Tuesday 5 January 2016

The CEO's role in KM

This article by Arun Hariharan is a very interesting look at the CEOs' role in KM.

I have already discussed the role of senior managers in KM on this blog, and it is reassuring to see that I am well aligned with Arun's views when he identifies the following 9 roles the CEO can play:

  • Expecting significant business results from KM. 
  • Treating KM as a strategy and not a task. 
  • Involvement in reviews. 
  • Making KM a key part of performance appraisals. 
  • Making senior people accountable for KM results. 
  • Investing in KM talent. 
  • Spreading the KM culture. 
  • Investing in rewards and recognition. 
  • Setting personal examples.
I would like to pick up on the first point, which Arun amplifies as follows:

Leaders get the results they expect from KM. It’s like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If the leader’s expectations are low, naturally, their involvement in KM will be low, leading to low results. The reverse is equally true. Leaders with high expectations know that it’s worth spending their time on KM, and this gives them results.
The implication of this observation is that we, as knowledge managers, can influence the results of our KM programs by setting the expectations of our senior leaders at a high enough level. If we set their expectations high, then we achieve high results. If we don't, we don't.

It's up to us!

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