Knowledge Solutions: Tools, Methods, and Approaches to Drive Organizational Performance

Front matter

Olivier Serrat

Tools, Methods, and Approaches to Drive Organizational Performance

J me 2) Springer Open

Foreword

The Asian Development Bank strives to improve people’s lives in a world of heightening interaction between globalization and advances in knowledge, technology, and innovation. To meet the increasingly complex challenges of a fast-transforming Asia and Pacific, and seize opportunities, it aims to offer “finance ++’”— finance plus leverage plus knowledge—to raise the effectiveness of its operations.

Are we doing things right? Are we doing the right things? How do we decide what is right? If organizational and operational effectiveness is about getting results from purpose, processes, and people, we must all improve at reflecting on action and reflecting in action. To reflect unremittingly on content, process, and premise with self-knowledge, critical thinking, inquisitiveness, and emotional intelligence, our organizational development endeavors must encompass such subjects as change, structure, culture, strategy, systems, values, decision making, leadership, teamwork, alliances, human capital, learning, creativity and entrepreneurship, communications, incentives, engagement, networking, corporate reputation, technology, measurements and scorecards, and resilience, to name but a few. All through, the management of knowledge has a decidedly important role to play. Knowledge management is not an abstract matter: identifying, creating, storing, sharing, and using knowledge—both individual and collective—is a real-world imperative that can prime organizational performance.

A “signature” knowledge product of ADB, this compendium of Knowledge Solutions offers a healthy mix of ecological, organizational, and techno-centric perspectives on how organizations can ignite performance. Its wide-ranging and time-tested tools, methods, and approaches, arranged in a comprehensive framework for competence-building, will help facilitate decision making, build a learning vi Foreword organization, and stimulate creativity and innovation. I am certain these Knowledge Solutions will be heartily welcome and of immediate use in the public, private, and third sectors; they will be of interest in academia too, for instance in Master of Business Administration programs around the world.

Amy S.P. Leung

Deputy Director General concurrently Chief Thematic Officer Sustainable Development and Climate Change Department Asian Development Bank

Preface

In 2000, Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton’ argued that the gap between knowing and doing is greater than that between ignorance and knowing. To translate great ideas into everyday actions, organizations must close the knowing—doing gap, which arises when talk substitutes for action, memory replaces thinking, fear prevents acting on knowledge, measurement obstructs good judgment, and internal competition turns friends into enemies. These Knowledge Solutions offer organizations tools, methods, and approaches with which to bridge the gap.

If core insights are about “know why”, the powerful motivator one must assume organizations have else they will not perdure, core competencies are about “know-how”, the processes that will take them there and generate results. Competence is the state or quality of being adequately or well qualified to deliver a specific action, function, or task successfully; it is also what knowledge, skills, or behaviors improve performance. In organizations, core competencies are deep proficiencies that open access to markets and create and deliver unique value to clients, audiences, and partners there; the litmus test is that they differentiate an organization and are difficult to copy or imitate. Organizational and operational effectiveness derives from strenuous efforts to identify, cultivate, and exploit an organization’s core competencies, the tangible fruits of which are composite packages of products, services, processes, and methods of delivery—or other elements of business models such as policy and strategy or system interaction—that anticipate and meet demand.

To improve people’s lives, the Asian Development Bank partners with a myriad of stakeholders: they are government bodies, international organizations, multilateral development banks, humanitarian aid organizations, bilateral donors, the private sector, foundations, civil society, nongovernment organizations, community-based organizations, research institutes and think tanks, academia, and youth. Not to forget, ADB itself is both a source of knowledge and an audience

‘Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert Sutton. 2000. The Knowing—Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action. Harvard Business School Press.

Vii viii Preface ready to listen as ADB: Reflections and Beyond,” its seminal exercise in storytelling, demonstrated. Across the public, private, and third sectors, then, as well as ADB itself, this compendium of Knowledge Solutions can build competencies in the areas of strategy development, management techniques, collaboration mechanisms, knowledge sharing and learning, and knowledge capture and storage—all of which are essential to high-performance organizations. A bonus is that about half of the Knowledge Solutions are also arranged in 11 recurrent themes such as corporate creativity and innovation, creating teams with an edge, leading in organizations, making partnerships work, and nurturing knowledge ecologies.

Mandaluyong, Philippines Olivier Serrat

2 ADB. 2010. ADB: Reflections and Beyond. Manila.

Part V Knowledge Capture and Storage

117 Assessing the Effectiveness of Assistance in Capacity Development. 2.05..5.505 5555.5 6 Pate e ee ee ing alee a 1035 Appendix A: Cheat Sheet—A Competency-Based Approach

Author and Contributors

About the Author

Olivier Serrat is a principal knowledge management specialist in the Asian Development Bank. A staunch advocate of learning, he has written numerous publications and developed multiple initiatives to prime and energize organization, people, knowledge, and technology for learning, and help ADB evolve into a learning organization that continuously improves its development effectiveness and is accountable to its stakeholders.

On his current agenda is the ADB Sustainable Development Timeline project, an anthology of videos he conceived to catalog landmarks in ADB’s operations since 1966. From 2008-2012, Olivier served as Head of ADB’s Knowledge Management Center. In that capacity, he was the focal point for implementing and monitoring the progress of ADB’s knowledge management framework, and responsible for overseeing the development and delivery of ADB’s knowledge management agenda. To guide ADB’s transformation into a learning organization, Olivier formulated Enhancing Knowledge Management under Strategy 2020—that plan of action sharpened the knowledge focus in ADB’s operations, empowered the communities of practice, strengthened external knowledge partnerships, and further enhanced staff learning and skills development. In 2010, Olivier produced ADB: Reflections and Beyond, an archive of the memories and experiences of senior and younger personnel of ADB, past and present, and the Guidelines for Knowledge Partnerships, which specified the essentials of designing such collaborative arrangements for performance, articulated building blocks, and underscored success factors and special considerations. In 2009, he wrote Learning for Change in ADB to give timely, practical guidance to support and energize learning. In 2008, he introduced the Knowledge Solutions series to offer handy, quick reference guides to tools, methods, and approaches to drive organizational performance. In 2008 also, he introduced the Knowledge Showcases series to highlight innovative ideas from ADB technical assistance and other knowledge products to promote further discussion and research. In 2006-2008, Olivier’s brief in ADB’s Operations

XV xvi Author and Contributors

Evaluation Department was to leverage knowledge management to help ADB become a learning organization that continuously improves its development effectiveness and is accountable to its stakeholders. In 2007, he wrote Independent Evaluation at the Asian Development Bank, a retrospective that highlighted accomplishments since 1978 but looked to the future. That year, he also drafted Learning Lessons in ADB to set the strategic framework for knowledge management in operations evaluation. Auditing the Lessons Architecture, published in 2008, described a knowledge audit methodology developed to tie in with audiences for evaluation. With the addition of Learning for Change in ADB in 2009, these three short books were published in 2010 under the title of Learning in Development.

Olivier’s specialties include environmental management, evaluation, knowledge management, project design, project implementation, public relations, and strategic planning. He obtained an undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Kent and a master’s degree in agricultural economics from the University of London.

Contributors

Philip Ash was formerly advisor (human resources), Asian Development Bank.

Albert Dean Atkinson is a principal human resource specialist, Asian Development Bank.

Haidy Ear-Dupuy is a social development specialist (civil society and participation), Asian Development Bank.

Norman Lu is a senior results management officer, Asian Development Bank. Peter Malvicini is a management consultant.

Muriel Ordoñez is a communications specialist, Asian Development Bank.

Arnaldo Pellini is a research fellow, Overseas Development Institute.