Anonymity vs. Attribution

In an earlier post, we looked at the importance of accountability to good knowledge management (KM).  Accountability underpins the effective management of anything at all – money, people, safety and definitely knowledge.

I’m now going to examine two related opposing concepts and how they can affect KM – namely, anonymity and attribution.

I’ll first look at each concept in turn, pointing out its effects and how those can be both positive or negative, depending on the context.

Then, I’ll look at how good KM is helped or hindered by them, with some suggestions on when one should be preferred over the other.

Anonymity

A piece of work is anonymous when its author’s identity remains unknown to us, the readers.  This has two important effects:

1.       The author can write whatever they like, released from the consequences that might otherwise result from that such freedom might have if we knew their identify;

2.       We, the readers, are forced to judge the piece of work based on its content alone, and not the identity or background of its author.

We can consider either of these effects positively or negatively, depending on the situation:

1.       Consequences

a.       Positive – a ‘whistle-blower’ is able to raise concerns about wrongdoing or crimes, protected from possible coercion from those involved;

b.       Negative – social media ‘trolls’ can abuse or threaten people online, or can spread lies or other misinformation, without consequences;

2.       Content alone; no context

a.       Positive – biases, prejudices or other ‘mental models’ cannot act as filters, which open us up to reading content we might otherwise miss;

b.       Negative – we have no way of knowing whether the writer is experienced or qualified, let alone credible and may simply be wasting our time.

Attribution

A piece of work is attributed when its author’s identity is known to us, the readers.  This also has two important effects which are of course the ‘flip side’ of those relating to anonymity, above:

1.       The author is no longer free to write whatever they like, for they remain tied to the consequences that might flow from our knowing their identify;

2.       We, the readers, can now judge the piece of work in context, not solely on its content but also by taking into account the identity or background of its author.

Again, these effects can be positive or negative, depending on the situation:

1.       Consequences

a.       Positive – attributed works are generally more likely to be considered, responsible and thoughtful, since favourable reception enhances the author’s reputation;

b.       Negative – there is a risk of euphemism, obfuscation or even dishonesty, as people seek to protect themselves from negative reactions were ‘the truth’ to come out;

2.       Context applied

a.       Positive – contextual consideration helps us to understand and judge a work; focusing on those from people with credibility and expertise; as well as enabling us to follow up with the author, asking questions or offering further insight;

b.       Negative – ‘group-think’ may occur, as fewer sources are considered, thereby increasing the risk of missing a perspective that might be valid but never gets heard.

How do these affect KM?

I’ll now run through a list of KM interventions or tools, highlighting the use they make of anonymity or attribution:

·        KM Assessments – at Knoco, our assessment and benchmarking service involves interviewing people drawn from across the client organisation, to understand how they work with knowledge and identify areas for improvement.  The output, either a written report or slides, or both, contains anonymised quotes from these interviews help to bring the report to life and show what things are really like.  For example, whilst the report might state refer to ‘silos’ and ‘inter-departmental relationships’, a killer quote really makes the point far more vividly, thus: “Tribalism is a problem here still; everyone knows this but it's not acceptable to say so publically; it's an undiscussable. It persists because top management do nothing to address it.”  Here, anonymity gives senior management an insight that normal, open reporting channels would not permit.

·        Knowledge-harvesting Interviews – these are a very effective way of getting knowledge out of people’s heads and into a form that can reach far more of their colleagues than would be possible face-to-face.  We would almost always recommend that the output be attributable, so that readers can follow up with the interviewee if they have questions or comments.  Also, it means that the output is more credible because the readers know who it came from – usually an acknowledged expert in a particular field, hence the interview.  When attributed interview transcripts are typed up and distributed or posted online, the interviewee should always have the right to review and edit the output for the simple reason that others will not engage if they hear that they might be misquoted or have their words used against them in some way.

