Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

Leading and Managing
The Four Organizational Processes
Knowledge Capture
Knowledge Harvesting
Knowledge Mobilization
Start-up of the KM project usually means the beginning of execution or implementation of the
project plan. If the planning has been thorough, the project team is in place and networks have
been identified or established. Now is the time to set in motion project activities such as
allocating resources, contract administration, distributing information and communicating the
project plan to stakeholders and the project team, which must be managed, motivated,
informed, encouraged, empowered and supported. After start-up the project moves into an
expansion and growth phase where the processes and approaches needed to sustain the
project are established, and implementation gets underway.
Leading and Managing
With the emergence of knowledge leadership over the past several decades, new
relationships between leaders, followers, and knowledge have also emerged. In the past
knowledge was held tightly at the higher levels of an organization and used to maintain control.
Today knowledge that is essential to the success of the Utility resides in people at all levels.
Further, since knowledge and knowledge needs shift and change in response to new demands
and ideas from the environment, no single individual or group of individuals can have all the
knowledge necessary to run a Utility. See the MQI research paper Influence of Knowledge on
Leadership. In this new world, there is some shift in authority from upper and middle
management and leadership to the workforce, which essentially means that management and
leadership give employees more freedom while still maintaining responsibility—something that
is difficult for some line managers and supervisors to do! Yet, for leaders and the Utility to take
advantage of worker’s knowledge and experience for organizational improvement, the context,
direction and authority to make local decisions should be at the point of action where the best
knowledge resides. See the MQI research paper on Collaborative Leadership.
Thus the role of leaders is much that of a gardener. Leaders are available for advice; for
integrating the efforts of knowledge workers; for nurturing an atmosphere of trust, collaboration,
confidence and integrity; for listening and being a sounding board; and for overriding knowledge
workers (only) when they believe that a fatal mistake is about to be made. Mistakes will happen.
They are a necessary part of living in a turbulent environment, and having the freedom to make
mistakes is the price for creativity, agility, learning, and optimum complexity. What is critical is
that knowledge workers learn from all mistakes. Leaders recognize that there are some areas,
and times, when workers must follow exact procedures and deviating from the rules cannot be
allowed. A clear example is safety procedures or high risk areas. Thus modern leaders have to
work with their utilities under both conditions, perhaps at the same time, encouraging new ideas
and exploration to improve efficiency or effectiveness in one area of operations while ensuring
rigid discipline and training in another.
In the DON Case Study leaders at all levels played critical roles in ensuring implementation
of the KM strategy. As written by senior leaders meeting at the Naval Academy, their vision was
to see the US Navy “alive with the fire of shared understanding.”
©2011 Water Research Foundation. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.