How the Scriptures show us the path to Knowledge Management

I was personally pleased and pleasantly  surprised too at the no of reactions and feedback obtained for the random  observation of the Mahabharatha being our first wiki. In fact the more I dig , the more similarities I find  from our great past to our modern present.  I am a reasonably organised individual and have been able to run  fairly streamlined functions in my professional career too. However, one thing that has been tough and almost never been able to put to action is to collectively document  organisational knowledge, which I have been handicapped by the loss of personnel , inability to articulate matter which cannot be described in words easily, lack of transfer of knowledge gained through observation and other unstructured  content repositories. etc. 

In an era which is increasingly valuing specialists  and specialist domains, managing one's organisational learning has become paramount.  More thrust is being given to internal dependence for knowledge. Thus, we hear many a organisation and so many management gurus speaking about converting your organisation into a knowledge organisation and your employees into knowledge workers.

While the actual effort and method for such a transition can be deliberated , I found some cues in the way our scriptures are organised and how they determine their purpose.  Lets for a moment draw up a parallel . Just as the (sastram) Scriptures define a way to lead the human life and help us fulfill the human life, the  KM portal would tell anyone in the organisation, where they stand on their progress and how their own goals ( KPI's ?)  ought to move, where they could share and look out for information from various other related and interlinked departments/ domains.

Just as  the scriptures are more a " May I help you ?  - centre", the KM portal is also s May I help you centre for the organisation. If you want to know something , here is an help desk for you to approach. If you can manage on your own, just fine., else it is there to help.  The KM portal grows more out of volunteering and self initiatives and like the scriptures cares for those who seek help.

Just as "sas" would mean to teach, and "trai" means "to protect", KM would learn form contribution, teach us in turn and protect us as we go forward.

I was also intrigued by the way the structuring of the messages (which I see as knowledge) in the Vedas. They are not found in a single place or sub head... some are in Rg, some in Yajur so on and so forth. Just the way organisational knowledge on any single subject is just not resident only at some top echelons or in a single entity. Just as the vedas are non human products, it would be akin to a vision or passion/mantra of any organisation. 

The primary purpose of KM according to many experts is the transfer of "tacit " knowledge to "explicit " knowledge. This can be done only through interpretations, metaphors and analogies which eventually will drive home a message. Thats exactly how the Vedas are interpreted.. They are so abstract that it is not possible to interpret them. Thus the emergence of secondary scriptures, which have brought to us various ideas of the vedas though strories, some true and otherwise, which are systematically arranged, something we dont find in the vedas. This is a parallel purpose of knowledge management - transfer through metaphors, analogies to bring out a realistic product for the organisation.

Just as the vedas would guide us to lead a life of dependence or independence,  organisations also, eventually would attain their Sreyas by becoming tired of their dependence on knowledge elsewhere and start looking within. This exactly is where all members of the organisation will gravitate towards.. 

The knowledge Portal!!

Is the Mahabharath our first wiki ?

I have been brought up in a childhood surrounded by fair amount spirituality and as a matter of fact I for a period went to an oriental school where the uniform for a white shirt and Dhothi what with its huge insistence on sanskrit and learning of the vedas. Despite being honoured by the then Governor for the immaculate recitation of vedas and many such motivations, my  tryst with spirituality seemed to have ended there. Then came a more westernised life in thinking and everything in the world was in mind except my past; in fact our Indian past. Three decades later by sheer boredom I looked into the books and text  on Vedanta  which my brother has been attending classes for, the past 18 odd years.

The first few pages went about a little routinely when suddenly the concept of Prayas and Sreyas was disclosed. Prayas is the materialistic pursuit while Sreyas is the pursuit for actualisation. Let me remind you that these concepts were written and handed down  centuries ago and when I say that I mean at least about 4000 years and before.   It is no surprise that  there is a coincidence with Maslov's theory of needs. where the first parts of the pyramid is all about basic and materialistic needs  (Prayas) and the last one is of self actualisation (Sreyas)

More, as I read further down , there is clear evidence that a significant amount of concepts and knowledge rests within our scriptures and more importantly these have been handed over so many generations to reach us and our future by  potent knowledge sharing tools. They have been scripted and documented, interpreted and documented, discoursed and listened to, discoursed further and taught verbally , listened to and interpreted, transferred through further through repeatedly sharing the knowledge. Today we are so much in awe of the way wikipedia has managed to bring user generated content and documentation sharing which essentially is a compilation by mulitple authors. Simply put knowledge shared in multiple modes.

