Pinpointing Behavour that Blocks Collaboration

We've all see it or experienced it - sarcasm, negative / destructive humour, belittling, and a whole host of things people do, for any number of reasons, to block collaboration.

Collaboration, which in many respects amounts to co-creation, requires a trusting environment where people involved feel free to generate and share ideas, give each other useful feedback, and make decisions that move towards shared outcomes. The early stages of the collaborative process involve a certain degree of personal vulnerability, when the people involved are generating, tabling and discussing "half baked" ideas. I've seen many people disengage in meetings and workshops when their contributions are criticized, or using destructive humour, ridiculed without ever exploring the possibilities inherent in those ideas.

Robert Hargrove wrote a very useful and readable exploration of collaboration in Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration. On Page 67 he maps out the behavioural/attitudinal differences between what he calls the "collaborative model" (appreciative, active listening and learning, balancing advocacy with inquiry, empowering) and the "self-oriented" model (pursues own agenda, seeks to win and control others, a "know-it-all").

This I find is very closely linked to relationship intelligence and facilitative leadership.

So, besides the obvious, how do you know when you are faced with someone who is engaging in very uncollaborative behaviours? I think Bob Sutton's Blog entry on Rob Cross on Energizers vs. De-energizers has it nicely pegged - basically, ask yourself how you feel after the interaction. It could also be a good question to ask of ourselves as well.

Bob Sutton has also explored the topic of collaboration in the context of Building the Civilized Workplace, and his somewhat "pithy" book The No Asshole Rule. Check out his short video lesson at http://www.50lessons.com/viewlesson.asp?l=392

Social Media - Return on Investment or Return on Influence

A friend and former colleague Mark Blevis has gone through an interesting personal transformation over the last four years or so. I've always known him to be a thoughtful, bright, intellectually curious, outgoing individual, and a perpetual, lifelong learner. In about 2003 or so, he started experimenting with social media in general, and podcasting in particular, and his development into what I'd call an "expert" has been outstanding.

I encourage you to visit his site at http://www.markblevis.com/about/

Which takes me to "Return on Influence" I was looking through Mark's list of accomplishments, and came across reference to a conversation he's started on a new web site (http://www.returnoninfluence.com/index.php) with Steve Hardiman. They briefly touch on topics like shared potential by producers and consumers, abandoning traditional return on investment metrics, and that social "currency" can't be treated like, or thought of like cash.

Interesting.... I hope they continue the line of thinking.

On the topic, I came across Joe Marchese's blog post titled ROI Is Social Media’s New ROI. Although written with the marketing/advertising space in mind, he does talk about return on influencing requiring more investment in the creative side v.s. the production / distribution side.

Joe's last paragraph in the blog states: "The takeaway is this: if all advertisers are looking at is immediate return on investment, there is a good chance they are missing the real potential for maximizing their investment in social media — and probably spending way too much in the process. But it’s not the advertiser’s fault entirely; the platform hasn’t been built that efficiently facilitates accessing the type of brand-building influence offered by social media … yet."

Obviously, the same is true for private and public sector organizations. And like any good discussion, good answers create more good questions.

Facilitation - At The Root of it All

I've been thinking about the concept of "knowledge-conscious managers" for a while, though I don't recall exactly what triggered the line of thinking.

It could be an article I read on the Mospos blog titled The 18 commandments of Knowledge-conscious managers http://blog.mopsos.com/archives/000188.html.

It could be an Inside Knowledge Magazine piece titled A Knowledge Conscious Curriculum.

Perhaps it was a Knowledgeboard discussion I participated in titled Exact role of Knowledge Manager and some very thoughtful comments by Frank Guerino, CEO & Founder TraverseIT.

Nonetheless, if you subscribe to the notion that knowledge management is just good management, then the perspectives and behaviours suggested in discussions and articles about knowledge conscious managers resembles to me what I've read about facilitative leadership.

