KM/Knowledge Services: 3 Cs for Strategic Knowledge Professionals

A recent reference to Adam Bryant's 3 C's for managers struck a chord.

Bryant - then Accenture's CEO - commented last year that three things matter for managers:

Competence, Confidence, and Caring.

As knowledge thought leaders in our organizations, strategic knowledge professionals are already there, and the challenge (another "C"!) becomes how to apply those criteria for strategic knowledge management for the organizations where we are employed.

Here's a story:

Jerry Thomas is at the mid-point of a very successful career in strategic knowledge management. His KM/knowledge services competence is evidenced by his experience as a specialist librarian for a large manufacturing company. In that role, Jerry learned not only how to use his formal education for providing his KM/knowledge services customers with the strategic knowledge they require for their work. He also was able to build on each of his customer interactions to share his own knowledge gathering and knowledge transfer expertise. He had the competence to do what needed to be done.

Jerry's confidence grew with his growing competence. With all his interactions with his customers, Jerry's role seemed to expand, to the point that he was soon - early in his career - being asked to advise or serve as a sort of internal consultant in KM/knowledge services matters. Indeed, his confidence in his ability to provide excellence in KM/knowledge services grew so much that not only was his expertise being recognized in his own organization, he was pursued for jobs in other companies. Jerry's confidence was attached to and resulted from his competence in what he was able to do for his customers (and others in his organization).

Jerry's caring expanded along with is confidence, for he learned early on that just "providing the information" was not really what his customers wanted. Regardless of the customer's professional level, Jerry made it his business to make sure he understood - and positioned himself to respond to - his clients' expectations. Of course different people had different expectations but that didn't stop Jerry. He became particularly skilled at identifying what each client is looking for. His approach to strategic knowledge management and delivery was simple: he made sure the customer knew he cared about what that person was seeking. Then he arranged for his customers to know, first off, that caring is the key characteristic in dealing with Jerry and his team, as the customers work with them in pursuing strategic knowledge.

Management competence - Management confidence - Management caring: Thanks, Alan Bryant.

SMR International: Building the Knowledge Culture

SMR International has adopted Building the Knowledge Culture as its corporate statement of purpose. In this statement, the company announces its philosophy of service and contribution.

Shared both implicitly and directly with clients, colleagues, and affiliates, Building the Knowledge Culture declares SMR International’s intention to use its influence to ensure that knowledge is used both to enable employees to do their best work and to empower the organization to act responsibly in the larger global social environment.

At SMR International, it is our belief that all institutions, including those in the private sector, have a responsibility to all of society. We believe, as Peter F. Drucker wrote in the Preface to Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices(1973) that “if the managers of our major institutions, and especially of business, do not take responsibility for the common good, no one else can or will.”

As a management consulting practice specializing in knowledge strategy development, it is our goal to enable and empower organizational leaders for addressing the responsibility gap in management and in society.

Learn: Your Role as KM/Knowledge Services Director

Save the date: Saturday, June 12, 2010 - New Orleans, LA USA

The course: KMKS12. The Knowledge Director: Competencies and Skills

Learn what's expected of you in your role as KM/Knowledge Services Director for the organization. This course defines the responsibilities of the organization's knowledge thought leader/corporate spokesperson and provides a description of organizational duties and expectations for knowledge services leadership. You'll learn what your role is with respect to the value of KM/Knowledge Services, the role of KM/Knowledge Services in organizational success, organizational strategic learning, and service delivery. When you have completed the course, you will have a clear understanding of your leadership role in moving the organization to and helping it grow as a knowledge culture.

KM/Knowledge Services experts Guy St. Clair and Dale Stanley facilitate the course, which is open to all knowledge workers (you do not have to be a participant in Click U's Certificate Program to attend).

All course participants who complete the course (whether for C.E. credit or not) will receive a free copy of Building the Knowledge Culture: The Knowledge Services Effect, St. Clair and Stanley's report on what you can achieve as the company's KM/Knowledge Services Director. Prepared for SMR International clients, this SMR International Management Action Plan (SMR MAP) is sold through The SMR Knowledge Store. A $385.00 value, Building the Knowledge Culture will be given free to participants in KMKS 08 Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services.

Learn more and register here.

