champion

There is a new use of champion in commercial and government organisations that is intriguing.  It seems to flow on from the meaning ‘a person who espouses a cause’. The essence of a champion seems to be conviction and communication skills.  This separates the champion from the leader, the latter not necessarily having communication skills at all.  We all know the CEO who hides in the office, emerging occasionally with a computer full of balance sheets, and rarely engaging with the staff in any social context.

The champion directs their enthusiasm for their particular skill, be it IT or HR objectives, or knowledge management, to the rest of the staff, and works out ways to improve the functioning of the organisation in this area.  The champion can lead innovation and persuade the rest of the troops to come along. Sometimes the champion is the person who can assess the goals of the organisation and communicate these both within and without the organisation. So we see an increase in the ads for IT champion, knowledge champion, data champion, HR champion.  For knowledge champion I refer you to knowledge management, a term that has been in the dictionary since the early 1990s. Could there be a gossip champion, I wonder, and what about the morning tea champion?