·        Knowledge Assets – these are often created with reference to many different interviews and other KM capture activities and, as with interview transcripts, should generally be attributed, for the same reasons.  Providing the contributors’ name and contact details enables users to get in touch and offer further insights or feedback – something that is not possible if the content is all anonymous.  Also, anonymous content, unless it has gone through an established and credible validation process, will always lack the credibility of its attributed counterpart.  People need to know where the guidance and advice is coming from, otherwise they will be reluctant to use it.

o   Case-study – Some years ago, working as an analyst for the British Army’s newly-formed Lessons Exploitation Centre, I helped to produce a series of ‘Good Practice Guides’, full of anonymous insights and advice gleaned from Post-Operational Reports and Interviews.  It took time for us to earn a reputation as a credible source of knowledge and, with hindsight, I think we should have retained the source and author of each ‘nugget’, in order to show its provenance and enabled readers to follow up.

o   By contrast, a Battlegroup from my Regiment (The Rifles) produced a very helpful and credible post-tour handbook, full of insights, advice, tactics and case-studies – each of which was fully-sourced and attributed, enabling readers to judge the validity for themselves.

·        Lessons – At Knoco we help organisations capture lessons at the end of projects through the Retrospect process – a facilitated discussion between project team members, to identify learning points and make recommendations for the future.  Facilitation is needed to help participants examine events in a structured way, and this outsider, with no direct knowledge of the project, can ensure that lessons are written for the benefit of future users as opposed to recording events merely for posterity.  Lessons will be written up so as to balance the candour needed for effective reflection whilst protecting participants from direct quotation.  Like with interviews, draft lessons are returned to a project team member for review and editing, to ensure accuracy whilst reassuring future participants.

·        Knowledge Exchanges – these events bring people together to focus upon and discuss one particular topic, to facilitate the creation or update of a Knowledge Asset (see above), or to enable direct transfer between those with knowledge to those in need of it.  As with any KM activity, Terms of Reference help to ensure that all participants understand the event’s purpose and approach.  Notably, some events may use what are termed here in the UK as ‘Chatham House rules’, which means that formal capture and publication of any content may be allowed, but only without attribution.  The aim of such an approach is to enable speakers to do so more freely than they otherwise might, if they thought their every word would appear in print in due course.

·        Discussion forums – available across the internet as well as within medium or large organisations, these enable users to raise questions or start a discussion on a particular topic.  Most internet forums enable users to use an anonymous ‘handle’, thereby leading to honesty that may be painful, the ‘trolling abuse’ mentioned above, as well as running the risk that contributions are either unhelpful or even mendacious.  Some forums nowadays enable users to score both individual users and their contributions based on how ‘useful’ they have been.  Over time, this enables users to acquire ‘credibility’, thereby addressing, albeit partially, the issue of whether users should trust advice from an anonymous source.  Internal forums usually retain users’ identity, to enable subsequent follow-up and offline discussion, as well as ensuring that debate remains, for the whole part, civilised.

o   Case-study – Mumsnet is a well-known parenting forum where users can seek help or ask for insights on virtually any topic, albeit with a domestic bias.  99.9% of users have anonymous handles and debate is forthright.  Interestingly, users can and do change their name at any point and many do so, temporarily, in order to offer contributions that they feel unable to make from behind their (still anonymous) online persona.  Proof perhaps that sometimes we don’t like having to remain accountable for things we say, even amongst people whom we have never met.

A final observation – I used to work as a trained Samaritans volunteer, something I’ve mentioned before with relation to KM, here.

There are a number of factors that combine to enable Samaritans to do their job, which is to provide emotional support to people in crisis, including those that may be feeling suicidal.  However, the most important one, in my view, is the fact that callers and visitors to Samaritans centres can be 100% anonymous if they wish, and can share as much or as little about their lives as they wish.

This freedom means there is no comeback.  Which means they can be 100% honest – something they can’t be with their husbands, wives, partners, friends or colleagues.  It’s very hard to let those to whom we are closest see us at our most vulnerable but, somewhat paradoxically, it’s far easier to do so with complete strangers, to whom we shall probably never speak again.

