| “The Knowledge Management Challenge: New Roles and Reponsibilities for Chief Knowledge Officers and Chief Learning Officers” by Dede Bonner
In: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: 
Summarized by: Caycay Roxas |
Knowledge management and organizational learning are not new. Employees hold a wealth of knowledge and experience about their companies, including the products, customers, internal processes, histories, technologies, and competitors. But this knowledge is usually dispersed across scattered individuals and locations. Likewise, learning usually happens at an individual level as a one-time event, without organizational context or a sense of continuity.
What is new is viewing knowledge management as a conscious practice, along with the sense of urgency shared by many
executives who now seriously consider knowledge management and organizational learning competitive business strategies.
One major step some organizations have taken to harness their knowledge and learning capabilities is to appoint a new breed of executives to strategically leverage these valuable assets. These newly created positions are called chief knowledge officers
(CKOs), chief learning officers (CLOs), knowledge managers, learning architects, and the like. They all share the missionary belief that they can strategically change how their organizations use and value knowledge and learning, with the ultimate objective of better meeting customer’s needs.
Defining the job titles, roles, responsibilities, and daily activities for CKOs, CLOs, and other knowledge and learning managers is a work in progress. Different organizations are likely to have different expectations. However, in most cases the incumbent is
considered a member of the senior management team, and his job can be described as a highly complex and ambiguous.
Seeking a Definition for Knowledge Management
There is no generally accepted definition of knowledge management (Hansen, et.al, 1999). Most attempts at defining knowledge management call it a process, which is aided by technology. Other commonly used, simple descriptions for the term include information that has the value for action and transforming information and intellectual assets into an enduring value for an
organization’s customers and people.
Two key points in the definition emerged from a London Business School study (Earl and Scott, 1999):
1.Knowledge today is necessary and sustainable source of competitive advantage.
2.Organizations are not good at managing either explicit or tacit knowledge.
Anderson consulting uses the following definition of knowledge management in its case study: “The systematic process of acquiring, creating, capturing, synthesizing, learning, and using information, insights, and experiences to enable performance. In this way, knowledge management is the engine that transforms ideas into business value.”
Historical Perspectives on CKOs and CLOs
| Originates from Chief Information Officers | Originates from Director of Training or VP for Sales and Marketing |
| Technology driven | With strong background in learning strategies |
| Understand the “how” part of Knowledge Management. | With strong orientation toward setting and reaching business goal. |
| Focus the “what” of knowledge to ensure it results in a competitive business advantage with the sense of strategic vision and business savvy. | Focus on changing organization’s mindset from training to continuous learning and human performance improvement initiatives. |
| Has the strategic role and charter to align KM initiatives across the organization | Committed to the strategic integration of organizational and individual learning at all levels |
Characteristics of Supportive Organizations
The characteristics of supportive organizations can be divided into two categories:
| Highly supportive senior management | Information Technology |
| An organization mindset of rapid growth (sometimes also manifested as a sense of external threats from outside competitors | Integration of IT, HR, and business units to support and maximize KM and organizational learning |
| A high level of internal trust among employees, which facilitates open sharing of knowledge | Emphasis on high-level strategic systems, planning, and thinking |
| A fundamental belief that organizational learning and knowledge management are key business advantages | Existence of the formalized positions, such as CKOs CLOs, or some other variant of knowledge or learning manager to ensure these activities were systematically occurring throughout the enterprise |
| An exceptionally well-defined orientation to providing customer-centered products and services | Measurement and Standards to ensure compliance, to support the continuous quantifiable productivity of knowledge and learning efforts, and to determine the strategic outcomes that the initiatives would be judged by |
Below illustrates the key elements of effective knowledge management and organizational learning in practice:
It is interesting to compare the organizational support of the cases in which there are formally designated CKOs and CLOs with the cases that had only informal support and no formal positions (Lancaster General Hospital, Seven Schools, Plante & Moran). In the cases with informal CLOs, these protagonists share many of the same issues, challenges, solutions, and personal characteristics, but operate on more of a local level, in response to singular events, or perhaps within more conservative cultures. At the same time, they represent shining examples of how individuals can overcome organizational barriers to act as knowledge managers or learning leaders with impressive results.
The Reasons Behind Creating CKO and CLO Roles
Case studies show that CKO and CLO positions are likely to be created in response to both severe internal and external business pressures. The external business pressures included increasingly competitive markets, a changing customer base, and difficulties recruiting top talent. For example, Foreign Bank was having trouble attracting and retaining key employees to compete in the aggressive US financial market, coupled with problems in missed business opportunities from lags in employees’ technical product knowledge. In this case, the trigger issue and first priority for the new CKO – to understand why applicants were rejecting employment offers – is traditionally within the domain of human resources.
The creation of new CKO, CLO, knowledge, and learning-leadership roles also resulted from internal triggers, such as changes in business operations, the perceived need to better serve customers, or simply the need to ensure that learning or knowledge were being leveraged across the entire firm or network. In a number of cases, the combination of internal and external forces resulted in senior management’s decision to create CKO and CLO roles, as described in Xerox case and SAIC chapters.
Below is a table that provides a list of reasons the authors cited for creating the CKO and CLO positions. It is important to note that this list is not all-inclusive and covers only the reasons the case authors specifically mentioned.
Internal Forces:
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Internal Forces:
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External Forces:
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External Forces:
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Both Internal and External Forces:
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Both Internal and External Forces:
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What do CKOs and CLOs Really Do?
