Businesses and institutions are at their core simply groups of individuals working together toward common goals. These groups of individuals all have different backgrounds and skill sets that when properly combined are able to take a series of raw inputs and create a product or service as an output. If the output value exceeds the input cost, the institution has created value. Simple. One of the most difficult things for any institution to do is to harvest the knowledge of the individuals in the institution and then make that knowledge available to others in the institution so that knowledge and best practices can be replicated. And mistakes not repeated. When this knowledge management does not exist, the business operates as though “every day is the first day”. The business never learns from its mistakes, and whatever an individual may learn about a given process or customer is never captured so that the process can be improved, or the customer relationships can be improved. Government services are often a great example of “every day is the first day”. Government services do not have the same incentives as private businesses. There is no incentive to reduce cost or to make the labor more efficient, because that will result in lower funding. There is no incentive to improve service because there is no competition. And thus, there is no innovation and very little change. Certainly, there is not a robust knowledge management process. Consider the DMV (Department of Motor Vehicles) or its equivalent. In most cases it is wildly inefficient. Long, slow moving lines. Filling out paper forms and then handing them to an employee who types the information you just filled out into some antiquated computer system. There are certainly examples of this in private businesses as well. It could be a bank, or a restaurant, or an airport, or a cell phone store, or a doctor’s office or an oil change place or a University. Anything. Assignment: Think about your day to day experiences and the businesses or other institutions. Think about the place where you have experienced the consistently worst product or service, and how that business never seems to learn or improve. Assume that you became the CEO or leader of that organization. What specific changes would you implement immediately to improve the product or service experience? Then, going forward, what process would you put in place so that the knowledge of the individuals in the organization could be harvested and replicated – allowing the organization to learn and to continue to improve. Keep in mind that you want to control costs, maximize the productivity of your labor force, and continually improve your business to stay competitive and deliver value to your customers.