The Burning of Parliament (J. W. M. Turner, 1834)
Knowledge Management and Strategy I believe that my friend and collaborator Mark
McElroy (2001) was the first to point out the inherent conflict in the
very popular, but we think mistaken, idea that Knowledge Management
should be aligned to organizational strategy and that its purpose should
be to mobilize knowledge in the service of it. But what’s wrong with
this widely held idea? Isn’t knowledge just a ‘tool’ or instrument of
strategy and KM just a method of upgrading the quality and
effectiveness of the tool? And doesn’t this mean that KM is itself just
a hand maiden of Strategy? Well no, not really. Things are a bit more
complex than that. The Three-Tier Model: Where Is Organizational Strategy? It
may be helpful to keep in mind the distinctions made in The New
Knowledge Management's three-tier model (See Figure 1). The top KM-tier
includes process activity and process outcomes aimed at enhancing the
way we perform problem-solving (where we define problems as "knowledge
gaps") processes in the second, knowledge processing tier. This tier,
includes process activity and outcomes aimed directly at solving
problems originating in process activity in the bottom tier. This tier
includes all other process activity and outcomes including all
non-KM management activities.
Figure 1 -- The Three-tier Model
So,
here is a three-way distinction that is very important to thinking
through the scope of KM. "Doing", including everything outside of KM
itself that uses knowledge to attain strategic goals and objectives,
mostly occurs in the bottom-tier. "Learning" (in the sense
of problem-solving) and integrating the outcomes of learning mostly
occurs in the middle-tier. And Knowledge Managing, which includes both
"Doing" KM, and "Learning" about how to do "learning" and KM, occurs in
the top-tier.The middle-tier is where the responsibilities of
management, in general, and KM, in particular, meet. KM has the
responsibility for enabling knowledge processing in the middle-tier, but
the knowledge workers who
perform middle-tier processing are responsible to managers, other than
knowledge managers, for their performance of operational business
processing including their use of knowledge in that performance. So, where is strategy? Organizational Strategy (excluding KM Strategy), considered as a process,
is a bottom-tier phenomenon in the three-tier model. It can occur only
after strategy, considered as a network of knowledge claims, is created
through knowledge processing in the middle tier. The KM component
of organizational strategy, on the other hand, is performed in the
top-tier, as is knowledge processing creating KM strategy. Organizational
Strategy is about setting goals and objectives for the organization and
specifying high-level plans for getting there. But KM strategy is not
and cannot be about achieving any of these goals or objectives,
because the production of specific goal and objective-oriented knowledge
that would be effective for fulfilling strategy is not the kind of
result that can be caused
and therefore planned by management, knowledge or otherwise. Instead KM
strategy focuses only on organizational goals and objectives related to
performing KM and enhancing knowledge processing (including knowledge
processing at the KM Level). Its goals and objectives should be limited
to enabling knowledge processing,and the self-organization of knowledge
workers around problem solving and knowledge integration, that alone can
bring sustainable adaptive success. The Conflict The idea that Knowledge Management should be aligned with organizational strategy, and that therefore Knowledge Managers
should be subordinate to managers concerned with fulfilling the goals,
objectives and plans of strategy carries with it an irreducible conflict
that harms not only Knowledge Management, but also, knowledge
processing, operational management and operational processing, as well.
The conflict arises from the three-tier model. Here’s an outline of its dimensions. - It
is the purpose of KM to enhance knowledge
processing and its outcomes. Any
organizational authority structure that prevents knowledge
managers from performing their role of
enhancing knowledge processing reduces their effectiveness in maintaining and adding
to the adaptive capability of the organization. So,
any organizational arrangement mandating
(for knowledge managers) a higher priority
for strategic goals at the expense of the
KM goal of enhancing knowledge processing
will reduce the effectiveness of KM in
accomplishing its primary goal.
- It
is the purpose of knowledge processing to produce
and integrate knowledge, including the
organizational strategy that is implemented
in operational business processing. Any
organizational authority structure that
prevents knowledge workers, including
managers, from performing their problem solving role
reduces their effectiveness as knowledge producers, and indirectly the effectiveness
of operational processes as well. So, any
organizational arrangement mandating (for
knowledge managers) a higher priority for
strategic goals at the expense of the KM goal of
enhancing knowledge processing, will also
generally result in less effective knowledge production.