I hope I have shown that neither anonymity nor attribution are always appropriate.  What matters is the outcome that we as KMers are trying to achieve – if we need warts and all honesty to understand truly what happened, then anonymity will help but we run the risk the output may not be wholly credible. 

Conversely, if we want to enable feedback and continued engagement with credible sources, attribution will be needed, with the understanding that there may not be full transparency, at least not until trust has been established.

For a conversation about anonymity and attribution and how they affect KM, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed – a review

This is the book that I wish I had written.

Indeed, I will even go so far as to say that some of its ideas can be found in my blog – albeit in this book they are set out far more clearly and with greater insight than I normally muster.

This is truly an excellent book, vital reading for anyone with an interest in knowledge management, organisational learning, lessons learned, organisational design, leadership development and much more.

Matthew Syed’s book looks at how we normally deal with failure (i.e. not well) and how this hinders our ability to learn, and therefore to improve.  He provides case-studies from healthcare, criminal justice, aviation, manufacturing and sport, to show how a different approach to ‘failure’ enables better performance.

Some of the key ideas include:

·        Cognitive dissonance – the discomfort we experience through our inability to cope with evidence that challenges our fundamental beliefs or assumptions, which leads to twisting facts to suit our preconceived conclusions;

·        Marginal gains – using many small improvements, both lateral (i.e. in different areas) and sequential (i.e. iterative) to produce a large improvement overall.  He uses the Team Sky approach under Sir David Brailsford, as well as Formula One teams like Mercedes, to make this point;

·        The ‘blame game’ – the toxic tendency to look for ‘fault’ in others when things go wrong – a noxious feature of what passes for political and media discourse in most Western countries; in examining this, Syed references Sidney Dekker’s excellent book, ‘Just Culture’, which I reviewed here;

·        ‘Growth’ (as opposed to ‘fixed’) mind-sets – the mature and confident outlook of those happy to fail and eager to learn in so doing.  Examples here include James Dyson and David Beckham.

Feedback that has not been sought but is offered anyway would include:

·        No mention of the former England rugby coach, Sir Clive Woodward’s approach of improving ‘100 things by 1%’ which is almost identical to that of Brailsford’s ‘marginal gains’ (and in fact preceded it);

·        Many of the case-studies and statistics from healthcare, criminal justice etc. are from the United States, with fewer data from the UK.  Not a major issue but, as a British reader of this book by a British author, this was notable; perhaps there is greater transparency there – if so, I would not be surprised;

·        No mention of Chris Argyris and his work on ‘organisational defensiveness’.  The book is full of sources and texts, many of which I will now seek out and read for myself.  I was just hoping to find Argyris’s famous ‘undiscussables’ and noted their absence;

·        Public life and the inter-action of the media and politicians were examined but I rather think both sides were let off far too easily, as were we, the readers and voters who permit and perpetuate what Syed calls our “blame-orientated…public culture”. 

It is in this final area (political discourse) that I think there remains much to reveal and discuss and perhaps I can do that in a book before someone else beats me to it!

Overall, this was a fascinating, thought-provoking and entertaining read and I strongly recommend it to anyone with even a passing interest in making things better – which should be all of us.

What's in your left-hand column?

In the last blog post, we looked at some of the ways in which knowledge management (KM) consultants help their clients before raising the importance of culture and how it can be analysed, shaped and changed through various interventions.
Whilst surveys, workshops and interviews can help provide an overview of a team, department or whole organisation, individuals can also get a sense of the tiny part they play in shaping and sustaining the culture, for good or bad.
Honesty lies at the heart of KM and successful KM often depends on the extent to which staff feel able to share their experiences openly with one another.
Good lesson learning relies on teams discussing the successes and failures of a project without fear or favour.
Best practice creation and transfer requires experts identifying and sharing the little ‘nuggets’ of know-how that may lie buried deep within their consciousness.
But these and other KM techniques can be hampered if people feel unable to share their ideas, thoughts and feelings and instead choose to omit, cover up or even lie about their experience.
This can be hard because we are all human and, being human, 4 rules apply:

·        We like to be popular and/or respected;

·        We don’t like being unpopular and/or disrespected;

·        We don’t like being embarrassed;

·        We don’t (unless we are sociopathic) like embarrassing other people.

