Sydney Harbour at Sunset, Sydney, Australia, June 2010. Photo by Jamie Hatch.
A warm summertime aloha to you, friends! Life in the Pacific Fleet has been a rollercoaster over the last several months. We have a new Deputy Commander, RADM Tim Giardina, a Commander who has steadily learned the enormous depth of what being Commander of the Pacific Fleet entails, and have had several interesting projects keeping us occupied across the world. I’ve been to Virginia, Texas and Sydney, Australia in less than 2 months time and our team continues to put its best FEET forward across the AOR, supporting our 4 program priorities and assisting our colleagues across the Fleet with their knowledge and information mangagement related challenges.
In my absence from the blogosphere (I find that Twitter is easier to fit into my daily routine), I have come across some good advice on how to be a better blogger. One piece of advice that sticks with me is to always give your readers something to take away, and one way to do that is to make a list. Today, I’d like to share 5 things I think no KM should have to learn the hard way.
- Applying solid KM methods and project management rigor to everything you do is crucial. The other day, my teammates and I were talking about , with envy, the FLAWLESS job the KM team at US PACOM does in managing their KM projects. I hate to admit it but sometimes, I tend to run my projects like my Grandma Aileen baked her cakes – a little bit of this, a pinch of that, a lot of love = delicious cake. In other words, despite the fact that we do deliver projects and create customer satisfaction, I’m not always good about following the written recipe. It hasn’t killed us, but honestly when push comes to shove, good project management is critical to prioritizing the workload and documenting and measuring outcomes. Try making and prioritizing your plans of action and milestones (POA&Ms) using MS Project, Sharepoint Project Tasker list or eKM.
- It’s not about you. Okay, so my opinion on this might seem to contradict point one, but bear with me here. All of us want to do ourselves and our teammates (if we’ve got them) right by establishing a strong program with methods and rigor. Further we want to show our leaders that we exist for sound and highly beneficial reasons and try to wow them by explaining our methods and rigor. But what it comes down to is this – they need to understand, first and foremost, how what we do is going to help THEM…not ALWAYS with a Power Point brief highlighting the finer points of rigor, but in straightforward, operations focused words they understand that help them solve problems “in the Now” as Eckhart Tolle would say. Knowledge Management Officers help leaders understand why good KM/IM practices are crucial from a strategic perspective, but do so by addressing problems in a tactical and practical sense. It takes time to master this ‘dance’, but “It’s not about you” is the tune to which you should be dancing.
- You can’t please everybody. I read about Pareto’s Principle or Law, or the 80/20 rule, in the book “The Four Hour Work Week” and I live by it now, in every aspect of my life. Most KMs I know are alpha ISTJ perfectionists in a major way. We want to please the customer, we want to do well, and we’ll do whatever it takes to “get ‘er done”. The 80/20 rule reminds us that typically 20% of the people we deal with are not ever going to understand or support what we do, but 80% of people probably will. It’s the 80% you want to please and the 20% that you need to be okay with ‘letting go’ of. In the field of government KM, this is SO crucial – for your own sanity. Don’t try to please all – aim to please most and learn to be okay with an 80% success rate. Believe me, it’s okay.
- Reward those who embrace or create positive change, big or small. Unfortunately in our environment, I don’t see people rewarded enough for implementing change. Instead it seems that the goal is to embrace the steady state, and “new” ideas, no matter how good, are sometimes killed before they fly off the branch. In order for people to want to “change” or “improve” how they share knowledge, they need to see it as a wanted behavior, and a rewarded one at that. Sometimes it’s as simple as saying thank you, privately or in front of a group of important people. Other times it’s ideal to take advantage of award systems and acknowledge people in a bigger way. Conoco Phillips has a phenomenal program celebrating “Networks of Excellence” that the Pacific Fleet is looking to model our ‘reward’ program after. Remember, though, the smallest bit of encouragement can go a long way so be positive and encourage those who help the cause.
- Acknowledge your champions. Before Rear Admiral Scott Van Buskirk left COMPACFLT for his new job as the Commander, U.S. Seventh Fleet, I had an hour to chat with him frankly about what he had experienced as a leader here and get his advice for how to prepare the “information space” for our new Deputy Commander. I took that opportunity not just to GET information, but to GIVE constructive feedback and THANK him for being a supporter of our initiatives and those of others. Whenever we had meetings with the Deputy Chiefs of Staff, he always made a point to reemphasize important staff initiatives and encouraged people to participate and support those initiatives and the people running them. He was a true “champion” and champions in leadership positions need to be appreciated and acknowledged so they will continue to champion the cause elsewhere. You might be surprised at how isolating it can be for individuals in the greatest seats of power – just like us, many of them appreciate being told that what they’re doing is making a difference to you. We have been blessed with some outstanding and high ranking champions at COMPACFLT, but champions come from ANYWHERE, at ANY level in our organizations. Acknowledge them and thank them for their support.
Be well all! Out for now…
Adventures of a KMO 