John Hovell: Profiles in Knowledge

Originally published February 24, 2023

14 min readFeb 25, 2023

This is the 88th article in the Profiles in Knowledge series featuring thought leaders in knowledge management. John Hovell is the Managing Director and co-founder of STRATactical, a consulting and training provider. A leader in the convergence of Knowledge Management (KM) and Organization Development (OD), he is a practitioner, speaker, and author in OD/KM strategies and their application to current challenges. John has expertise in knowledge management, knowledge transfer, knowledge retention, talent markets, communities of practice, project management, change management, organization development, diversity and inclusion, collaboration, social media, social business, agility, Conversational Leadership, and Working Out Loud.

I have known John for over 16 years. He was an early member of the SIKM Leaders Community and has been an active participant, including presenting on seven monthly calls and attending most of the annual dinners held at KMWorld. Despite not living in the Midwest, he helped organize the 2019 Midwest KM Symposium and delivered a workshop. He is active in multiple KM and OD communities in the Washington, DC area, and took over leadership from me for the Local KM Community Leaders Community. John is a frequent promoter of job openings in the KM field.

I recommended John as an author to Guy St. Clair, series editor of the Knowledge Services series for De Gruyter, which includes my Handbook of Community Management. I’m very pleased that Guy decided to include John’s Creating Conversational Leadership as the most recent book published in the series in November 2022.

Outside of our professional relationship, John and I share a love of music, barbecue, and sports. We once attended a high school basketball game coached by my son, Roger.

John invited me to speak at ManTech International in 2008. My talk was “How to Be an Authentic Leader.”

Background

In 2014, John led a team to win a Chairman’s Award at BAE Systems for an enterprise OD initiative. Previously, he was part of a team to win the prestigious NOVA award, Lockheed Martin’s top recognition award for a large OD/KM success and was instrumental in the creation and execution of the enterprise KM strategy for ManTech International Corporation. He volunteers as the corporate lead for the award-winning annual STEMmerday event, which engages thousands of participants in learning on science, technology, engineering, and math. He also serves on several advisory boards, including the International Knowledge Management Institute, Training Industry Quarterly, and Synergy Development and Training.

John has led five different teams to win awards from Chief Learning Officer magazine. In 2015, he was named the 8th most influential person in KM. He became a fellow with the Royal Society for Arts. In 2009, he was honored by Training Magazine as one of the top young trainers, and in 2008, as a young trainer to watch. In 2005 he earned the Project Management Professional certification from the Project Management Institute.

Education

The George Washington University School of Business — MS, Information Systems, 2000–2002
Virginia Tech — Pamplin College of Business — BS, Management Science and Information Technology, 1996–2000

Experience

STRATactical International LLC — Managing Director & Co-Founder, 2017 — Present
BAE Systems

Organizational Development Lead, 2014–2017
Senior Manager, Learning Operations and Technology, 2011–2014

Lockheed Martin — Senior Manager, Learning Architecture, 2010–2011
ManTech International Corporation — Director of Knowledge Management, 2003–2010
Veridian International Corporation — Corporate Webmaster, 2000–2003

Profiles

Re-thinking Organizational Change

John’s current areas of interest include:

