Competence is the state or quality of being adequately or well qualified to deliver a specific task, action, or function successfully. To boost the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed to improve performance, this presentation organizes 60+ articles across 11 recurring themes in management.

1. The views expressed in this presentation are the views of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the Asian
Development Bank, or its Board of Governors, or the governments they represent. ADB does not guarantee the accuracy of the data included
in this presentation and accepts no responsibility for any consequence of their use. The countries listed in this presentation do not imply any
view on ADB's part as to sovereignty or independent status or necessarily conform to ADB's terminology.
Recurring Themes
in Management
Olivier Serrat
2014

2. Contents
• Corporate Creativity and
Innovation
• Creating Teams with an Edge
• How-To Guides
• Knowledge Management
Techniques
• Leading in Organizations
• Making Partnerships Work
• Nurturing Knowledge
Ecologies
• Priming the Public Sector
• Research in Development
• Simple Guides to Difficult
Subjects
• Workplaces That Work
ADB's Knowledge Solutions
series aims to build
competencies in strategy
development, management
techniques, collaboration
mechanisms, knowledge
sharing and learning, and
knowledge capture and
storage. Throughout, 11
themes recur:

3. Corporate Creativity and
Innovation
• How might business model innovation enable
organizations to capture, create, and deliver
value to meet explicit or latent needs?
• Can design thinking change the manner in
which creativity and commerce interact?
• What are the sources of corporate creativity
and innovation?
• How would you nurture bold ideas in
government?
• How might an organization develop a culture
where creativity and innovation are welcomed,
encouraged, and even rewarded?
• Are there opportunities for innovations in
management?
• What is there in store for social innovations?
Creativity and
innovation are
needed in the
established
enterprise,
the public
sector
organization,
and the new
venture.
Critical
questions that
beg answering
include:

4. Corporate Creativity and
Innovation
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
explore and frame ways to leverage
individual and collective enterprise in the
workplace include:
• Business Model Innovation
• Design Thinking
• Harnessing Creativity and Innovation in
the Workplace
• Innovation in the Public Sector
• On Knowledge Behaviors
• Sparking Innovations in Management
• Sparking Social Innovations

5. Creating Teams with an Edge
• Establish a shared goal or purpose to get like-
minded peers on board
• Organize for knowledge management and
learning in project settings
• Assemble virtual teams for technical
competence, problem-solving ability, and
interpersonal skills, and tap the respective
attributes of members
• Leverage survey instruments
• Drive a team-centric communication and
engagement strategy
Cooperative
work by a
team can
produce
remarkable
results,
especially in
project-based
organizations.
Essential steps
to developing
successful
teams are to:

6. Creating Teams with an Edge
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that aim
to boost productivity with effective teams
include:
• Building Communities of Practice
• Managing Knowledge in Project
Environments
• Managing Virtual Teams
• Surveying Communities of Practice
• Working in Teams

7. How-To Guides
• Get to the root cause of problems
• Develop staff
• Involve people in collaborative work
• Assess performance to make sure learning
takes place.
• Ramp up the efficiency of meetings and
retreats
• Communicate to a group of people a clear and
powerful message
• Document accomplishments as well as
bottlenecks in projects
• Capture knowledge from departing staff
• Use stories or narratives to value, share, and
capitalize on the knowledge of individuals
• Enable groups to discuss electronically areas of
interest
Sundry tools
and
techniques
magnify
individual,
team, and
organizational
performance.
The most
common
serve to:

8. How-To Guides
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
describe routine procedures for business
excellence include:
• Asking Effective Questions
• Coaching and Mentoring
• Collaborating with Wikis
• Conducting After-Action Reviews and
Retrospects
• Conducting Effective Meetings
• Conducting Effective Presentations
• Conducting Exit Interviews
• Conducting Peer Assists

9. How-To Guides
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
describe routine procedures for business
excellence include:
• Conducting Successful Retreats
• Disseminating Knowledge Products
• Monthly Progress Notes
• Output Accomplishment and the Design
and Monitoring Framework
• Using Plain English
• Writing Weblogs

10. Knowledge Management
Techniques
• Actualize the thinking potential of teams
• Explore the cause-and-effect relationships
underlying problems
• Direct questioning that meets opportunities
• Monitor and evaluate the performance of
projects and programs
• Facilitate positive change in organizations
Several
techniques
support
knowledge
management.
Much as tools
in a toolbox,
their
application
must meet
the purpose
intended.
Some can, for
instance, help:

11. Knowledge Management
Techniques
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that detail
methods for carrying something out include:
• Appreciative Inquiry
• The Critical Incident Technique
• The Five Whys Technique
• The Most Significant Change Technique
• The Premortem Technique
• The SCAMPER Technique
• Wearing Six Thinking Hats

