The Knowledge Journey at IHG with Ilene Strongin-Garry

Award-winning knowledge manager and researcher with proven expertise developing and delivering corporate knowledge services that spotlight global industry insights and trend observations, and open windows of innovation opportunities. Dedicated project team leader and collaborator who motivates diverse teams to achieve outstanding results.

Episode Transcript

(00:26):
This is Edwin k Morris,
and you are about to embark on thenext Pioneer Knowledge Services because
you need to know a digital resourcefor you to listen to folks share
their experience and knowledge aroundthe field of knowledge management and
nonprofit work.

(00:56):
If your company or organization wouldlike to help us continue this mission and
sponsor one of our shows, email,
B Y N t [e-mail].

(01:21):
Hi, I'm Eileen Strong, and Gary.
I live in Metro Atlanta andGeorgia. Some things about me,
my most fantastic job that I've ever hadwas working for Intercontinental Hotels
Group, I h g, the big hotel company.
Right now,
I am currently looking for my nextopportunity to impact and bring value

(01:43):
to an organization I've workedfor 20 years in the field of
knowledge management research,competitive intelligence and trends.
I absolutely can talk your headoff about classic films from the
1930s and forties, and I love to travel,
having been all around theworld, including Singapore,

(02:07):
Alaska, uk, China.
So absolutely love gettingout there and traveling.
In our discussions, we were talkinga little bit about motivation and,
and guidance of a youngperson and her motivation.
You brought up something you'd seen inErnst and Young Personal Purpose program.
Can you tell me some details about whatthat is and how it affected you? Sure.

(02:30):
It enabled us to think about what
the meaning of doingthings was for each of us,
and they started thatprogram when I began.
So I started in thatpersonal purpose journey.
As soon as I started workingfor, um, Ernst and Young,

(02:53):
we were able to think aboutimportant events in our lives
and what they meant to us.
And through that we developed apersonal purpose statement and
how it means how we go throughwhat we do on a day-to-day basis.
And it wasn't purposely for work.
It was your entire lifeand how you see things and

(03:18):
what gets you up in the morning,what drives you, what motivates you.
So what was the big mystery?I mean, at that point,
was there anything that was like, wow,I did not know that about myself. Oh.
I had inclinations of what motivated me,
and I think that mm-hmm.
doing some ofthe work where I was currently

(03:42):
working, it already setme down that journey.
I had an idea of where Iwas going with it. Okay.
And how long did that organizationcontinue that process?
Is that something that, let's just say,was it part of the onboarding process?
Was it for everybody coming in? Ordid they execute it across the whole,
everybody, Lotti, doti,everybody's gonna do this.

(04:04):
It was offered to people inthe Americas regions? Ah, yes.
Actually it was almost anonboarding event because
I went to a new manager program acouple of months after I started,
and that was one of the mainfeatures of the program.
So I was able to start that rightwhen I started working at ey.

(04:28):
It was great because the beginningof the program was actually
in person,
so there was that body language thatwent along with the discussions and
seeing people and seeing their reactionsto what you had written and what you
were thinking.
So is it fair to say this was justyour personal mission statement?
It can be determined to bethat it's what purpose, uh,

(04:52):
what your purpose in your life isand what you do to meet that purpose.
And if you're not living thatpurpose, how does that affect you?
Or if you are living thatpurpose, does it make you happier?
Do you get fulfillment from it?
I think there's a lot of opportunitiesin this type of program because you

(05:12):
bring about an awareness thatI don't think everybody has,
especially in a young work lifeor starting out as a career.
I'm gonna guess that most folks don'thit that self-reflection point of
self-awareness and what'simportant to them personally for
some time,
did you see that there was any pushbackfrom anyone in the organization about

(05:34):
doing this self-awareness piece?
Oh, not at all. It was highlyencouraged from oh, top level down.
They really put a lot of effort mm-hmm. into this program,
and it was, you know,quote unquote sold Hmm.
In different areas. Uh, you know,you'd see it in the newsletters. Hmm.

