1. Knowledge sharing a new frontier of learning
Mariachiara Novati
Presidente
MACSE Italia
www.macseitalia.it

2. How to share knowledge?
Being a Manager Assistant is a very demanding job and every day we have to face
and solve different tasks.
In many countries there are schools we can
attend to prepare ourselves to enter this
profession and later we can follow courses and
seminars. Some universities and business
schools give us the possibility to get masters,
too, but in my opinion the practice is the best
way to learn.
The correct and more useful technique is learning from colleagues who have a
deep experience in particular subjects and this is Knowledge Sharing.

3. Interaction & Exchange of information
Theoretically speaking, Knowledge Sharing is an activity through which knowledge (i.e.
information, skills, or expertise) is exchanged among professionals, in this specific case Manager
Assistants, and a system to increase the competitive power of organizations, to improve the
efficiency through sharing, enhancing and increasing the Intellectual Capital, people, and the
Intangible Asset.
In addition, Knowledge Sharing means interaction
and exchange of information, experience and
best practice to reach common objectives and
obtain better results. Since the ’80 organizations
have recognized that knowledge constitutes a valuable
intangible asset for creating and sustaining competitive advantages.
As people/employees are the Intellectual Capital, Intangible Asset represents the maximum value
and the best support to development and innovation.

4. The intangible asset
The Intangible Asset is made of:
Business relationship
Human knowledge
Work methodology
Social relationship
Specific Identity linked to the role
To enhance the Intangible Asset through Intellectual Capital means:
Create innovation
Attract and develop talents
Transform information in knowledge

5. The importance of network
For this reason Knowledge Sharing is at the basis of Intangible Assets maximization, and to reach
this maximization are necessary a correct strategy and a straight methodology supported by
adequate equipment.
The path to follow is to obtain the best results through:
Creating value making the individual knowledge available to all the members of the organization
Using this new knowledge effectively
Connecting the new knowledge to operations and processes
Linking the new knowledge to business strategy
The sharing of knowledge constitutes a big challenge
for networks and organizations because some people
tend to resist sharing their knowledge with the rest
of the organization, in fact one big obstacle
is the common notion that knowledge is property and ownership, but shared knowledge offers
different viewpoints and possible solutions to problems.

6. Encourage discovery & innovation
To promote knowledge sharing and remove knowledge sharing obstacles, the
organizations/networks should encourage discovery and innovation.
At the end of this process the result will be the creation of a common organizational culture.
Until now organizations were our main reference, but the question is if it is possible to apply
Knowledge Sharing to networks of people (i.e. associations of professionals) who have the
same role in different organizations or companies.
I think this is possible and I am going to show you how.
The point is how to manage “knowledge” in continuous and fast
evolution and in particular how to transfer it to people working in
different environments and business fields.
The answer is: through training and the correct use of technology.

7. The process of Knowledge Sharing
The first thing is individuating people who
have to share the knowledge and people
who need to know.
This process can be developed using two different approaches, the first one is
giving information knowing in advance the need of the final “client”, the
second one is offering specialized and targeted training simple enough to
become immediately best practice.
The first option is not useful for our network of Manager Assistants, because
we do not know in details what they are expected to do, we cover so many
different roles in companies, but the results of the second one are what I call
“knowledge workers” able to manage the know-how learnt through training,
applying it in office day life.

8. The approach to Knowledge Sharing
I want to underline an additional plus to this approach, in fact there are wider and
important effects on the organizations, too, because the trained “knowledge
workers” will apply this new philosophy to all the working backgrounds becoming an
example for the colleagues and giving a positive push to the corporate culture.
Put in action, the training project should be organized in three different modules:
theoretical (passing the basic information)
practical (case history and exercises)
technological (instructing to use the tools)

9. The 4 phases
The development of this project could be divided in four phases:
1. Diagnostic analysis: to analyze the state of the art, to investigate the needs of the
project and to delineate a macro-analysis of the requests.
2. Pilot phase: to create a project team working on the
criticalities trying to solve them.
3. Implementation phase: considering the results of the
Pilot phase, the team identifies the most important
areas to be improved.
4. Final release: divided in “definitive launch” and “follow-up”
Looking at this path of development it is mandatory and essential to create among
the participants a "Knowledge Sharing Culture" as part of this initiative.
An isolated knowledge program, like the one I am proposing, looked after by a
privileged few is worthless and will not survive for long.
Only effective collaboration and communication among professionals which
disseminates across the whole network structure will give the necessary boost.

10. The individual approach
In fact the change must start at the individual.
Every Manager Assistant has a sphere of influence along
with their own individual knowledge, and this is where she
must believe a knowledge sharing culture can begin.
To create a knowledge sharing culture it is necessary to encourage Manager
Assistants to work together more effectively, to collaborate and to share - ultimately
to make their knowledge more productive.
Even though Manager Assistants work in different companies it is possible to
organize seminars, round tables, focus groups, because if the old paradigm was
“knowledge is power”, today the situation is evolving and “sharing knowledge is
power” such as knowledge sharing is in their personal interest .

11. What we can obtain
If we all understand that sharing our knowledge helps to do our jobs more
effectively, helps to retain our jobs, helps in our personal development and career
progression, rewards us for getting things done and brings more personal
recognition, then knowledge sharing will become a reality.