There is a wide diversity in how these individuals describe their roles, activities, due in part to the inherent differences between CKOs and CLOs. The variety in their industries, organizations, size of organizations, products and services, cultures, and senior leadership also accounts for some of the differences.
But considering how diverse this collection of organizations and individuals is, what is most striking is the similarities in their roles, responsibilities, and daily activities. Case authors universally (or nearly so) cited the following 10 activities and roles:
- Align or integrate diverse functions or groups
- Best practices or benchmarking studies (either utilize previous ones or design new ones)
- Development of culture for acceptance of one or more of the following: organizational learning, continuous learning, or knowledge management
- Customer service orientation
- Identify critical areas for improvement or conducted needs and analysis
- Knowledge-content activities (contributed to or managed the capture, share, and retention activities)
- Leverage corporate-wide learning or knowledge, or both.
- Partnerships with senior managers or others
- Strategic planning and implementation
- Visionary or champion role for organizational learning or knowledge management, or both
The bottom line of the roles, responsibilities, and daily activities of CKOs, CLOs, and other knowledge and learning managers
summarized from various companies can be synthesized into 11 key action verbs. These action verbs are as follows:
- align
- benchmark
- design
- develop
- identify
- implement
- integrate
- leverage
- partner
- plan
- strategize
The desirable skill mix for each CKO or CLO position depends in large part on the expectations and needs of the organization’s senior management team, its culture, and its business imperatives.
Alternatives to Formal CKO and CLO Positions
There are numerous alternatives to CKO and CLO positions. Creating these jobs should not be viewed as the one and only path to organizational learning and knowledge management. For example, a grassroot alternative to a senior-level position is a knowledge management team that works with each business unit. Pushing the responsibility for knowledge management down to lower levels helps to combat employee resistance to knowledge and learning initiatives, and improves employee buy-in and understanding. This strategy may also raise the likelihood for capturing important tacit knowledge. However, a decentralized approach risks causing isolation, politicization, and confusion over priorities in the absence of strong leadership (Hansen, Nohria, and Tierney, 1999).
In another plan, “knowledge champions” can be designated by management or self-appointed within the business units, rather than operating at the corporate level. An advantage to this plan is that it avoids many of the initial issues facing organizations as they try to get on the knowledge management bandwagon, such as the costs associated with the executive recruitment and training of a senior level CKO and CLO. However, the risks include developing a far less a comprehensive strategic plan for leveraging organization-wide knowledge and learning capabilities.
In another possible scenario, formal CKO and CLO positions may prove to be interim steps as knowledge management and
organizational learning evolve from a mentality of being another program to taken-for-granted values within the organizational fabric, where the culture truly has embedded these principles.
In every case, a well-articulated knowledge management strategy is a prerequisite. A common problem is that there is so much raw data that employees are on information overload most of the time. A centralized source, either a CKO, a CLO, or a job hybrid, can sort it out, make sense of the choices, and keep the process on a steady course.
Summary and Outlook
Thomas Stewart (1998), a prolific writer on knowledge management for Fortune Magazine, says: “Knowledge management – and therefore the job of CKO – is about two thing: collection and connection”. If we take that thought one step further and agree with Earl and Scott (11999) that “knowledge management is 20 percent technology and 80 percent cultural change,” then HR professionals could interpret these messages as a wake-up call for their profession. Information technology can take care of the collection part, or the 20 percent of knowledge management. But the field is wide open for individuals with experience and business acumen in consulting, entrepreneurship, and the art and science of connections – the people side of human resources.
Very few organizations are ready to qualify as mature learning or knowledge management cultures. Organizations’ key potential strengths and limitations lie in their intangible assets – how much do their employees know, are they continuous learners, and will they hoard or harness their knowledge and learning for the collective benefit? CKOs and CLOs are poised to leverage and integrate knowledge and learning into strategic capabilities. “If the strategic issues that face us as a firm revolve around escaping our limits, applying our knowledge in different ways, and building an environment where learning is the norm, then knowledge is critical commodity” (Saint-Onge. 1999).
Go to article:
Dede Bonner. “The Knowledge Management Challenge: New Roles and Responsibilities for Chief Knowledge Officers and Chief Learning Officers.” Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 3-19. Adam Gersting, Bill Ives and Cindy Gordon. “A Human Performance Approach to Knowledge Management: Andersen Consulting”. in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 23-38. Nick Milton. “Managing Knowledge in an Oil Exploration Office”. in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 39-53. Verna J. Willis and Gary L. May. “Strategy and the Chief Learning Officer”. in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 55-70. Michael H. Mitchell and Nick Bontis. “Aligning Human Capital with Business Strategy”. in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 73-86. Case Study in Online Knowledge Exchange Community: Entovation International Ltd. (Debra M. Amidon. “Leading through Strategic Conversations”. in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner, editors. In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 101-114. Gary Jusela and Nick Nissley. “Action Learning and Organizational Design”. in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 133-145. Lynne Hambleton. “Supporting a Metamorphosis through Communities of Practice”. in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 147-156. Michael Horst adn Theresa Snavely. “Assuming the Role of CLO in a Hospital Setting”. In: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 189-203. Ruth Ash and Maurice Persall: The School Principal as Chief Learning Officer: Seven Exemplary Schools” in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 205- 220. Robin Lackey and Richard Brehler: “Dismantling and Rebuilding Learning Processes” in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 221-233. Dave Snowden. “Storytelling and other Organic Tools of Chief Knowledge Officers and Chief Learning Officers”. in: Jack J. Phillips and Dede Bonner (editors). In Action: Leading Knowledge Management and Learning. American Society for Training and Development, 2000. pp. 237-252.