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: 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

John Cotton Dana and Knowledge Services

A recent post reported on a presentation about the history of the Special Libraries Association and how the association's history will influence the management of strategic knowledge in the future. Much discussion about this topic is captured in the final two chapters and the Epilogue of SLA at 100: From Putting Knowledge to Work to Building the Knowledge Culture, the centennial history of the association (slightly different versions of those chapters are available at SMRShare). In the presentation, an introductory thought asked about the connection between knowledge services and SLA’s founder, John Cotton Dana.

If there is some skepticism about such a connection over the (now) 101-year span, that’s an understandable reaction. In fact, though, when we think about what John Cotton Dana was trying to do, the similarities between his “new library creed” and knowledge services becomes pretty clear:

Knowledge services – as defined in today’s workplace – looks at the management of strategic knowledge from the perspective of the knowledge user, at what that user’s needs might be and how the strategic knowledge being sought is going to be used. In the classic definition, we describe knowledge services as the management and service-delivery methodology that converges information management, knowledge management, and strategic learning into a single, overarching operational function. Putting a knowledge services “spin” on SLA’s famous motto, used since 1916, the goal of knowledge services is to “put knowledge management to work.” In the 21st-century workplace, knowledge services is – in Dale Stanley’s version –  ”the practical side of knowledge management.”

While he did not use our terminology, couldn’t this have been John Cotton Dana’s goal when he called together a group of specialist librarians (that’s what he called them) to think about how they worked? He and his colleagues wanted to determine how their services could be of better use to the businessman (and, yes, that was the term used in 1909, just as the term “man of affairs” was often used – and often by Dana – to describe people who worked in business, probably a link to the French phrase for businessman,l’homme d’affaires).

In his professional work, Dana had concluded that businessmen were too busy to read, and that was just the point: “I am not asking the businessman toread books,” he said. “I am suggesting that we persuade him to use some of them.”

It was a vital distinction, and it would become an important driver as specialized librarianship began its development. So much so that as they talked, Dana and his colleagues realized that they needed a new organization, an association of people like themselves, librarians who would lead a “movement” (yes, they used that term, without apology), a new movement that would replace the old library method, which they described as “Select the best books, list them elaborately, save them forever—that was the sum of the librarians’ creed of yesterday….”

But they went on, and Dana articulated the new “creed” which is particularly familiar to today’s knowledge services specialist:

• Select a few of the best books and keep them, as before, but also…
• Select from the vast flood of print the things your constituency will find useful…
• Make them available with a minimum of expense, and…
• Discard them as soon as their usefulness is past.

By the end of their first year, the nascent SLA had held its first meeting in New York City. It was a meeting at which Dana—SLA’s first president—spoke eloquently about the role of specialized libraries in society:

• “Here in the opening years of the Twentieth Century,” Dana said, “Men of affairs are for the first time beginning to see clearly that collections and printed materials are not, as they were long held to be by most, for the use simply of the scholar, the student, the reader, and the devotee of belles lettres. … [They] are useful tools, needing only the care and skill of a curator, of a kind of living index thereto … to be of the greatest possible help in promoting business efficiency.”

“The care and skill of the curator….” Surely that is the role of the knowledge services specialist in today’s workplace, to take ownership of the strategic knowledge that ensures organizational effectiveness be the organization’s “living index thereto.” Could there be a higher professional calling?

The "Big Picture" - And Our KM/Knowledge Services Targets

As managers pay more attention to organizational effectiveness, an important parallel development has to do with the way enterprise leaders are looking at KM/knowledge services.

In the not-too-distant past – back when we had to argue and cajole and use all our manipulative tools to get management to have some interest in KM/knowledge services – one trick we used was the old “low-hanging fruit” idea. We would find some high-visibility, catchy KM/knowledge services technique, go to management with some discussions about how the organization needed to be thinking about how we were dealing with strategic knowledge, and make a case for putting it in place. Usually on a sort of experimental basis, focusing on one department or functional unit – probably a fairly small operation – and we would work on it as a “pilot” project, just to be safe and just to be sure too many fingers weren’t burned if we failed.