For example, in The Art of Facilitative Leadership: Maximizing Others’ Contributions by Jeffrey Cufaude, facilitative leadership is described as:

• making connections and helping others make meaning
• providing direction without totally taking the reins
• managing content and process
• inviting disclosure and feedback to help surface unacknowledged or invisible beliefs, thoughts, and patterns
• focusing on building the capacity of individuals and groups to accomplish more on their own, now and in the future

I see strong similarities and connections with many of the concepts of knowledge-conscious management, and ultimately I think it all boils down to managers doing whatever is required to facilitate effective knowledge work, as defined by roles and responsibilities in organizational context. This strikes me as being a very inclusive approach covering everything from making information easier to create, capture and access, to improving group and team interpersonal effectiveness and collaboration though the explicit, systematic facilitation of group processes.

Therefore, if you subscribe to the notion that a manager's role is to facilitate knowledge work, than facilitation as a fundamental mind set, and a key core competency, has even greater importance in today's knowledge based organizations than even the facilitation community has been promoting well over the last fifteen years. Perhaps organizational management and leadership development programs need to explicitly identify, bundle, include and emphasize facilitation and other knowledge-conscious/facilitative leadership capability development opportunities.

Nuturing Communities of Practice - Adult Learning Applies

I was in a meeting with colleagues recently discussing the lack of participation in a community of practice. At one point I asked "Given that the community presents a tremendous opportunity for people to tap into collective intelligence to solve problems and overcome challenges, how come no one is tabling issues and asking for assistance?"

One of the answers I got was was that "people afraid to admit mistakes, and be perceived as anything but competent." Which tells me that the community space/conversations are not perceived as safe/healthy learning space. It could also be that members are used to working in a [perceived] fault intolerant cultural environment, and think it extends to the community space as well.

It goes without saying that a fault tolerant, collaborative environment is required for learning and innovation. In their 2002 HBR article titled "The Failure Tolerant Leader",
Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes mention that this type of leader is someone ".. who, through their words and actions, help people overcome their fear of failure and, in the process, create a culture of intelligent risk taking that leads to sustained innovation. These leaders don’t just accept failure; they encourage it. They try to break down the social and bureaucratic barriers that separate them from their followers. They engage at a personal level with the people they lead. They avoid giving either praise or criticism, preferring to take a nonjudgmental, analytical posture as they interact with staff. They openly admit their own mistakes rather than covering
them up or shifting the blame.And they try to root out the destructive competitiveness built into most organizations."

A very clear connection here between the way community leaders need to be in order to lead communities, and the level of of community participation.

The other thing that struck me for some reason, and I'm not sure why it took so long, was the connection between communities and adult learning as I was introduced to by former colleague and friend Brian Keane back in the mid '80s.

If we look at some of the key characteristics of adult learners, referring to Malcolm Knowles work on andragogy, they certainly apply to communities as learning opportunities.

• Adult learners are experienced, and use experiences as an anchor point for new learning. Experiences can also be a barrier to learning something completely new and different.
• Adults are generally autonomous and self-directed - they want relevant learning (it's got to meet their needs), and want to have a certain amount of influence or control over the learning content, approach, and evaluation.
• When they provide feedback on learning programs (or even work environment topics in the workplace) they expect some form of action / result.
• While adult learners may comply with "Mandatory" training, enthusiasm is seen when they choose their own topics / learning.
• Adults are reluctant to be vulnerable in group settings, and often fear that their reputation, ego and self-esteem can be at risk if they admit to learning needs unless the learning environment is very safe.

So, it would appear that community facilitators should keep adult learning in mind when designing community structure / process/ environments that support and encourage learning.

"Initiative" Maybe Equals "Influence Without Authority"

I was on my way in to work this morning and thinking about what I'd posted yesterday about initiative when, all of a sudden, and interesting connection came to me.

In his book titled Social Intelligence, Karl Albrecht talks about power, influence, and leading when you're not in charge in Chapter 9.

Specifically, he presents a simple general formula for earning influence in unstructured situations:

1. contributing special / unique skills linked to the group outcomes
2. help the group improve process and procedures (facilitate.. "take the pen and the flip chart")
3. having the right information and / or help the group use it effectively
4. build consensus through summarizing group discussions, propose or confirm next steps, and help the group navigate to a conclusion or decision
5. helping a group maintain a positive and constructive climate and maintain it's empathy, so healthy debate does not descend into personal rancour

It strikes me that leading with these behaviours that Karl has outlined would serve everyone well in a social / networked workplace.