Knowledge Transfer — a four step process for ensuring that unique and critical knowledge is not lost during job movements (e.g., retirements, divestitures, promotions, secondments, layoffs, etc.)
Organizational Network Analysis — a mathematical approach for visually depicting ‘how work gets done’ and/or ‘how trust and knowledge flows’ in an organization. As an augment to an org chart or an enterprise architecture, this ‘spider web’ diagram depicts who knows who, and how closely connected they are. This map is then used for many business purposes (e.g., find change agents to embed change, find experts on a certain customer/bid/proposal, prepare a new office move, optimize connections for increased engagement and decreased attrition, etc.)
Working Out Loud — this is one key cultural element (as opposed to the technology and process elements). John Stepper published a book on working out loud, which has a website and a 12-step process to learn to work out loud. But, more generically than his great book, working out loud basically means to ‘narrate your work in real time’. As you know, typically in organizations, there’s a standard way to get tasks from your supervisor or project/program manager. Then we go off, try to accomplish those tasks, then come back and report progress — often to find something has changed, and rarely are the dots connected across projects/programs (let along organizations). Working out loud is one way to begin to shift mindsets so that all employees are (automatically, supported by tech) sharing not only what they’re working on, but how they’re working on it, where they’re stuck, mistakes they’re making, decisions they’re making, etc. It offers a way to connect relationships, expertise and just plain task progress across an entire org (and beyond if done really well).
Talent Markets — match the supply and demand of organizational talent and customer requirements. Similar to working out loud, this is another tactical (and bold/scary) approach to re-thinking how orgs get work done. Think of this one as an equation — on one side you have hundreds/thousands/tens-of-thousands of employees, on the other side you have thousands/tens-of-thousands/millions of customer requirements. Let the ‘system’ match them up, as opposed to traditional divide and conquer based on role/function/location, etc. In other words, employees could see all customer needs and choose to work/progress/contribute to any of them. And based on employee profiles/work/interests/aspirations, the tasks could recommend themselves to people that might be available or interested in completing them.
Communities of Practice — straight out of Etienne Wenger’s book. Voluntary groups of people that share a passion for a topic. They self-organize and find a way to practice together, every community is different, but the ‘voluntary’ word is key, that’s what separates these cultural islands from committees, councils, project teams, etc. It’s about connection, trust, practice — usually it’s as simple as a monthly phone call and a website, but it can go so far as conferences, newsletters, awards, workshops, subgroup sessions, etc.

Content

Articles

Continuous Improvement through Collaboration, Social Learning, and Knowledge Management with Andrew Muras
Speeding the Business ff Learning Through Collaboration and Knowledge Management with Andrew Muras, Angie Dempsey, and Scott Petrie
Knowledge retention framework and maturity model: improving an organization or team’s capability to retain critical knowledge with Rocio Sanz
Virtual Employee Engagement through Virtual Conversational Leadership (trainingindustry.com) with Saule Menane and Donita Volkwijn
Reflections on the Future
Creating Conversational Leadership

Conversational Leadership: 3 Steps to Improve Conversations

The multi-disciplinary field of Knowledge Management is beginning to study the art and science of conversation to see if there is room for improvement. The nomenclature being used for this initiative is “Conversational Leadership”. The two core questions of this new practice have been defined as “are we having the conversation we need to be having right now” and “are we having it in the way we need to be having it.”

3 Steps to Improve Conversations

Pure listening: Truly listen to other people’s spoken words (and non-verbals) while simultaneously and separately holding your perception of those words. Be aware of the time and space for your interpretations of other people’s words and phrases.
Continuous awareness: As you’re speaking, raise your own awareness for multiple interpretations of the words you speak (as well as your non-verbals). Be prepared for a range of responses so that you can maintain the optimal flow of the conversation.
Maintain curiosity: Skillfully “check-in” to see and hear how your words (and non-verbals) were perceived by other people.

Can Agile Get Along with Knowledge Management?

How could the partnership between agile and KM work?

Agile is looking to shift cultures from linear, hierarchical monoliths to iterative, self-organizing, need-responsive ecosystems. KM is looking to shift cultures from information/knowledge hoarding, knowledge is power, expertise/decision bottlenecks to unique and critical knowledge created/available in the moment/context it is needed.

Agile is looking to increase process efficacy by implementing well-known, well-tested processes. KM is looking to increase process efficacy by implementing KM processes such as communities of practice, talent markets, knowledge markets, even random coffee trials.

Agile uses software tools to document, communicate, and share progress. KM uses SharePoint, and every technology listed at superpowers and conversation prism to create new knowledge, share retain, and transfer knowledge, store, organize, apply, and evaluate knowledge. Both disciplines are looking to stimulate innovation, reduce feedback loops, and include people along the way.

