This is an interesting view on the Chief Knowledge Officer Position. The author makes many comparisons to the CIO position and how they both have similar early strategies. He advises that a successful CKO as well as a CIO should have a more business background with proven skills in Communications, Human Resources, and Management. These skill sets far outweigh just having advanced skills in Technology. He also brings up that a CKO strategy which is focused primarily on IT management is likely to fail because a company's knowledge capital does not reside entirely in its information systems. Knowledge workers in the company store most of the information in their head making it crucial for the CKO to align workers and their knowledge to gain advantages for the company.
Transforming the CIO to CKO
Deja vu all over again
By Jerry Ash
The Information Age developed the need for networked intelligence. Business recognized that competitive advantage lay largely in what a company knows, not what it owns; invested heavily in information technology; and placed the integration of information at the center of what a company does.
The Information Age, it turns out, was a transition from Industrial to Knowledge Age. Today, stock is traded at many times the material worth of the issuing corporation (Microsoft now at 15:1), testimony to the fact that the value of a company now lies heavily in its "knowledge capital." CEOs have employed CFOs for 150 years to assist in the management of tangible assets (what it owns), but the rapid growth of intangible assets -- what a company knows -- calls for a different kind of leadership.
During the transition, specialists in information technology were elevated to Chief Information Officer (CIO) and expected to provide that leadership. They were invited into the executive suite and charged with the responsibility not only of building information systems, but of exploiting them for practical business needs. But, most techies were trained in information technology -- not information content -- and were ill-equipped to coordinate the function or bridge the gap between technology and business. Form defeated function and executive frustrations grew as the promise of technological investment went unrealized.
With the dawn of the Knowledge Age, this problem becomes critical and the business community once again is looking for leadership that can extract value from vast storehouses of information -- now it's the Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO). The cardinal skill set of the CKO is business acumen, enterprise, human leadership, cross-functional experience, an ability to meld seemingly disparate information into new vision, and the human skills necessary to forge coalitions among the company's multiple information communities.
Yet, early strategies for filling this position are generally following the same path that led to widespread disappointment in the performance of CIOs during the Information Age. "Wanted: a techie with a head for business."
The strategy is destined to fail for the same reasons the CIO strategy failed.
First, it is rare that a computer tech has the interest, skills or experience to provide the vision, leadership and business expertise required of a CKO. By contrast, an executive with a basic understanding of the fundamental concepts and terms of technology and a broad background and proven skills in communications, human relations and management is a better match to the requirements of CKO.
The essential skill set of the CKO clearly requires business acumen, enterprise, leadership, vision and cross-functional experience. Technology experts have a large leap to make across the business-technology divide in order to meet these essential skill sets. Experienced business leaders, on the other hand, have a shorter jump to the technology side -- to reach a skill level of one (1) or more. More significantly, as basic computer skills become a routine part of an executive's career, ideal candidates for CKO will be more plentiful in the executive camp. Computers are now routinely found on the desks of top level executives and business schools are increasing their use of computer-based technology in their course work.
Second, a CKO strategy which is focused primarily on IT management is likely to fail because a company's knowledge capital does not reside entirely in its information systems. In fact, knowledge workers (now 80 percent of the work force) represent a vast storehouse of "off line" information which they store in their heads and in the multiple information communities (departments) within a complex organization. This is the clarion distinction between the requirements of a business-oriented CKO and the previous history of a technology-based CIO.
A successful CKO will reach far beyond a company's electronic storehouses to engage in what I call Total Information Management (TIM)©. The CKO will be skilled at aligning people whose cooperation is needed to create teams and coalitions that understand the vision and strategies that can contribute to their fruition. The CKO will be skilled at motivating and inspiring people to overcome major social, political, bureaucratic and resource barriers to realize unfulfilled human and corporate opportunities.
When Bill Synnott, former CIO of the Bank of Boston, first described the CIO concept in the early 1980s, he envisioned a broad role. The position gained widespread acceptance but the vision didn't catch on. Before the business community fills too many CKO positions, it needs to reexamine Synnott's vision, clearly define the role and develop a search criteria to match. If they do, the CKO will more closely resemble the role envisioned by Synnott nearly two decades ago.
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