12. Leading in Organizations
• Place purpose before strategy
• Set an inspiring mission
• Demonstrate a commitment to community
• Be of service, not self-aggrandizing
• Appreciate that leadership at all levels matters
• Know how to lead clever people
• Eliminate obstructions and demotivators
Notions of
leadership
have been
stretched to a
degree
unimaginable
10 years ago.
Tomorrow's
leader must,
for instance:

13. Leading in Organizations
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
explore and frame visions, strategies, and
practices for leading in the future include:
• Distributing Leadership
• Exercising Servant Leadership
• Leading in the Workplace
• Leading Top Talent in the Workplace

14. Making Partnerships Work
• Relevance
• Effectiveness
• Efficiency
• Impact
• Sustainability
Partnerships
open up
opportunities
for
organizations
to gain
knowledge
and leverage
strengths.
Progress can
be achieved if
value and
attention are
placed on:

15. Making Partnerships Work
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
highlight the essentials of designing
partnerships for performance, articulate
building blocks, and underscore success
factors and special considerations include:
• Building Networks of Practice
• Creating and Running Partnerships
• Learning in Strategic Alliances

16. Nurturing Knowledge Ecologies
• Knowledge harvesting and sharing
• Social reminiscence
• Narrative techniques
Sense-making
is the process
by which
people give
meaning to
experience.
Knowledge
ecologies can
be powered
by:

17. Nurturing Knowledge Ecologies
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
suggest ways to nurture knowledge
ecologies include:
• Harvesting Knowledge
• Knowledge as Culture
• Learning Histories
• On Internal Knowledge Markets
• On Second Thought
• Storytelling

18. Priming the Public Sector
• Changes that move the civil service from being
a body giving policy advice to one that assures
the availability of quality public goods and
services
• The discovery of new avenues to finance public
sector activities and their servicing
• Greater reliance on the private and not-for-
profit sectors, away from a monopoly state
provision model to that of a public service
economy
Many
consider
public services
reform the
dominant
political
narrative of
the age. A
client-centric
philosophy
has
encouraged:

19. Priming the Public Sector
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
explore what promise tools, methods, and
approaches leveraged in the private sector
hold for the public sector include:
• Marketing in the Public Sector
• New-Age Branding and the Public Sector
• Social Media and the Public Sector

20. Research in Development
• High-quality applied research
• Practical policy advice
• Policy-focused dissemination and debate
Research in
science,
technologies,
and ideas can
inspire
innovation
and promote
policies that
meet needs.
Effective
research in
development
locks
together:

21. Research in Development
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that help
understand and nurture the complex
relationship between research, policy, and
practice include:
• Enriching Policy with Research
• Linking Research to Practice
• Posting Research Online

22. Simple Guides to Difficult Subjects
• What principles and associated knowledge,
supported by tables and figures, are essential
to a rounded understanding of the subject
• What examples, good practices, and key
references illuminate the state of the art and
its practice
• What challenges loom on the horizon
Primers are
introductory
texts that
explain new
material to
readers. In
plain
language,
effective
sentences,
and well-
structured
sections, they
demonstrate:

23. Simple Guides to Difficult Subjects
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that make
complex subjects easier to understand
include
• A Primer on Corporate Governance
• A Primer on Corporate Values
• A Primer on Intellectual Capital
• A Primer on Organizational Culture
• A Primer on Organizational Learning
• A Primer on Social Neuroscience
• A Primer on Talent Management

24. Workplaces That Work
• What purposes, processes, and people will define
the work to be done
• When and where people will interact to identify,
create, store, share, and use related knowledge
• How information and communication technologies
will enable the work to be carried out
• Where the work will be conducted
• What physical environment and staff behaviors will
drive the work
• How might organizational conflict be reduced to
foster learning adaptation and evolution in the
workplace
Nowadays,
the workplace
is best
conceived as
what
environment
enables
knowledge
workers to
perform. From
that
perspective,
one should
determine:

25. Workplaces That Work
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
convey the importance of the sociality of
work and shed light on the complex actions
and interactions that take place in the
workplace include:
• Building Trust in the Workplace
• Conflict in Organizations
• Delegating in the Workplace
• E-Learning and the Workplace
• Engaging Staff in the Workplace
• Informal Authority in the Workplace
• On Networked Organizations

26. Workplaces That Work
Hyperlinked Knowledge Solutions that
convey the importance of the sociality of
work and shed light on the complex actions
and interactions that take place in the
workplace include:
• On Organizational Configurations
• The Travails of Micromanagement
• Understanding and Developing Emotional
Intelligence

27. Further Reading
• ADB. 2008–. Knowledge Solutions. Manila.
www.adb.org/knowledgesolutions
• ——. 2008–. Knowledge Solutions. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/series/knowledge-solutions
• ——. 2010. Compendium of Knowledge Solutions. Manila.
www.adb.org/publications/compendium-knowledge-solutions

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