Liberating Structures has emerged as a field related to both Agile and Knowledge Management. There are 35 well-defined and practiced processes within liberating structures. In addition to liberating structures (such as knowledge café, TRIZ, 1–2–4-all, etc.), I hear Communities of Practice and other KM practices being considered in agile discussions.

I wonder if Agile and KM intentionally converged and diverged, might an innovative set of culture, process, and technology emerge? How porous and intentional is the boundary between agile and KM for you, your teams, your organization, and your networks?

I wonder what would happen if Agile and Knowledge Management quite purposefully partnered together.

Key Points

Agile is much more than a series of ceremonies; KM is much more than sharing documents.
KM is often confused with IM (Information Management), where KM leverages explicit and tacit knowledge.
The Agile principles have beautiful overlap with KM principles.
The Agile Manifesto might have been written using a KM mindset.
Imagine if Agile and KM quite purposefully partnered together.

Articles by Others

It’s not just what you know, it’s who you know by Jonathan Norman
No More Prescribed Learning! Now We Share Knowledge by Chief Learning Officer (CLO)

As Quoted by Me

To find a job in knowledge management, review the job openings posted by John Hovell.

Etienne and Beverly Wenger-Trayner: Profiles in Knowledge

John Hovell wrote to me, “I’m very excited to have an opportunity to eat breakfast with Etienne Wenger — might there be any question or message that I could pass along for you?”

To which I replied, “My question for Etienne is ‘what does he see in the coming 1–2 years for communities of practice (CoPs) — more of the same, or one or more new developments?’ In some ways, nothing is really new with CoPs, but at the same time, with the growing interest in Web 2.0, it can result in new energy for tools which have been around for a long time such as discussion forums. Is anything really new, or is the main thing to continue applying approaches which are tried and true with more and more people?”

Here is what John sent back after the breakfast meeting with Etienne.

“I thoroughly enjoyed a conversation with Etienne this morning. We discussed social learning theory, game theory, developmental theory, the nature of the firm — free agent nation, CPsquare, and of course communities of practice.

I asked the question that you posed and his answer was twofold — first, he mentioned that the growing popularity and ease of blogs has the potential to slightly change the way community of practice practitioners interact. Second, he mentioned the hope for an increased social focus on the combination of individual trajectories and the care for domain within the next 2 years.

I had 3 favorite moments during our conversation. First, as we discussed social constructivism and social learning theory, I questioned the dichotomy of authoritative teaching (‘teacher knows best and teaches their knowledge’) versus social teaching (‘teacher enables students to learn’). I thought it was brilliant the way Etienne called that an unnecessary forced dichotomy because ‘best’ teaching is usually driven by the passion of the teacher, not the teaching method. It’s the passion of the leader that tends to drive the students to want to learn/know more. This was a moment for me because I immediately thought about the movie ‘Dead Poets Society’ (and all of my personal favorite teachers), where I thought I loved them because of their innovative teaching methods, but in actuality, it was probably their passion that motivated me most (and their passion probably drove those innovative styles).

Second, when I questioned the age-old ‘how do we incentivize/reward participation in CoPs, especially for folks that treat knowledge as power’ — Etienne responded with the view that CoPs are not necessarily knowledge-sharing approaches as much as they are functional groups that produce and provide value, so when viewed in that light, participation is driven by the shared understanding of providing business and personal value.

Finally, back to social learning theory, Etienne mentioned that social learning theory is currently lacking a relationship to developmental theory. In other words, at an extreme, social learning theory says nothing about the fact that a 5-year-old cannot learn to be a rocket scientist — now maybe that is or is not true, but he believes that there is enough research out there to find synergies between social learning theory and development theory. I thought that was interesting and it came up after I mentioned that I think there could be synergies between social learning theory and game theory (how an individual acts based on how he/she expects others to react).

And I have to mention the funny paradox we briefly discussed — how employees tend to remain in a company for as long as the company enables them to leave. In other words, as long as a company is providing growth and learning opportunities, folks tend to stay (of course coupled with many other factors) all the while they are becoming more valuable in the market.”