These 4 rules make it hard for us to talk honestly about difficult subjects unless we trust the people we’re with and are confident we’re safe to do so.
An excellent tool that can show how tricky total honesty can be is the so-called ‘left-hand column’ exercise.
You can try this for yourself:

·        Think of a conversation you had recently that felt difficult in some way – it might have taken place with a colleague, your boss, a friend or relation;

·        Take some blank paper and draw a line vertically down the centre of the page;

·        On the right-hand side, write up the conversation like the dialogue in a script or screenplay; no need to recall each exchange verbatim but capture the essence of between 5 and 10 minutes’ worth.  This may take 15-30 minutes, depending on how much detail you capture;

·        Now, having written up the key exchanges, go back through and, in the left-hand column, write up what you were actually thinking before or whilst you uttered your own words;

·        Carry on throughout the whole conversation and then read back your own thoughts;

·        Now, have a think about the difference between what you said and what you were actually thinking at the time, considering the following questions:

o   Why is there a difference and what prevented you from sharing your true thoughts with this person?

o   What would need to happen for you to feel comfortable to share those thoughts?

o   What might the other person’s ‘left-hand column’ look like?

o   Can you imagine what life at work (or home) would be like if we were able to share our left-hand columns?

o  
How can we make that happen?

This exercise can be done individually or as part of a workshop, provided people are reassured beforehand that they will not be expected to share anything unless they feel comfortable in doing so.  As part of organisational learning cultural change programmes, the left-hand column exercise can help people identify the ‘blockers’ that impede effective learning from experience, as well as some of the ‘undiscussables’ that remain unsaid and will always damage such efforts until they are (a) discussed and (b) addressed.
Our paper on Organisational Learning Culture is available from the Knoco website’s downloads page.
For a conversation about the left-hand column exercise in particular, or organisational learning and knowledge management in general, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

The Iraq Inquiry - what lessons?

Today’s publication of ‘The Chilcot Report’ will provide stacks of material for those of us interested in learning from the past in order to improve future performance.  A few points:

·        Firstly, I declare an interest, having deployed on Operation TELIC in February 2003 on what proved to be one of the most fascinating (if challenging) deployments of my military career. I was a Captain in an Army liaison team, embedded within the Coalition Air HQ in Saudi Arabia.  This morning I dug out the notebook I used to scribble ‘nuggets’ that I then intended to use in a novel (written, yet to be published!). Some that stand out for me below (some of which show the paucity of planning and equipment, as well as some context):

o   Sunday 16 February – Arrival in Saudi Arabia on a reinforcement C-17 aircraft that had been refused entry 4 times by the Saudi authorities, reluctant to be seen to be supporting the imminent war effort; so the RAF changed the call-sign of the aircraft to one of a routine roulement flight and got us in ‘under the wire’;

o   Monday 17 February – Work begins; all UK personnel reminded to get their respirators tested to ensure they are serviceable;

o   Thursday 20 February – Respirator testing is stopped due to the high failure rate; decision apparently made that it would be better to claim ignorance of the state of the respirator filters than have evidence that they were failing and be unable to replace them (not enough spares, apparently);

o   Thursday 6 March – 2 kinds of difficult people out here: those that simply do not understand that war entails discomfort, disturbance and friction and those that use such friction as an excuse to cover up their own failings;

o   Friday 14 March – Reports of 75 Iraqis crossing into Kuwait and trying to surrender to 1 PARA soldiers conducting training; Paras tell them to go back to Iraq;

o   Wednesday 26 March – Reports France has given Iraqi Intelligence Service access to satellite, allowing them to eavesdrop on mobile phone communications;

o   Saturday 30 March – US Army Families Network adverts gut-wrenchingly corny: “helping to spread freedom and democracy around the world”;

o   Sunday 31 March - 1 x Apache downed and every other aircraft in regiment hit by small arms fire during air assault on Medina Division south of Baghdad; reports regiment will not fly again;

o   Friday 4 April – 1 (UK) Div area, soft hats being worn; hearts and minds etc – example of how it’s done? Or is Northern Ireland experience irrelevant here?

