Level or Role Based Communities of Practice
I responded to a discussion thread in the System Integrators KM Leaders Community on Yahoo Groups recently. Here’s a synopsis of the initial question and my response (amongst others). SIKM Leaders Community
“In the past few weeks I have received a number of requests for communities of practice based on the job level of the intended members. For example, consultant, senior consultant, and so on.
I am interested in your thoughts and experiences with communities of this type. What are some possible benefits of a community based on the level of the members (e.g., senior consultant), as opposed to one based on a topic of interest to people of multiple levels (e.g., cloud computing)?”
Way back in 1987, before anyone ever talked about KM or communities, I started a financial analysis supervisors network. Why? Because I wanted to know what other supervisors were doing to perform the same work. We were all the same level, located across the US and reported up to different managers and were matrixed to different functional areas. And yes, it was within the practice of financial analysis, however, this “level” of responsibility had its own demands, practices and involvement in the organization. The sharing of the practice of financial analysis supervision was very helpful….
Move to 2010 and I would create a Finance Community of Practice and have a special interest group for the supervisor level. So in your situation, it could be a “Consulting” community of practice – the domain of knowledge being consulting and the purpose would be building the capacity of your consultants to perform the job of consulting. You might say… isn’t that what training & development is for? Yes, it is. That is why I would place these level or role based communities under the sponsorship of this functional area. The value to the organization would be to ensure the training of consultants continues to build the knowledge and skills of that role. And, that the training continues to reflect the real practical experience of what is happening out in the field. It also becomes the place where you can create the coaching and mentoring opportunities in order to move individuals from one level of that role to the next. Or in the case of retention of knowledge, the sharing of knowledge and experience from senior levels to the newbies coming on board. The strategic purpose of these types of communities is to constantly raise the bar of knowledge, skills and performance levels of your organization.
So my opinion would be absolutely level-based communities can be of value. Communities or networks are always of value when you bring together people who are either cross-organizational, cross-client, or cross-geographical.
Data, information, knowledge, oh my!
How do you communicate to executive leadership whether data management is under, over or beside knowledge management. I’m hearing alot about information management including both BI and KM… but there’s a sense that it is more about the technology. I would like to step back and say who cares! but, when the question comes up you have to be prepared to answer. I’m going down the path of describing unstructured, explicit information, and implicit and tacit knowledge is where “KM” can help solve problems. Structured, explicit data/information is a whole different kettle of fish that the usual KM solutions don’t address. In the gas midstream industry, geographical information systems that enable the multiple processes that would use it… isn’t necessarily a KM solution, but an IT solution …. at least I’m thinking it is. would love to hear any other insights.
Oh Grow up and behave like an Adult!!
I know it’s been a while since I’ve posted, so come along for the ride today!
Was reading Nick Milton’s post on KM Governance this morning and it triggered something in my mind regarding something I read yesterday, a quote by Jan Carlzon, the former head of SAS:
“An individual without information cannot take responsibility; an individual who is given information cannot help but take responsibility.”
In Nick’s post he states: If you are a manager and you want to get something done in your organization, you need to set three things in place. • Firstly, you need to make it very clear what you want done. • Secondly, you have to give people the tools and the training to do it. • Thirdly, you need to check that they’ve done what you want.
Based on my interpretation of Nick’s words and the rest of his post, Nick goes on to indicate that KM governance is needed in order to ensure KM gets done within an organization. I’m not quite sure I agree with that.
I’m trying to find the integration of Jan’s statement with Nick’s. I’m getting a sense that Jan’s statement assumes an adult to adult level of human interaction, while Nick’s gives me the sense of an Adult to child interaction.
I believe that what gets measured doesn’t necessarily get done, it’s really what gets reinforced that gets done. Saying you measure something, does not mean that it will change behavior. It’s only the potential for consequences that changes behavior, and sometimes not even that! (I have an 11 year old son and can provide proof!)
