Using knowledge management as the underpinning of strategy management
Does your organization have a handle on the factors that are most likely to impact your ability to achieve your strategy, internally and externally, across all focus areas? How do you ensure that your organization comprehensively translates the outcomes of your ongoing business environment analysis processes into stated strategy gaps and projected future scenarios that can be translated into action? Is this process iterative and flow down into the organization to support the creation of a larger body of knowledge that everyone benefits from? Is it inclusive and does it glean the perspectives of subject matter experts from across the organization, rounding each other’s perspectives off? Is it specific, and does it nail the issues down to the point where you understand the factors that have the greatest potential for impact and your degree of control over them? What could you do with this kind of information? Does this sound like a lot of work?
Careful design and ongoing adjustment to a corporate strategy management system accomplishes all these things in less time than it takes to fumble through a disjointed approach. The portion of this overall process that companies need to consider adding is an open knowledge management system. Taking an open and integrative approach to strategy and risk management makes everyone’s job easier and allows all corporate support functions to be more effective. The more deeply you engrain this into all areas of the company, the easier your job will be.
One of the primary purposes of managing collective knowledge within an organization is to improve the quality of decisions made. As a CEO, you will particularly appreciate the benefit of knowing that the ball won’t get dropped on current and emerging strategic issues. The focus should be on ensuring ongoing relevance of information, but particularly on escalating the degree of quality and insight with every iteration of the process. Eventually, this becomes a formidable vehicle for decision making, strategy and risk management at all levels of the company. As we have heard, escalate your information from data -> information -> knowledge -> wisdom.
Knowledge management can be used as the hub for all major phases of strategy management; development, alignment, implementation and renewal. When done well, this repository becomes the jumping off point for:
- Identifying emerging strategy gaps and critical issues / opportunities
- Forming the basis for scenario planning
- Utilizing the brain power and perspectives of your entire organization
- Increasing the accuracy of your strategy review decisions
- Determining the relevance of your approach to achieving your initiatives
- Engaging employees in a dialogue about strategy and the environmental context for decisions you have made
- Fully integrating risk management into the strategy management world
- More fully and consistently understanding your environment
Once you create momentum around this, you have a central vehicle for driving decision making, building knowledge, and reviewing strategy relevance. Your entire organization will be playing from the same song-sheet, one which was developed with the collective knowledge of your subject matter experts. Quality of decision making is worth its weight in gold in today’s business environment.