NOW WE KNOW HOW TO MAKE FIRE…
But What Do We Do With It?
DEVELOPING KNOWLEDGE-BASED CLIENT RELATIONSHIPS, by Ross Dawson. Elsevier, Burlington, MA, 2nd ed. 2005. Paper. 392 pp.
The notion of managing knowledge, particularly in the context of professional services, is relatively new, as time in these things is measured. Of course, the whole world functions on knowledge. Libraries have existed for hundreds – maybe thousands – of years. Some years ago, Peter Drucker told us we lived in the age of knowledge workers, as indeed so many of us, and particularly professionals, are. Professionals deal with ideas, and knowledge is the substance of ideas.
The concept of managing all of this data – all of this information – in an organized and useful fashion has evolved over the years. Like the kid who came home from his freshman year at college and announced to his parents, “I learned the difference between poetry and prose. And do you know what? I’ve been speaking prose all my life,” lawyers and accountants and other professionals have been using knowledge for generations, if not always for its full value. Amazing it is that so few lawyers and accountants – knowledge workers all – know so little about managing that knowledge to their advantage and more significantly, to the advantage of their clients.
But the world has evolved in great complexity. Technological advances, a new competitive environment for professional firms, and vast shifts in client-professional relations, among other factors, have generated a new urgency in understanding the values of using information as a professional tool, and for more effective client relations. There has been much groping, and, thanks to a small band (mostly legal librarians, a good and hardy breed), brightening lights in the tunnel. Thanks to these pioneers, the uses of managing data, and the techniques for turning data into information and information into knowledge, are emerging. More significantly, using knowledge effectively is an art and a science and skill -- all of which are evolving at the rapid pace so consistent with our age. Dawson understands the process, and imparts it beautifully.
Two critical elements have evolved, and are continuing to evolve.
We see more clearly the uses of information as a discipline in law and accounting practices.
And we begin to learn to harness that information to our benefit in serving our firms and our clients. And that is what Ross Dawson addresses, and addresses brilliantly in this book.
As we’ve written in these pages and elsewhere many times before, the road to knowledge management, now well-traveled, often seems to stop with the science of acquiring and retrieving data. That road, which was built mostly by the brilliance of computer scientists, pauses where a clear understanding of the meaning of useful knowledge begins.
Dawson, in his book, now takes us to the next step – building knowledge-based client relationships. He has written a primer to help make knowledge more useful as a management tool. And a good primer it is. And more.
Dawson makes the important distinction between what he calls black box practices, in which the client receives an outcome without seeing the process evolve, and knowledge based practices, in which professionals engage their clients to make them more knowledgeable. Black box delivery of services, as we’ve often noted here, traditionally relies upon the self-exalted professional delivering a service to a client as a commodity. “The old paradigm of deferring to the superiority of the professional now rarely holds,” he says.
Dawson effectively points out that now, the new paradigm is to engage clients as an integral part of their businesses – to become part of the dynamic of a client’s business.
There is no such thing as a static relationship with clients, he notes, and defines what he calls “The Virtuous Circle of Knowledge-Based Relationships”, which he defines as a circle comprised of four elements …
This is a circle in which each element enhances the next, building a stronger knowledge-based relationship with clients. As a result, he says, you know your client better, your client knows you better, and you are embedded in your clients’ processes.
With these and other such analysis, each aspect of which is expanded in detail in subsequent chapters, Dawson meticulously builds a structure that ultimately results in a true knowledge-based relationship with clients.
This goes much beyond academics. Step by step, Dawson builds a new and organized approach to the contemporary relationship between professional and client that contributes to a successful professional practice that’s far greater than any traditional structure. This is the 21st century practice, and this book is it’s handbook and blueprint. Those that grasp its concepts will, I suggest, survive in coming decades, as those who do not see its efficacy will not.
It is, I should note, a pleasure to read this book, not only for its lucid and rational instruction, but for its confirmation of much that I and others have been saying for some time. We agree on virtually every aspect of it, although he goes much farther into the process than most have done.
On a theoretical level, I’ve often noted that knowledge management must be predicated on the realization that this is a dynamic world, in which things change constantly. (See What is Information?) It is important, I believe, to understand some basic concepts of knowledge, many of which are at the foundation of Dawson’s processes.
There is a growing body of material on knowledge management, as well as some useful blogs, particularly, Excited Utterances. But the basic blueprint, and the driving philosophy, is in Dawson’s book.
His understanding of cognition is at the heart of Dawson’s excellent book. He takes it from the theoretical to the practical in Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, a process that is a joy to watch.
As knowledge management penetrates the consciousness of a greater body of professionals, Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationship will be a well-read and well-thumbed handbook. It is certainly one of the more important works in the field of client relationships and practice management.