A Ruthless Alignment of Knowledge Assets to Strategic Outcomes

Ronald Lamb
Founder, Strategy 2 Execution LLC

Motivation:
Strategy Planning Practioners are measured by the value that they bring to their clients. They are often involved in the most pivotal decisions of their clients. Their value leverage is enormous. Any opportunity to increase that leverage should be embraced. Strategy planners can demonstrate increased value by creating a Ruthless Alignment between Knowledge Assets and the Enterprise's Agenda.

Problem Statement:
Knowledge assets are often the most valuable assets of an organization. No organization consciously wastes their assets. That though is exactly what occurs during most strategy planning exercises. During the strategy development and planning process, executives continuously express their knowledge and wisdom. Often that information would be invaluable to others who will join the execution team at later stages of execution. In most cases, the knowledge that is shared is only captured if pertinent to the strategic topic at hand. The execution team will never hear or see captured versions of the information. The information is lost to the group or at best captured and shared in footnotes that few people will ever read. Examples of information shared in strategy sessions, that is not captured are; ? Sources of best practices ? Someone who is a subject matter expert ? External business context known only by a few senior executives Few organizations have a high quality knowledge management system and can link these kernels of knowledge with the strategic plan. A new approach to link knowledge assets to the strategy to execution process is required. There should be a new role assigned to capture shared knowledge as an asset for the execution team.

Approach:
Strategy planners who are present at these sessions can add a role to the team (themselves or a recorder). This role helps the strategy team understand that there is an additional action that will occur during the strategy planning meetings. That is, the sharing of information that can be of value to the execution team. The strategy team will 'tag' any key information /knowledge assets to the most pertinent targeted strategic outcome. The tagging occurs during the normal course of discussion and does not slow down the team.

Result:
The client has created a Ruthless Alignment between knowledge assets and strategic outcomes and initiatives. This is a much more effective linkage than depositing 'best practices' into a generic knowledge bank. Execution teams will have direct line of sight between the outcomes they are trying to achieve and knowledge assets that can help them. The Strategy Planner has added value to the client. They have specifically added value to the execution team by making it very easy for the client to either contribute or extract pertinent knowledge assets.

Conclusion:
The Strategy Planner can demonstrate new value to the client and at the same time increase the certainty of successful execution. They have linked one of the highest value assets to the execution of key strategic outcomes.

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