(05:54):
People would be talking about it.
Some people had it as theirsignature in their emails.
So it was definitely very much promoted,
encouraged that colleagues takeadvantage of this program. Yeah.
It was very visible then. I mean, therewas a lot of visibility everywhere.
Absolutely. And it was just,it was a great program.

(06:17):
I am so glad that I took part in itand I have something tangible now
out of that program.
Yeah, that's true.
You got something that you can keep andit probably still affects you today. It.
Does, because it has a lot of meaning.
And I think about it often when I'mthinking about new roles that I'm
looking at, does this fulfillmy personal purpose? Ah,

(06:40):
thinking about it as I do thingswith my family and talk to
my daughter about different mm-hmm.
events andthings that are going on. So.
It sets up a parameter foryou to operate from in a,
a perspective that makesyour judgements of,
like you're saying, events or things,

(07:00):
job opportunities to see where theyfit with your own personal bubble of
belief and what your missionor purpose is. Absolutely.
It does that. Yeah. Yeah.
And it's something to look at and tothink about as you go through these
processes in this journey.Mm-hmm. .
Well, you keep bringing up the journey.
So let's talk about the workculture journey. This is really a,

(07:22):
a foundational piece, what you just talkedabout, having this personal purpose.
Let's talk about a work culture.
How do you affect a workculture in order to get a,
let's just take this for an example,
to use something like the personalpurpose program to help define
individually what they canbring together collectively.

(07:43):
Sure. Would you like me to share thepersonal purpose that I have? Sure, sure.
Okay.
This is what my personal purposecame out at the end of the program
as living my personalpurpose in everything I do,
where every day I wake up toshare knowledge so that others can
experience the joy of learning andgrowing to positively impact humanity.

(08:07):
I like it.
Thank you. It has a lot of meaning.
You defined it from when your feethit the ground in the morning. I mean,
it's just like, you're not messingaround. This is the first thing I do.
It's what I have passion for. Mm-hmm.
. Yeah. Well put, thank you.
So how do you get thatpassion across a work culture.
In attitude, in programs,

(08:30):
in speaking one-on-one or inlarge groups to colleagues and
it's just exuding this joythat I have in what I'm doing
and bringing people into the foldbecause it makes them want to do that
as well.
In a work culture.
How do you define that now that we'reinto the full fledged hybrid gig economy

(08:53):
of small parts that a lot ofpeople play in different places
versus the not that long agoconcept where you had a full-time
workforce all in the samelocation or somewhat.
How does that affect a workculture now, do you think?
With the new paradigm of how things are?

(09:14):
I think you can still have a lot ofsuccess in that type of environment.
Remote work for me isn't anything new.
And when I was at I H G,because it was a global company,
I had impact across all of ourglobal and regional offices.
They all took part ineverything. So, for example,

(09:36):
in the onboarding program,
my team set up an onboardingprocess for new colleagues coming
into the company wherethey were. This program,
the knowledge management programwas part of that onboarding process.
So I would introduce during a new employee

(09:56):
orientation, I'd come andmake the introductions,
tell them a little bit about the program,
and then I would set up large grouppresentations that went further,
did a deep dive into the program.
This program was modeled forour other offices as well.
So in our UK office,
I had a direct report there whopresented the same program to new

(10:20):
colleagues there for our China office.
I actually got up in the middle ofthe night, went into our office,
we had telepresence rooms back thereand did new orientation for them
via this telepresenceroom for their time zone.
Let me look. So what program were you,
were you selling theknowledge management program?

(10:41):
The knowledge management function.Okay. The function that I had, uh,
that I managed and directed. Got it.
And that included our platform.
It included the resources mm-hmm., like, you know,
the Factiva of the world,the Lexi Nexus of the world,
and all of the different resources thatwe had, we would do training for them.

(11:03):
Hmm. So during new employee orientation,
they got a very brief overview tellingthem that we had this knowledge
management function here,
and that we had all these resourcesthat would help them do their day-to-day
jobs. So information,competitive intelligence. We had information on trends,
current events, news thatwas relevant to the business.

