Adapting Knowledge Leadership

As one of the newly emerged sections of business management, knowledge leaders represent the collective mind of the company, handling how communications occur and keeping every wing aligned with the overarching goals as determined by the top level c-suite executives.

While there are categories that neatly separate each type of knowledge leader into a clearly defined role, every company needs a different type of knowledge management.

Because of this, it is of the utmost importance to understand knowledge leadership and how to adapt it to your business practices.

First, take a look at your company’s structure.

• How are things communicated?
• Where does this break down?

Even in smaller offices of a mere 20 people, projects can be sorely disappointing after the team tasked with building it ends up with no way to access crucial information. I was once a part of a global HR project dreamed up by our CEO. Unfortunately, it turned in to a major disaster because the person with the information was never around to answer any of the team’s questions.

In essence, we were flying blind.

In a case like this, the best knowledge leadership strategy would be to employ one person that is made aware of discussions at upper management level, and is able to share this knowledge (excluding confidential information of course).

Next, analyze just how open the communication is between departments.

The corporate level may be great when it comes to sharing information, but if this info is not passed around it becomes easily fragmented, leaving individuals to make decisions they are not able to make without the right knowledge information.

Appointing one person to act as the information broker across the organisation or project heavily reduces the mistakes made, for example that the sales team did not inform marketing about a price change. This also gives the employees transparency to consult without having to interrupt department heads.

Remember to take a scrutinizing look at how the virtual process of information sharing is set up.

Though there may be a shared drive where everything is uploaded to, this should not be a panacea for fractured information.

• How easily can it be accessed?
• Can employees search through it effectively?

If not, it is imperative to task one person with maintaining it. This means that standards are maintained uniformly and the information can be accessed quickly. Employees are then also given one person to speak with when they have trouble finding a file.

No matter the company, having a clean line of knowledge is essential to maintaining an agile environment that can quickly adapt to any changes and challenges.

While knowledge leaders generally fall into categories, these are not cemented in any way and are extremely adaptable.

To figure out the best way to build a knowledge leadership position that will benefit your business, take a close look at the areas where communication and knowledge breakdown.

Determine what is causing the dissonance and allow the knowledge leader to step in and solve it as well as maintain it!

© New To HR