And then I think about Bob Buckman’s talk on KM that I found on David Gurteen’s website (where I first heard about Jan’s statement). (Bob Buckman was the CEO of Buckman Laboratories and truly embedded a knowledge sharing culture into his organization.) Bob basically says that based on his research over about 2 years, that in fact, giving people direct access to information (knowledge) will result in their taking responsibility and doing what needs to be done a good 75% of the time. Then there’s this statement by Bob:
“Our approach (to KM) is far more than stick or carrot. We say, “Knowledge Sharing is your job. Do it!” As a reward you may keep your job.” Bob Buckman President & Chairman, The Applied Knowledge Group
Which takes me full circle to Nick’s more recent post about IBM’s social computing guidelines where their last guideline (IBM’s) states that you shouldn’t allow social computing to interfere with your job or client commitments. In other words, sharing knowledge through social networking occurs outside your “day job”. Which is something that really boggles the mind to me (and to Nick), because we absolutely believe that it cannot be de-coupled from your day job, especially if you are considered a “knowledge worker”. Knowledge is your day job!
So here’s the question, if the tasks and activities related to sharing knowledge truly are embedded into your “job”, then why would you need KM governance. I’m going to suggest that you will find a need for KM governance in organizations that are still in a “control information” culture vs an “open information” culture like Buckman Labs. If an organization truly wants their leaders and employees to have a knowledge sharing culture then there must be a drive to get all information to all employees regardless of the job in that organization. Thus creating an environment where every leader and employee can do nothing but take responsibility for getting the job done.
I’ll also suggest we need to change the language of our stories to represent adult to adult interactions, not adult to child interactions. I tell my son over and over, I’m the adult, you are the child, over time, I expect your behavior to move towards adult behavior and take responsibility.
Senior Leaders control collaboration technologies?
Just finished reading a great post by Andrew McAfee. Basically discusses the continued dependence on email in light of all of the E2.0 technologies that are out there. He proposes a hypothesis which states:
Within organizations, collaboration technologies are dictated by the most powerful person involved in the collaboration.
That really made me stop and think. It was one of those v-8 slaps to the head… that’s why organizations have such a difficult time adopting new collaborative technologies. We always establish the use cases for the field employee and rarely for the senior leader. I bet if we started at the senior leader level to get them to adopt the new technologies, the requisite follow along by employees would be a cake walk…
So what do you think of McAfee’s hypothesis. read the full article here http://andrewmcafee.org/2009/10/mcafees-hypothesis/
Web 3.0
Interesting article on Web 3.0 from Information management. Web 3.0: Rise of the Intelligent Machine Hasn’t findability always been about context? Or is it just that technology will eventually catch up with humans?
Change the Language, Change the World
The world can’t be boiled down to dichotomous thinking! Our world is too complex and we must change our language to reflect that. By reducing our world into either/or , this or that, one or the other, we limit what our world can be (both personally and universally). When will we realize that as we limit the words we use to talk about our problems, we limit what our potential solutions will be. The creativity comes from the convergence of seemingly conflicting and complex issues and the attempt to optimize the satisfying of all aspects, not just one.
David Snowden and Rendering Knowledge
These are great! Just want to spread the wealth from David Snowden
Rendering Knowledge
I may have finally broken a writing block. Aside from two book chapters in the last couple of months I more or less completed a paper length opinion piece for a report ARK are producing on KM in the Legal Profession. The title includes one of those words which has multiple and different meanings namely render which is allowing me to play games between the poetic meaning and that of rendering something down to fat. As a part of that paper I updated my original three rules of knowledge management to seven principles which I share below.
- Knowledge can only be volunteered it cannot be conscripted. You can’t make someone share their knowledge, because you can never measure if they have. You can measure information transfer or process compliance, but you can’t determine if a senior partner has truly passed on all their experience or knowledge of a case.
- We only know what we know when we need to know it. Human knowledge is deeply contextual and requires stimulus for recall. Unlike computers we do not have a list-all function. Small verbal or nonverbal clues can provide those ah-ha moments when a memory or series of memories are suddenly recalled, in context to enable us to act. When we sleep on things we are engaged in a complex organic form of knowledge recall and creation; in contrast a computer would need to be rebooted.