The scriptures are not the handed over notes of one individual but several who never had the inclination to proclaim themselves as  authors  for whatever reason.  For the ones who came in late , our greatest epic , The Mahabharatha , though widely credited to Sage Vyasa as the author, is a compilation of  and addition to by several contributors and was scripted over several centuries after the great war took place. Archeological dating of the period of the Mahabharatha is around 950 BC .  For those who know King Dhirdarashtra and King Pandu, may also know that Vyasa  fathered  these two Kings. The official date of the compilation of the Mahabharatha is, 400 BC - 300 AD which adds great credence to the argument that Vyasa also has not written the epic alone  ( very unlikely he lived over 450-900 years )  but it is a compilation of contributions.

Thus it would be the oldest and may be the first "WIki".

It is highly improbable that such sharing as in the first case and compilations as in the second,would have happened without any networking, interconnected -ness and interactivity.

The above two are  instances of what our ancestry and heritage holds for us. It is rather unfortunate in one sense that the western civilisation brags about these as an invention and revolution while we have forgotten or mostly unaware of what pedigree we come from. On the other hand it is fortunate that the western world has woken someone like me and many others I presume ,to revisit a worthwhile past and may be  go back to our roots.

Passion to Articulation

 I have often felt that it is the passion of the entrepreneur which he is able to portray as  a vision and translate it into  mission/ goals and objectives. Whenever this passion is not articulated properly, there is a generic struggle in envisioning and the statements of vision lands into being a string of words of numbers and targets;

While, I have gotten into  a debate on this a few times, I  would like to take up an example of how it can possibly be done without much fuss.

Firstly I believe the core of the organisation's vision has to emanate out of the prime mover who mostly is the owner/chairman or the CEO. He is at the centre of matters and interpretation of his /her thoughts/ words and sentences are key to the clarity in communication and goal setting.  Thus his/her passion  must be   profound and as open as possible  and be subjected to so many positive interpretations. Secondly, it must be  understood by the key leaders of the organisation and enable them to  subsequently work towards achieving this goal through  the business cases/plans  for the organisation for that year.

Thus the first round of leaders need to know exactly what the interpretations of the vision for their respective businesses need to be.

In my example , I would like to consider a media/entertainment house which is where I have spent most of my time.

What could possibly be a passion for the entrepreneur who has come to be in the entertainment space.

Thus he could start with a mantra  of  "We entertain"

One could interpret this by answering :

Who to entertain?
Demographically it could be a global market or say India or Indians all over. What it has given you is your target market /audience.

How do we entertain? Domains get defined when you say through Motion Pictures/ Broadcast / Internet/ Mobile

Thus your entire spectrum is covered. Now , if you put in saying Movies, soaps, Music, Games.

 etc, You have the via media ready.

This has instantaneously decided your devices of consumption: Theatres, DVDs, TV, PC, Handhelds, Mobile and others.

Which has further told you the formats of production of the content and possibly the pricing too.

Now lets say we extend to quantifying this.. (  25% of the Indians will be entertained by year xxxx). This leads to identifying how and what modes? ( Immediately distribution and devices take priority).. territories, theatrical, home videos, TV, Internet,  console, Mobile etc.

All of them start looking at how they can contribute to 25 % of their respective target audiences.
Theatrical says I will get 25% of theatre audience to watch my movies, 25% of TV audience will watch my programs, 25% of the games will be mine, 25% of the music listened to will be from my stable etc.

Now, it becomes that much easy to know where the company is headed and all strategies from, forming your slate, preparing your catalogue, the distribution network expansion, resource planning and funding will fall in place.

Most importantly, every single worker of the organisation knows where he is headed and how his profile and deliverables are quantified and what his contribution means to the company.


Year on Year, the quantifiable mission of the company changes from  entertaining 25% to say 30% and so on. The rest of the questions are answered automatically. You automatically add new businesses in the space, new distribution methods in the space, newer audiences in the space but the vision and communication is never changed.

It is even an easy decision to include or drop an emerging opportunity, lets say news or sports if the vision is clear.

I see quite a number of the new age companies working with unbridled passion but not well articulated  mantra/vision. It takes a bit of the Boss's  time and resource and certainly lays  the foundation for any initiative of the company in future.