In the same way that
organisations might define knowledge goals and strategies to create their own
future, so we as individual must develop knowledge strategies. We must be able
to plan, map and understand what knowledge we will need in the future so that we
maintain control of the discovery process and do not fall into the habit of
discovery through chance and happenstance. We need to develop a clear strategic
intent that will set out where we want to go and what steps are necessary to
achieve create the appropriate market value.
Personal capital strategy is
ultimately about choice and consequences. We all make decisions about the
future, the problem is that often we aren’t aware of the decision being made
and even worse, don’t understand the implications of the resolution. The
strange thing is that we are less inclined to take the same approach when
talking about our time, finance or health. It is unlikely that we would spend
two days of our personal time on a project that yielded no payback; I know of
few people who would be prepared to invest their personal savings into something
that gave no practical or aesthetic return; and although many people do take
poor decisions regarding their health, it is generally on the basis that they
understand the consequences (of the next cigarette or bottle of wine). So why is
it that we are happy to invest our time, money and personal energy into the
acquisition and delivery of personal capital that is at best of limited value
and at worst a liability.
One of the first things to
understand is where should we apply the most effort within the K-Profile to
realise our personal and professional goals. Now clearly the final action plan
will have to funnel down to a deep level – to understand what specific
knowledge acquisition and delivery actions have to be delivered over a certain
time-scale. However, the first stage is to consider the four key-areas within
the profile and decide where the most time and energy should be allocated.
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Explicit
Investment - in focusing on this
strategy, your goal will be to accumulate, market and store ideas,
techniques and information that exist in the market in codified form. This
might be by acquiring a professional or industry qualification, attending
a specialist course, or simply reading a series of books by a preferred
author. The upside with this strategy is that the options are generally
wide ranging, the market is often over supplied so costs are low and most
options can be tailored to fit your personal situation. The down side is
that if you can access the information, so can anyone else. The challenge
is that in focusing on this quadrant, you must still have the output in
mind and be aware of how you can use the codified information to create
something that is uniquely yours. |
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Tacit
Investment - by taking this route,
your goal will be to acquire and store deep knowledge that you can in turn
make unique for you. Once you have absorbed and internalised this
knowledge, no mater how you apply it in the open market, it will have your
scent and flavour. The investment process for this quadrant can be time
consuming, expensive and painful. By virtue of the fact that you absorb
the information through experience and intuitive judgement, this is not
something that can be gleaned out of a book. The reward is that you will
be able to create a strong USP in the market; the risk is that you might
pick the wrong knowledge area, or even worse the marketplace might have
moved on by the time you are ready to sell your wares. |
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Explicit
Harvest - with this intent, your goal
is to recoup market value of the investment made in your personal capital
base. In drawing on the explicit knowledge base you will be using clear
and codified knowledge that can be readily replicated and used by others.
If your strategy is to place a primary on this area, the action might be
around writing a book, publicising articles, presenting a conferences,
deigning new processes, or running training courses. The end result will
be that whatever you put in the market will be available to others to copy
and replicate as they chose – so you need to either manage |
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Tacit
Harvest - if your aim is to focus on
the tacit level, then your intention will be to create value in the market
the is differentiated and cannot easily be replicated by others. As a
strategy this can harvest high reward and long-term gain, one of the
difficulties can be in communicating your value proposition. If the market
is to reward you for your deep and non-replicable value, then how can you
describe what value you are going to offer? Consider two project managers
who are about to apply for a position to role out a large IT programme in
a European bank. Applicant A markets her value on the explicit
proposition, explaining the change strategies and project tools that she
will use to manage the programme. Applicant B markets his value on the
basis of experience and hands on management of a range of programmes.
Whereas A can explain her strategies in a matter of minutes, it might take
B quite a long while to explain the deep strategies that he uses to manage
change programmes. So, the tacit harvest strategy can be effective, but
you will need to think through how to position it in the market so that
people can understand the value, even if they don’t understand the
content of the delivered value. |
The whole point of this exercise is twofold; first understand where you sit at present; and second, define where you need to sit in order to realise your goals. My guess is that if you were to reflect on how you allocate your time and money at present, you probably have a bias towards one of the four quadrants. It might not be a heavy bias, but there will probably be an emphasis into one of the four domains. If this is so, one of the first steps within your strategic planning process will be to understand where you should sit and what action you might take to move into that quadrant.
(c) Mick Cope