Knowledge Management Visions

Elevator pitch: “When you’ve been working on a project for 3 months and focusing on it every day, have you noticed that more than half the time someone somewhere else is usually working on something similar? You should try our new talent market — it really does a great job of connecting people, projects and capabilities.” Of course, talent markets aren’t the only KM deliverable, so you might need a broader example — or 20 more of these pitches depending upon your business need.
You know KM is working when the organization can continually answer “who knows who?”, “who knows what?” and “who does what?” It’s not the end-all, be-all model, but I sure think it’s apropos of today’s most typical organizational challenges, i.e., the kinds of challenges that aren’t necessarily owned by a particular function. It seems as though a model like that offers each organization an opportunity to define exactly how they’ll answer those questions to best fit their customer needs, strategy and culture — whether it’s talent markets and knowledge markets, or board meetings and discussion threads, or communities of practice and virtual worlds, etc.

Change Management Process

John Hovell, who worked for a large defense contractor, says that change management is a large portion of the work. It’s important to notice how different people are intrinsically motivated in different ways. Often, it’s about creating an environment where people feel included in the design and progress of the work. It’s also important to spend more time getting clear collective understanding of the problem, as opposed to spending more time in solution design and implementation mode.

7 Habits of Highly Successful Knowledge Managers

John Hovell suggested using my SAFARIS list:

Share a link, tip, trick, or insight
Ask a question to collaborate with others
Find a resource, person, or site
Answer someone’s question
Recognize a colleague’s contribution or achievement
Inform about what you are working on, where you are, or where you will be
Suggest an idea and solicit input using a poll

Proven Practices for Promoting a KM Program

Chapter 15: Reuse Proven Practices — Large Defense Contractor
Webinar

Communities

SIKM Leaders Community

Posts

Presentations

2008–11 KM at ManTech International
2013–07 Learning at BAE Systems
2015–04 BAE Systems KM: US & UK perspectives with Andrew Muras
2016–09 Is org development the future of KM, or is KM the future of OD?
2020–03 Conversational Leadership with David Gurteen
2021–11 Expert Knowledge Transfer: Reflections and Panel Discussion with Cayly Dixon, Madelyn Blair, and Kate Pugh
2022–05 Knowledge Retention Framework and Maturity Model with Rocio Sanz

Presentations

Podcasts

Questions Worth Asking series
Organizational elements and thoughtful considerations with Edwin K. Morris
The Knowledge Series: Episode 4 — Knowledge and modernizing legal ops with Ben Firth
The Synthesis of Coding, Organizational Development, and Relational Gestalt Work with Rafael Cortina
How to Tackle Critical Conversations with Kendall Lott

Videos

YouTube

Nuclear energy conversation “Hidden learnings” in decision making

Conversations with KM Practitioners

K nowledge Sharing Across Generations in Major Projects

Books

Creating Conversational Leadership: Combining and Expanding Knowledge Management, Organization Development, and Diversity & Inclusion

Kindle Edition

My blurb appears on the back cover:

John Hovell has been an enthusiastic leader in knowledge management for over 15 years. In this book, John acts as an integrator of the people, process, and technology domains of KM. He further integrates KM with Organization Design, Organization Development, and Diversity & Inclusion, all under the umbrella of Conversational Leadership. Based on his extensive experience in knowledge transfer and retention, John shares 16 processes for Knowledge Transfer & Retention and a useful Knowledge Retention Framework. Those who are interested in learning more about any of these topics should read this book.

Table of Contents

Series Editor’s Foreword: About Knowledge Services IX
Foreword by Donita Volkwijn XIII
Preface 1

Part I: Being a KM Practitioner

Chapter 1 What does it mean to be a KM Practitioner? 7
Chapter 2 Overcoming the Biggest Hurdle in KM: “Buy-in” at all Levels of Organization 19
Chapter 3 Blending People, Process, and Technology 29
Chapter 4 16 Processes for Knowledge Transfer & Retention 35
Chapter 5 Knowledge Retention Framework 47
Chapter 6 Knowledge Retention Maturity Model 55

Part II: Being an OD and D&I Practitioner