(11:27):
So as soon as they stepped in the door,
they knew that i h g,
that they put an effortinto making sure that yeah,
new colleagues knew that this existedfor colleagues that were already in
the business. We had differenttrainings that went on. Okay.
And people could sign up forthem. So it was a very, it was a,

(11:49):
it was a comprehensiveprogram that we had.
Who was your counterpartsin your organization?
I'm just curious as far asat your level of the km,
were you on the samelevel as it, uh, I mean,
were you at the C-suite as far ascommand and control of all this? How,
how were you nested? We.

(12:09):
Sat in the brand. Oh.
Interesting. Okay.
We sat in the brands unit. Okay.The business unit. And, uh,
within that, my team wasalso consumer insights.
So with regard to theknowledge management function,
I created the function for I H Gthat was, was mm-hmm. .

(12:30):
I didn't sit in the C-suite, butwe had interaction with them.
We had interaction with every level ofthe company, all the way up to the C E O.
That's a heavy position to be in.Anything to do with the brands. Right.
Because that's, that'swhere it all sits. I,
I would think How many brands were there?
Oh gosh. Um, I wish, no, I wish I,

(12:52):
I wish I had the tagline right nowbecause, uh, while I was there,
I was at I H G for 18 anda half years, and we, um,
acquired and created new brandswhile I was there. Got it.
Let's go back to this inner activity.
In addition to knowledgemanagement, was it basically a, a,

(13:13):
a customer facing business intelligenceunit? I mean, were you, or,
and maybe not customer facing,but customer data, right? Well.
Our customers were internal. Oh.
So we supported the brands sales team.
Okay. Okay.
Legal, it, uh, strategy.
Strategy was a huge user of our products.

(13:36):
So it sounds like you had lotsof people that liked what you had
to offer. They.
Did. And we made quitean impact in the company.
What would be your recommendation tosomeone in the knowledge management field
that does not quite havethat reciprocity, uh,
across their own organization? Uh,

(13:58):
sometimes KRS have to challengethe current status or the current
paradigm in order to break some ice.
What is the best approach do you feelfor a knowledge management function in an
organization that's just starting out?
To have a lot of contactwith peers in other
organizations?

(14:20):
I did have a lot of peers that Iwas able to talk to if I needed
any, any help,
because I was the one whostarted the function at I H G,
I didn't have anyone else to go to,to ask for advice. It was, you know,
do things, see if they work, and, um,
bring back really good success stories to

(14:43):
stakeholders and to the leadership.
Having a robust knowledgemanagement program
that has all of these different components
make such a big difference inthe success of the employees
who work there. For example,

(15:04):
a piece of our knowledge managementprogram we're our secondary resources.
And in one of the trainingsthat I did for one of these
resources,
somebody knew had just started andthey couldn't believe that we had that.
Another person came in, looked atthe training that we were giving,

(15:25):
and literally turned to me and said, youknow, you just saved me hours of work.
I just looked for this content a week ago,
and it took me hours to find whatyou just showed me in five minutes.
So that's how you enablethe workforce and really,
was that your primarymission as the km Elaborate.
On the question a little bit.

(15:46):
Sure.
What we've been talking about is allthose things that help the workforce do
their work with less hindrance and lesscost and less time and all that sort of
thing.
But my curiosity is around yourorganization as a KM function for I H
G was its mission to serve and reduce

(16:07):
cost of the organization overallthrough the workforce or what,
I'm just curious what your focus was,and I know you had two main branches,
one kind of a business intelligencekind of piece, and then KM in general.
So it was.
To save money, it was toprovide intelligence. Um,
it was to lead to more efficiencies.

(16:28):
It was to make people smarter. In a way,
I can give a great example ofthis. The platform that we had,
we were able to implementexternal feed of our
resources directly into the platform.So if you took, for example,
the sales team, sales teams haveaccounts, and so we were able,

(16:52):
based on different colleagues' accounts,
create feeds of informationflowing into the platform so that
the user for a specific accountcould go into the platform,
click on their account,
and get a running list of all thecontent related to that specific account
so that when that person went out tosell hotels to different companies,

(17:15):
the company that they were speakingto would often tell our colleague,
our I H G employee,
that they knew more about what was goingon in their organization than they did.
. That's awesome.
That was great feedback for.
Us.
Knowing that we were being successful.
And so it had many different facets to it.

