Valuing Intellectual Capital
Overview:
Over the last century, some companies
have made history while others have become history.
This is because some have been much better at changing
than others. Overall, the corporate scorecard regarding
change is not very positive. The research data overwhelmingly
shows that the issue is neither the corporate strategy
nor the change initiative itself. Rather, the problem
lies in an organization’s inability to overcome
its own inherent inertia, its entrenched resistance
to change.
This resistance has stiffened due
to the phenomenon known as change fatigue. In the last
twenty years, many people have experienced change programs
that have failed to deliver the promised improvements.
This has spawned the attitude: Why should we go through
more pain for even less gain? Employees may be forgiven
for viewing the management of intellectual capital and
organizational knowledge as just another soon-to-be-forgotten
change initiative.
However, to compete in tomorrow’s
business world, companies will have to do a much better
job of engaging the collective minds of their organizations.
They are already discovering that they don’t know
what they know. Vast deposits of corporate knowledge
have little value when they are tucked away in reports,
filing cabinets or the minds of individual employees.
Different units are reinventing wheels, duplicating
projects, or repeating mistakes. People are always hearing
about other divisions that display best-in-company practices
which never become a part of the organizational knowledge
base. As a result, these practices must be relearned
by each division as it starts up a new plant, installs
a new machine, or structures a new business team.
Brain power or human capital is
not easily captured. Existing business structures, systems
and processes are often quite hostile to new and innovative
ideas. Too many new employees, upon making a suggestion
for improvement or offering a new business concept,
have heard the phrase: That’s not how we do it
around here. Companies are filled with rules that unintentionally
suppress creativity. Some underground innovation still
occurs, and occasionally succeeds, but mostly it is
killed off before it has a chance to blossom. It is
ironic that organizations seek to hire creative people
with proven track records of accomplishment, then stifle
them with jobs and organizational structures that prevent
the employees from using the talents for which they
were hired.
In most of the companies featured in
this seminar, senior management has realized that the
world economy is rapidly coming to rest on a foundation
of intellect. All of these companies, each at their own
rate, are in transition towards a state where intellectual
assets are becoming their principal capital goods, from
which products and services are produced. When the implications
of this transition are fully understood, the pressure
on every company to place the highest value on its intellectual
assets will finally become inescapable. Contents:
This seminar will provide informative
answers to the following questions:
- How do organizations define
the terms "intellectual capital" and "knowledge
management"?
- How have organizations developed
and maintained corporate cultures that truly value
intellectual capital?
- How can you gain senior management
commitment for knowledge management initiatives?
- What should be the components
of a strategy to manage intellectual capital and organizational
knowledge?
- What should be the role of a
knowledge management group?
- What part should information
technology play in the knowledge management process?
- How do organizations identify
and retain those people deemed to be their most valuable
intellectual assets?
- How should organizations measure
the value of their intellectual capital?
- What are the critical success
factors for the effective management of intellectual
capital and organizational knowledge?
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