It also strikes me that these behaviours, in different contexts, would be called facilitation skills. And I've always been a big proponent of these skills being a core competency in knowledge organizations.

And, as a facilitator, and facilitation instructor, I know from experience that these skills can be developed to some degree in everyone.

Perhaps facilitation is the key for helping all generations adapt and be effective in the future.

Personal Change for the Networked World

I was at a recent meeting with the Conference Board of Canada's Knowledge Strategy Exchange Network (I'm privileged to be a member, and on the Advisory Council) and, as I'm sure you'd expect, the conversation turned to blogs, wikis, and other social / Enterprise 2.0 stuff. Part of that conversation was to talk about characteristics of the demographic called "e-born" / "net generation." Coincidentally I'm currently reading Don Tapscott's book Wikinomics, which is a deep exploration of this and other related topics.

Prevalent themes in all social computing topics and sub topics include networks and communities, co-creation, collaboration, hierarchy based on contribution not position, common objectives, transparency, open / honest communication, engagement, speed, access, active participants / actors, and taking personal risks.

Do you remember hearing the term "self-directed learning" going back 10 years or so, coincidentally around the same time interest in computer based / e-learning was on the rise?

I think the new work world heading our way is the next generation self-direction - active initiative.

Its pretty clear to me that to really derive personal value from these new technologies and new ways of working, we all have to take initiative and be active contributors in a contextual/situation specific meaningful way. "The more you put in, the more you get out" certainly applies.

So a couple of thoughts popped into my mind during our Knowledge Strategy Executive Network conversation about social computing. Traditional command/control environments often stifle initiative and innovation. I can even recall a few circumstances where I've thought to myself "if he's going to do all my thinking for me, why should I bother?" or " why should I bother contributing if it has no value?" And obviously, people who have spent years / decades working under tightly controlled environments can easily loose the desire, and even capability, to take initiative. They just trudge to work, put their heads down, do "their job", hope the heck no one "shines a light on them", and trudge home.

Under these circumstances how equipped are older generations of workers, who have been raised in a command and controlled environment, to deal with a horizontal, social, networked, community based work environment? I suspect in quite a few cases they are not.

So, I think this is a big challenge facing organizations, leaders and managers - facilitating the personal change required to equip and enable older generations of workers to work effectively with younger ones, having the patience to do so, and in the interim, not disenfranchising them by forcing them too quickly to work differently. The same thing could also apply to re-engaging retired workers in some capacity.

I think the other part of the challenge in creating an effective cross-generational work environment is truly understanding how work is performed from both boom and net-generation perspective, and supporting it effectively from a business and technoloy perspective. I heard the word "ecosystem" mentioned by Jerome Nadel of Human Factors International, and thought that a good metaphor. Let's create an ecosystem that enables effective contributions and interactions through multiple means, selectable by the contributor.

The Role of "Invitation" in Collaboration

"Collaboration." Now, there's a word that can mean different things to different people!

"Hey Joe.. can I get your take on this?"
"Sandra, can you give this the "once over" before I give it to the Board?"
"Petra, how would you change /improve this if you were in my shoes?"
"Hulin, I'd like your input before Friday"

Are these likely examples of collaboration? "Of course not." you're probably saying, because we've all been exposed to some definition of collaboration that involves shared ownership and objectives. And yet, these and other situations and conversations where there is not shared ownership and shared objective are often pointed to as collaborative behaviour - "yep.. we're collaborating... done.. let's "check the box.""

Robert Hargrove, in his book titled Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration, describes a collaborative model as:

• designates new possibilities; shared understood goals; seeks creative, entrepreneurial results
• builds collaborative networks and new patterns of relationships and interactions; shows authenticity and vulnerability
• attitude of learning; is a specialist and a generalist; equates success with questions
• balances advocacy of views with inquiry into own and others' thinking; listens to deeply understand others
• empowers others on the job by acknowledging talents and gifts; provides an enabling environment

Overall, a pretty good example of collaborative characteristics, which coincidentally share much in common with facilitative leadership, and effective qualities for managers in this "knowledge era".

There is one thing implicit in Hargrove's exploration of collaboration, and most others as well, that bears discussion - the concept of invitation.