(17:39):
It served different purposes.
You just relabeled a, a concept, youtransferred the idea of a smart city,
you know, 'cause we use that anymore inthe last 20 years. You got smart cities,
smart transportation, smart whatever.
And now we've just created SmartWorkforce because you're enabling,
gosh, just a,

(17:59):
a more customized user interfacethat actually adds value
instead of confusion. Yes. Uh, smartworkforce, you're all over it. I get.
It. Absolutely. And it did do that. It,
I like to think that what we didand what we created took away
angst because people who don't know wherethings are and don't know things have

(18:23):
angst. They don't knowwhat they don't know.
And our content wascredible. It was vetted,
it was unbiased because it came frommm-hmm. , different sources.
Well, I wanna move on now. We've, we'vehammered how to make a smart workforce.
So how do you revolutionize yourdigitization, your digital tech,

(18:45):
your, all your tech?
Well, that's a great questionbecause , I saw,
I saw our knowledgemanagement program start
off in an access database,
and that was uploading marketresearch reports into this

(19:05):
database. And withinmonths to maybe a year,
it was just obsolete already.And from that point, um,
I was set out on a search for the nextgreat technology because of limited
resources. We went witha product called dspace,

(19:26):
which was a free digital archive system
created by the universities.
And we implemented it into ourcorporation and we were able to upload
multiple files. In one record.
We actually scanned our papermarket research reports into digital
files. Mm-hmm. anduploaded that into the platform. Mm-hmm.

(19:50):
. Andeventually we outgrew Dspace.
And because of the success of theprogram, we did grow a budget.
So we went out looking for the nextplatform. Mm-hmm. ,
I discovered a productcalled, um, Northern Light's,
single Point Northern Lighthas been around for decades and
started out as a searchcompany. And so, um,

(20:13):
we adopted this new product,single point. We branded it,
we migrated all thecontent from Dspace into
branded single point product.
That is the technology thatwe started to use at I H G.
And this was also the product thathad the APIs that enabled you to

(20:36):
feed your external resources mm-hmm. directly into the platform.
Uh, Northern Lights product also grewwith technological advances as well.
Mm-hmm. , when I left I h g,
we were getting into the machinelearning piece of the product.
This was just a great resourcefor the company. Well.

(20:56):
Let's talk about the strategical decisionsthat were made in order to, uh, uh,
pick and choose what the technologywas gonna be. How does that happen?
And who's in charge ofthat in an organization?
Uh, it depends on whereyour function sits. Mm.
In my case,
it was a group of people whohad some demos done by some

(21:20):
other companies. At the time,
SharePoint was beginningto be the dominant, um,
archival system. And at the time,
I h g was not a Microsoft shop.
And so we didn't have Microsoftas part of the organizational
technology. Um,

(21:40):
I guess we had to go in anotherdirection. Mm-hmm. ,
the Northern Light product just blewus out of the, out of the water. Mm.
We were just so impressed withit. It was a smaller company.
So we had direct access to theirsenior leadership in building out
the product, you know, directworking with a couple of people.

(22:03):
Yeah. The tech team on their side.
We didn't have a lot of technologyneeds from our own internal
team because of how the product sat inNorthern Light, what the platform is,
where it sat. Okay.
We didn't have to bring a lotof technology in from our piece.
I, I'm,
I'm trying to peel the onion here on thestrategic piece because I think there

(22:27):
seems to be a lack of,
I'll say business intelligence in someorganizations about picking the next
slice of technology that theyshould jump into. And so I,
I'm curious about the due diligence, uh,
what your recommendation is for anorganization to really, you know, you,
you talk some about how theMicrosoft platform didn't really fit.

(22:48):
'cause you weren't a, a SharePoint ora Microsoft customer to begin with,
so that made thatdecision a little easier.
But how do you keep upwith technology changes?
Personally, I read a lot.I research what's going on.
Again, I'm part of a coupleof organizations, special libraries association.
I get feeds from KM World.

