Strategic Knowledge - Defining Moments

[The following is an abridged version of an essay prepared by SMR International President Guy St. Clair in observance of the centenary of Peter F. Drucker's birth. The full essay is published here, at the SMR International site and at SMRShare, the company's knowledge capture site.]

The Drucker Centenary Approaches:
Developing, Managing, and Sharing Strategic Knowledge

For many who work with strategic knowledge, the upcoming Drucker Centenary carries with it something akin to confirmation or affirmation. Considering Mr. Drucker's contributions, the observances focused around 19 November acknowledge that we are ready to move to a knowledge society. For many of us, we can't help but be grateful that - as a society - we're getting beyond the affectation of ignorance that seemed to characterize such a large chunk of our recent past.

As we think about what is available to us as citizens, the application of knowledge services becomes something of a lightning rod for us. In today's workplace, strategic knowledge as a construct provides us with the opportunity to clear out what no longer works (even if it worked in the past), to move forward in taking advantage of the innumerable opportunities we have for knowledge development and knowledge sharing (what some of us refer to as "KD/KS"), and to find in the effective management of strategic knowledge the bridge to our shared culture as a knowledge society.

Such are the thoughts that come to mind after an evening with colleagues in The Drucker Society of New York, for meeting with us were Frances Hesselbein, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Leader to Leader Institute (formerly the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management), and Bruce Rosenstein, author of  Living in More Than One World: How Peter Drucker's Wisdom Can Inspire and Transform Your Life.

As might be expected from these two expert storytellers, the evening became one of shared experiences (not only from the two of them, but from audience members as well) and ideas flowed freely. Indeed, it would be extremely gratifying to capture all that was discussed but highlights must suffice. And providing highlights is not such a difficult task, since Lee Igel, the group's leader, used the concept of "defining moments" - those times or events in our lives that guided us to our association with Peter Drucker - to help us focus our thoughts.

Hesselbein went back to her childhood to describe her defining moment, telling about how she had determined from her grandmother's good influence that there is no place in our society (or in the workplace) for prejudice and exclusion. Rosenstein chose as his experience the time when, as he worked toward his book about Drucker's influence, Drucker used the phrase "living in more than one world," providing Rosenstein the concept he knew he wanted to convey.

We all have these moments. For some, the defining moment comes when - in a secure profession or field of work, perhaps - there's a desire to do more, to put one's self on the line and seek work in which one either supports organizational effectiveness or finds one's self on the street looking for a job! And, yes, we're speaking personally here, for as a young librarian my defining moment came when I decided that I wanted to be accountable for my work. The positions in which I had been employed up to that time were not asking enough of me, and I wanted very much to be judged for my professional performance. At about the same time, something led me to specialized librarianship, where my work would either be part of organizational success or I wouldn't have a job. It was that simple, my defining moment, and it led me down paths I never even knew existed. And, as can be inferred, to a focus on the role of management, individual competencies, and, yes, the influence of a philosophy like that of Peter Drucker's, as we seek to achieve organizational effectiveness.

So what we are experiencing - as we think about what Drucker was leading us to - turns out to be something of an affirmation after all, doesn't it? For those of us looking to understand the place of strategic knowledge in our lives - and our professional roles in developing, managing, and sharing strategic knowledge - it is something of a pleasure to be so affirmed and to learn to recognize that defining moments that lead us onward and upward.

Hill - St. Clair - Stanley: Free SMR Int'l Spot-On Seminar on Social Networking

Learning and Connecting through Social Networking Media

Come join Guy St. Clair, of SMR International, Cindy Hill of Hill Info Consulting Group, and Dale Stanley of Gilead Sciences for the next SMR International Knowledge Services Spot-On Seminar.

This time, the topic is technology and how we’re using social networking media in our work:: "Learning and Connecting through Social Networking Media – A Conversation with Cindy Hill, Dale Stanley, and Guy St. Clair."

We’ll meet on Friday, 6 November, from 4:00 – 5:00 PM ET (one of our colleagues has commented that these seminars are a really nice way to wrap up a busy week at work, and we agree).

The Webinar is free (but limited to the first 50 people who register).

Register by sending an e-mail with the subject Spot-On Seminar in the subject line to smrknowledgeatverizondotnet. All registered participants will receive a confirmation notice.

At SMR International we characterize knowledge services as the management and service delivery methodology for "putting KM to work." Come join us as we share more secrets about the practical side of KM.

[And note that this subject is also being covered in depth in the course Hill and Stanley and St. Clair are teaching for Click U. The course is "Using Technology: Connecting People with Knowledge," and the course begins November 2. Registration is here and more details are here. We invite you join us in the Click U course as well.]

