For us to learn from what happened, tell us what happened. That's all.

Knowledge management gets people to share their know-how with others, to help them learn for the future.  Such learning can be positive - as in, "I found this worked really well, you should consider that approach as well."  It can also be negative - as in, "We simply got it wrong and you need to do something different next time round."
In either case, to learn from what happened, we need to know what happened.
Not what we want others to think happened.
Nor that which will paint us in the best light.
Nor that which protects our feelings.
Nor that which protects the feelings of others.
Nor that which we think may help us get promoted.
Nor that which will save us from embarrassment.
Nor that which may get us a pay-rise.
To learn from what happened, we need to know what happened.
That is all.

Such honesty requires and enables a learning culture and is facilitated by supportive and self-critical leadership.  For more thoughts and information on this and other issues, visit the free resources page on the Knoco website and download the paper on organisational learning culture.

A coffee, a chat and another KM convert...

At the weekend, I was having a cup of coffee with other villagers when I was introduced to a newcomer, John.  Our chat went along these lines:
John: So what do you do?
Rupert: I’m a management consultant.  I work in knowledge management.
John: [A look of bafflement on his face] Err, what’s that?
Rupert: Right…what do you do?
John: I used to be an architect, then I became a teacher and now I’m a campaigner.
Rupert: Okay, so in any of those jobs there would have been knowledge in your head from which others could benefit.  Now, imagine you were knocked down by a bus tomorrow – I’m sure your colleagues would miss you for being you and would be upset etc.  But it probably wouldn’t be too long for them to miss you because you and only you were the one that knew how to do certain things.  Once you’re gone, it’s too late to ask, isn’t it?  Well, knowledge management tries to get the stuff that’s in here [pointing to John’s head] out to those that can use it now, before you walk in front of that bus.
John: Oh goodness, tell me more.  I’m running a really important project at the moment and I’m retiring next year.  What should we be doing to address that?
Rupert: Well, firstly, you need to prioritise the knowledge you have – you can’t share everything and time and resources are limited, so you need to work out in advance what is critical and what is nice-to-have.  So you need what we call a knowledge scan.
John: Okay, can you send me details of that?
Rupert: Of course, next you probably want some sort of knowledge capture process, like an interview where you get to share your knowledge with those that need it, preferably in the room but it’s a good idea to record it as well, on audio or maybe even video for some sections.  The key things is that it’s not just you writing down what you think you know but you need someone there that can represent the end-user, to get you to explain jargon and to keep things as straightforward as possible.
John: Right…can you…?
Rupert: I’ll send you the details….
John: Thanks!
Rupert: Then there’s what you do with the knowledge once it’s out there.  It needs to be tidied up and made presentable, then put into what we call a ‘knowledge asset’, which is basically an online location, such as a wiki or portal that can be accessed by all that need it, as well as edited and updated as things change and the knowledge changes with it.
John: Gosh, I didn’t even know such things existed.  This is really serendipitous, us meeting like this.  Please send me whatever you think we’ll need and then we can discuss.
Rupert: Happy to help.
If you’d like a conversation, with or without the coffee, about how to measure, capture, analyse, protect, share, and in any other way manage your knowledge, please get in touch or visit the Knoco website.

We can't afford to lose you, please stay. Hey wait, where are you going??!

I’ve spent the last few weeks capturing lessons for a large engineering client.  In all we identified 43 high-level, high-impact lessons from a recent project.  My part in the process is over.  What should now happen is that the lessons are assigned to people that can get the ball rolling in terms of implementation – i.e. actually changing things as a result of the recommendations we made.

(A guide to the 10 steps in the life of a lesson starts here.)

The detailed content of the lessons is a matter for the client alone, given the need for confidentiality.  However, I was struck by the many ways in which one can view the issues encountered on projects and, in particular, ‘sticking plasters’ are often proposed over solutions that will endure.
Whilst this tendency was apparent across a range of issues, I’ll focus on those areas where my own discipline can help.
To summarise some of the problems encountered:

·        A number of people with very specialist knowledge and experience left the project during the planning stage;

·        Replacements were very hard to (a) identify and (b) recruit;

·        The project’s execution phase was prolonged, necessitating a handover between 2 teams.  The second team, lacking the experience and continuity of the first, proved less capable and required close supervision.