(23:10):
And so I'm constantly lookingout to see what's new and
what's out there.
And I revisit companies I'velooked at prior to see what
advances have been made, um,to see what the big, you know,
what the next big thing is. Okay.Because when you talk about technology,
what I have found, especiallyin knowledge management,

(23:33):
is that there are so many peopletrying to give you input about
technology. Mm-hmm. .
And sometimes the technologist thinksthat they have the best idea. Mm-hmm.
, meanwhile,we and the expert,
the expertise within theknowledge management function,
we see things a littlebit differently. Yeah.
Because we work within thoseplatforms and we know what works,

(23:56):
what doesn't work, what our, uh,customers are looking for. Hmm.
And a lot of times, you know,IT or senior leaders think,
oh look a new shiny object.
And they want to take it and runwith it before they know if it works.
And it's really important to havethat foundation and knowledge

(24:17):
management to know what's out there andwhat is working and what's not working.
You bring up a kind of a consumerreports mentality in order to do all your
research. But I don't thinkthere is a consumer reports,
so to speak for this type ofindustry. I don't think, uh, is there,
is there a consumer reports? I mean,you're talking to trade magazines or,

(24:38):
or trade resources?
Yeah. A lot of it has to do withwhat's been reviewed and you know,
what the pros and consmm-hmm. of a certain product is. Sure.
But there's a lot of talking to peoplethat are already working within the
platforms and just Right. My peers.Right. That are working right in it.
We've talked about shopping for new,

(25:00):
how do you compare to oldto kind of tamp down those
cheerleaders of, Hey, there's somethingshiny over here. We need this to say,
do we really need this?
How do you evaluate what you'vegot and what you're not getting to,
what you could get with all the painpoints of transition to something new?
Oh, again, that has to do withknowing who your customers are,

(25:25):
what they're looking for,what their needs are.
Because a lot of times whatyou already have can be
expanded. The, thecapability is already there.
You just might not alreadyown that. And to talk to that.
And I think that was oneof the high points of going with Northern Light because

(25:46):
we had direct feeds into theC E O and their leadership.
We were able to talk about whatour needs are and you know,
they were able to go out andtry to fulfill those needs.
How much interface does that requirewith all your customers? I mean,
that sounds like a heavylift to continually pull in and maybe what not what's

(26:07):
needed, but what's wanted, and I,
I wanted to define that because what'sneeded is sometimes not what's wanted and
vice versa.
So how do you decipher about wantsand needs in the development cycle
of what you have andto what You don't have.
To go back to how we startedout at I H G when we were

(26:27):
transitioning from DSpace to Northern Light.
The in-between step for uswas to hire a professional
knowledge audit company.
And we had consultantscome in and talk to,
it was probably over ahundred stakeholders.
And we did a comprehensivelook at content that

(26:51):
we had, the culture that was within I H G,
technological thoughts, needs, whatwas working, what wasn't working.
And we got a comprehensivereport back and that
enabled us to go forward with a new
strategy and build out this function.

(27:13):
We knew what people were looking forand what their needs were. You know,
everybody wants everything and this and this new product
tried to meet as many needsas possible. And you know,
having the background already,just having the education piece,
I knew what to look for, what questionsto ask. Mm-hmm. , um,

(27:35):
the flexibility and capacity of whatthis new product was going to be.
And I think that we wereleaders in what we were doing
because we were probably one ofthe first companies I know in
the hospitality industry. Wemight have been standalone,
but we were able to takeour internal content,

(27:57):
external content and contentthat came with the product and
integrated all and becamea one stop shop. Mm-hmm.
for the company.
And so that alone was movingus eons ahead of where we had
been.
It sounds like the focalpoint of all your success

(28:17):
was in that first deep dive inunderstanding of the culture, the needs,
the technology that isand what's not. You know,
you really just set out a baseline,
total analysis of where you're at inorder to predict where you needed to go.
And I think a lot of organizations don't,
don't really takeadvantage of that effort.

