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Coming Soon: The CKO

Some companies are creating room for a chief knowledge
officer to manage unstructured information
By Tom Davenport
Issue date this column appeared: 9/5/94

Many of the companies I work with are starting to seriously address the issue of information and knowledge management. One major step they are taking is to create the post of chief knowledge officer (CKO) or an equivalent role to manage the processes of capturing, distributing, and effectively using knowledge. Organizations that have adopted this position include Hoffman-LaRoche, GE Lighting, Xerox PARC, and several consultancies, including Ern st &Young, Gemini, and McKinsey. A partner at a New York executive search firm says he is being asked to fill an increasing number of such jobs.The role of a chief knowledge officer is complex. Because the CKO is an unfamiliar concept, here are several potential aspects of the job:

  • The CKO must be an advocate or evangelist for knowledge and learning. Knowledge can be defined as the value-added information comprising what an organization knows or could know, including the skills and experiences of employees, documents in its libraries and file cabinets, relationships with other firms and individuals that could yield knowledge and, sometimes, materials in computer databases. Given the important role that knowledge plays in corporate strategies, long-term changes are needed in organizational cultures and individual behavior relative to knowledge.

  • The CKO is the designer, implementer, and overseer of an organization's knowledge infrastructure, including its libraries, knowledge bases, human resources (HR), computer knowledge networks, research centers, and academic relationships.

  • The CKO will be the primary liaison between external providers of information and knowledge. This is a major expense for many companies, so efficient and effective management is important. The CKO provides critical input into the creation of knowledge and uses processes that already exist within the company, such as product development.

  • The CKO plays a leading role in the design and implementation of a company's knowledge architectures.
The structure and reporting relationships of the CKO and the associated organization are important not only for their day-to-day execution, but also for their symbolic value. There seem to be three options for the location of the CKO role in an organizational chart. It could be a senior standalone role, a post that reports to HR, or a post that reports to a chief information officer (CIO).

A standalone role is the most desirable. The CKO's responsibilities ar e important and substantial enough to stand on their own. Further, the role sends an important signal to the organization. Whoever holds this position must maintain a running dialogue with information technology (IT) and HR executives.

The HR function in many organizations is concerned with learning and knowledge. But there are a few reasons why the CKO role should not be embedded within HR. First, the HR organization already has its hands full. In addition to the typical bureaucratic HR tasks, it plays an overwhelming role in getting new knowledge transmitted to the staff (such as through training). Creating, disseminating, and managing knowledge would be difficult tasks to add to the current HR mission.

The CKO function is also related to IT and could conceivably be combined with the CIO role. But again, the plates of many CIOs are already full, given all the IT infrastructure and applications work they must manage. Also, few technology experts are interested in information content, a crucial element o f the CKO post. One professional services firm put its CKO in charge of IT as well, but only after he made progress on knowledge management. Personal characteristics, important to any new position, are critical for the CKO. The following attributes would be highly desirable:

  • Deep experience in some aspect of knowledge management, including its creation, dissemination, or application.

  • Familiarity with knowledge-oriented companies and technologies, such as libraries and groupware.

  • Ability to set a good example by displaying a high level of knowledgeability and success.
Many companies think they don't need yet another staff position like the CKO. But if no one assumes responsibility for knowledge and unstructured information, those assets won't be managed. Without someone like a CKO, organizational learning and knowledge management will continue to be rhetorical concepts, not realities.

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