To designate new possibilities, build collaborative networks, have an attitude of learning, balance advocacy of views with inquiry, provide an enabling environment and engage in all of the other collaborative behaviours, other participants must be:

• invited to the "party"
• invited to the conversation
• invited to discuss objectives, outcomes, action plans
• invited to receive information that may be of value to your objectives
• invited to picture a mutually beneficial future
• invited to discuss mutually beneficial actions, and participate in difficult in trade off discussions as an EQUAL partner
• invited to hear the other's agenda, and transparently disclose yours

Invited.

It's hard to collaborate unless you are.

The Role of Project Management Communities in Organizations

In life, there is rarely a "single version of the truth". I think the same can be said in the context of project management.

Yes, there are tools, templates, methodologies, "best practices", often promoted by broad PM communities, vendors with a product to sell, and often by consulting organizations brought in to salvage run away projects. They come in, "quick fix" and leave once the contract objectives are met. Often their expertise is never really leveraged for the longer term benefit of the organization.

But where the more significant challenges occur is investigating, deciding on, and applying these practices in complex organizations and shifting contexts / unanticipated organizational change, bringing multiple perspectives to bear on complex issues, and acting on lessons learned from previous successes and "not so successes".
I think this is where a strong community of internal project / initiative managers can be of tremendous benefit.

An internal PM community can play a large, effective role in evolving practices that work in the the organization's complex environment, and ensuring the transfer of important context, information, and knowledge across succeeding generations.

I suspect that one of the important challenges many internal PM communities face is that they are very appealing vehicle for beginning to intermediate project managers, but fail to attract more senior / experienced / seasoned project managers. I've heard of situations where they are actually discouraged from participating by their supervisors in favour of "real work".

And it would appear that experienced PMs are also good at surveying the landscape and building their own small personal networks in order to get their job done. That's fine for achieving personal effectiveness, but what about the "greater good" of the organization and of their fellow PMs? How can this expertise be diffused / broadly shared for the benefit of the organization as a whole?

Imagine an organization where senior project managers were expected ... or should I say required .. through their performance (or contract) agreements, to play a leadership role in the project management community in developing and stewarding the community's PM knowledge development activities, and building capability among more junior project managers.

Imagine these senior project managers bringing their techniques, approaches, mental models, expertise in the organization's context to the community to be reviewed, synthesized, evolved, and yes, even critiqued, by the more junior members who are perhaps less experienced in PM, but no less adept at analytical and critical thinking. They may even have their own related experiences about the nuances of the organization to contribute.

A PM community of practice can be a part of "the solution" of sustainable project success over the longer term. If the community is infused with the learning and expertise of all the organization's senior project managers, and even external experts who come in on major initiatives, the organization will be better off for it.

More on Project Management in Knowledge-Based Organizations

I've been thinking about this topic a bit more, and having some interesting conversations with colleagues about PM in KBOs. I even had a very stimulating conversation with someone involved in enterprise risk management and new organizational environments where this process takes place.

It could be that PM in knowledge-based organizations (complex, un-ordered, adaptive systems)is rooted in a very "mechanistic" view of an organization (that it's an ordered system where you can predict cause/effect relationships well into the future) and based on a resulting set of assumptions that don't apply in today's knowledge based/complex organizations. Assumpitions like "the project has a high probability of happening as planned," "desired project outcomes will remain static," nothing should get in the way of success," "the project WILL happen as planned because we planned it that way.. "

Project Managers are constantly challenged with "standing on shifting sand"... from the instant they start planning and executing change is constant - people (decision makers/project resources) change, budgets change, organizational context changes, even business needs, objectives and project outcomes change... this is life in complex, unordered systems. I wonder if traditional project planning methodologies, if followed as prescribed, truly account effectively for this - despite the profile of project risk management in the project plannaing and management processes. I see a lot of Project managers with major headaches dealing with unintended consequences, unexpected events internal and external to the project, and a lot of pressure and expectations around sticking to "the original plan".

