Retaining Knowledge Capital

Knowledge management isn't just making the most of what
you know. You also have to retain what you know institutionally
in order to sustain the value inherent in your knowledge
management initiatives over time.

As I've advocated in my recent book, The Five Key Principles
of Corporate Performance Management, managing and leveraging
knowledge is only one component of an effective performance
management approach. As a practitioner and as a consultant,
I've worked with dozens of companies, assisting them in implementing
effective -- and sustainable -- performance management. What
separates the world-class, award-winning companies from the
also-rans?

During the course of my research and many successive client
projects, a winning company DNA started to emerge. World-class
performance management companies follow a discernible pattern,
which I've identified as the five key principles of corporate
performance management. As illustrated in The Big Picture, the principles -- taken together -- produce sustainable,
world-class results and competitive advantage for the organizations
that implement them. The key principles are:

1. Establish and deploy a CPM office and officer.

2. Refresh and communicate strategy.

3. Cascade and manage strategy.

4. Improve performance.

5. Manage and leverage knowledge.

Obviously, much can be written about each principle, and
for that reason I wrote the book. This article, however,
will focus on managing and leveraging knowledge through portions
of a case study of Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the
recipient of the APQC Best Practice Partner award and the
globally coveted Balanced Scorecard Hall of Fame award from
Drs. Kaplan and Norton.