- It is the purpose of operational processing to fulfill strategy, and to manage and perform
the day-to-day work of implementing
operational processes and attaining the goals and objectives of
the organization. Any organizational
authority structure that prevents managers charged
with implementing strategy and
operational processing from performing their roles detracts
from the effectiveness of the
organization. So, any organizational arrangement mandating
(for knowledge managers) a higher
priority for strategic goals, at the expense of the KM
goal of enhancing knowledge processing,
will generally detract from operational
managers’ performance in their roles. It
will do so because it injects Knowledge Managers
into operational processes by involving
them in issues of knowledge use, an area
of responsibility of operational
management.
To see the conflict more clearly, consider the following questions. What if strategy doesn’t work, what if it turns out
to be mistaken? And what if the managers who are attempting to
implement an erroneous strategy won’t accept that it is erroneous. What
if they require knowledge managers to "adjust the rules of knowledge
making", so that knowledge workers will neither find nor seek a better
strategic solution; but will, instead, devote all of their energies to
learning better ways of executing a counter-productive strategy –
one destined to produce bad results, regardless of how well it is
implemented? These questions are close to being rhetorical, but they
still illustrate the main points. There
is a KM function in organizations and it should not do knowledge
processing in response to operational problems ultimately related
to strategy, or attempt to command such knowledge processing. There is a
knowledge processing function in organizations, and if KM adjusts its
rules in order to save a favored set ofknowledge claims, its adaptive
function, along with the adaptive function of the knowledge workers who
perform it, will be compromised. Lastly, there are many operational
business processing functions in organizations, and if KM adjusts the
rules of knowledge making so that the strategic solutions that are
closest to the truth are not produced by knowledge workers, and
therefore are not available to managers and workers who need to use
knowledge in business processes, the general result will be a decline in
the effectiveness of operational business processing, not a happy result
for investments in KM. Why? If
it is true that the principle that KM should be aligned to
organizational strategy has such a plain inherent conflict, then why is
it that KM practitioners don’t acknowledge the conflict? Why is it that
they, instead, continue asserting that the first step in
establishing a KM program is to create an alignment with organizational
strategy? I think the answer is that they don’t distinguish
among Knowledge Management, Knowledge Processing, and Knowledge Use, and
don’t visualize KM-related concerns in terms of the three-tier model.
They therefore confuse operational business management
interventions, focusing on how previously produced and
integrated knowledge should be used, with KM interventions focusing on
how knowledge production and integration may be enhanced. It is
Knowledge Use, occurring in the bottom-tier of the model, that should be
aligned to strategy, and Knowledge Processing that may be performed in
support of strategy provided that the problem or problems initiating it
do not call strategy itself into question. But, again, KM should never
be aligned with any aspect of organizational strategy, except KM’s
central function of creating and enhancing sustainable knowledge
production and innovation. The Implication The
idea that KM is independent of strategy and should not be subordinated
to it has an important implication, also first pointed out by Mark
McElroy.That implication is that KM is a fiduciary activity in
organizations that must not be under the line authority of those,
including the CEO, who make and enforce strategy. In private sector
organizations, both profit and non-profit, KM should, like the CFO,
be responsible to the Board of Directors. In the public sector, KM, like
other fiduciaries, should be responsible to the legislative authority. I know that, given the historical development of KM, this implication of the relationship between KM and strategy will make
many of you groan. It’s tough enough to sell KM, you say, without
having to tell the "powers-that-be" in your organization that they need
to establish the KM function as independent of their own authority,
rather than as their faithful servant. In response, all I can say is: there
exists a management process, or set of management processes, in
organizations that can create and enhance sustainable innovation.
Call it (or them) KM, or call it something else, it still exists. If you
want to practice it, you have to recognize that its "best practice" can
only be accomplished if it is independent of, and autonomous with
respect to strategy, and that implies that it should have fiduciary
status. So there it is. If you want to practice KM, as opposed
to practicing knowledge use management, you need to make the case for
its independence and autonomy.
4:44:37 PM
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