- In the context of real need few people will withhold their knowledge. A genuine request for help is not often refused unless there is literally no time or a previous history of distrust. On the other hand ask people to codify all that they know in advance of a contextual enquiry and it will be refused (in practice its impossible anyway). Linking and connecting people is more important than storing their artifacts.
- Everything is fragmented. We evolved to handle unstructured fragmented fine granularity information objects, not highly structured documents. People will spend hours on the internet, or in casual conversation without any incentive or pressure. However creating and using structured documents requires considerably more effort and time. Our brains evolved to handle fragmented patterns not information.
- Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success. When my young son burnt his finger on a match he learnt more about the dangers of fire than any amount of parental instruction cold provide. All human cultures have developed forms that allow stories of failure to spread without attribution of blame. Avoidance of failure has greater evolutionary advantage than imitation of success. It follows that attempting to impose best practice systems is flying in the face of over a hundred thousand years of evolution that says it is a bad thing.
- The way we know things is not the way we report we know things. There is an increasing body of research data which indicates that in the practice of knowledge people use heuristics, past pattern matching and extrapolation to make decisions, coupled with complex blending of ideas and experiences that takes place in nanoseconds. Asked to describe how they made a decision after the event they will tend to provide a more structured process oriented approach which does not match reality. This has major consequences for knowledge management practice.
- We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down. This is probably the most important. The process of taking things from our heads, to our mouths (speaking it) to our hands (writing it down) involves loss of content and context. It is always less than it could have been as it is increasingly codified.
Posted by Dave Snowden on October 10, 2008 11:04 PM | Permalink
Pasted from <http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/2008/10/rendering_knowledge.php>
Trauma of layoffs on survivors?
This is a my response to the question posed on a LinkedIn OD Network Discussion: Is anyone working on helping organizations deal with the trauma of layoffs on survivors?
As in many situations, what a manager does in the normal course of their job has a significant impact on their employees. I was a leader of a team of 8 people. We happened to be just completing a significant migration of our users from SharePoint 2003 to SharePoint 2007. And, our company had just been acquired by HP. Because of the acquisition, I started very early in talking with my team about the potential impact. We had no idea where we all would end up, or if any of us would survive the integration. I told my time many times over 3-4 months that they needed to keep their head in the game, and they needed to make sure they were also thinking about plan B. These were all professional men and women who had worked for our company anywhere from 12-24 years. Some didn’t want to face the reality, others embraced it.
My leadership rule has always been to be open and honest with my team members. I knew I couldn’t tell them what was happening, but I could tell them the reality of the situation and potential scenarios. And, they had to decide for themselves how they were going to deal with any of these scenarios, one of which definitely was going to be the elimination of their job. I’m experienced in team building so I used one of my team building activities of celebration. A few weeks before I knew I had to lay off half of my team, I brought everyone together for lunch outside the office. I picked a place that had an outdoor area with a fireplace. After we had lunch, we went out to the fireplace. We all sat in a circle. I gave each person 2 pieces of paper and a pencil. I told them to take one of their papers and write down everything about the company, team, job(s), experiences that were the best. Then I had them take the second piece of paper and write down the worst. We took our time and had each person talk about their best experiences. It was full of laughter, joy and tears. Then, instead of talking about the worst, I had them burn the page of worst experiences in the fireplace. As they threw their papers into the fire, I told them that just as the paper was burning and turning to dust, so they needed to take any negativity and let go of it. A couple people actually brought some items that they really wanted to burn up as a testament to what they wanted to get rid of. This ritual/ceremony helped both me and each team member have closure with their work and with their team members. When I had to lay off 4 members of the team, because they had built a strong supportive relationship, I brought all 4 into my office at once and went through the layoff process with all of them together. It was a day where many people were being let go. There was a lot of fear and negativity. The only bright spot was my team members, who already had their head in the right place to deal with the process. And, those that were left behind, while they still felt guilty, not watching their friends have to slink out of site, or be escorted out, helped them deal with their survival guilt in a much better way. In fact, after they were all escorted out of the office, they all met at a restaurant and had Margaritas.
