The Executive's Role in Knowledge Management

In a previous book, If Only We Knew What We Know, O'Dell and C. Jackson Grayson focus on what they call "beds of knowledge" that are "hidden resources of intelligence that exist in almost every organization, relatively untapped and unmined." They suggest all manner of effective strategies to "tap into this hidden asset, capturing it, organizing it, transferring it, and using it to create customer value, operational excellence, and product innovation -- all the while increasing profits and effectiveness." In this volume, O'Dell explains how to devise and then sustain a systematic process of connecting people to people and people to the knowledge they need to act effectively and create new knowledge. Her observations and recommendations are based on several decades of research conducted by the American Productivity & Quality Center (APQC) of which she continues to serve as president, and, on her own direct association and involvement with knowledge management initiatives at all manner of organizations. Her focus is on knowledge management (KM) leadership and that includes but by no means is limited to C-level executives. She correctly insists that effective KM must be achieved and then sustained at all levels and in all areas of the given enterprise. Of greatest interest to me is what she has to say about communities of practice (CoP). With rigor and eloquence, she examines several examples (e.g. Caterpillar's Knowledge Network, Ford Motor Company's CoPs, best practices transfer, and After-Action Review, Halliburton's Energy Services Group, and IBM's CoP that focuses on expertise, content, collaboration, and learning), all of which illustrate these common components:

1. The skill of the community leader rather than senior management is the most critical success factor.

2. The CoP reflects a necessary and natural grouping of people to create and share knowledge.

3. Because supply-driven efforts are rarely successful, their CoP creates and maintains its content, rather than having content created for it by other sources.

4. Those involved recognize as well as experience the value of collaborative interaction between and among them.

5. Local community knowledge transcends the local context and personal experience of contributors, thereby creating critical knowledge for "the global community."

Although O'Dell's exemplary organizations are all major corporations, it is important to keep in mind that any organization (regardless of size and nature) can establish and then sustain a CoP, one that has an effective content management system. O'Dell explains how to devise, implement, and then maintain one. In the final chapter, she responds to a question several of her readers may ask: "Where do I go from here?" She recommends a nine-step process that begins with "getting smart" by understanding knowledge-sharing behaviors and support systems. "Read. Benchmark. Get feedback." The last step is to sustain improvements while planning to "scale up" by extending as well as enhancing them. Credit O'Dell with a brilliant achievement.