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Examining the Knowledge-Sharing/Management Consulting Connection

March 29, 2012 By Guy St. Clair

When we summarize the role of the information or knowledge strategist, we generally say something like this: In every company, knowledge is developed, to be used for the benefit of the company and, when developed, shared wherever that knowledge brings benefit to the company. Managing that knowledge development/knowledge sharing (KD/KS) process is the work of the knowledge strategist.

Actionable knowledge is the basis of success in every company, organization, or enterprise. One of my colleagues even uses that “actionable-ness” to define knowledge: “Knowledge,” he says, “is information that is used.”

Well said. But then the critical question becomes: How is the knowledge used? What action is taken, using this knowledge that has been developed? How is the knowledge shared? And how does the larger enterprise benefit?

These questions come to mind as I read the provocative essay by Louis Menand in the March 19 issue of The New Yorker. While it could have been just another diatribe bouncing around the already over-crowded media coverage of the 2012 U.S. election, Menand’s essay – titled “Money Pol: Does Mitt Romney Really Love You?” – offers more. It is, in fact, an eye-opening description of important changes (if consultants aren’t careful) in the management consulting industry. If it was Menand’s intention to provide a look at how management consulting has been compromised in some consultancies while, at the same time, offering a look at what consulting is assumed (by most people) to be about, Menand has succeeded.

It helps to provide a little context, to think about Menand’s points as they might relate to what went on in the early days of consulting. When we think about Peter Drucker (often referred to as “the father of management” or “the father of modern management”), or McKinsey’s Marvin Bower (“the father of management consulting”), or the Boston Consulting Group’s Bruce Henderson (“the father of strategy”), we have a picture of people who moved into consulting with very high ideals about the role of the consultant. Growing into something of a combination teacher-leader-knowledge sharer and a straight-from-the-shoulder adviser, the people who pushed forward in the discipline’s early days prided themselves on the highest levels of ethics and excellence in service delivery.

Hopefully these standards continue (full disclosure: most readers know, I assume, that SMR is a management consulting practice), and, yes, there have been some changes, some modernization, you might say.

One quote from Menand provides a succinct (and, I would state, fair) general understanding about consulting these days:

The standard practice at places like B.C.G. and McKinsey is to parachute a team of consultants into the client firm. The team gathers and analyzes data, tons of it, and, after about six weeks, it presents its conclusions and recommendations to senior management. The team is then airlifted back to the mother ship and the relationship effectively ceases.

Note that among the firms Menand cites are Boston Consulting Group (B.C.G.) and McKinsey. In doing so, it seems to me, Menand is making the point that – even with modern or, I suppose we could say, with 21st-century practices – there is still a connection or a link to the expectation of high levels of performance and customer satisfaction from the industry’s early days. In my mind, this is the point at which management consulting and knowledge strategy come together. A good case could be made that the two disciplines have enough in common to benefit customers and clients of both management consultants and knowledge strategists:

  1. performance excellence (as just mentioned)
  2. customer/client satisfaction (ditto)
  3. experience, education, expertise (and prior expertise development)
  4. unique position in the industry or profession
  5. clear problem description/needs assessment/objective development from the customer/client point-of-view
  6. high ethical standards

With these six attributes, we establish an over-arching framework for knowledge development and knowledge sharing (KD/KS), resulting in – for the management consultant’s clients and the knowledge strategist’s clients – a knowledge culture. The framework opens the way to transparency, openness, and actionable opinion, supporting organizational effectiveness. When all is said and done, it’s a natural connection – this link between management consulting and knowledge strategy – and it makes sense.

As for the rest of Menand’s story, it is a fascinating narrative and well describes presidential aspirant Romney’s experiences and those of his employer (Bain & Company), and how their “take” on management consulting as a profession diverges in a number of different ways from accepted practice. Provocative reading all around, and particularly enlightening for those of us who work as or advise knowledge strategists.

About Guy St. Clair

Guy St. Clair is the Series Editor for Knowledge Services, from Verlag Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin, the scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. The series subject is knowledge services, the approach to managing intellectual capital that merges information management, knowledge management (KM), and strategic learning, presenting and discussing new and innovative approaches to knowledge sharing in all fields of work.

With Barrie Levy, Guy  is the author of The Knowledge Services Handbook: A Guide for the Knowledge Strategist (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2020). He is also the author of Knowledge Services: A Strategic Framework for the 21st Century Organization (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016). [Note: Go here for the free PDF version of this book: https://bit.ly/3msI27V. ]

Guy is also the author of Knowledge Services: Five Free Webinars from Guy St. Clair, available to anyone who wants to learn more about knowledge services. The webinars are offered at no charge.

Guy’s other professional writings are listed in SMR International’s corporate website, at SMRShare. 

Comments

  1. Guy St. Clair says

    April 5, 2012 at 9:38 am

    Peter Bond at LinkedIn’s Institute for Knowledge and Innovation at GWU Group writes:

    Guy, Made me think. Not sure if I’m interpreting the question correctly, but does that matter? Bringing a consultant in is, arguably, the first mistake in developing a knowledge strategy. On the other hand, pundits on innovation are telling us these days to be open, to reduce the ‘inbreeding’, so bringing in outsiders might transfer and then generate new and more useful knowledge. If a company innovates, it implies it has learnt and, thus, generated new knowledge, or it has restructured and added to previously existing K. Over to you….

    Reply
  2. Guy St. Clair says

    April 5, 2012 at 9:06 pm

    Posted by James Gunn at LinkedIn’s Institute for Knowledge and Innovation at GWU Group:

    Hi Guy,

    Ideally, organisations would have an employee (s) capable of doing (any) knowledge strategy. But not all do ….

    There are three reasons for employing a consultant

    1. getting an external view
    2. buying skills you don’t have
    3. buying resources for work that needs doing, for which you have no-one suitable and available

    There seem to be enough clients for whom 1, 2 or 3 is true. Take your pick !

    HTH

    Reply
  3. Guy St. Clair says

    April 9, 2012 at 12:32 am

    Posted by Dan Ranta at LinkedIn’s Institute for Knowledge and Innovation at GWU Group:

    Today and in the future, to be the best KM consultant you can be, you must have strategy (creation and implementation) consulting skills. This is the case whether you are a consultant or an employee working in KM. I am not talking about skills to create a KM strategy — that’s a given. I am talking about creating a strategy in any area within a company or organization. When you help group, functions, departments get their 1,000 day or 5 year strategic plan together you will see that they will realize that they will need to engage the employees “purposefully” in that group to actually execute the strategic framework. This is when your KM foundation kicks in since this should be the main vehicle through which you get the purposeful collaboration — as well as organization of expertise rosters and organization of knowledge content, etc. So — you have a great KM approach in place, then you get in the door with groups to help with their strategy — then it all falls on your lap — easy-peasy.

    Reply

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