My point in this story is to recognize that as consultants we have to start working with clients before these things happen, not after. It’s impossible to help the survivors if they haven’t had a chance for closure with their team members. I realize my situation isn’t typical. But it is for those leaders who know how to lead and how to build teams. For those leaders who truly are open and honest with their team members. This is what transparency is about. This is what it is to treat your employees like adults. I’m not saying it will be easy for every employee. One on my team had a very difficult time. But you know what, she was the first one to find a new job. And, I would like to think that her having closure, allowed her to more quickly move on to bigger and better things.
As an added note, 5 weeks later, I had to lay off the rest of my team and myself. I can definitely say that the rest of us were even more prepared than the others having gone through the process.
I truly believe that helping people understand their value throughout the year and throughout a project goes a long way in making each team member feel respected and valued. When layoffs occur, which they always will, the individual will be prepared and will know what value they provide their company and the next one.
Knowledge Harvesting? Why?
Knowledge Harvesting? Why? Once something is harvested it’s on it’s way to decay. It has a very limited shelf life. It must be eaten right away or else it rots. So why are companies spending lots of $’s harvesting knowledge? And, the process for harvesting knowledge from individuals is extremely costly and time consuming.
Then, if you add to it the following principle from David Snowden:
- We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down. This is probably the most important. The process of taking things from our heads, to our mouths (speaking it) to our hands (writing it down) involves loss of content and context. It is always less than it could have been as it is increasingly codified.
Knowledge Harvesting (KH) really doesn’t seem to be the most effective way of solving the problem. And, of course I am assuming that the primary problem that KH is solving is brain drain from organizations – regardless of whether it’s boomers or Gen X, Y and Millenials moving around. Wouldn’t it be cheaper to keep these knowledgeable people connected to your company for as long as possible? Especially knowing that you can never really get their knowledge out of their heads in any valuable way for future use. And, in light of the ever increasing change in technology and how we work, how relevant will that information be 1-2 years after it is documented.
Why aren’t there more KM strategists in companies asking better questions about the knowledge in their company and establishing better ways to nurture it? I like the agricultural metaphor, because nurturing knowledge growth, planting knowledge seeds, knowledge fertilizing, knowledge grafting… all really resonate for me. But, harvesting just doesn’t work for me. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it seems so final, cut, broken, pulled out, and we all know that as soon as we cut flowers, pull out a carrot, pick an apple, it’s on its way to total decay. Hmmm.
If companies are really afraid of losing the knowledge in people’s heads, then why not just maintain a good relationship with that employee. (Duh) We share knowledge with people we like. We share knowledge when people are in need. How about playing up on that instead of thinking we can put a straw to people’s heads and draw out the good stuff. Why not use social networking tools and communities of practice to maintain these connections? Isn’t that cheaper and more efficient? The more we can create the contextual opportunities for people to ask questions and solve problems, regardless of whether they continue to get a paycheck from a company, the better we have reduced the impact when people leave.
No, I don’t think I will be doing any knowledge harvesting. I am going to stick with knowledge nurturing, knowledge seeding, knowledge fertilizing, knowledge pollinating….
Building Institutional Memory
Heard a member of a non-profit organization describe their content management process as “building institutional memory”. I really liked it… thought of co-opting it; “Build Organizational Memory” as a replacement for Corporate Knowledge Management. Then I realized that seemed very static. Historical. Looking through the rear view mirror. That’s ok, but only part of the story. It’s not dynamic enough for innovation or new knowledge to emerge. Looking at the past and learning from it is good. But if you don’t include ways of creating new knowledge then you are forever stuck repeating the past. In some cases I recommend avoiding looking at the past because it can bias the emergence of a new future.
• “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.” Einstein