In my recent KM blog post, I introduced the idea of knowledge management (KM) bridge builders. These are the passionate individuals who have dedicated years to laying the groundwork for future generations of knowledge workers. Their selfless efforts focus on cultivating a change-resilient culture, nurturing a knowledge-sharing mindset, and harnessing KM as a competitive advantage for their organizations. Moving forward, I’ve committed to spotlight bridge builders from around the world, sharing their valuable insights and inspiring stories.
Episode 1: Cindy Hubert, APQC Knowledge Management Fellow
Recently, I had the privilege of talking with Cindy Hubert, APQC’s KM fellow and co-author of “The New Edge in Knowledge.” Cindy is also a mentor to many people, including me. And I believe most would agree that her guidance, wisdom, patience and passion contributed to our ability to manage our own KM journeys successfully and with confidence. With nearly 30 years of experience at APQC, Cindy shared valuable insights with me during our discussion on how KM impacted her career and the organizations she has served. We laughed, reminisced and remembered those who lead and influenced the discipline of KM over the years. The full conversation is captured in this complete interview article but here are some key takeaways from our discussion:
Hooked on KM from the start: Cindy joined APQC in 1995, the first year of the knowledge symposium and just a year after APQC’s initial cornerstone research on transferring best practices. 500 people from around the world attended to talk about KM, and she was hooked from the start. To her, KM felt mysterious—it seemed like we were going on an adventure.
Memories and Mantras: While recalling an interaction with APQC founder Jack Grayson, Cindy said, “I was coming out of a classroom where I was delivering training. Everybody was laughing, and Jack noticed immediately. I thought I was in trouble, but then he said, ‘good, when they’re laughing, they’re learning.’ And that’s been my mantra at APQC throughout my career.”
Most Compelling Area to Focus on Right Now: Culture and change are very important topics but we need to get used to technology being disruptive. “I think that where KM has the most to offer is understanding how to build that bridge to technology partners and business partners—to be that connector who says: We understand what needs to happen to put this technology in place. That type of partnering is exactly what has enabled KM to come out of the back office.”
Things that Keep Her up at Night:
- People who say KM is dead. This usually happens when new technologies emerge, like generative AI, because they are not seeing KM as a holistic strategy.
- Organizations that make KM a priority and then don’t want to fund it.
- KM programs that are not measuring their value. When you can build that bridge of KM measures and outputs to your business processes and start looking at how KM is helping to deliver on your business goals, you have a huge win.
Where to Focus on Building Expertise for the Future of KM:
- Understand how the business works and how KM adds value, as a revenue generator or a cost center.
- Have a level of intuition about your stakeholders and the people you support. Know your culture.
- Have a level of passion that gets people to come to you, from your business leaders to the people who are servicing customers on the front line.
According to Cindy, “You don’t build a bridge halfway and then expect the people on the other side to meet you. The bridge is not going to magically appear like a scene out of an action movie—You actually need to craft the bridge, help them get on it, and bring them over with you if that’s your goal.”
Stay tuned for more episodes in my series on KM bridge builders. For now, think about the bridge builders in YOUR KM journey, and how you can ensure you are building bridges in your organization for future generations.
To see some examples of organizations who are paving the way as KM bridge builders you can read our knowledge management blogs and access our case study collection Over the Years: Excellence in KM in our extensive resource library as well as other tools, best practice articles, infographics, and more.