KM/Knowledge Services: Four Keys to Culture Change

A universal attribute of KM/Knowledge Services is culture change. As a society, we generally do not focus on knowledge and how information, knowledge, and learning are part of our lives. Knowledge is just there. It is simply part of the human condition and how we - as human beings - process and use knowledge is not something we think about very much.

Not so in the workplace. When we work with KM/knowledge services, we are confronted with a whole host of conditions and environmental issues to deal with, and one that is on the minds of strategic knowledge specialists on an-almost ongoing basis is culture change. How do we get people to think about knowledge, the value of knowledge, and the role of knowledge in their work? All of us who work with strategic knowledge agree on the foundational characteristic of KM/knowledge services: the better workers manage knowledge, the better the work.

So how do we get colleagues in the workplace to pay attention to knowledge?

The subject was much discussed in Kenya on Thursday, 8th April. Meeting at the Faculty of Architecture and Building Sciences of the University of Nairobi, the 7th UN/University Librarians Meeting and Workshop heard SMR International's President and Consulting Specialist for Knowledge Services speak about KM/knowledge services.

In a day-long workshop focused on KM/Knowledge Services in institutions of higher learning, St. Clair frequently addressed the subject of culture change, which he asserts is fundamental to the successful management of KM/knowledge services in any environment, regardless of the organizational framework. The workshop presentation called attention to the critical role of university librarians in leading culture change, and an ongoing theme in the presentation and the group's discussions had to do with identifying specific steps to take, to move the process forward. [See: Shaping the Knowledge Culture in the Academy: The Librarian as Knowledge Thought Leader - Knowledge Management, Knowledge Services, and Change Management]

In a key take-away from the workshop, the group discussed of the importance perception and culture change, and St. Clair provided four "key steps" (he called them) for success:

1. strategic learning: if KM/knowledge services and an organizational re-structuring to a knowledge culture is to be successful, the organization must have a formalized and operational functional unit for managing strategic learning and training. Knowledge workers cannot be expected to grow intellectually unless they have a structure to use
2. awareness raising: whoever is in charge of KM/knowledge services - whether it is the university librarian or corporation's Chief Knowledge Officer, opportunities for knowledge sharing, discussion, communities of practice, and knowledge networks must be provided - and on a continuing basis
3. sponsorship: KM/knowledge services won't succeed if it is just a "good idea" of someone somewhere in the organization; a key member of strategic management must agree to sponsor the KM/knowledge services function, to express his/her enthusiasm for KM/knowledge services-related activities, to utilize knowledge tools and techniques in his/her own office, and to reinforce the value of knowledge in the organization to that everyone throughout the organization "gets the message": it's done at the senior management level and the rest of the organization might be wise to do it, too
4. succession planning: the formalized "passing on of information and knowledge" is essential if time and energy is not to be wasted in learning what the previous employee in the position knew, and took away when he or she took another job or retired - the essence of knowledge sharing is to ensure that the knowledge can still be used under different (and often later) circumstances.

Learn: Measuring KM/Knowledge Services

Save the date: Friday, June 11, 2010 - New Orleans, LA USA

The course: KMKS 08 Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services

Learn techniques and tools for measuring success in knowledge services in this popular Click U course. You'll learn about the value of metrics in the KM/knowledge services process and have the opportunity to focus on organizational service comparisons for continuous improvement. Once you've had this course, you'll understand how you can use benchmarking, user evaluations, discussion tracking, and how to deal with intangible assets. This is your opportunity to show management just how good your work is (and how important KM/knowledge services is to your company).

KM/Knowledge Services experts Guy St. Clair and Dale Stanley facilitate the course, which is open to all knowledge workers (you do not have to be a participant in Click U's Certificate Program to attend).

All course participants who complete the course (whether for C.E. credit or not) receive a free copy of Critical Success Factors: Management Metrics, Return-on-Investment, and Effectiveness Measures for Knowledge Services, St. Clair and Stanley's report on how to evaluate KM/knowledge services. Prepared for SMR International clients, this SMR International Management Action Plan (SMR MAP) is sold through The SMR Knowledge Store. A $385.00 value, Critical Success Factors will be given free to participants in KMKS 08 Critical Success Factors: Measuring Knowledge Services.

