The current focus on
knowledge management is not a short term consulting fad that you can disregard.
There is now a deep cultural and industrial transformation taking place at the
heart of every commercial sector around the world. The daunting consequence is
that we cannot choose to ignore its coming, since we don’t really have a
choice in the matter. Knowledge will be the primary commodity for the
foreseeable future. This means that you must learn to learn; must take ownership
of your learning processes; and must master how to translate personal capital
into a marketable asset.
However, to take this
action, we might need to look at the world in a different way. Whereas many
advances in the field of knowledge management focus on the idea of knowledge
creation and distribution, it is possibly time to step up a level and help
individuals gain knowledge about their knowledge. To shift from a view of
‘know-how’ and ‘know-what’ to one that considers personal knowledge from
the perspective of know why and know when.
So often we fall into
the content and context trap. We assume that because it is possible to use
knowledge to create a market value today, that this will continue. Now, with the
rampant change in industry, both the content and context of our knowledge might
need to change on a yearly basis. When we have the luxury to operate in a
predictable world, then it is possible to maintain an income by responding to
the market. In an era of discontinuity and unpredictability, there will be
greater pressure for people to adopt a market leadership role, to take personal
responsibility for mapping where the market might head and to develop the
appropriate competencies to operate in such a market.
The K-Profile is a framework that
will help you resolve this situation. It offers a simple but powerful system to
define how knowledge can be managed. The system has three core components:
·
Knowledge Stock -
how knowledge is stored;
·
Knowledge Currency -
how you acquire and offer knowledge to the market;
·
Knowledge Flow-
how knowledge passes from discovery to delivery.
As
these three knowledge factors are synthesised, so a detailed K-Profile can be
constructed, one that offers a fully comprehensive model to help you manage your
personal capital as seen.
However, it is important to highlight that the K-Profile is not being offered as a robust scientific model that describes the process we all follow to manage knowledge. Like all personal effectiveness systems, it is a symbolic representation of a highly complex model – and one that we have yet to really understand. It is offered on the basis that the first step to making any process effective is to develop a simple process map – one that sets out a high level view of the way that units come in to and leave the business. In the same way, the K-Profile offers a simple view of the way that we acquire and distribute our personal capital. Only you can understand how best to manage your personal capital – but the K-Profile will help you to the stage where you have a greater degree of leverage and control.
(c) Mick Cope