Knowledge management (KM) has enormous problems. Virtually all of them can be traced back to its most serious problem: talent.

The intention is not to indict all KMers. However, the observation over the last decade of clusters and three decades in KM is there has been a qualitative decline in talent and profile of KM people. In particular, the ability of these people to initiate and lead required, large-scale transformational activities has gone down sharply.

Leading transformation is a key KM behavior and skill. Mostly in KM today are very, very nice senior administrators. They have lots of great organizational knowledge. Unfortunately are just not capable of leading KM, innovation, adoption or diffusion. The people are not bad, it is the expectations that are at fault.

There is a popular social network and KM axiom that the person with the most important and useful knowledge in the organization is the receptionist and executive assistant. They have a unique perch to see and facilitate most all of the essential knowledge flow paths. Problem is, KM people took this anecdote literally, often promoting these lovely people to KM positions.

KM, first and foremost, is about leadership. The administrative skill profile in KM is ill-suited for leadership. Same goes for the technical whiz, IT wonks or SMEs, also found in KM. They all fall down badly in KM because they lack primary leadership abilities.

KM has become just like IT. It’s primarily a back-office risk management and document control operation. Again, there is nothing wrong with document processes, it is certainly important and needed. Thing is, it is just not meeting the expectations of the organization. This is why so many, most, KM programs collapse – missed expectations.

Also, rather unfortunately, it is very difficult for KM to recover from this organizational and talent trajectory. Unless KM develops the courage and talent to fundamentally lead, then it is far better to reset much lower expectations for the KM role, its people and information processes. Setting lofty expectations when you do not have the talent, vision or support to deliver is not a good practice for KM; it is not good for anything.

There are two other major problems to correct. The first is the soaring farce of KM ‘certification.’ These KM certification charlatans have driven out a lot of the leadership capability of KM by pretending to make it a vocational discipline. Beware of these phonies. The second is KM’s hypersensitivity to coaching and feedback. Rejection of advice and coaching perpetuates poor KM performance. Correcting these major KM defects will help put KM back on the agenda and put KM people on the path to prosperity.