Using Technology: Connecting People with Knowledge

Colleagues in the wider management community are invited to register now – or register staff – for the next course in the SLA Click U Certificate Program in KM/Knowledge Services. If you are interested in the connection between technology and knowledge services delivery – or if you have staff who are – this is the course to take.

Beginning Monday, November 2, Using Technology: Connecting People with Knowledge will explore the relationship between technology and knowledge.

Recognizing that technology enables knowledge management and knowledge services, our goal is to examine how course participants can strengthen the role of knowledge development and knowledge sharing (KD/KS) in the larger organization and establish KD/KS as the foundation of organizational effectiveness. The critical result is the development and on-going implementation of an enterprise-wide knowledge culture supporting the organizational vision, mission, and values. In this course, we identify, develop, and learn how to obtain the support of all organizational knowledge stakeholders in managing the relationship between technology and knowledge.

There are five course meetings, all online: three Monday lectures (November 2, 9, and 16) and a live discussion with a Guest Participant on Thursday, October 12. A final course meeting, our course wrap-up and thematic discussion, will be held on Thursday, November 19. All programs begin at 3:00 PM EDT, and recordings of all meetings are available for re-play immediately following each meeting (an added bonus for international participants located in different time zones).

I am the course instructor, and Dale Stanley and Cindy Hill teach with me. Both Cindy and Dale are well known to SMR Int’l colleagues, as we three join together in SMR’s Spot-On Seminars, monthly online conversations about strategic knowledge, specialized librarianship, and other topics of interest to knowledge workers.

Please join us. Also, please note that participation in all certificate courses is not required and any of these courses can be taken individually (although there is considerable financial incentive for joining the certificate program). For more information about SLA’s Click U courses, go here. Membership in SLA is not required for participation, so feel free to share this message with others interested in learning more about the connection between technology and knowledge.

Strategic Knowledge Professionals

Finally a Name For All of Us

While many SMR International clients and other readers are not affiliated with specialized librarianship, many others are, and the current activity relating to the recommended new name for the Special Libraries Association (SLA) offers a remarkable naming opportunity for all knowledge workers.

SLA has long been recognized as the preeminent international professional association for specialist librarians and other information professionals. For a decade or more SLA has struggled with how to broaden its membership base and provide a professional "home" for people engaged in knowledge work, regardless of job titles and departmental affiliations. The many people who work with information, knowledge, and strategic learning have until now not had a single organization to meet their networking, professional development, and advocacy needs. SLA has tried many times to assume this role, but its name - with its difficult construct that confuses "special" and "libraries" equally - has excluded many knowledge workers who require an association to support them in their work.

Now things have changed and SLA has found a solution. Recognizing the last decade's attention to knowledge management, knowledge services, and the role of knowledge professionals as knowledge thought leaders - both in developing organizational knowledge strategy and in building the organizational knowledge culture - SLA's leadership recommends that the association be known as an organization for strategic knowledge professionals.

In taking this step, SLA now gives the professional knowledge worker the opportunity to be established as the "go-to" person for any interaction having to do with information, knowledge, or strategic learning, regardless of how their operational business unit is designated or what the individual job title is. Indeed, SLA has made it clear that in seeking the new name, it is not seeking to change job titles or "take anything away" from current members and their working relationships. It is a name change for the organization that is being recommended, not for individuals or their professional roles.

From a different perspective, though, what is being offered by SLA is not just a name change for one organization. It is an important next step in how we think about knowledge, KM, and knowledge services.The new phrase takes the attention from any single or particular branch of knowledge work and moves us to that larger realm in which many, many knowledge workers are employed . Whatever they are called in their workplace (according to some sources, SLA members have more than 2,000 job titles!), being affiliated with the newly christened field we'll call strategic knowledge finally gives knowledge workers an important new function in the workplace. Now, without question or explanation, the strategic knowledge professional automatically becomes that "go-to" person for questions and policy having to do with organizational information, knowledge, and strategic learning.

It makes so much sense. We all know what the words mean, and if we don't, SLA Past President Steven Abrams offers guidance in his essay on the SLA name change:

• Strategic: "highly important to or an integral part of a strategy or plan of action"
• Knowledge: "The sum or range of what has been perceived, discovered, or learned" 
• Professional: "A skilled practitioner; an expert."

So how does one know if they are working as a strategic knowledge professional? How might the phrase apply in the workplace? Mary Ellen Bates, just elected to SLA's Board of Directors, provides a useful picture: "I know that I have to see myself," Bates writes, "as someone who looks strategically at my clients' information needs, who is able to provide added analysis to my research, and who is always staying on the leading edge of the information industry. I expect to lead my clients' expectations of what I can do; I'm not just responding to what they ask for."

