We need to think about how knowledge is captured, stored, shared, applied. Our evaluation of learning in lending found that some departments have really comprehensive knowledge systems, but these systems are fragmented.

Darlene Christopher:

Global challenges are converging at unprecedented speed and scale. To drive real impact, organizations must not only act, they must systematically learn from what works, what doesn't, and why. Now for institutions like the World Bank Group, learning is not optional, it's mission-critical. Smarter projects and timely course corrections depend on capturing lessons and deploying them when they matter most. But here's the challenge. How do you actually do this? How [00:00:30] do institutions build learning into everything they do from start to finish so that improvement becomes the norm, not the exception?

Welcome to What Have We Learned? The evaluation podcast. I'm your host Darlene Christopher, senior knowledge and learning officer at the World Bank Group's Independent Evaluation Group or IEG. And in this episode, we'll dive into insights from IEG's recent evaluation Learning in World Bank Lending, which assesses how the World Bank learns from its operations and how the content created is used.

Joining me here are three experts at the center of this topic. Rasmus Heltberg, a lead evaluation specialist at IEG and the Team Lead for this evaluation. Andrea Kucey, Manager of Knowledge and Learning at the World Bank, and Kristen Fenster, Head of Corporate Knowledge and Learning at the International Finance Corporation or IFC, which is the private sector arm of the World Bank Group.

Welcome, Rasmus, Andrea, and Kristen to What Have We Learned?

So let's get started. I have two lightning rounds for you today. I have some fast questions, looking for some straight answers from you, and we're focused on one thing. How does the World Bank Group become a better knowledge bank?

So, Rasmus, let me begin with you. You led the evaluation looking at how the World Bank learns. What did you find?

Rasmus Heltberg:

Thank you, Darlene, for this question. Well, we found that the bank has so many strengths when it comes to knowledge and learning. Its value as a development partner really rests in so many ways on its knowledge and data. And it has this super rich knowledge about the sectors in the countries where it works, and a strong both formal systems and approaches, but also a strong tacit learning culture.

That said, the bank also has some major blind spots or imbalances when it comes to learning. The first blind spot is this overemphasis on the project design phase, where the policies and procedures that drive everybody's attention, teams, and managers, and clients' attention to project design. But then during implementation, the attention to knowledge and learning drops off, and this can lead to missed opportunities for course correction along the way. And by the way, we actually find that along the way, some of the most valuable learning moments are also the least formalized, these informal exchanges.

The second blind spot or imbalance is that we focus on the technical knowledge over other things. We approach technical sector knowledge through rigorous research and reports, often very, very good reports. But we could more systematic in terms of how we capture and use country knowledge. Country-based staff hold this incredible knowledge about clients' capacities, incentives, political economy, and the evaluation finds that we tend to leave this knowledge just for random or informal exchanges. So projects with strong technical designs very often run into implementation challenges that a little deeper contextual understanding could actually help prevent or fix much better.

And the third blind spot is weak formal lesson learning. We still have a comprehensive self-evaluation system, but we tend to not milk the system for all the valuable knowledge that it has, that it generates. So to sum up, the bank excels in knowledge, it learns from lending, but the incentive structure creates these big blind spots or imbalances.

Darlene Christopher:

Yeah. It sounds like there's still some opportunities to improve. Let me turn to you, Andrea. So we've just heard that evidence view. You're a manager at the bank. What findings resonated with your experience?

Andrea Kucey:

Well, I want to say thank you to Rasmus and the team first and foremost because this review for us was incredibly timely. So I started in this unit, which was created just over a year ago, to really try to bring up our game as a knowledge bank and start to really better harness and mobilize knowledge. So I think a lot of the findings and diagnostics in the report were, they resonated with what we were trying to do. I think some of the problems around fragmented knowledge, about [00:05:00] how to capture tacit knowledge, how the most exciting or the most effective way that we're learning is through this informal opportunities to exchange and have really frank conversations about what works and when the technical design hits the road, what are the lessons that we're learning that we can then bring to improve what comes next.

So I think for me, I was incredibly grateful for the report. And I think that some of the ways that we are taking it forward are to really think about how you can better bring together some of the fragmented pieces across the institution through standards. The report recommends more systematic approaches, standards, strong leadership, so I think that we're very much headed in that direction with the new knowledge and learning unit, and now a new managing director and CKO.

And I think on the tacit knowledge side, I think we need to do much more there. So we're starting to think a little bit about what we can do. And as part of the new knowledge bank, bring in some of the regional insights, some of those things that happen while you're on the ground working with clients, and really be able to capture that knowledge and use it to help teams moving forward.

Darlene Christopher:

Yeah, it's interesting that you bring up the informal aspect of learning at the bank. That was a great finding in the report that really resonated with me too because it's part of our culture, and now you're made it explicit. And now we can think of how to really harness that informal tacit knowledge and bring it into our learning systems better.

Let me turn to you, Kristen, then, to bring in the IFC perspective. Now IFC focuses on private sector development and it operates slightly differently from the bank. What in these findings rang true for IFC and how IFC approaches learning?

