Best Practices: Strategy and Leadership - Example of Leadership at the World Bank and Elsewhere
Senior leadership was one of the key factors in developing KM activities at the World Bank. Beginning in 1997, the World Bank president held several "town hall" meetings with the staff to explain his KM vision. He also added his very public sponsorship to a number of KM communication initiatives. As a result, the Bank organized two Knowledge Fairs at its HQ. CoPs displayed their knowledge sharing activities and illustrated examples of the benefits of KM. This fair was attended by thousands of visitors, the Bank president, and senior managers. This success led the president to repeat the fair during the Bank's annual meetings.
Best practice organizations in the private and public sector have also identified the importance of publicly enunciating a KM strategy and demonstrating management commitment to KM. For example:
General Electric's former CEO Jack Welch had led an aggressive effort to embed knowledge sharing throughout GE. Today, "failure to share knowledge at GE is considered to be the equivalent of an ethics violation." Managers are trained in the "2G Process:" Generating new knowledge and best practices, and Generalizing that knowledge for transfer to other parts of the GE enterprise.
Hewlett Packard Consulting focused its knowledge for development program on its strategic business units and their communities of consultants. The HPC knowledge for development program now supports HPC consultants globally with tools and methods such as Learning Communities, Knowledge Maps, and Project Snapshots.
Nokia's Futurewatch program employs knowledge for development in the service of one of its strategic capabilities: product innovation and development. Knowledge management methods and tools reduce the cycle time required to go from the generation of new product ideas to the commercialization of new products.