Dan Trefethen, too, helps us out. Trefethen, a long-time member of SLA, a former Board of Directors member, and now just elected again to the board, this time as the association's Treasurer, takes a singularly clear-cut approach to how we can think about our work.

"I also think that 'strategic knowledge' can be a canny phrase for us," Trefethen says. "Let me illustrate that by comparing it to what it isn't: it isn't common knowledge. 'Common knowledge' is a more well-known phrase, and it used to be a staple of our service when I first began my career. We called it ready reference. Now, it is all available for free on the Internet. At least it is PERCEIVED to be free, by those who employ us. This means we must differentiate ourselves from the free Internet. One way is to use an evocative term that moves away from language that implies 'free'.

"Unfortunately," Trefethen continues, "'information' is a bit compromised for our purposes, in my opinion. 'Information' is closely associated now with software engineers and, well, Information Technology. People also think 'information wants to be free,' the paradigm we are trying to get beyond. 'Knowledge' has always worked well for us. It's been in [the SLA] motto from the beginning, putting knowledge to work. It consists of valued intelligence and wisdom, not just facts. I believe this is the path we can successfully pursue, and I think 'strategic knowledge' is a phrase that can work for us."

Well said. And while I'm not sure Abram and Bates and Trefethen were suggesting that their association adopt phraseology that would translate into a descriptor for an entire profession (although, knowing them, they probably were), their cogent thoughts lead to a useful pathway in that direction.

At SMR International, we too - not surprisingly - have our own take on the the role of the strategic knowledge professional. Using other phraseology of course, we have discussed the subject often over the years, both with clients and colleagues, and - truth to tell - in almost any other conversation about building strong relationships between knowledge workers and management. Especially when the focus is on knowledge services and we are seeking to describe the function of knowledge services in developing and sustaining a corporate knowledge culture, there have been many, many conversations about linking knowledge workers to organizational success. We even found ourselves developing our own slide show, just to try to clear things up when we needed to speak about these things. Now, with the new phrase re-naming what we used to refer to as the "knowledge services professional," the story make a lot more sense. And it will make sense to organizational managers and enterprise leaders.

Examples abound, and five come immediately to mind, all of which (and many others of course) can be used to illustrate the wide range of professional services provided in a strategic knowledge environment:

1. the archives management unit of an international scientific research organization
2. the corporate records and information management department of an established business, a real estate management firm, say, or a family-owned insurance agency
   
3. the research management operation in a large philanthropic organization
4. a members' library in a private club or trade association
   
5. a library in a law firm 

In each of these examples, the organization has a specific mission and each organization utilizes knowledge services to support the achievement of that mission. In doing so, each organization functions as a knowledge culture because knowledge development and knowledge sharing, the famous "KD/KS" of knowledge services, connects the organization's knowledge strategy directly to the organization's business or mission strategy. And in each situation the management and service delivery function of the knowledge services business unit is not constrained by what it is called, nor are the knowledge services director and the strategic knowledge staff constrained by job titles. They use what works in the specific, individual environment, yet each business unit connects with strategic knowledge for the larger organization and each strategic knowledge professional supports and sustains the larger organization as a knowledge culture.

And to prove it works, here's an exercise: let's start using the term "strategic knowledge" to describe that thing we work with. It's not an artifact (a book or a journal article) or content (digitized or otherwise). It's not even a person or group of people "containing" (excuse me) the content, such as a community of practice or a working group or even the guy in the next cubicle. Regardless of how we get it, it is what we develop and share. Job titles and business unit functions don't matter, and by applying KD/KS in the workplace, our employing organizations succeed. It's knowledge, it's strategic, and strategic knowledge professionals put it to work.

Thank goodness we now know what to call it.

Groundswell in KM/Knowledge Services

Very impressed with the thinking of Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff and the concept they identify as "groundswell." In fact, it's the name of their book from last year (Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies). Published by Harvard Business Press, the book puts forward ideas (and explanations) about how leaders in companies and organizations (including ourselves as knowledge thought leaders) must think about the social media "groundswell" that seems to be affecting the way all of us do business and interact with one another. And it's that interaction that companies and organizations must take note of.

Li and Bernoff define groundswell as “a social trend in which people use technologies to get the things they need from each other, rather than from traditional institutions like corporations.”And - not to put too fine a point on it - they make it clear that we are nowhere near realizing the potential of this trend. We're not even near how we are going to be applying it in the workplace (although Li and Bernoff offer some mighty useful case studies to demonstrate how some companies and organizations are succeeding in incorporating groundswell into their overall management structure).