Borrowing and building on some cues from noteable experts, perhaps something to try is to look at project plans more as living-breathing entities and plan for change. This might involve:

• ensuring a "change" mindset and expectations across the project team, clients, stakeholders etc.
• building specific activities in the project plan, and identifying specific roles and responsibilities, for sensing (even anticipating), and communicating consequences of project actions as well as contextual and environmental changes
• building in specific activities to bring all the right perspectives to consider the sensing data/information, along with other appropriate related information and make sense and learn from it (sounds a bit like an after action review, dosen't it?)
• bring that learning to the decision making table with the appropriate people around it to adjust the project plan accordingly - which could include adding new tasks to frame up sub-activities to innovate around newly surfaced challenges and opportunities.

Perhaps this doesn't sound all that different from traditional good project management. Maybe what is truly different is setting and managing expectations around project planning and management processes in organizations today, and building sensing and learning activities more explicitly in project plans.

Project Management in Knowledge-Based Organizations

I recently facilitated a workshop created by our project management community of practice called "Intro to Project Management at ... " The intention of the workshop is basically to lay a simple, solid foundation of common language and process for "non-project managers" in the context of the organzation, and point them to further learning, develop and knowledge exchange opportunities, including the community itself.

Not "rocket science".

But in the context of facilitating the workshop, there was a universal identification, even among this group of "non-project managers", that projects never work out as planned and that there are continuous, very difficult challenges associated with keeping project teams focused and working together on outcomes and objectives - especially in the context of internal projects and resources. The "people side of project management" seems to be a regular topic of concern and conversation across project management disciplines and communities.

So in this workshop I found myself starting to talk about how knowledge-based organizations are complex, adaptive, and cause-effect relationships can't be predicted with any degree of certainty etc. (Obviously I'm being influenced by Dave Snowdon.. but it makes sense to me.)

And I found msyelf thinking that perhaps the traditional way of planning and managing projects, as mapped out in the PMI's Project Management Body of Knowledge for example, is too mechanistic. But then, in the chapters about the project management process, there is explicit mention of a foundation of "plan-do-check-act" (sounds like quality & learning to me) , and there are good descriptions of processes and deliverables about project change.

Then I thought, maybe the issue is more related to expectations on the part of clients, project managers and staff that "plan - good!, change - baaaad!". Maybe there is a traditional mind set that there is a real probability that the plan will be executed more or less as created, that people and resources can be effectively "managed and controlled" to the degree necessary, and that client needs / outcomes won't change.

Do we need to look at our traditional project planning and management practices and adapt them to the emerging view of organizations as complex adaptive systems rather than the traditional, mechanistic, predictive view?

How do we do that?

Do we need to treat project resources, in particular internal ones that are constantly balencing demands from a number of different fronts, as volunteers, with the project manager's role one of encouraging volunteerism?

How do we do THAT?

Encouraging Volunteerism in Knowledge-Based Organizations

This topic has been nagging at the back of my brain for a while - and still does for that matter.

Peter Druker introduced the concept of "knowledge worker" and there has been lots of writing and thinking on what knowledge work is and how it is done. In parallel, there has been much writing on the need to shift management thinking from the scientific method and a mechanistic view of the firm to more of a leadership perspective - at a recent conference I heard someone say " you manage things, you lead people." Covey wrote an in interesting related article in the summer 2006 edition Leader to Leader magazine titled Leading in the Knowledge Worker Age.

So a Manager's job in the knowledge age is to create the work environment for people to be successful, or as a former colleague says, to "release the will and the talent of the team."

The challenge in this is managers can't see knowledge work happen. There is now way of measuring and controlling how much "brain power" someone puts into their work. There is no way of measuring if someone is putting 100% of their energy and focus on a problem or only 80%.. or 50%.. Managers can only objectively observe some of the results / outputs of knowledge work.

Two colleagues recently visited from Poland and I was completely fascinated, as I have been for 3 years now via email discussions, about the country's emergence from communism, changes in organizational culture, and focussed people seems to be on "learning before doing" and building on the experiences and expertise of others. And they are doing a very good job at that.

Conversations with my colleagues reinforced the notion that when people are told to do something they often rebel by doing as less as possible to be compliant. Compliance, though, falls far short of commitment or engagement. An example is that employees who are told that it is mandatory to complete a summary form after each training course or conference will mostly do so, but with as little effort as possible so that they can 'check the box' to either mitigate negative consequence (e.g. can't submit expenses without your summary form) or a positive one (some form of reward / recognition).