o   Sunday 6 April – Difference of opinion between US and UK targeteers re infrastructure and/or Iraqi airforce; US wishes to destroy all aircraft, bunkers etc. UK ask why bother? Not used yet; use now even less likely; faint suspicion around that US motivation might be a wish to sell Iraq new aircraft possibly?

o   Thursday 10 April – UK forces find Iraqi forces arms cache, including 19 French MILAN anti-tank missiles with production date of 1999 (i.e. after the UN weapons inspectors were booted out by Iraq in 1998).  Puts the French opposition to the war into some sort of context, I suggest.

o   Friday 11 April – Time-sensitive targeting of ‘Chemical Ali’ attempt; bombs hit late and miss and a dud; National Component Command furious; SFHQ livid; systemic problem – 12 windows have to go green before bombs drop;

o   Monday 14 April – We have been asked for our lessons; some criticism of lessons process; too quick; not leading to anything.

·        Most of the lessons in the report have been ‘identified’ NOT ‘learned’ – as most people with a passing interest in knowledge management (KM) will know, a lesson is not learned until you have changed something (or made a deliberate, auditable decision not to do so).  Many of Chilcot’s ‘lessons’ are more properly described as ‘observations’ or ‘insights’ and, if they are to become lessons, need to be re-crafted with explicit recommendations added; hopefully this necessary work will now take place;

·        Many of the criticisms of the British Army planning and conduct of operations in Iraq can be found to have their origins in its culture, that of the ‘can-do attitude’ – which leads to senior commanders taking on more work than can be realistically done with the resources offered.  Indeed, Chilcot says:

“Ground truth is vital. Over-optimistic assessments lead to bad decisions. Senior decision-makers – Ministers, Chiefs of Staff, senior officials – must have a flow of accurate and frank reporting. A “can do” attitude is laudably ingrained in the UK Armed Forces – a determination to get on with the job, however difficult the circumstances – but this can prevent ground truth from reaching senior ears. At times, in Iraq, the bearers of bad tidings were not heard. On several occasions, decision-makers visiting Iraq (including the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Chief of the General Staff) found the situation on the ground to be much worse than had been reported to them. Effective audit mechanisms need to be used to counter optimism bias, whether through changes in the culture of reporting, use of multiple channels of information – internal and external – or use of visits.”[1]

This issue is discussed at some length in the article linked from this blog post here, which looks at how the British Army tries to learn lessons from operations and training and how its efforts are hampered by its culture.  It should be obvious that it is not only the military where these problems are found and that many other organisations also have issues with discussing accidents, mistakes and errors openly.

Having read more of the report, I shall write again on this in due course.

For a conversation about knowledge management and learning cultures in general, or identifying and learning lessons in particular, please contact me direct or via the Knoco website.

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[1] http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/media/246581/the-report-of-the-iraq-inquiry_section-98.pdf  Volume 8, Section 9.8 ‘Conclusions: The Post-Conflict Period’, Paragraph 197, Page 504.

Culture - a self-inflicted wound (or how the BBC and Nokia hurt themselves and how KM can help)

Today, the former judge Dame Janet Smith published her report into the culture and practices of the BBC in light of allegations of abuse by the late Jimmy Savile, during his time as a DJ and TV personality there.

The full report is available here.

Some may recall my writing about this sordid episode before (here and here).

Some key quotes that struck me:

·        “…the management culture in the BBC did not encourage openness in these respects and did not recognise the sense of insecurity which inhibited staff from speaking out.”

·        “An important feature of the culture of the BBC during the period with which we are concerned was the reluctance of staff to complain about bad things which happened to them or to raise concerns about bad things which were happening within the organisation.”

·        “…organisations both large and small find it almost impossible to inculcate a culture where people feel able to report a complaint or raise a concern without fear of adverse consequences for themselves.”