That’s not so much the case anymore. What we’re seeing now is management coming to us, the KM/knowledge services professionals, and asking us to prepare a business case for figuring out how the organization can deal with strategic knowledge. And as often as not, management (at least up-to-date and well-educated senior managers who recognize the viability of KM/knowledge services in the organization) is not asking for pilot projects or some easy-to-fix situation that has little risk. Now management is looking for an enterprise-wide KM/knowledge services strategy, and the gauntlet has been thrown down. It’s up to us to rise to the challenge. 

So how do we do it? How do we tackle this “big picture” opportunity?

One scenario I’m seeing in my work has to do with taking advantages of the enterprise-wide approach: since you’re working with such a large group, you get to identify the different layers and operational functions in place throughout the company and you work with different people to understand what information, knowledge, and strategic learning is required for them, at their particular level. Meaning of course that the people working in production on the shop floor are experiencing one KM/knowledge services need, the people in middle management with another, the employees in the executive suite with even another (or several if you separate out what the executives themselves require as opposed to the office management staff, personal assistants, and others). 

You get the picture. We’re now at the point where it’s OK – even good – to identify that managing strategic knowledge is not going to be the same for everyone in the organization. Indeed, it will be this over-arching collaboration and knowledge-sharing experience that will enable the organization to break down those “silos” and “smokestacks” we hear so many managers lamenting about. If we – as the KM/knowledge services authorities – are able to get our arms around the enterprise-wide strategic knowledge challenge, our colleagues and co-workers will be able to do the same.

Is this a new direction? I think so, and it might be one of the future trends in KM/knowledge services people talk about from time to time.

And certainly the beginning of a new year (and of a new decade as my pal Cindy Hill has pointed out) is the ideal time to identify some of the new trends in KM/knowledge services that are coming down the pike. And talk about how we can adapt them in our own workplace.

And we’re going to do that, if you want to join us.

On Friday, 15 January, at 1:00 PM PT and 4:00 PM ET, SMR International is sponsoring another of its Spot-On Seminars, the webinars we put together from time to time so people can share ideas and thoughts about KM/knowledge services.

The topic this time is “Getting Ready: Future Trends in KM/Knowledge Services,” and we’re calling it a “conversation” with Cindy and Dale Stanley and myself. But it’s not really a conversation. Dale and Cindy and I will start, but we also want it to be a dialogue, so after we’ve had a few things to say, we’ll open the lines (as they say) and let you have your turn. We want to hear from others who work with strategic knowledge what they’re seeing – and doing – and we’re anxious to know what you are anticipating.

So join us. If you would like to sign up, get in touch with Cindy Hill at cindyvhill@HillInfoConsulting.com and let her know, and we’ll put you down.

See you  - electronically of course – on the 15^th.

Managing Strategic Knowledge: Building Momentum

KM/Knowledge Services Success Depends on Staff Motivation

For every knowledge services director, there comes a time when enthusiasm turns to something akin to frustration. You know you have made progress in bringing the organization toward (if not yet to) recognition as a knowledge culture, and you have in place a number of initiatives that – while not making any particular headway – are understood to be “good for the company.”

But something’s missing, and you know what it is. The enthusiasm that you and some of your colleagues in the organization bring to the knowledge development and knowledge sharing (KD/KS) process seems not to be shared. Not always, and there are “pockets” where you might be making a little headway, you're happy to note. Yet you sometimes get the impression that while the people you work with are very willing to follow direction, to hear what you have to say, and, indeed, might sometimes come up with an idea or an objective or two, they are not especially excited about KM/knowledge services.

The spark isn’t there, and you need to figure out how to get people involved. You want them to be as committed to KD/KS as an organizational objective and you and a few other colleagues are, and they need to understand (or at least recognize) that strategic knowledge is something the organization cannot succeed without.

What should you do? How can you motivate people to get interested in what you and your staff are trying to accomplish with KM/knowledge services? How about a few tips from SMR International’s workbook?

1. WIIFM. Start with the basics. While the more idealistic of us might like to think about our workplace interactions from a “higher-level” perspective (e.g., everyone who works with us is as committed to the successful achievement of the organizational mission as we are), let’s get real here. Most people don’t come to work to “change the world.” They want to do their work – which they hope is interesting and rewarding (at least that’s what they tell the HR staff when they fill in those career-development forms) – but when they get right down to it, they’re not very interested in performing a task that they cannot connect to their own interests and their own advancement.