So, I'm thinking that something that bears exploring is the concept of "encourage volunteerism" among employees. Creating conditions where they wholeheartedly commit, contribute and engage as much as possible.

MIT Sloan Management Review in Spring 2003 featured an article titled Moving Beyond Motivation to the Power of Volition. The general notion in the article is that volition, which implies deep personal attachment to an intention, is encouraged through perception of an exciting opportunity, a catalyst to provide focus, freedom of choice, disciplined action, protection of intentions, self-confidence, positive energy and emotions. The ability of managers to create this type of environment has some significant knowledge and skill implications.

I think that there are some vital lessons that can be learned from NGO / volunteer sector. What successes / failures have they experienced in encouraging sustained volunteerism? What skills / competencies to managers and leaders have to create an appropriate enviornment? What are the skill / knowledge implications for the volunteers themselves? How do their work processes / collaboration activities differ from a typical public or private sector organization?

The Impact of a "Retirement Culture" on New Employees

Imagine for a moment you are a new employee, in the early stages of your career, and have joined an organization with a long corporate history and a fairly large cadre of long-serving employees less than 10 years from retirement eligibility. You are excited to be there... filled with optimism, potential, desire to make a difference... make a mark for yourself... anxious to meet others who share your enthusiasm, and with whom to build towards the future.

Then you start noticing an interesting set of behaviors.

There are regular retirement parties and receptions hosted by the organization. There are also parties for long years of service; fifteen years, twenty five years etc. Human Resources announces regular retirement preparation seminars. There is an organizational preoccupation with knowledge risks associated with departing employees. You hear about many spontaneous after-work get togethers of small groups of long-serving employees, often meeting with recent retirees to stay in touch and celebrate their new "lives." In elevators, hallways, in the cafeteria you hear snippits of conversations about retirement. There are retirement conversations in the social talk before and after formal meetings. You overhear conversations where people say "I'll be glad to get out of here.. " "I can't wait to retire.. "Only X days!"

Of course, in the context of broader corporate culture, there are often many more signs of what is becoming uppermost in the minds of many.

So, as a new employee, how does this make you feel? Is it a motivator, or demotivator? Do you see it as an opportunity, or a reason for escape? Is it a sign of the early stages of organizational renewal, or the later stages of organizational decline?

Ultimately, I don't think there is any value in attempting to prevent retirement coming to the forefront of many organizations - it would be too much like a fish trying to swim upstream. But what would have value is to consciously devote more focus on the new employee.

• looking carefully at the characteristics of different generations and what they seek in the work environment and employee / employer relationships
• recognize that the definition of "retain" in "attract and retain" will mean different things in the very near future, if it doesn't already
• craft a challenging - ENGAGING - work environment that helps maximize their value, contribution, and voluntarism while they are in the organization
• build opportunities and work process that support the collaborative co-creation of new knowledge with co-workers, and the capture of vital foundational knowledge as a seamless part of the process
• consistently recognize the value of ALL employees, not just the upcoming retirees, whether explicitly or implicitly.

A "True" Case of Knowledge Management?

A number of colleagues and I attended a Canadian Government conference last month titled IM Day. This past week, we held an informal meeting / round table discussion with a wider group of colleagues to discuss and share what we had learned.

As I was reviewing my notes from the IM Day conference to prepare for the session - desperately needed as the thoughts swirling around in my head are from the recently attended KMWorld conference - I came across my notes for what I consider to be a real "gem".

This gem was a session delivered by Irving Gold, the Director of Knowledge Transfer and Exchange for the Canadian Health Services Research Foundation. (Knowledge Transfer and Exchange is featured prominently on their home page, with a link to a complete section on the topic. It is also highly visible in their strategic plan.)

Other than finding Irving to be an enjoyable, articulate speaker, able to make good connections with the audience, I find he made a very good connection between KM and business goals and objectives, and some of the approaches he mentioned could have merit in other organizations and situations.

He summarized the CHSRF's mission as "funding research, building capacity, and transferring knowledge," and "moving answers and solutions into the hands of those who need them... to support informed decision making."

When I visit their web site, the organization's mission is "To support evidence-informed decision-making in the organization, management and delivery of health services through funding research, building capacity and transferring knowledge."