·        “…most staff (other than those who had been in the higher echelons) felt that the management culture was too deferential and that some executives were ‘above the law’.”

·        “…the culture in the BBC and the BBC’s management style did not encourage the reporting of complaints or concerns.”

·        “…fear of reprisal, fear of losing your job, fear of being known as a troublemaker and fear of not being promoted [are the] reasons why complaints might not be made.” 

Now, let’s turn to another well-known organisation – the telecommunications company, Nokia. Formerly the dominant force in the mobile phone market, Nokia sold its mobile devices division to Microsoft in 2013, having been unable to respond to the market challenges presented by Apple and Samsung over the previous 6 years.
This article here, makes a compelling case that it wasn’t Apple or Samsung that damaged Nokia but its very own culture.
Again, some key points:

·        “the company’s top managers had a terrifying reputation, which was widely shared by middle managers….some members of Nokia’s board and top management [were] “extremely temperamental” who regularly shouted at people “at the top of their lungs”….it was thus very difficult to tell them things they didn’t want to hear. Threats of firings or demotions were commonplace.”

·        “Fearing the reactions of top managers, middle managers remained silent or provided optimistic, filtered information.”

·        “…the information did not flow upwards. Top management was directly lied to….There were situations where everybody knew things were going wrong, but we were thinking, “Why tell top managers about this? It won’t make things any better.””

·        “Nokia’s ultimate fall can be put down to internal politics. In short, Nokia people weakened Nokia people and thus made the company increasingly vulnerable to competitive forces. When fear permeated all levels, the lower rungs of the organisation turned inward to protect resources, themselves and their units, giving little away, fearing harm to their personal careers. Top managers failed to motivate the middle managers with their heavy-handed approaches and they were in the dark with what was really going on.”

Two organisations with different purposes and structures but with a common problem – a culture that did not encourage openness and honesty, where only ‘good news’ gets passed on up and whereby senior management don’t have the full picture, forcing them to make decisions based on partial information.
Why?  Because of the culture that they themselves have allowed to take hold. 
But these are extreme cases, right?  That sort of thing doesn’t happen everywhere, does it?
Well, how about we delete ‘sexual abuse’ or ‘touch-screen phone’ and insert, ‘project delays’ or ‘cost over-runs’ or ‘performance issues’ or ‘safety concerns’.  Or any of the other ways in which performance can end up not quite how we had intended.  Are these reported upwards in full?  Or do we only talk about the good stuff? 
In short, many organisations are places where leaders are making decisions whilst not knowing what has really happened and, perhaps more importantly, why.
So what can they do about this?
Good knowledge management requires (amongst other things) the creation of processes to help people talk about how things are going and how they can be improved:

·        After Action Reviews get people in teams to talk openly about how things have gone  and learn from each other;

·        Peer Assists, Knowledge Exchanges and Handovers get different teams to explore issues and come up with solutions that can be embedded into everyday ways working;

·        Retrospects help project teams explore how the project (or stage thereof) went, what has been learned and what can be done differently next time;

·        Knowledge Harvesting Interviews get critical knowledge and information out of the heads of a few experts and available for others to use.

These tools and others can reveal much about what things are really like inside an organisation and, for their potential as learning techniques to be realised, senior management have to show leadership and send out the message that messengers will NOT be shot if they tell the truth.
Leaders must lead by example – which means being brutally honest about their own shortcomings, to send out the message that it’s okay to do so.  Moreover, that to do so is expected and is the essential thing that will lead to better performance – lower costs, higher profits, safer workplaces, motivated employees, better quality products.
For a chat about KM tools or how to create a learning culture, please get in touch or via the Knoco website.

It’s always what we do that matters, not what we say (Part One)

We’re all individuals, keen to be treated as such but, put us in big groups and I’ll wager we’re most of us all the same. 
Why do I say this?

This weekend I was meeting a friend of a friend who had heard what I do for a living but wanted to know more; so I explained briefly what knowledge management is.  My new acquaintance asked me, “Do you enjoy what you do?” and I replied, “I love it.”  He asked me why and so I said, “Because what I do brings me directly into contact with the human condition.”

