Knowledge managers: stuck in the shadow of immortal figures
Categorised under: Knowledge management
When in London recently I spent a productive and interesting day with a knowledge manager in a small-ish organisation. In the job for six months, he had finally been able to start into some knowledge management work. With a background in librarianship, computer science and project management, he is well-placed to do some valuable projects.
While waiting for the project to start, he spent time researching KM practices and methodologies, reading KM books and following the mailing lists. And this is where the problems started.
According to the KM literature, knowledge managers have the task of transforming their organisations, establishing new cultures and working practices. In this organisation, this potentially included:
- conducting a comprehensive knowledge audit
- redesigning the intranet
- implementing a document management system
- establishing a process for records management
- creating an enterprise-wide taxonomy and metadata standard
- deploying a CRM for service staff
- redeveloping the website
- creating a formal KM strategy and governance model
- supporting knowledge sharing initiatives
This is a huge list, and it leaves knowledge managers stuck in the shadow of immortal figures. In the world of KM literature, knowledge managers stride god-like through their organisations, radically transforming how staff and business units operate. They reshape firms into “knowledge-centric businesses”, overcome organisational silos, and prevent reinvention of the wheel.
This is, of course, crazy. Not even the CEO can single-handedly transform an organisation. As mere mortals, knowledge managers are set up for failure with they measure their projects against these grand objectives.
At the end of the day, if a knowledge manager delivers more value in a year than their salary and (meagre) budget, they’re ahead. If they solve one small but important issue, they’re doing their job. To achieve this, they need to escape these immortal visions, and focus on the work that can be done by mortals.
In this specific situation, we had a useful day. We explored hands-on ways of understanding staff and business needs, determined a practical approach to choosing activities, and highlighted a few areas to focus on. Now the real work of KM can start in earnest…
What are your thoughts on this? Do we need to escape the impossible expectations created for KM roles?
Tags: Knowledge management
James Robertson is the Managing Director of 
3 Comments:
Quite frankly, I think many knowledge managers set the expectation for KM too low. This is largely a byproduct of the level at which knowledge management projects are frequently staffed, which again is often way too low. Not to mention the “meagre” budget.
Knowledge Management, if it is to deliver culture change, needs to be staffed and funded and delivered at such a level where lasting change can be effected, and this is at a high level in the organisation, with the CEO as a champion, and with a decent budget. It is, as you say, “of course crazy” for your friend in London to effect organisational change. He may make some nice tweaks to an Intranet, but he won’t introduce a Knowledge culture. But it is not crazy for a highly placed KM team to to effect organisational change.
We know organisational change is possible – we have seen many organisations introduce a Quality culture, a Safety culture, or a a Customer-centric culture. They do this though a high level initiative working at all levels. We introduce a Knowledge culture the same way (and KM can learn the lessons of successful change from all these other cultural change initiatives).
So what can you do, if you are at a low level in the organisation, and you are powerless to change organisational culture? What can you do with your “meagre” budget?
What you do is make an unassailable case for the value of KM (and for the risks of not doing KM) at a level which you can influence, and then you scale it up. You quantify the scale of the prize. You make the case for action to your manager, then to your managers manager, then to the senior management, and then to the CEO. You make the case so strongly, that there is no excuse not to act. You ask for a budget to do the work you need to do – the comprehensive knowledge audit, the KM strategy and governance model, the knowledge sharing initiatives – you set up some larger scale trials, then if these are successful, you move into roll-out.
If there is a tension between our aspirations and our capabilities, then I would rather enhance the capability, than lower the aspiration.
We may stand in the shadow of the “immortal” figures (and having worked with many of them, they are as mortal as you and me).
But immortality is there to be grasped, if we do not set our sights too low.
Rather than immotal figures the knowledge role should be an invisible figure.Too often a ‘knowledge role’ or department is setup. The danger is the organisation then leaves it to this role to manage the knowledge. The role should be about working inside the communities and structures of the organisations, finding influencers and DOers that can start to preach about knowledge to their community and audience. ID the hurdles and barriers and help, nuture and counsel the communities to address this. KM should not be top level managing down, but influencing the key stakeholders to get their communities and groups to determine what is important for them to share/manage and then show the bestway to achieve this. In larger organisations this becomes more difficult but the principle (in my world) is the same.
Nick made a good point!
Good knowledge management is more of a cultural than technical aspect of a company. An organizational culture that places high value on effective knowledge sharing and learning will incorporate KM&L approaches into their projects, their intranet objectives, etc. And it will decide not to delegate KM&L responsibilities down the hierarchy to people who aren’t properly empowered to effect cultural shifts.