Highlights: STAR series Dialogue February 14-28, 2005
Knowledge and Human Resource Management

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STAR Moderator Dave Ulrich
Professor of Business, University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, Michigan, U.S.

Highlights by Jerry Ash
AOK found, consulting editor./writer
Inside Knowledge (formerly Knowledge Management) magazine

If you have the human values in place, you can manage with low, almost no technology. If there is open communication, freedom to question, inquire and fail, any process is secondary. If there is support (and time) for learning, models to aspire to, examples to follow, feedback to steer by and consequences for non-compliance, KM has a fertile substrate to take root and grow. Where the HR partner is lacking in vision, reluctant in collaboration, timid in setting requirements and fails to follow through, KM fails to germinate - Dave Ulrich

If HR is what it appears to be through the eyes of Dave Ulrich, then knowledge and human resource management are candidates for a marriage made in heaven. Dave has been talking the principles of KM (without calling it that) in front of HR and CLO audiences for the last decade. In a paper shared with AOK members in advance of the STAR Series Dialogue, Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood wrote:

"The collective skills, abilities, and expertise of an organization, these capabilities are the outcome of investments in human resources-staffing, training, compensation, communication, and other practices. They represent the ways that people and resources are brought together to accomplish work. They form the identity and personality of the organization by defining what it is good at doing and, in the end, what it is. They are stable over time and more difficult for competitors to copy than access to capital markets, product strategy, or technology. They aren't easy to measure, so managers often pay far less attention to them than to tangible investments like plant and equipment, but these capabilities give investors confidence in future earnings."

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That is Dave Ulrich's value proposition for Human Resources. Is it not the same as the value proposition for knowledge management?

And so the Dialogue with Dave Ulrich began with the wonder that KM and HR both embrace the seminal value of the human resource, but KM champions seldom suggest that a marriage is in order. In some cases-when KM is involuntarily assigned to the HR executive or the CLO, a professional shudder is felt.

Jerry Ash, AOK founder and special correspondent to Inside Knowledge magazine, wrote:

"I continue to lament the ongoing belief in the business community that the human resource ( whether knowledge or skill) is a liability, a cost, not an asset or a treasure of human capital of real value on the balance sheet. And I know, that this traditional mentality of management leads KMers everywhere to shun the mantel of human resource management-because, of the traditional 'image.' KM has enough intangible trouble of its own."

"Dave, how can we shed our own misconceptions as well as those of others, and team up to deliver the best people have to give?"

Dave's response:

"Sometimes fields (like HR, or KM, or finance) get "bad" reputations and to change they change their name rather than working through real issues. In some cases, people in organizations are costs and used as chattel, but in most progressive organizations, people and HR issues are becoming a major part of competitiveness.

"KM and HR can and should team up. HR provides specific knowledge about the infrastructure of an organization ... how to hire people, training them, incent them, and organize them. In addition, HR is shifting towards organization capabilities, not just people as its desired outcome. KM should be one of those key capabilities."

At the end of the Dialogue, Dave Ulrich concluded with a series of five questions and commentaries that left the group wanting more and knowing that this two-week conversation only scratched the surface of a consideration of the overlaps of KM across silos and professional boundaries. Dave's final post best summarizes the issues covered in this dialogue:

My summary will focus more on questions than observations. I think that if/when we ask good questions we end up finding more interesting answers.

1. What is the value?

The field of HR is in constant quest to answer the question, "what is the value we create?" And this question is leading to more expansive definitions of value. Value comes from the receivers more than the givers and the receivers of HR work are employees who receive competence (ability to do the work) and commitment (dedication to do the work well), line managers who receive the ability to make their strategies happen through capabilities, customers who get customer share and connection, and investors who receive intangible value.

For knowledge, the same question comes to mind: what is the value of knowledge created in the organizations? Where is this value defined? My sense is that this dialogue has helped me to think about how knowledge currency (not assets) creates value. In this sense "knowledge" is an adjective affecting a noun. It adds value to something, it is not inert. Knowledge is attached to or focused on something and creates value for it.