His frown showed I needed to explain what I meant and he seemed interested enough to hear my take on what.

“Because basically, no matter what we do for a living, where we live or how old we are…we’re pretty much all the same.  We want to be respected, to feel like we make a difference.  We want to be rewarded and we want security, as far as possible.  Most of us prefer to be popular than unpopular and we don’t like hurting other people, or even merely embarrassing them.  We want people to think well of us and most of us avoid conflict whenever possible.”

He nodded along and then said, “So?”  So I continued, “So, when faced with a situation that we fear will put these things at risk, we all do the same thing.  We minimise embarrassment for ourselves and others; we avoid awkwardness and far prefer choppy waters to be smoothed than stirred up even more.  We mostly tell people what we think they want to hear or, at the very least, will pull our punches so as not to make things any worse.  In short, we won’t tell anyone what we really think or how we really feel unless we feel 100% safe and secure and whoever feels like that at work?”

Again, he asked, “So?” “So…if we are ever going to improve anything, if we are ever going to learn from the past and make the future better, we need to know all that there is to know about whatever problem we face.  We need people to be honest, which means we need to let them feel it’s okay to be honest, which means they mustn’t fear demotion or the sack if they tell the truth, or even just embarrassment for offering a different point of view.  That takes time and effort and real, brace leadership from those at the top.  They need to show by what they do and say that they value integrity and honesty and moral courage because otherwise all they’ll get, indeed all that most organisations get is defensiveness, dishonesty and fear.”

I pulled out a pen and piece of paper and drew this picture of 2 stick-men with ‘speech bubbles’ representing their conversation and ‘thought clouds’ above each man’s head.  “Most problems in the world are down to poor communication, with people either unable, or downright refusing, to express what they think and feel. This is because they’re unsure what they think or feel or because they know all too well what they think or feel but are uncomfortable with sharing that with others.  Now, we tell each other the things in the speech bubbles and yet everything we do is shaped by what is in the thought clouds. Getting people to share those inner thoughts and feelings is at the heart of what knowledge management and organisational learning is all about.  It’s incredibly difficult and, quite frankly, a thankless task but, when it works, if only briefly, it’s very rewarding.”

He smiled and bought me a pint.

To be continued….

Hmm, now that IS interesting. Let’s keep that to ourselves.

I have written elsewhere about my admiration for the relative openness of the US military in its approach to lessons learned from operations and training.[1]  Where the British instinct has always been to keep things under wraps, the American bias is traditionally towards greater transparency.

Sadly, this article in the Marine Corps Times, reveals that things are changing.  Whereas I would love to report that the British Army has decided to publish more, unfortunately the US Marine Corps Centre for Lessons Learned (MCCLL) is going the other way.

Whilst the detailed contents of its lessons have always been classified, MCCLL used to publish an unclassified summary every month, which enabled some degree of civilian scrutiny, education, accountability and debate.  Academics, journalists, defence contractors or knowledge management (KM) consultants could keep up to debate on how the US Marine Corps was, or was not learning lessons.

Knowing how much to share and how much to keep hidden is a judgement call facing all organisations.  Making everything secret is self-defeating and prevents one’s own employees from benefiting from learning from other’s experiences.  However, sharing everything ‘warts and all’ is not without its adverse consequences either, not least for an organisation’s short-term reputation.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I err on the side of greater openness, which means more honesty, more self-criticism, more transparency and a willingness to entertain ideas and innovations from ‘outside the box’.  Whilst some lessons should be considered sensitive, and access to them limited, these should be the exception, not the norm.

Unfortunately, MCCLL decided that re-writing lessons to ‘de-classified’ status took too long.  Let’s hope that they change their mind soon.

To chat about lessons learned - military, commercial or indeed from anywhere - contact me direct or please visit the Knoco website.

