Unilever
The way to a learning, networked organization
Unilever’s Knowledge Management Group aims to help Unilever become a learning, networked organization. They follow a framework focussing on delivery to Unilever’s strategic objectives through locating, capturing, sharing, transferring and creating knowledge. Specifically for locating and capturing, DNV-CIBIT facilitated a two-day workshop for the KMG in order to explore how knowledge can be acquired and possibly modelled to benefit the company.
The team must excel
According to Cathy Bautista, Head of Unilever’s Knowledge Management Group, there were two reasons for exploring this issue. ‘Firstly, as a group it is helpful to have a structured way of organising the what and the how of knowledge acquisition. Secondly, the team knows that to be able to give a better advice and support to their customers, they must excel at what they do’’.
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 How do you plan to apply what you learned on the workshop?
‘We need to encourage the idea that learning is central to the needs of our business. The main issue for us is to influence the organisation in order to develop a culture of interdependency amongst our categories, regions and functions. One of the means in which we can achieve this is by capturing local knowledge for global use. It is important for any KM service provider, such as ours, to be able to offer simple, yet structured processes to our clients, so that they can achieve their business objectives in a faster and better way'.
What skills are required to fulfil the roles you need to play?
‘As a KM team we need to have the skills necessary for locating, capturing, transferring, sharing and creating knowledge. Because for KMG knowledge management is in essence about people, these skills, must be complemented with more general ones such as general management and leadership skills. We aim to support the development of sharing and learning competencies amongst our clients although we are not necessarily explicit in these goals. Learning from success is relatively easy as we can actively promote and help embed lessons derived from successful experiences. Learning from failure is more sensitive but just as important. We are promoting a culture of being willing to learn as you go and to embrace and apply learning both from successes and failures. This is what I would call a “wholesome way of learning’.
Focus is important
‘It is important to focus on skills of KM capability and networking. We believe that networking skills are very important because networking is one of the channels through which we can actively promote a learning mindset and culture in the organisation. The type of networks that I refer to are those who focus on and foster the purposeful exchange of knowledge’.
What are the key issues facing KM professionals in the next couple of years?
'Knowledge management needs to be aligned with CEO’s strategy. It will be essential to define how KM can support the business strategy, as well as build and/or strengthen KM competencies across the business. Professional competencies need to focus not only on what people do, but also on what they need to know in order to deliver. In that sense the discussion shouldn’t be as to whose responsibility it is, either the CKO, CIO or HR function, but rather of how to ensure that those needs are deliberately identified and addressed’. |
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Do you also want to develop a learning, networked organization? Please contact Principal Consultant Eelco Kruizinga at e-mail or telephone 0031 30 230 89 00.
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