The answer is obvious: if “what’s-in-it-for-me?” is the driver for these employees, identify some low-hanging fruit (excuse the cliché) and find a KM/knowledge services solution that matches their success in their work with a problem that others have as well. Do you know a staff member who is continually forced to request information or forms from another department, but cannot get into the other department’s database to obtain the information? And is the problem such that people in both departments speak about how much time they waste going back and forth? Put them together, create a tiny working group to look at the problem and come up with a solution. When you’re finished, make sure all parties understand that what they’ve come up with is a KD/KS solution that – using the same types of activities – can be applied to other problems.

2. Convey the costs. Another useful step is to ensure that the KM/knowledge services commitment is part of the planning that takes place for any new endeavor, program, or product development scheme being considered. All of us have experienced the “catch-up” knowledge-sharing crisis that comes about when “what-we’ll-need-to-know” is left out of early discussions. The most well-known of these is the situation where program managers are surprised to learn that research costs for a proposed idea are going to knock a hole in the program budget, to say nothing of time and labor costs when the research team has to start paying to acquire essential information to pass on to the program team. Talk with staff early on to be sure they convey to their customers that research doesn’t come free. At the same time, work with program managers and others in positions of responsibility (and influence) to see if KM/knowledge services requirements cannot be incorporated into basic planning discussions. Talk about costs from the get-go. [And this technique, not so incidentally, sends a very strong message about the value of KM/knowledge services.]

3. MBWA to MBL. Managing-by-walking-about continues to be the knowledge services director’s most effective communications tool, and it comes in pretty handy for performance evaluation as well. But if we really want to get a handle on what people in the organization think about the KD/KS process, listen to what they are saying. In conversations about research issues, tools, techniques, knowledge services staff, or whatever other topics come up, take the initiative and slant the conversation so you – as the knowledge services director – can get a “snapshot” of what’s going on. Do you need more information? Is there a “tone” or an underlying reticence for entering into new programs because of some perceived barrier with respect to strategic knowledge? You can find out by listening, and if you add what you hear to what you observe when you’re walking about, you’re going to come away with more than a snapshot. You’ll have a good picture and, more important, you will now have enough information to take action.

4. Sponsorship. In every consultancy we undertake, Dale Stanley and I look first at the relationships in place in the organization. We particularly focus on senior management and the commitment of people at the senior management level to the KD/KS process. When you meet up with organizational leaders (casually or formally), what’s your take on their understanding of the role of strategic knowledge in the organization? Do they understand the value of strategic knowledge? Are they in tune with the organization as a knowledge culture? Does their understanding of organizational strategy include a reference point for knowledge strategy? If so, does the knowledge strategy match the business strategy?

Dale and I make a point of trying to get enterprise leaders to work with the knowledge services director to, as Dale puts it, “express, model, and reinforce” an organizational commitment to excellence in KM/knowledge services. We try to pin senior management (or even a single senior manager) down not only to saying they support good KM/knowledge services. We look for more, and we encourage them to take on a particular KM/knowledge services tool or technique and spread the word that they are using it (or support its use, if direct use of the tool isn’t germane to their work). Finally, we invite them to put some strength into their commitment, to let the word out that not taking advantage of good KM/knowledge services opportunities will influence their judgment about professional performance.

5. Organizational effectiveness. In the long run, it is organizational effectiveness that we’re going for, and that quest just might be the best motivational tool we bring to the organization. Today’s enterprise leaders are naturally interested in organizational development and in strengthening the organization – after all, it’s what we seem to be working on most of the time, and what we’ve been doing for over forty years now. But the true focus in the 21st century workplace is on organizational effectiveness. Effectiveness is our new organizational purpose. How well is our company (organization, agency) doing what it is supposed to be doing? How successful are we in delivering on our organization’s desired effects? This is a very powerful paradigm in today’s workplace, and knowledge workers know it and relate to it. If we can bring to our people a desire to commit to the effectiveness of the larger organization, their commitment to KD/KS will fall into place.