2. What are the overlaps and uniquenesses of knowledge, learning, OD, and HR?

My sense is that many interested parties are looking at similar phenomenon with different eyes, but seeing similar things. The fields of knowledge, learning, OD, and HR (and others probably) overlap both conceptually and pragmatically. My hope here would be to be pragmatic. If a representative of each of these four disciplines were sitting in a room talking to a line manager who was trying to figure out how to accomplish something, what would each say? What would be the unique contributions of each approach? How could each approach offer unique insights into problems of innovation? Customer share? Investor expectations? Or other strategic concerns? I don't have a complete sense of this and think some of these disciplines overlap more than they might, depending on who defines them. But, I also think each domain offers unique contributions to the field of organization and work.

And, each of these disciplines affects the other. For example, if knowledge is about the creating of ideas (as currency) or "ken" (as so well defined by Debra), then HR may align with this work in a couple of ways. HR at one level represents the organization processes for people, performance, information, and work. Since people are a source of ken, then the processes around those people are central to the stable acquisition and use of ken. People processes include buying, building, borrowing, bouncing, binding, or bounding people ... moving people into, up, and out of the organization. Since people carry knowledge and since HR work governs how people are treated, HR and knowledge overlap about the treatment of people. But, HR also works with performance ... the accountability and consequences that come from performance management. If knowledge is a critical factor in a company, then it should be codified, tracked, and rewarded. HR people should be able to help do that.

I could go on with overlaps, but the question remains about how to define, distinguish, and affect each of these disciplines. These are questions yet to be answered.

3. How do HR and knowledge work together in an organization?

There was a lot of debate in this dialogue about the collaboration of HR and knowledge. At some level, the silos represent deep understanding which is important. HR is a profession with a body of knowledge that should be mastered and applied in appropriate ways. Knowledge (less my area of expertise) is or is becoming a profession with a clear body of knowledge. But, together HR and knowledge are more valuable than being separate. I come at this problem of where HR and knowledge can and should report from the HR point of view. When I go into a company, I can see, touch, and talk to an HR person who is likely to be in an HR department. Granted many of these so called professionals are doing administrative transaction work, but increasingly they are adding value. I am less clear about where the "knowledge" people sit. Like quality, at some level, knowledge is embedded in every employee, but at another level, someone needs to frame the knowledge disciplines and bring them into the organization in a predictable way. I think that there are more dialogues necessary for where knowledge and HR fit in the structure. Should there be a director of knowledge? How does s/he interact with the head of OD, of learning, of development?

4. How do we know?

Measurement often falls back to activity. We measure what we do more than what we deliver. I sense that the field of HR is moving to measuring the outcome of our work, not the activities of the work. I think a similar discipline could occur for knowledge. We need to measure the processes of knowledge, but we also need to measure the outcomes of knowledge. It is not clear what they are, but once we define them, we can begin to measure them.

5. What is the phenomenon?

HR is often described as a discipline without a theory. My colleagues have challenged me to find a "theory of HR" which has been an important quest. I wonder at times if knowledge often goes the other way and might be a theory (e.g., systems theory) without a clear phenomenon. We envision what the theory suggests in terms of knowledge, but we don't link it well enough to the organization realities business leaders face. When I work with doctoral students they often write glowing essays grounded in the theory they come to admire. I ask them to write 3-5 pages describing the phenomenon they are interested in without any references to any theory. Then, I role play if they were presenting this to an organization executive, how would they talk about their work ... again without relying on other theories. Once this is done, they can go back to the literature and offer a much richer and more insightful statement of what they need to study.

So, what are the phenomenon at the intersection of HR and knowledge? I am not sure, but there are some options:

• How do some organizations seem to have more insight into customers, employees, and/or investors than others?
• Why do some organizations seem to innovate better than others and seem to be thought leaders and creators rather than followers?
• What gives an organization a "knowledge" reputation as a leader of ideas in their industry?
• Why are some leaders more able to consistently generate and generalize ideas with impact? What do they do to make this happen?
• How come some organizations seem to know more about markets than others? What do they do to make this happen?
• Etc.

I could go on. This dialogue has been fascinating in opening my eyes to where the field of HR can be tweaked to add more value. Thanks to everyone for their time and energy in engaging in the discussion.

Dave Ulrich

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