Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

Ensuring Leadership Commitment
Developing the Strategy
Writing the Plan
Selecting the Team
Thinking Systems
The planning phase offers the opportunity to focus on a course of action to move forward
prior to taking any action. By now, several leaders within the organization have recognized the
value of and need for implementation of a knowledge management initiative or strategy. (See
the MQI white paper The Business Case for KM in the Industry.)
Ensuring Leadership Commitment
Leadership must be actively involved for any KM strategy to be successful. When a
respected senior leader clearly demonstrates commitment to a vision through words and
consistent and continuous personal actions, members of the senior leader’s relationship
network, peers and subordinates, quickly follow suit. As leaders begin to communicate,
collaborate and reward successes, those successes spread across the organization. In Case
Example #8, lessons learned by NWRI Nigeria included locating enthusiastic champions and
ensuring a firm commitment from the top (necessary for a successful KM initiative). Further,
there are emerging leaders at all levels. In every organization there are forward-thinking
individuals who push the edge of change, no matter what name is applied to that change.
These are champions with success stories waiting to be identified and shared.
Recognizing that people do not change easily or quickly, implementation requires continued
leadership interest, oversight, presence, and sometimes active involvement, coupled with the
repeated message that KM is necessary. Beyond being aware of the desired changes,
employees have to understand them, believe they are necessary for the health of the Utility, feel
good about them, take ownership of them, feel empowered to do them and recognize the impact
of doing them. See the MQI paper “A New Change Model.” Leadership and management help
this to happen when they openly explain and communicate their understanding and
expectations through eye-to-eye conversations, group meetings, open forums and perhaps
even a town hall discussion. Many KM strategies require a change in culture—a change that
employees must actively support. See leadership commitment for some ideas to help facilitate
visibility of that commitment throughout the water utility.
Developing the Strategy
The questions from the Readiness Assessment Instrument and the feedback to your answers
have helped identify your Utility’s strengths and potential gaps in terms of readiness to
implement a KM initiative or strategy. The terms “initiative” and “strategy” can be used in many
different ways. In this toolkit, the term “tool” is used to refer to a specific bounded KM initiative
and the word “strategy” is used to describe overarching KM approaches (strategies) such as
succession planning, an organization-wide strategy that involves the use of a variety of tools
(initiatives) over a sustained period of time. Other KM strategies include:
• Becoming a Knowledge Centric Organization (KCO)
• Increasing Efficiency and Effectiveness through Knowledge
• Developing Knowledge Leaders
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