Staying in the Know

Recent corporate crises such as BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill debacle and
the Libor rate-fixing scandal in the City of London have a common thread. The troubles
simmered below the CEO’s radar, and by the time the problems were revealed, most of the
damage had been done. As organizations and business environments become more complex, how
are executives supposed to keep tabs on what competitors and employees are doing? Although
many management experts have assumed that better information systems and more data are the
most promising way forward, authors Davide Nicolini, Maja Korica and Keith Ruddle are
skeptical. Rather, they say, the way for senior executives to “stay in the know” is by
assembling and maintaining what they call a “personal knowledge infrastructure.” And while
information technologies may be part of this personal knowledge infrastructure, the authors
say technology is just one of the components. The article is based on a two-year study of
the day-to-day work of seven CEOs of some of the largest and most challenging hospital- and
mental health-based organizations in England. As settings for studying the challenges of
using information and knowledge to stay on top, the authors note, health-care organizations
sit at the crossroads between the private and public sectors and are expected to meet
multiple, often competing, demands. The authors sought to answer a simple question: How did
the CEOs know what they needed to know in order to be effective at their jobs? While the
importance of informational roles to executives is well established, the authors take the
idea a step further, arguing that managers — and especially senior executives — are only as
good at acquiring and interpreting critical information as their personal knowledge
infrastructures. At times, the authors argue, simple things such as talking to customers or
networking with board members are more important than using sophisticated new tools,
provided they are done methodically and with some purpose. Selecting when particular
elements of a personal knowledge infrastructure are appropriate depends on the
circumstances. Understanding and, when needed, overhauling one’s personal knowledge
infrastructure should be routine for executives. The article examines how this can be
done.