The Right Way to Sell KM

Scribe and CEO chimes in with some helpful advice

A few weeks ago, Knowledge Management Magazine folded up shop. The demise of the KM publication probably has more to do with the precarious state of the economy than with the health of the KM industry. Still, one could argue that the magazine failed because KM itself remains a squishy concept that’s yet to resonate with corporate America. Judging by the many hyperbolic KM-related press releases that fill my e-mail inbox, it’s easy to understand why so many people are skeptical of KM.
The reason for that skepticism may very well be rooted with how KM advocates go about selling the idea of KM. Shortly after Knowledge Management Magazine went under, I was sent an unpublished article that had been destined for its pages.

Written by Jerry Ash, the article elucidates a problem that is obvious but often ignored. Ash, who is the founder and CEO of the Association of Knowledgework (www.kwork.org), a group of individuals involved in KM, argues that too many KM advocates sell KM as if it were snake oil. They shout about big picture theories and abstract benefits, instead of linking KM to concrete and defined business goals and strategies. It’s no wonder then that KM advocates are right alongside snake oil salesmen when it comes to credibility.

After reading Ash’s article, I called him up. His take made a lot of sense to me. “The first thing KM advocates tell their organizations to do is throw out everything and start over,” Ash says. “Selling KM that way, almost immediately it’s in trouble.” The end result: KM initiatives fall on deaf ears or meet glazed eyes. And KM as a legitimate concept has no chance of gaining a foothold at the organization.

Indeed, many a well-intentioned KM intitiative has failed because employees just couldn’t relate to how or why they should share information. End goals rich in hyperbole won’t get KM off the ground. Employees must be told in clear terms what’s in it for them.

To get that employee buy-in, Ash recommends a different approach, one that is tightly linked with an existing strategy or metric. “KM people have to take a look at what’s been decided in terms of strategic goals and objectives and see how those can be served by the process of KM,” he says. Ash mentions, for example, one company that decided to measure the success of its KM strategy by the number of products brought to market.

In addition, KM programs should focus on areas that involve more than one functional department. At heart, Ash says, KM is an interdisciplinary practice that works best when applied horizontally across an organization rather than vertically. Relegating KM to a single department, he says, only reinforces the idea that KM does not belong in the mainstream.

The ideal scenario for Ash’s approach isn’t hard to fathom. Say an organization announces a plan to increase customer retention by 30 percent. Such a plan already has a defined measurement, against which the organization can determine success. Plus, the plan encompasses numerous departments, including sales, order fulfillment, customer service and marketing. In other words, a perfect opportunity for KM advocates to get involved. Instead of presenting grand ideas, proponents can, as Ash says, “take that end result and work backwards.”

Their ideas, when connected to specific bottom line results, will earn the kind of credibility no amount of KM theory can garner, Ash says. By following such an approach, KM advocates will gain more than credibility, Ash believes. They will also solve one of KM’s vexing problems. “One of the most frustrating things about KM is being able to measure or show value at the end,” he says. “What excites me about this approach is that the metric is already in place before you start.”

Sounds like a perfectly reasonable strategy that KM advocates would do well to adopt.

Opinion Editor Megan Santosus can be reached at santosus@cio.com