Learn more and register here.

News: SLA in Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences

The third edition of Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Editor(s): Marcia J. Bates, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, USA;   Mary Niles Maack, University of California, Los Angeles, USA has been announced, with an article on the Special Libraries Association (SLA) written by three members of the association.

Co-Author Guy St. Clair is the President and Consulting Specialist in Knowledge Services for SMR International in New York, NY, USA. Rebecca Vargha is Library Director at the Information and Library Science Library of the University of North Carolina School of Information and Library Science in Chapel Hill, NC, USA, and Andrew Berner is Library Director and Curator of Collections at The University Club, New York, NY. All three authors have been prominent members and leaders of SLA.

The abstract for the entry reads:

“Founded in1909, the Special Libraries Association (SLA) serves the members of that branch of the library and information science professions generally thought of as “non-traditional.” Special Libraries Association members work in corporate, research, scientific, institutional, and government libraries, as well as in other settings where their work is characteristically described as being in support of the organizational mission or enterprise of which their libraries are a part. With more than 10,000 members in 75 countries, SLA’s role is to support professional knowledge workers in their work as they provide practical and utilitarian information, knowledge, and strategic learning to their identified knowledge customers and clients. The association has 58 regional chapters located throughout the world.”

The citation for this Article is: St. Clair, Guy, Berner, Andrew J. and Vargha, Rebecca (2010) ‘Special Libraries Association (SLA)’, Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences, Third Edition, 1: 1, 4975-4983

KM/Knowledge Services: Can We All Play? Are Universities Included Too?

The traditional "home" for KM/knowledge services has been the corporate workplace, and while this is probably not the place to go into the reasons why (a future post, perhaps? or a guest post from a reader? a KM/knowledge services specialist?), we can quickly speculate that the for-profit field has often been the breeding ground for innovation.

And with accelerated innovation one of the four identified deliverables, you might say (along with strengthened research, contextual decision making, and high-level knowledge asset management) of knowledge services, it seems reasonable to latch on to the idea that the non-profits and the not-for-profit institutions have lagged behind.

Not so. Every day we hear about new venues for the study and implementation of KM/knowledge services, and a fascinating stream in this direction is higher education. Strategy development (ex - "strategic planning") has long been a mainstay of academic administrative focus, and many companies and organizations specializing in knowledge strategy development have happily found a welcome on the campuses of some of the more forward-thinking universities.

For academics - whether part of the faculty, administrative staff, or having some other connection with the academy (university librarians, for example) - how might to KM/knowledge services be approached? Is it simply a matter of changing the words and phrases? When we define knowledge management with Prusak's and Davenport's working with knowledge for the organization do we make it work in the academy simply by defining knowledge management as working with knowledge for the institution?

And for that matter, is the management approach for an academic institution (OK - the administrative approach) the same as it is for a corporation? A research institute? A manufacturing plant? What are the differences? Are they subtle or are they major? Can an academic institution embrace Peter Drucker's philosophy as willingly and as successfully as a for-profit operation (and, yes it can, for we all know of Drucker's solid connection with the academy and his great success with charitable institutions and other non-profits)?

The question then becomes simply one of direction, doesn't it? How can the principles and philosophies behind successful change management, say, in the KM/knowledge services environment be stated for an academic institution? What language do we use? And is that language going to work in other operational structures?

Let's find out.

Knowledge Sharing at the Mega-Level: World Urban Forum 5 in Rio de Janeiro

Meeting in Rio de Janeiro in late March, some 10,000 specialists in sustainable urbanization gathered for the Fifth Session of the UN-HABITAT World Urban Forum. Clearly the need is there, and as experts, heads of state, government ministers, mayors, executives of leading global foundations, business leaders, and interested observers met March 24 – 26, it was obvious that the work UN-HABITAT is doing is critical. And becoming more critical all the time.

The numbers are slightly overwhelming, but when you stop to think that just a little over 50 years ago one-third of the world’s population lived in cities and now it’s over 50% (and expected to climb to two-thirds of the global population – six billion people – by 2050) you recognize that a sense of being overwhelmed is absolutely appropriate. Attention must be paid.