Kristen Fenster:

Thank you, and thank you for the opportunity to be here. I'm going to build on the point you raised about tacit knowledge. The study found that projects rely far more on tacit knowledge from previous or ongoing projects than on documented formal lessons, and this is something that many companies struggle with. We know that that tacit knowledge, that understanding of how things really get done, that is up to 90% of what we [00:07:30] all know. In IFC, we have highly decentralized operations, about 40% of our employees are in Washington and 60% are spread across country offices, which makes it very hard to pick up that tacit knowledge that you might be able to do when you're based in one place.

One of the other barriers to sharing formal knowledge internally is client confidentiality. So one thing that's different about IFC is we work with private sector companies. We have access to very sensitive [00:08:00] operational and financial information and we need to keep that confidential. That allows us to build that trust with clients, and it's an ethical and legal obligation for us so we have specific policies and safeguards in place to protect that information. Sometimes we become too protective and we're hesitant to share information that might be valuable for other teams, so that's something that we need to approach differently.

One of the critical connection points we have in IFC for tacit knowledge are our global experts, including our industry specialist. They're bringing deep expertise from the various sectors in which we work, and they work on projects globally so they can bring that knowledge and lessons into the design, and implementation, and monitoring of our investments. And this is a critical value add to our clients. They're coming to IFC not just for financing, but for our global knowledge. And now with the help of the World Bank Group knowledge and learning team, we're working on how we can capture that tacit knowledge in a systematic way. And we have a great opportunity now to compliment IFC's private sector knowledge with the public sector knowledge that the World Bank brings and bring those solutions to our clients.

Darlene Christopher:

So you're getting to where I wanted to go next when you're talking about these global experts and trying to bring World Bank and IFC knowledge closer together.

Let me go back to you, Rasmus. The World Bank Group announced a major reorganization recently with the stated goal of supercharging innovation, knowledge, and learning to truly become a knowledge bank. Now, this isn't the first time the World Bank has reorganized. It's part of this continuous effort of learning and improvement. What will it take to get this right?

Rasmus Heltberg:

Exactly.

Andrea Kucey:

We're all ears, Rasmus.

Rasmus Heltberg:

Structure. Structure is not enough, history shows that. We've tried these things before, like the reorganization in 2013, 2014 for example. It ran into challenges because it focused so much on org charts and reporting lines and getting that right, but it overlooked the importance of culture, of incentives, of change management. Previous reforms sometimes created new silos rather than breaking them down. Efforts to improve collaboration between the bank and IFC are not new at all, we've been at this before. We've had quite a few integrated IFC-World Bank joint units or departments before. For example, on finance competitiveness, oil, gas and mining, private sector development. These units were since disbanded. So what's different this time?

A new structure alone will not fix the underlying issues. We need to think about how knowledge is captured, stored, shared, applied. Our evaluation of learning in lending found that some departments have really comprehensive knowledge systems, but these systems are fragmented. Managers receive very little or no guidance on how to foster excellence in knowledge sharing use, collaboration. Too many reports sit underutilized and we under-invest in communities of practice.

So professionalizing knowledge management, as you spoke about, Andrea, is key. Setting standards for how knowledge is captured, stored and shared. Investing in communities of practice and technical help desks. Managers can also do more I think to create safe spaces for informal learning and we open up our mistakes so lessons can truly be learned. I don't think we've emphasized enough knowledge brokering and making tacit knowledge sharing more systematic.

Darlene Christopher:

What do you mean by knowledge brokering? Could you expand on that a little bit?

Rasmus Heltberg:

So we often find that people don't necessarily just search for or access a report. They will go through a colleague who will point them to the right knowledge or who will explain how to apply a certain knowledge. That's knowledge brokering in practice. It's that mediation that colleagues do with each other. And sometimes when that role is explicit, as for example it sometimes has been in gender, how to access gender knowledge, then it becomes much more effective. So better knowledge management sometimes means not just the databases and IT systems, but actually the people systems for accessing that knowledge.

I also want to talk a little bit to the challenges of integrating World Bank and IFC units. There are fundamental challenges remain, differences in mandates, in the metrics against which staff and managers are judged, the incentive structures. And cultural differences are real. The World Bank can have a really slow academic consensus-style decision making, but IFC needs speed to match its private sector clients. So to supercharge knowledge and learning, the bank group needs to focus on culture, incentives and practical collaboration, not just the structure, the org chart.

Darlene Christopher:

Yeah. We can't forget the people side of this big reorg. Kristen, you started to mentioned the World Bank and IFC collaborating better, and Rasmus has mentioned some of the challenges. So what can we do? From your vantage point, how can the World Bank and IFC collaborate better on knowledge and learning?

