking and Systems practice Creative and innovative mindedness (also in Daily Routine work) METHODOLOGIES AND TOOLS Learning ownership - Personal mastery Long-life learning Relationship and co-operation Supportive collaboration management Total employee involvement Happy teams, which enjoy working together Empowerment - Enablement - Training for decision Self-concept and Self-renewal development New Seven Tool - Synectics techniques Seven Tools - CEDAC - PDCA Cycle Eliminating thinking inhibitors Lateral - logic thinking techniques Divergent thinking- Synthesis thinking Systematic Innovation SEDAC - CWCI - Breakthrough Thinking

synectics, i. e., joining together apparently unrelated ideas to facilitate the analysis of the problems and the discovery of creative solutions (Hall 1996). In fact, the use of analogies, metaphors, and experiences informal exchanges help greatly in identifying and solving problems that depends on creative thinking; suggestions and visual management systems, such as the Cause and Effect Diagram with Additional Cards (CEDAC), which stream line personnel participation in problem finding and setting, thus contributing meaningfully to detect root causes and advance tailored solutions, the effects of which are monitored and displayed; Systematic Innovation (SI) methods for examining technical problems and identifying alternative solutions. SI - which originates from the "Theory of the Inventive Problems Solving", a systematic, left-brain, creativity method developed by G. S. Altshuller (1994) - can also be used to forecast technological change for gaining competitive advantage (Domb et al. 1995; Mann 2002); Lateral Thinking, to support and reinforce the vertical (logic) thinking by means of problems unconventional analysis leading to generate new and alternative ideas and solutions (de Bono 1992); techniques to introduce creative and innovative habits into Daily Routine Work. For example, the Structure for Enhancing Daily Activities through Creativity (SEDAC) allows to manage the operative process aimed at achieving the stated goal (Merli 1993). SEDAC consists of 4 steps: Policy-Objectives Matrix, Master SEDAC, Sub SEDAC, and Operative SEDAC. The three last steps are CEDAC Diagrams, progressively more detailed and focused on specific problems, the solution of which allows to reach the various goals (partial objectives) composing the comprehensive objective (P-O Matrix) corresponding to the deployed branches of the Tree Diagram; Company-Wide Creativity and Innovation (CWCI) to push continual improvement and breakthrough. CWCI tools concern team learning and creative/innovative problem solving, thus prioritizing the divergent thinking (creativity, innovativity, and flexibility) over the convergent one (assessment, evaluation, and judgment), i. e., the left cerebral hemisphere with respect to the right one (King 1996; Mauzy and Harrimann 2003); Breakthrough Thinking, based on 7 key-principles (Uniqueness, Purposes, Solution-After-Next, Limited Information Collection, Systems, People Design, Betterment Timeline), which provide a structured approach to individual/team problem solving (Nadler and Hibino 1994; Nadler et al. 1995).

From an operative standpoint, the above mentioned methodologies and tools favor the deployment of commitment and participation, shared visions and values as motivators, proactive attitudes, entrepreneurship and ownership spirit, innovative intent, systems and lean thinking, self-management and self-appraisal. The objective lies in developing, at any organizational tier, leadership orientations and crossfunctional capabilities. In fact, such an objective is highly consistent with the new mind set from which a new way of working life derives, thus allowing, within a virtuous circle, to stimulate creativity and endless interactive processes for both
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quality enhancement through innovation and incremental and purposeful innovation through quality toolkit. Literature emphasizes the people-dependent nature of quality and the relationship between innovation and quality. Especially in the services sector, these principles are largely confirmed by the strategic choices of world-class companies, which pay special attention to entrust their people with responsibilities, authorities, and decisionmaking skills. In order to put into practice this strategy, the autocratic style has to be left out and the take care logic (empathy approach) has to be promoted. In other words, empowerment and job involvement don't just arise from giving people more discretion and power, since they assume the achievement of a forma mentis based on the sharing of knowledge, information, objectives, and goals. This new state of mind encourages people to be job owners, team players, and motivate contributors, which don't execute a task, but think about, release ideas, take decisions, and carry out proper initiatives. Therefore, Innovation and Quality Joint Management - meant as creative breaking of the rules aimed at facing any problem according to the solution-after-next perspective - overcomes the procedurally-driven approach, thus allowing organization to capture and maintain marketplace dominance through people.

Conclusions
Competitive enduring advantage depends on innovation and quality performances. Moreover, the search of "excellence" is affected by both technology progress and people development in terms of competencies and skills. The scheme shown in Table 2 refers clearly to an ideal situation corresponding to the final stage of the organizational transformation. The proposed methodologies and tools are strictly complementary together, redundant in some cases, and have not a thaumaturgic power leading to immediate effects. Therefore, they have to be gradually applied, their relevance has to be fully understood by management (above all!) and staff, and the patterning behavior transformation has to permeate the whole organization. In fact, successful results depend mainly on commitment, spirit of emulation, and epidemic diffusion. Management main task consists in providing personnel with top-down servicing, support, enablement, and empowerment, which fit for involvement, participation, entrepreneurship and ownership attitudes. Obviously, SMEs are generally less favored due to their poor financial resources. However, it has not be overlooked that, in many cases, SMEs structure and inherent characteristics play a fundamental role for creating the climate suitable to ignite creativity intent, innovative bias, and quality orientation. The paper considered organizational learning and cultural change, i. e., the tacit processes driving the organization to manage the change effectively. In particular, the main enablers, which can help organization in fostering abilities, skills, and value-adding thinking to support their innovation- and quality-driven strategy deal with (Negri and Furlan 2001): promoting an organizational culture, which emphasizes values such as continuous learning, cooperation, open mindedness, creativity, and change orientation; tuning organizational appraisal and rewarding systems to the above values;

favoring the diffusion of shared mental models, which assume that any organizational concern and/or rule has not to be "out-of-discussion"; improving team building, in order to enhance cross-functional ideas generation, creative problem solving, systematic innovation, breakthrough thinking, learning ownership, and knowledge-based spirit, i.e., to energize continuously people commitment to strive for organization best performances; merging organization and people visions, believes and values, thus allowing organizational and personal learning to develop in concert; setting the organization learning discipline, aiming at systematizing thinking patterns, communication, personal mastery and self-appraisal.

The comprehensive operationalization of these enablers is the only way to integrate successfully the organizational learning with the personal one. In fact, in the present scenario, renewing the organization demands that change management is based more on continuous learning and cultural development rather than on a radical redesign of core business forced by emergency pressures and surviving needs.

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