Knowledge Management in Practice: From Mischievous Cats to the Miracle Room! (Part I)

Introduction

This article is the first in a series of real-world stories and case examples from different Iranian industries that shed light on how knowledge management (KM) challenges and solutions emerge in practice. Each story illustrates the importance of capturing, sharing, and leveraging organizational knowledge—and what can go wrong when these processes are neglected. Instead of abstract theories, these are lived experiences that show how even small gaps in KM can have massive operational and financial consequences.

The Mischievous Cat in a Gas Refinery

During a training program at a major gas refinery in Iran, an interesting story was shared. Years ago, when the refinery—with its eight production units—supplied about 25% of the country’s natural gas, one of its units suddenly went offline. After investigation, the cause was discovered: a cat had entered the unit, triggered electrical induction, and caused the relays to shut down the entire unit. The incident was serious enough that the Deputy Minister of Petroleum personally visited the site.

At first glance, this might sound like an unlucky accident—an event no one could anticipate. But accidents are only tolerable when they happen once. What turns a random accident into a systemic weakness is the absence of mechanisms to record and share the lesson. When I asked whether this incident had been documented or stored in a knowledge base so that others could learn from it, the answer was a unanimous no. Only a few individuals in the refinery knew the details.

From a KM perspective, this is a textbook case of two missing processes: knowledge capture and knowledge sharing. If, in the future, another unexpected external factor disrupted operations, the organization would once again find itself unprepared. A proper lesson-learned process could have transformed this embarrassing incident into a valuable asset: a preventive checklist, an engineering standard for physical protection, or at least a short case story shared with other plants.

The cost of one production unit shutting down, even for a short period, can reach millions of dollars in lost output and penalties. Compared to that, the cost of building a simple lesson-learned database is negligible. This case illustrates how neglecting knowledge capture turns an unusual accident into a repeatable risk.

The Long Queue at Customer Service

In a telecommunications company where we were implementing KM, one manager shared another telling example. He once walked into the customer service department and was surprised to see a long queue of staff outside the manager’s office. At first, he joked, “Is this a line for free food?” But the reality was more concerning: the staff were waiting to ask the manager questions about their work challenges.

Why did this happen? Because there was no accessible knowledge base or repository of past solutions. Every new question, even if it had been answered before, had to be solved from scratch by asking the manager. In practice, the department had turned into a “knowledge monopoly” where the manager’s head was the only functioning database.

This situation creates multiple problems. First, it wastes enormous amounts of time, as staff wait in line rather than solving problems directly. Second, it increases dependency on one individual—if the manager is absent, the queue simply stalls. Third, it creates frustration among employees who feel disempowered because they cannot resolve issues independently.

From a KM cycle perspective, two stages were missing: knowledge identification (systematically collecting frequently asked questions, known issues, and best practices) and knowledge storage (creating a searchable knowledge base or decision-support tool). A properly designed KM system could have transformed those endless queues into a self-service model, freeing managers to focus on strategic issues and empowering staff to solve problems faster.

It’s worth noting that in customer service industries, every minute matters. A delay in resolving one customer’s issue can ripple outward, creating dissatisfaction and damaging the company’s reputation. In this sense, the absence of KM is not only an internal inefficiency but also a direct threat to customer satisfaction and brand value.

When One Person Holds the Key

Recently, during a KM maturity assessment in a mining company, a manager described an issue from the COVID-19 period. To reduce infection risks, some staff worked remotely while others rotated in shifts. After the directive was issued, one supervisor warned that if a particular technician was placed on a shift schedule rather than being present full-time, the production targets for that unit could not be achieved.

This story illustrates one of the most dangerous risks organizations face: overdependence on individual knowledge holders. When critical know-how is concentrated in the mind of a single employee, that employee becomes a single point of failure. If they leave the company, retire, fall ill, or are absent for any reason, operations grind to a halt.

From a KM perspective, this is not only about knowledge capture but also about knowledge continuity. Practices such as succession planning, mentoring, and structured knowledge transfer (e.g., apprenticeship models or job shadowing) are essential. A mature KM system would ensure that the technician’s expertise was documented, taught, and distributed across a team, so that production would not hinge on a single person.

The COVID-19 crisis magnified these vulnerabilities because it forced organizations to adapt quickly to remote and flexible work. Companies that already had strong KM practices—digital repositories, cross-training programs, communities of practice—managed the transition with far less disruption. Those without them discovered just how fragile their systems really were.

Friendship Without Knowledge Sharing

At a large petrochemical company, I conducted a KM training workshop for managers. During the session, one manager described how he had been using a specific tool to solve a maintenance problem for the past three years. Another manager, visibly surprised, exclaimed: “Three years?! I’ve been struggling with that exact problem for over a year and suffering major productivity losses. Why didn’t you tell me?”

The first manager replied simply: “I didn’t know you had that issue, and you never asked.” What made this more striking was that the two were close friends who had joined the company at the same time and even commuted together daily. Despite their personal bond, knowledge was not being systematically shared.

This case is a clear reminder that informal relationships are not a substitute for structured KM processes. People may be friends, colleagues, or even relatives, but unless the organization builds systems for knowledge visibility—such as knowledge maps or expert directories—critical knowledge will remain hidden.

The absence of a knowledge map meant that no one knew which person possessed which expertise. As a result, valuable knowledge sat unused while other parts of the organization suffered losses. Here, both the identification and sharing phases of the KM cycle were missing.

This example also points to a cultural challenge. In many organizations, people assume that if someone needs help, they will ask for it. But effective KM cultures reverse this logic: employees are encouraged to proactively share knowledge, even if they are not sure who might benefit. In that sense, KM is as much about mindset as it is about technology.

The Miracle Room at South Pars

A retired engineer from the oil sector recently shared a story from the late 1990s during a project at South Pars, carried out in collaboration with major international companies. He recalled that whenever the foreign engineers encountered a problem, they would step into a certain room and re-emerge minutes later with a solution. Iranian engineers jokingly called it “the miracle room.”

Eventually, through friendly relations, he gained access to the room. Inside, he discovered not a secret device but a massive volume—a meticulously compiled repository of lessons learned and best practices from 25 years of global projects. It was a treasure of organizational knowledge that enabled rapid problem-solving and continuous improvement.

This story illustrates the power of organizational memory. The foreign engineers were not smarter or luckier; they were simply standing on the shoulders of decades of accumulated knowledge. Each new project built upon the documented lessons of the past, creating a compounding effect of learning.

For the Iranian engineers, the lesson was clear: without a similar system, every problem feels new, every mistake is repeated, and every solution takes longer to find. The so-called miracle was nothing more than disciplined KM in action.

In today’s competitive industries, companies that build such repositories create a strategic advantage. They solve problems faster, avoid repeating mistakes, and can train newcomers more effectively. The “miracle room” was not a luxury—it was the foundation of sustained excellence.

Conclusion

These stories—from mischievous cats shutting down a refinery to engineers unlocking the secrets of a “miracle room”—all point to one truth: knowledge management is not optional. It is the difference between repeating mistakes and building resilience, between dependency on individuals and organizational continuity, between wasted effort and continuous improvement.In the next parts of this series, more cases will be shared to illustrate both failures and successes of knowledge management in action. The hope is that these stories will inspire organizations to look closely at their own KM practices and ask: What lessons are we losing, and what miracles could we create if we truly managed our knowledge?

Read: Stone and Story: Documentation as a Window to Ancient Times

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