Understanding the Knowledgeable Organization

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Understanding the Knowledgeable Organization

• Jane McKenzie
• Christine van Winkelen

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Managing knowledge is central
to all these aspects of organizational activity
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What it means to be a Knowledgeable Organization

• Knowledge is recognised to be crucial to business
  success.
• Internal and external knowledge are accessed and
  leveraged to generate business value.
• It is recognised that the tensions implicit in
  knowledge-related choices can make it hard to
  achieve the expected outcomes.
• There is an integrated approach to managing
  knowledge choices and activities are dynamically
  adjusted as the environment changes.

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Each activity has two aspects
that can often pull against one another
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Knowledge Landscapes
Tacit knowledge is a hard won knowledge peak
that is difficult to share with others
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Deciding Knowledgeably

• Diversity helps
• organisations to make sense of their
  industrys knowledge landscape

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Deciding Knowledgeably

• Alignment means we all take the same journey
  across the landscape

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Deciding Knowledgeably

• Sometimes crossing the landscape is a
  difficult process

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Deciding Knowledgeably

• We need to help individuals to develop the
  leadership qualities they need to make good
  decisions whatever they encounter.

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Relating Intelligently

• Loose connections give us the flexibility to
  explore new terrains via a number of different
  routes

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Relating Intelligently

• Close ties mean that we can scale more
  difficult knowledge peaks together

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Relating Intelligently

• Responding to environmental turbulence means
  adjusting the balance between different types of
  relationships and managing the cost and risk

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Relating Intelligently

• Collaborative expertise allows us to survive
  in turbulent conditions

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The Knowledge Managers Job
New promise
Future Focused feedback
Absorb from outside
Individual specialists
flexible loose associations
diversity
Controlled flow
monitor current performance
Efficient delivery
Organisational evolution
close relationships
Aligned decisions
is to co-ordinate all this
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A coherent pattern of complementary effort
The aim is to efficiently exploit
knowledge exploration for value
by taking steps to align
the diversity of expertise
and creating the organizational conditions
to harness individual learning
into a value generating pattern of actions
appropriate to the external context.
which depends on controlling knowledge
flows from inside out
and absorbing knowledge from outside in
and loose associations that bring flexibility
through a blend of close relationships for deep
knowledge
and monitoring processes that anticipate future
exploration needs
kept on track by feedback on current performance
that supports the journey across the knowledge
landscape