Articles and Books

 "Knowledge Leverage:  A Guide for the Practitioner," book to be published, 2012.

 "Sharing Knowledge: Problems, Root Causes, and Solutions," Knowledge Management in Practice: Connections and Context, Medford, NJ: American Society for Information Science and Technology, 2008.  For a pre-publication version for clients: Click here.

 "Major Change—from Failure to Success."  This White Paper discusses the five common seeds of change failure and presents a checklist for project health.  Click here.

 "Creating a Successful Knowledge Management System," PRISM, Second Quarter 1998, pp. 83-92; Journal of Business Strategy, March/April 1999, pp. 23-26; Knowledge Connections, The Newsletter of the Institute for Knowledge Management, December 1999, pp. 4-6. 
Click here.

 "Reengineering Revisited: Achieving Seamlessness," with Anthony J. Lynch, PRISM, Second Quarter 1994, pp. 23-29 (also appeared in The Best of Prism, Volume II [Cambridge, MA: Arthur D. Little, 1996], pp. 35ff.).  Click here.

 Managing the Learning Processes of the Corporation, Contributing Author, Frankfurt, Germany: Gabler-Verlag, 1994.

 "Process Thinking: Today's Path to Improved Performance," with Robert M. Curtice and Anthony J. Lynch, PRISM, First Quarter 1992, pp. 31-45.
Click here.

 Information Technology— Achieving the Potential, Atlanta, GA: LOMA, 1990.

 Human Resources—Today and in the Future, with Homer J. Hagedorn, Atlanta, GA: LOMA, 1989.

 Information Technology—Its Impact on the Insurance Industry, with Diane Smigel, Atlanta, GA: LOMA, 1986.

C&A Newsletter 1012

It's been a while…
I've received requests from colleagues for an update on my recent activities. So…

High-value, Focused Coaching
My work and my experience base have broadened and changed over time. Today, I am finding it more rewarding—and value-adding—to work with clients on much more focused engagements during which I coach senior managers and their teams to find right answers/decisions themselves. This mode of work ensures that these managers and teams are laser focused on what is most important to them, own the answers/decisions that result, and move on to implementation with true determination. Coaching is simply a different approach to consulting—one that often provides much more effective and valuable long-term results for my clients.

Strategic Planning for Businesses and Nonprofits
The first strategic planning effort I led as a consultant was for a large, multi-catalog retailer 25 years ago. Since then, I've been involved in many more assignments, but the most rewarding have come in the past couple of years. Recently, I have partnered with a firm that focuses on business planning for mid-sized, national, non-profit organizations. In contrast to my for-profit clients, such organizations don't focus on the next quarter or the bottom line. Rather, they have much higher-level missions—creating social impact by doing good and helping others. That said, many similarities exist for business planning in the for- and non-profit worlds, and having worked in the former definitely helps when consulting to the latter.

Business planning for non-profits certainly has its challenges, but any pain is far outweighed by the social good one is helping them achieve. If you haven't gotten involved with such organizations—either on a professional or personal level—I strongly recommend that you to do. You'll find it most rewarding.

Consulting Management
This past year, I served as Interim Director of Consulting Operations for a boutique consulting firm. During that time, I developed or acquired needed processes and tools to solidify their practice. These efforts included implementing a staff-planning and management system, developing a recruiting process to ensure a flow of pre-screened candidates (along with a computer system to support recruiting), and professional development process designed to support the needs of both the organization and individual staff members. Given this experience and my decades in consulting, I'm now open to provide comparable services and advice to other such firms.

IT continues
Over the past two years, I've coached the new IT manager of a very successful, international social investment fund. This fund grows rural prosperity in poor, environmentally vulnerable places in Africa and Latin America by lending capital, delivering financial training, and strengthening market connections for small and growing agricultural businesses. I helped the IT manager develop his information-management plan and, based on my prior experience with his organization, coached him in how best to present his ideas and his plan to senior management. To help ensure his success, I even aided in the facilitation of that senior-management meeting!

Leveraging Knowledge
Leveraging knowledge has been one of my focus areas for some 15 years—since I was chief knowledge officer at Arthur D. Little. Now, with my head full of knowledge about knowledge, I feel it's time to give some back…and so I'm partnering with a colleague to write the missing book on this topic.

While many books have been written about knowledge management, what's missing is a practical guide for everyday practitioners. These people include both those who hold official "knowledge" roles and those who don't even know such roles exist—but who believe in the need and potential of leveraging their own and their organizations' knowledge. People who lead knowledge functions in large organizations are certainly welcome to read this book—as we believe it will have value even for them. However, our real focus is on those who seek to leverage knowledge in small and mid-sized organizations, and within departments in larger enterprises.

If, based on your own experience, you have some practical advice for others on how to leverage knowledge, we would love to hear your stories. Just let me know and we'll arrange a phone interview so you can share your own knowledge!

A Lesson in Networking
When I started Chait and Associates, for marketing purposes I decided to establish a Web presence (as that was the thing to do). However, after a decade in business, I have some interesting—but not overly surprising—data to report. ALL the opportunities that C&A has generated (and they have been challenging and rewarding, thank you) have come either directly or indirectly from you, the readers of these emails! For this support, I truly thank you...

...and I ask you to continue to keep me in mind as you hear of new opportunities when you interact with your colleagues and contacts—and I will continue to do the same for you!

See you around the Quad
Over the next year, I will be developing and teaching a course on strategy and high performance in a new Executive Masters degree program at Brown University. The program is focused on leaders in healthcare, and will be delivered in an advanced, blended-learning mode. I'm excited by this appointment and the opportunity to give back to others some of what I have learned.

To contact me…
If you would like to contact me, you can reply to this email, reach me at <larry@chait.net>, or give me a call at 1-617-299-0290. I look forward to hearing from you!

Best regards…
Larry

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