Naturally, for me I want to take the groundswell concept into our work, into the development of knowledge strategy and the alignment of knowledge strategy with the company's business strategy. Then I want to follow the groundswell along as I see things change - for the better, of course.

For some, the groundswell idea might seem like just one more practical management technique in a new dress, but I don't think so. The different social media we're all dealing with - combined with the whole framework of network value analysis - gives us incredibly fine opportunities for moving beyond what we've been doing in the management arena in the past. It's a totally new management environment, and. I'm excited about it. I'm not sure I want to just sit back and watch.

So how might we use some of Li and Bernoff's approach in the KM/knowledge services workplace?

I start with something the authors refer to as their POST method (and, yes, they're as caught up in acronyms as all the rest of us!). Here's what you get when you think about transitioning POST over into KM/knowledge services:

• People: What are your customers ready for? Li and Bernoff recommend creating a customer profile and asking yourself questions like “How will your customers engage, based on what they are already doing.” But be careful. They also caution about making guesses about what might work and what won’t.
• Objectives: What are your goals? Do you want people to come to you for consultations, for help-desk type queries, for in-depth research? What is your knowledge services business unit there for? Do you want to use the groundswell to help your own team work more efficiently? effectively? (see below for Li and Bernoff's “most powerful objectives”)
• Strategy: How do you want relationships with your customers to change? Is it all really about change management? Probably, but before you can manage change, you need strategy. It's required up front for planning changes. And of course strategy is also required for measuring desired changes once the strategy is under way.
• Technology: What applications should you build? Decide first on people, objectives, and strategy and then you can move on to determining whether you’re going to be looking at blogs, wikis, social networks, etc. (or whatever else has just come down the pike).

Then Li and Bernoff give us what they characterize as their five “most powerful objectives”:

1. Listening – use the groundswell for research and for better understanding users’ needs
2. Talking – use the groundswell for spreading messages about your business unit
3. Energizing – find your most enthusiastic customers (and sponsors) and use groundswell to “supercharge” world of mouth
4. Supporting – set up groundswell tools to help customers support each other (generally requires some support resources and customers who have an affinity for working and speaking with one another)
5. Embracing – “integrate customers into the way the business works, including their help in designing products." This is the most challenging of the five goals and, as Li and Bernoff acknowledge, best suited to companies that have already succeeded with the other four goals. 

It makes a lot of sense, doesn't it? As we look at all the variations we're dealing with in KM/knowledge services, our concerns with leadership, our need to measure and develop metrics, our attempts to strengthen the relationship between technology and knowledge, and our goal of devising a workable knowledge strategy for the larger organization so we can accomplish all this, it's good to have this useful concept to think about. Congratulations (and thanks) to Li and Bernoff for introducing us to the "groundswell."

Effective Executive? CKO? Knowledge Services Director?

Finding myself situated between two very linked courses, I'm surprised at how much of my focus these days is on how we perform in positions of leadership in the organizations where we're employed. Just completed teaching - with my colleague Dale Stanley - a course in measurement and metrics for knowledge services, and next Tuesday we move on to The Knowledge Director: Competencies and Skills.

So it makes a certain kind of sense to be thinking about what some of our responsibilities are, if we're employed in a management position. As managers, we have responsibility both for supervising the knowledge services business unit and for establishing metrics about how well service delivery is implemented.  It's a big job.

When I'm thinking about these things, quite naturally I take a look at some of the Drucker ideas I have been exposed to and come to the conclusion that these two directions are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they are very much bound together, and the best thing I can find to demonstrate how measurement and management link up in the knowledge services environment is Drucker's comments about decision-making (and coincidentally the excerpt included in today's page of The Daily Drucker just happens to be given over to describing the elements of the decision process). The connecting link - from my perspective - has to do with two concepts that form the baseline for decision-making and at the same time lead to that goal all executives strive for. The first is to know when a decision is necessary. The second is to build implementation and effectiveness into the decision-making process.

As effective executives, knowledge leaders recognize that measuring performance and the connecting knowledge strategy and business strategy are critical factors in their list of criteria for success. Whether they are designated - as continues to be the case in some few companies and organizations - as the company's "chief knowledge officer" or whether they are knowledge professionals with management and service delivery responsibility for a single knowledge-focused business unit, knowledge managers recognize that they must follow Drucker's first rule: know when a decision is required. For many of us, beauty of our academic learning leads us to make attempts to "move forward," to see if we can't do something better, just because we can visualize just - as the old phrase has it - "how good it can be." But judgment and caution are sometimes called for, not to inhibit our desire for innovation but to determine if the situation - the predicament we've identified - requires a decision at this point in time.