(28:37):
No, and you know, again, thinkingback to when I started all of this,
you know, I've mentioned thatI'm a consummate introvert. Mm-hmm. ,
but I think having this personal purpose,
even though it wasn'twritten down back then,
I knew what the companyneeded, just instinct.
Because I had alreadybeen doing this, you know,

(29:00):
a fractured way that Iliterally took my idea of
creating this function and broughtit to the leadership. I mean,
I literally had a meeting with theperson in charge of strategy and said,
look, this is what I think weneed. This is how we can do it.
And instantly he just gave hisapproval. and I, I got, I mean.

(29:21):
Well you know, those introverts,they always get their way.
They always get their way. Well we're.
The ones who, I mean, we're theones who really stop and think,
I mean we put our ideas in our head,you know, to put it down in paper.
So.
What are you saying, extroverts justfly off the seat of their pants?
Is that what you're saying? Is that.
No, no, I'm not saying that either. Okay.
Okay. Okay. , I say thatbecause I am one, but, alright.

(29:46):
Well so let's go to your personaldefinition of what you think knowledge
management is.
Knowledge management to me, I've recently,
when when you go out interviewingfor what you positions,
that's one of the keyquestions. And for me,
knowledge management is the capture and

(30:07):
processing of
knowledge that the companypossesses or is in hand of.
And sharing that out in a methodical way.
It's more than the technology.
I like the focus on theculture piece because I love
having that impact on the peopleI work with and knowing that I've

(30:30):
helped them achieve their goalsand answer their questions.
So.
You're a person of the people?
I think so. I wanna impacttheir learning journey.
I wanna make sure that they have theright information when they need it.
'cause they need to beable to do their jobs also.
Well you're bringingin the learning aspect.

(30:52):
I think a lot of knowledge managementmisses that mark is that they don't think
of the culture or theirclient, uh, the user,
the receiver of theinformation or knowledge data.
They don't think of 'em as learners.
And I think that's the key ingredient toa good km and ecosystem is to have that
learning be the, the mainthrust of why you're all here.

(31:15):
You know, to be able to learn andbecome better or or more proficient,
but to learn and evolve.
Absolutely. And one of thethings that we did each year,
my team created a report called the Stateof Knowledge Management at I h g Oh.
And we would share all themetric, the important metrics.
We would share success stories.
We would interview our stakeholdersand ask them for input into,

(31:39):
you know, what this programmeant to them. We would do a,
a big infographic and then we'd blowit up and hang it outside of our
cubicle so that anybody walking bywould see the impact that we were having
on the company.
Well that's pretty good evidence tohave hanging around for your r o i.
One of the pieces of r o I that westudied was some of our external content.

(32:03):
We would go in and do a dollarfor dollar value basis on what,
uh, the price of the report is,how many times it was downloaded,
how it was used,
and brought back the r o i and what wewere paying for the subscription and how
the subscription was being used.
And sometimes we would find thatthere was a thousand percent return on

(32:24):
investment based on the priceof the report and how many
downloads it had.
Hmm. Well that brings up a,
a great point to end on isthat an organization has to always be thinking about
here, let's let's go back to thesmart workforce, is to create a,
a smart learning environment inorder to enable knowledge sharing and

(32:46):
development across the enterprise.And it's really that simple.
And if we could get everybody onboard with that, that'd be super.
It would be ,
it would be because that learningaspect is so important to have it
ingrained into the corporated n a that it's important that
it's not an afterthought becauseknowledge management makes smart employees

(33:08):
make smart organizations.
A robust knowledge management programgives a company a competitive edge.
It's that simple.
It is that simple. And I'm glad we'reseeing eye to eye on that one. Thank you.
You're.
Welcome, .
Well, thanks for being here today,Eileen. It was, uh, quite enjoyable.
Let's do it again.
Thank you. Absolutely. I'd love to.

(33:36):
You have just finished our latest becauseyou need to know a public service of
Pioneer Knowledge Services.
Please join us on LinkedInand find [e-mail].

(34:03):
If your company or organization wouldlike to help us continue this mission and
sponsor one of our shows, email B yt
[e-mail].