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[1] “Furthermore, the traditional British predilection for over-classifying official documentation impedes both the internal sharing of knowledge hard-won on operations and its critical analysis by outsiders who, however unwelcome, may nevertheless provide valuable insights.  To make the point, you can buy the US Army/Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual from Amazon whereas tracking down its British equivalent requires agility, cunning and tenacity.  It’s not the enemy’s efforts that are most frustrated by such constraints.” ‘Learning Lessons – the British Army’s Experience’, Rupert Lescott, Page 11, downloaded from http://www.slideshare.net/barmychap/20140409-learning-lessonsthebritisharmyexperience on 3 June 2015

 

When will they ever learn? How KM can help our politicians....

Here in the UK, the dust is settling after the most surprising general election result for over 20 years.  All pollsters, commentators and the politicians themselves thought we were heading for a hung parliament.  But they were wrong.

The media had even set up studios opposite the Houses of Parliament that were thought necessary to cover the anticipated negotiations between parties that had not managed to win an overall majority.  The awnings and scaffolding are being taken down this weekend.

David Cameron, the Conservative Party has won a majority whilst the Scottish National Party (SNP) has taken all but 3 parliamentary seats in Scotland.  The Labour Party lost 10% of its Members of Parliament (MP), including several senior figures that had thought they would be Cabinet members by now.  The Liberal Democrats lost 47 MPs, retaining a paltry 8.  The UK Independence Party (UKIP), punished by the first-past-the-post electoral system, polled nearly 4 million votes yet now has only one MP – a perhaps unfair quirk of FPTP requiring concentration of votes more than numbers alone. (For example, the SNP polled a third of UKIP’s number of votes yet added 50 MPs to its numbers because of this clustering).

The obvious fall-out so far?

·        Ed Miliband has resigned as leader of The Labour Party;

·        Nick Clegg has resigned as leader of The Liberal Democrats;

·        Nigel Farage has resigned as leader of UKIP;

·        An independent inquiry will examine how the pre-election opinion polls got it so wrong.

Much of media discussion since the election has focused on these negative consequences (for those concerned, naturally) and speculation over what lessons can be learned.  Many presume that Labour and the Liberal Democrats in particular now have to examine what went wrong and try to put it right in time for the next election, scheduled for 2020.

This analysis is not wrong but it is unhelpful for those of us that use knowledge management (KM) in general and ‘lessons learned’ in particular to improve performance.  (A comprehensive look at lessons and what should be done with them to drive performance starts here.)

Why unhelpful?  Because it reinforces the idea that lessons are negative and that we only learn when we make mistakes.  We can and should learn when things go according to plan also.  Where outcomes exceed expectations there is surely an even greater need to learn why, to ensure that such success is repeated and not wasted?

It is not just the ‘losers’ that should try to identify lessons but the ‘winners’ as well.

So, whilst David Cameron is selecting his new Government, and Nicola Sturgeon (i.e. the leader of the SNP) plans how to use the enhanced influence her Westminster MPs will bring her, they should also set in train the processes by which we learn from recent events.

Team-based After Action Reviews should be held, as well as larger Retrospects.  Key individuals should be interviewed and the knowledge of highest value (i.e. how to campaign; how to record voting intentions; how to target key voters; how to win!), identified, captured, shared and any good practice replicated and embedded within party procedures.  Knowledge Assets and Learning Histories should be created or updated.  Party workers approaching retirement or those leaving for pastures new should contribute also.  There is much that can be done, although this may not seem necessary to some.  Indeed, whilst the ‘losers’ plainly see the need for change, those happy with the results might not. 

Moreover, there is the risk that obvious successes might obscure mistakes that have been made but which seem inconsequential in the warm glow of victory.  Failing to identify and address these now might mean victory is not repeated.

Real adaptive learning is hard enough in commercial organisations, with those implementing KM initiatives often needing to be ‘politically savvy’ and well-attuned to the dominant culture.  In the world of actual politics, red in tooth and claw, it might appear all but impossible.

Doesn’t mean it shouldn’t happen but it does mean expert advice would be useful.

If any recently depressed or elated politician wants such advice, please contact Knoco for help!