Kristen Fenster:

Great question. I think Rasmus already brought up some great points. One of them was communities of practice. So we've already been working together to merge our IFC and World Bank knowledge and learning communities of practice and it's actually resulted in better understanding of each other's business, sharing best practices on knowledge and learning, and really coming with better outcomes. I'm getting a lot of requests from bank colleagues saying, "Oh, who's working on KML in this sector? I want to invite them out for coffee," and building those relationships. And I think that's going to be very important to make the knowledge bank a success.

The other is learning each other's business processes. So we've been working with what's called OPCS, so that's the operations learning part of the World Bank, to deliver learning on the basics of how does an IFC project work, how does a World Bank project work, and sharing that across regions, across operations teams. So they can understand how they can work together, what are our products and services, and how do they compliment each other. And I think that type of learning is going to have a direct impact on improving better business outcomes.

The third area is learning from failure. I think it's one of the toughest areas to crack in knowledge sharing and knowledge management. We've actually had some success in IFC through what's called our special operations group. So that's where projects go when they have challenges, like loan repayments or difficulty exiting from an equity investment. And that team has actually been very proactive in building a lessons learned database and sharing their lessons on how these projects failed and how they can do better. And I think that's a very important cultural component that we need to bring across the World Bank Group and make sure that we're sharing that we each other.

And the final area is on diagnostics. So that's not an area where IFC has been as focused in our work, and it's where the World Bank has quite a lot of expertise in creating diagnostics that can be used in operations. And I think what we need to do is ensure that those diagnostics are valuable for IFC business and bank business. One example of that is the country private sector diagnostic, which is actually developed jointly between World Bank and IFC and it's been redesigned in a streamlined with to develop practical, achievable policy solutions for private sector development. And I think that's a great example of how diagnostics can empower our operations.

Darlene Christopher:

Kristen, you mentioned that IFC has an initiative where teams can learn from failure, learn from projects that didn't go as planned, and I know, Rasmus, this came up in your report as well. Could you share a little bit more about [00:17:00] your findings on learning from failure?

Rasmus Heltberg:

We have this self-evaluation system that really systematically tries to learn lessons from all the World Bank's lending projects. However, that system doesn't kick in when projects are canceled, or modified, or dropped. I think actually, there's a lot of lessons in projects where teams spend a lot of time [00:17:30] preparing them, only then to see them canceled or dropped. Also, by the way, a lot of our learning is really about the technical things and technical challenges, but it's never really about the internal decision making flows that perhaps were the reason for something to be approved that perhaps should not have been approved. So that ability to look inward at our own mistakes or weak spots I think could be strengthened.

Darlene Christopher:

Yeah. I know that I learn so well when I learn from my mistakes. That's when it really hits home for me. When something doesn't go right or as planned, that's often when I can learn the most. So it sounds like there's some opportunities there for the World Bank to really capitalize on this and do some more reflection. And when things don't go well, what could they learn from that?

Rasmus Heltberg:

And what tends to work best are small, informal safe spaces [00:18:30] where managers and team leaders signal an openness. And the best way of course to do that is when we share our own mistakes and failures. That signals to others that they can do so themselves.

Darlene Christopher:

Yeah. Again, we're back to culture.

Rasmus Heltberg:

Exactly.

Darlene Christopher:

So we've just been talking about learning from failures. Let me turn to you, Andrea, and let's talk about learning from success. What does success look like for the knowledge bank?

Andrea Kucey:

Oh, that's a tough one. I'm going to riff a little bit off of I think Rasmus' response to his question about the importance of lessons. So I think success will look like a different approach. It will really take into account the frontline teams, and ultimately the impact and the outcomes that we're trying to achieve. So I think this time around, we're setting a really high bar, but we're also going to try to measure it. We're also going to try to really be able to show the value of what is one of our greatest, if not our greatest asset. Our president likes to consistently say that the expertise and the people in this institution are our greatest asset, to the point of tacit knowledge.

And I think this time we might have a real shot at it because what's different in the approach is that we're really trying to do a lot of things at once. So we're bringing [00:20:00] in the IFC, we are focusing like a laser on our north star, on outcomes. Yes, we're reorganizing the verticals, but to really bring in the private sector. And I think hopefully knowledge professionals and the idea of bringing a more professional approach to knowledge management so that we can mobilize knowledge will be seen as the foundation. So it won't be trying to tackle just knowledge separately, I think [00:20:30] putting it right in the center and having an integrated approach is going to be what helps us get to success.

Darlene Christopher:

I hadn't thought about the change this time in this way, with what you just highlighted about these multiple approaches coming together at once to make a difference in the knowledge bank.

Well, thank you so much, Rasmus, Andrea and Kristen, for joining me today. What emerges here is how complex organizational learning really is. You've touched on the people side of it, the change management aspect of it, as well as the learning and how we can pull that all together. And we've gotten a real sense of where the World Bank Group stands on learning. So both the progress that has been achieved and a vision for the future.

IEG's recent work on evaluating the World Bank Group's knowledge and learning efforts are available at ieg.worldbank.org. This has been What Have We Learned?, the evaluation podcast. Don't forget to subscribe for future episodes. Thank you for listening.