So the first question to ask, if the knowledge services director is going to be effective, is simply this: "Is the decision necessary?" If it is, and if we go through the decision-making process (Drucker recommends that we define the problem carefully, then think through what the right decision would be, and understand that some level of compromise might be necessary), we move on to planning out how we will implement the decision and how we will determine the decision's effectiveness - how we'll measure its success.

It all seems pretty clear-cut, doesn't it? I wonder if we can come up with a scenario or two that demonstrates how we put Drucker's decision-making "elements" into practice in the KM/knowledge services workplace. Examples and experiences are welcome.

Professional Development: Skills and Competencies for the Knowledge Director

Knowledge professionals with management and service delivery responsibility for KM/knowledge services should sign up now for KMKS 12: The Knowledge Director: Competencies and Skills, beginning October 13. If you aspire to be recognized for your management of a knowledge services business unit (whether it is a specialized library, information center, or any other parallel function with a knowledge services focus), you should focus on the required skills and competencies. This course enables you to do just that.

Open to both SLA members and non-members, full information and registration information are available here.

There are five course meetings, all online: three Monday lectures (October 13, 19, and 26) and a live discussion among participants on Wednesday, October 21.Guy St. Clair, working with Dale Stanley, is the instructor for the course, and you can hear Dale and Guy talk about the course here.

For the October 21st meeting, Cynthia V. Hill, SLA Past President (and currently pictured on the cover of the current Information Outlook) will be the Guest Participant for the course.

A final meeting, the course wrap-up and thematic discussion, will be held on Thursday, October 29.

All programs begin at 3:00 PM ET, and recordings of all meetings are available for re-play immediately following each meeting (an added bonus for international participants located in different time zones).

Come join us. And remember that membership in SLA is not required for taking this course, so feel free to share this message with others interested in learning more about management and service delivery from the knowledge director’s perspective. All knowledge workers are welcome.

SMR Spot-On Seminar: Discussing the Knowledge Thought Leader

On Friday, October 2, 2009, SMR International offered its second Spot-On Seminar. These free seminars - open to all - are designed to give knowledge workers the opportunity to discuss issues relating to information management, knowledge management, and strategic learning in a relaxed online environment. Content is not published, and participants converse with one another without concern about proprietary or confidentiality restrictions.


"The Knowledge Thought Leader - Stepping Up and Stepping Out - 3 Tips for Knowledge Leadership - A Conversation with Cindy Hill, Dale Stanley, and Guy St. Clair" was the published theme for the October 2 Spot-On Seminar. Cindy Hill facilitated the discussion. 

In presenting their 3 tips, Cindy spoke about the value of volunteering, Guy conveyed his thoughts about how knowledge thought leaders can be influential in their organizations, and Dale gave emphasis to the critical importance of good communication.  

Participants then offered a variety of tips of their own for taking a leadership role in managing knowledge services and as the seminar ended, the group gave its attention to defining KM.  

There was reference to the recent definition from David Snowden that begins with Davenport and Prusak’s definition of knowledge: “a fluid mix of framed experience, values, contextual information, and expert insight that provides a framework for evaluating and incorporating new experiences and information. It originates and is applied in the minds of knowers. In organizations, it often becomes embedded not only in documents or repositories but also in organizational routines, process, practices, and norms.” 

Seminar participants then commented on Prusak’s definition of KM: “working with knowledge.” 

In his post, Snowden comments: "While the [Davenport and Prusak] definition has stood the test of time it is focused on, and would only be fully understood by, someone with experience of knowledge management. Given the overall levels of cynicism about knowledge management, together with issues of initiative fatigue and excessive communication, it is proposed that a simpler and more common place definition be adopted together with some clearly business orientated guiding principles."

 Snowden then offers his first draft for a definition of KM: 

The purpose of knowledge management is to provide support for improved decision making and innovation throughout the organization. This is achieved through the effective management of human intuition and experience augmented by the provision of information, processes and technology together with training and mentoring programs. 

For Snowden, the definition is built on four guiding principles:

• All projects will be clearly linked to operational and strategic goals
• As far as possible the approach adopted will be to stimulate local activity rather than impose central solutions
• Co-ordination and distribution of learning will focus on allowing adaptation of good practice to the local context
• Management of the KM function will be based on a small centralized core,with a wider distributed network.

The next SMR International Spot-On Seminar is scheduled for November 6 (topic to be announced). To be added to the notification list, send contact information to SMR International. Slides used in the SMR Spot-On Seminar can be accessed at SMRShare.