D. Manage Performance and Knowledge

The area circled with the broken line represents the core people management activities and their relationship.

This theme will examine how to manage performance and knowledge. These themes centre on how organisations and managers need to enhance performance efficiencies and knowledge management to improve processes and overall competitiveness.

As the information or knowledge economy extends across all sectors of the global and local economies, a shift has occurred towards the importance of harnessing internal strengths to achieve competitive advantage. It is an environment where technology has rapidly reinvented operational technology, information exchange and management systems. An environment where process control and product differentiation is much harder to achieve and even harder to maintain for any period of time before other companies, with lower margins of profit and higher levels of quality assume competitive advantage.

In these environments, organisations need to not only work with staff to improve performance but also to enhance how knowledge is captured, transferred and managed. This means complimenting performance approasal and review processes with improved information management systems and knowledge management solutions.

Examining the management of performance, information technology and knowledge together will highlight their relationship. It will also reinforce management and leadership in a context where the motto "people make a difference" has become a commercial reality. In this environment the role of leadership is critical and good leaders become part of the mosaic that underpins the harnessing people performance and all forms of knowledge.