CHSRF looks at knowledge transfer and exchange from 3 perspectives:

Perspective 1: "push" - research dissemination through research papers, "mythbusters" (short 2 page, highly digestible, peer-reviewed research papers that debunk common myths), and "evidence boost" (short research published about a decision that should have been made, where there is irrefutable evidence).

Push activities are supported by "how-to" information.

Perspective 2: "pull" - research weeks that bring researchers and decision makers together to learn, and promising practices inventory which offers neat ideas that have been implemented

Perspective 3: "exchange" - brokering and facilitating effective / productive relationships between researchers and decision makers, bringing them together, helping mutual understanding, dissolving stereotypes and turning research into joint knowledge production.

I also noted two other things from the presentation. Irving talked about a 4 step process for either knowledge transfer and exchange, or learning - unfortunately I don't quite recall. The model was:

• acquire
• assess - quality and relevance
• adapt - summarize and relate [to context and need]
• apply - how recommendations inform decision making

And one other thing he mentioned is "knowledge services link people with questions to people with answers." No doubt this is in the context of his organization, but I thought it was a very elegant way of expressing a mission /objective for KM.

So what I take away from this is that what seems to really matter to CHSRF is not the production of research, but to positively affect healthcare by enabling effective decisions through the application of research. For application to take place, it must be easily available, useful and relevant, and consumable - from the decision maker's perspective.

And Irving's group is adding tremendous value by fostering good working relationships and effective relationships between producers and consumers, and packaging / providing the research in useful ways that not only meet articulated needs, but anticipated ones as well.

Granted the link between knowledge management and this organization's is fairly easy to draw, but I can't help but think what Irving has done can be leveraged in other situations and organizations as well.

Bravo Irving. I hope I can create an opportunity for us to dialog further at some point.

Thoughts and Learning From KMWorld Conference

As I think back on the conference, sessions, keynotes, and conversations, here is a brief snapshot of what I learned, observed, and confirmed, all though the particular lens of my own biases of course, and without referring to my notes!

(Note that I focused on the KM track exclusively. For a more detailed look at what I got from individual sessions, as well as what two colleagues learned from their focus on content management and taxonomy tracks, visit http://wazzupkmworld2006.blogspot.com/ )

Knowledge management is enabling and facilitating productive conversations between people for better decision making and innovation. A mechanistic view of KM has limited value and lifespan.

Decision making and organizational innovation are critical core capabilities for organizations to easily adapt to the anticipated, and unanticipated future.

Management thinking needs to quickly change from Tayloristic / mechanistic modes and models to sense making in the context of organizations as complex systems filled with knowledge workers (volunteers) where cause/effect relationships are not accurately identifiable looking forward to any great degree of certainty.

Information provides a key role in supporting productive conversations provided it is all considered metadata, is tagged with meaningful metadata, and can be fluidly organized in a variety of ways not by an "expert" but by users themselves based on their needs at any given time.

Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 technologies are moving past "early adopters" and becoming mainstream in leading organizations.Technology has a significant role to play, not in the creation of central repositories of information that never get used, but in providing a suite of social technology tools to:

• enable conversations, decision making and innovation
• seamless capture, publish, and aggregate the results of those human activities
• provide easy, user-structured/user-driven access to information

(Additioanl ref: IBM Executive Declares Web 2.0 Technology to Drive New Business Applications)

Organizations need to spend more time contemplating the work environment / technology that Gen-Ys will be demanding - a radical shift from what we're familiar with today - and begin experimenting and implementing it in the near term. They need to plan for and take action for the future.

Socially constructed narrative and anecdotes are high-value information objects for exchanging knowledge in the absence of a direct person-person connection. The transfer of expertise /deep smarts is only truly possible when the expert and the learner co-create new knowledge through joint problem solving, and making their thinking processes explicit in the process.

Overall, a very good conference. Most appreciated - key speakers like Snowden, McDermott, Weinberger, Semple, Pollard etc. and their reasonable accessibility for follow-up conversations - opportunity to meet people talking about and struggling with common issues, including Gordon Vala-Webb, who I'd met previously at a Conference Board Knowledge Strategy Exchange Network meeting.
I'll definitely consider going again next year, speaker dependent. The St. Clair Hotel was awesome. San Jose has good food, nice weather and friendly people.