Unlock Your Business Brain: How Procedural Memory Fuels Organizational Growth
"Is your company stuck in its ways? Discover how tapping into your 'procedural memory' and balancing different perspectives can drive innovation and learning."
In today's rapidly changing business landscape, companies need to be more adaptable than ever. The Spanish banking sector, for example, operates in a particularly turbulent environment, requiring businesses to constantly detect and interpret ambiguous signals to make the right moves. This means understanding not only what your current customers need but also anticipating the needs of potential future customers.
Think of it like this: a company has a "focal vision," which allows it to focus on the needs of its most valuable, current customers. This vision helps managers set goals and deliver solutions. However, just like our eyes, this "focal vision" can be narrow, potentially missing critical information from the periphery.
That's where "knowledge corridors" come in. These are the structures, routines, and values that allow managers to consider new opportunities – whether that means rejecting old ideas or adopting new ones. By understanding and utilizing these corridors, businesses can change the way they perceive information and create new knowledge about both potential and valuable customers.
What is Procedural Memory, and Why Does It Matter?
In the context of business, 'procedural memory' refers to the knowledge an organization has learned from past experiences. It's the collective 'know-how' that allows workers to access information and skills. This memory is composed of action rules that drive the performance of familiar tasks and routines. Think of it as the organization's muscle memory.
- Continuous learning: Integrate learning into the daily workflow.
- Team Learning: Utilize teams to encourage diverse thinking and collaboration.
- Embedded systems: Implement systems to share knowledge effectively.
- Inquiry and Dialogue: Foster a culture of questioning and feedback.
The Path Forward: Balancing Perspectives for a Learning Organization
The key takeaway? Understanding your company's procedural memory is critical, but it's not enough. You need to foster a balanced perspective – a vision that combines both a focus on current customers and an awareness of emerging trends and potential future customers. This 'ambidextrous vision' will stimulate knowledge sharing, encourage the use of different types of knowledge, and ultimately drive organizational learning and adaptation. It can also encourage the internal stakeholders to focus on customers' concerns, needs, perceptions and understandings to facilitate the search for unique value creation opportunities and relate them to the organization's learning needs (e.g. strategic direction).