The main theme of the conference – Bridging the Urban Divide – provided the occasion for much open and frank debate, and UN-HABITAT’s oft-expressed characterization of “sustainable urbanization” as simply “a better city, a better life” provided many conference attendees with a noticeable attitude of uplift and enthusiasm. For these folks,  WUF5 (as the forum was called) provided the impetus for going back to their homes and workplaces with an optimism that many global citizens aren’t in a position to share.

Which made the whole experience that much more exciting, for now charged-up urban studies professionals will have the energy and motivation to see that attention is paid.

For KM/knowledge services professionals, the Rio pay-off came with the many discussions, strategic learning opportunities, and just plain networking that took place. Both formal and informal knowledge-sharing activities were happening all over the conference venue (unused dock warehouses that were being converted into a huge conference center), and a highlight for those of us who look to KM/knowledge services as the bridge across any of the professional, societal, or economic divides we encounter was the opening of UN-HABITAT’s new World Urban Campaign. In announcing the campaign, Nicholas You noted that the agency’s next major effort would acknowledge and focus on the role of knowledge sharing in achieving the agency’s mission.

That mission, generally referred to as the Habitat Agenda, is to promote socially and environmentally sustainable towns and cities with the goal of providing adequate shelter for all. In launching the new initiative, You – who serves as Strategic Policy Advisor to Dr. Anna Tibaijuka, UN-HABITAT’s Executive Director – made it clear that there would be two key areas of focus to the campaign, one of which is the agency’s knowledge network system (with the other being The 100 Cities Initiative, an experimental initiative in which 100 cities would make pledges for urban reform).

The knowledge networking system has a more fundamental purpose, one that affects all levels of all the many efforts involved in the larger sustainability movement. As You described the initiative, the UN-HABITAT knowledge networking system is defined by and being developed to enable all people working with sustainable urbanization to take full advantage of the diversity and wealth of knowledge, tools, and methods being gathered by UN-HABITAT. The system will focus on lessons learned from best practices, good policies and operational tools and methodologies, and constitute a one-stop shop for knowledge, expertise, and experience.

With the sustainable urbanization knowledge services community poised to reap the rewards of strengthened information management, KM, and strategic learning, could not other organizations take up the knowledge networking system as a model, to achieve their own organizational effectiveness?

Strategy Development: Descriptive or Prescriptive?

A long time ago (1966 was a long time ago, wasn’t it?), George A. Steiner was well recognized as one of strategy planning’s most famous authorities. While KM/knowledge services directors in the 21st century might use slightly more up-dated language than Steiner used 44 years ago, developing knowledge strategy still works from Steiner’s “common characteristics” of strategic planning.

One of these especially still hits the mark: the whole idea behind the development of a knowledge strategy is “the futurity of current decisions,” thinking about how current (or recent past) decision making affects what will happen as the KM/knowledge services function proceeds into the future.

Our good friend Peter F. Drucker also brings knowledge workers closer to understanding the true impetus behind planning  knowledge strategy: planning for the future. In his classic Managing in a Time of Great Change, Drucker could be writing for knowledge strategists in 2010 (for could there be a time of greater change than the times we’re living in today?): “Traditional planning asks,” Drucker wrote, “‘what is most likely to happen? Planning for uncertainty asks, instead, ‘what has already happened that will create the future?’”

For Drucker, “strategic planning is not a box of tricks, a bundle of techniques” (Drucker’s emphasis). For our great management hero, strategy development was summed up in four important activities which can be applied directly to the development of knowledge strategy:

§  Analytical thinking and the commitment to resources in action

§  A continual process of making present entrepreneurial decisions systematically and with the greatest knowledge of their futurity

§  Organizing systematically the efforts needed to carry out these decision

§  Measuring the results of these decision against expectations through organized, systematic feedback

So there’s the answer to our challenge. Developing knowledge strategy is both prescriptive and descriptive, and the knowledge strategist simply has to position himself/herself to drill down as deep as it’s necessary to go. The task is to find the nuances, the private (or public) agendas, and the organizational goals that will bring forward the information the organization requires for managing its knowledge. Only when the knowledge strategy is developed in an atmosphere that includes both “how-things-are” and “how-things-ought-to-be” can the strategy lead to the results the organization is seeking.