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Task 1: Brainstorming, Nominal Group Technique and Consensus
Decision.
4.1 Divide into small groups of five to seven persons. Select a group discussion leader and a person to
record responses. Use the brainstorming guidelines to conduct a five-minute brainstorming session on
the following topic. Your goal is to identify creative solutions to the problem:
Employees in large companies often complain that personal worth perception is low. They feel that the
company does not overtly reward them for their contributions and set procedures that allow them to be
most productive and creative.
4.2 Based on the problem given in 4.1, complete the following tasks:
a. Brainstorm how the company can reward efforts and increase the perception of personal worth
other than issuing pay increases.
b. Use nominal group technique to find the best solution to the employee personal-worth
perception problem. Consider the solutions from the brainstorming activity and select the “best”
solution from that set.
c. Use consensus decision making with the goal of selecting a solution to the employee personalworth
perception problem to which all members of the group can commit.
Task 2: Discussion on below mentioned case studies
4.3 Case Study: Storytelling (Source: IBM Knowledge Socialization Project, IBM Research.
http://www.research.ibm.com)
Knowledge disclosure is a key way of identifying the organizational culture. Knowledge disclosure
techniques such as storytelling allow us to uncover knowledge in the context of its use. IBM views stories
as a powerful means of knowledge discovery and knowledge transfer. They are very good for conveying
complex messages simply. Storytelling is a unifying and defining component of all communities. Stories
exist in all organizations; managed and purposeful storytelling provides a powerful mechanism for the
disclosure of intellectual or knowledge assets in companies. It can also provide a nonintrusive, organic
means of producing sustainable cultural change. Storytelling is an excellent means of conveying values
and other complex tacit knowledge.
Stories are endemic within each and every organization. They should be fostered, leveraged, and
managed. We all tell stories in our daily work to share our experience and knowledge. Tacit knowledge is
the most powerful means of sharing knowledge, and this knowledge is usually shared through informal
networks. Organizations need to accept the fact that stories exist in their organization, identify the stories
that persist, leverage these stories to effect cultural change, and foster an environment conducive to
sharing knowledge and learning through stories. The best teachers, presenters, and knowledge sharers
tell stories naturally in order to convey learning points and share their experiences. Stories put the
knowledge in context and then make the learning memorable and the learning experience more
compelling. Failure stories, or lessons learned, help a community to learn from its mistakes.
MITS5505 Exercise 4
Copyright © 2015-2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved. 3
IBM has a four-stage storytelling approach: (1) anecdotal elicitation through interviews, observation, and
story circles; (2) anecdotal deconstruction to analyze cultural issues, ways of working, values, rules, and
beliefs to yield the story’s key messages; (3) intervention/communication design with a story constructed
or enhanced; and (4) story deployment. Storytelling workshops can be run to elicit the knowledge and
cultural values of an organization as well as both its best and worst practices. Capturing anecdotal or tacit
knowledge builds an accurate picture of the existing culture, discloses enablers and inhibitors to sharing,
and identifies business issues. Values—moral principles or standards—are identified. Rules—the code of
discipline that drives or conforms behavior—are also identified. And finally, beliefs—the collection of
ideas that a community regards as true or shares faith in—are elicited.
Storytelling is a cathartic process through which employees can share experiences and build social capital
and networks. Perhaps most importantly of all, it achieves agreement among the participants.
Once anecdotes are captured, they can be stored in a repository and aligned with communities, processes,
and subject areas. They can then be used to trigger and support discussion forums (e.g., lunch and learn),
databases, intellectual capital management systems (e.g., training), document management systems,
bulletin boards, online chats, portals (e.g., community kickoff days), and intranets (e.g., competency/skill
profiling).
Ultimately, it is the people who make communities, and effective communities have valuable stories. In
order to help support effective communities, you need to understand what their issues are, what they
need, and what facilities and solutions would best suit them.
4.4 Case Study: Storytelling (Source: Eureka Project at Xerox. APQC Case Study. http://www.apqc.org)
It is, of course, not enough to create rich environments where people can share. Xerox provides lots of
these environments: online Knowledge Universe with a catalog of best practices, chat rooms for CoPs, a
company Yellow Pages, and a section of the public website, Knowledge Street, which is devoted to
promoting knowledge sharing. Also required are good ideas, leadership, and motivated people. A few
years ago, Jack Whalen, a sociologist, spent some time in a Xerox customer service call center outside
Dallas studying how people used Eureka.
The trouble was that the employees were not using it. Management therefore decided workers needed
an incentive to change. To this end, they held a contest in which workers could win points (convertible
into cash) each time they solved a customer problem, by whatever means.
The winner was an eight-year veteran named Carlos, who had more than 900 points. Carlos really knew
his stuff and everyone else knew this too. Carlos never used the software.
The runner-up, however, was a shock to everyone. Trish had been with the company only a few months,
had no previous experience with copiers, and did not even have the software on her machine. Yet her 600
points doubled the score of the third-place winner.
Her secret: she sat right across from Carlos. She overheard him as he talked, and she persuaded him to
show her the inner workings of copiers during lunch breaks. She asked other colleagues for tips too. This
MITS5505 Exercise 4
Copyright © 2015-2018 VIT, All Rights Reserved. 4
story illustrates how knowledge gets shared. The point is not the software but how many people can sit
next to Carlos! There is no single best practice for sharing knowledge—both technology and subject
matter experts are needed.
And sometimes storytelling is the best way to transfer knowledge. Most managers see this as a waste of
time, but instead of breaking up the coffee machine cliques, companies should make opportunities for
storytelling at informal get-togethers that are loosely organized as offsite meetings, and also through
videotapes and bragging sessions.

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