Initial attempts to propose solutions to these problems resulted in the following suggestions:

·        Pay specialists more money, to make it less likely that they will want to leave (i.e. either a general increase or a specific retention bonus upon completion of the project);

·        Amend contract terms to prevent specialists leaving without lengthy notice periods (Note: military terms of service often require personnel to give 6-12 months’ notice; in theory this enables the identification and posting of a suitably qualified replacement);

·        Overlap the 2 teams to create a prolonged ‘handover’, giving the second one more time to benefit from the experience of the first.

These are all very well but only this last one recognises that, at the heart of this issue, is knowledge and the need to retain it.  Other observations of mine include:

·        Paying specialists more money might end up being very expensive, increasingly so as rivals follow suit in what might well become a self-defeating competition; furthermore, to do so doesn’t address why such individuals are considered so valuable;

·        Amending contract terms also doesn’t do anything to reduce the value of such specialists either and, in an organisation lacking military discipline and ethos, might create the risk of essential people wishing to move on and resentful at not being permitted to do so; it would also create a perverse incentive for people to deny having certain ‘niche’ knowledge and skills;

·        With the costs of some specialist capabilities being what they are, a prolonged handover could be very expensive indeed.

We have looked at the issue of protecting knowledge before, as in this blog post.

Having framed the issue in this way, I then suggested that, as well as its original suggestions, the client should consider the following ideas – ideas that apply to all organisations that run projects:

·        Identify the critical knowledge areas at greatest risk of loss, usually through a Knowledge Scan;

·        Introduce processes to identify and retain such knowledge, through Knowledge Harvesting Interviews and Lessons Capture;

·        Synthesise and share such knowledge, by creating Knowledge Assets;

·        Ensure that such processes are resourced, supported and formalised, through a Knowledge Management plan.

For a conversation about these or any other KM services, please contact me directly or through the Knoco website.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail

Well maybe.

However, I was recently struck by how many problems identified at lessons capture workshops have potential solutions in KM and how people don’t realise it until it’s pointed out to them:

·        Last week, an engineering client bemoaned the loss of one individual from a project and explained how this had adversely affected performance, with significant delays.  When I queried what it was about this person that was so valuable, the response came back, “Well, his knowledge of where things were, who to speak to and how to get things done.”

·        The previous week, another client extolled the virtues of using people from an earlier project on the latest one “…because they had really valuable knowledge that we could use.”

·        Back to last week, with a different client querying the value a new employee was providing because of the time it was taking to “bring them up to speed and start being useful”.

To varying degrees, each of these clients showed an awareness that knowledge (or its absence) was at the heart of the issue we were discussing.  But I sensed that, left to their own devices, each client would have identified mere ‘sticking plaster’ solutions, such as:

·        Filling key knowledge gaps soon after they appear;

·        Keeping the knowledgeable people around for the next project;

·        Sacking the employee and recruiting a ‘better’ one.

However, with my ‘have hammer…must find nail’ approach to KM, we came up with solutions that might endure, which were, in order:

·        Get projects to create and update project knowledge assets as part of a KM plan, so that the ‘know-how’ and ‘know-who’ isn’t just in one person’s head and at risk of loss if they take a leave of absence.  Wikis are an excellent collaborative tool to enable many people to contribute.

·        Use post-project knowledge retention interviews to get the ‘know-how’ and ‘know who’ out there, ready for the next project to use; also, consider using previous project people as internal consultants rather than dedicated project staff, or their relative knowledge will only increase further, thereby making it even more difficult to release for other work.

·        Create an induction process, getting the latest new-joiner to write up mini knowledge assets for others following in their wake – these could cover basics like ‘how to book a meeting room’ or more complex tasks such as ‘creating, saving and sending a weekly report’.

Not every problem can be addressed by KM alone but most will benefit from a KM element in the proposed solution.
For a conversation about KM with a really rather enthusiastic knowledge management consultant, please get in touch direct or visit the Knoco website.

First day at school? How did that happen?

My eldest daughter started school today. 
Ridiculous, I know.  She’s still just a baby etc.
All things being equal, she will be receiving her ‘A’-level results on Thursday 16 August 2029.

What will change in the world of work between those two dates?

What sort of student will she be?  What sort of employee?  What sort of customer?

To compare, let’s go back a few (ahem) years, to my childhood.

I have always been a James Bond fan.  I read the books as a child, collected the toy cars and watched the films.

Back in the 1980s, there were 3 terrestrial TV channels in the UK, then 4.  You only had a week’s notice of the TV schedules and then only if you bought the ‘Radio Times’ for BBC 1 and 2, or the ‘TV Times’ for ITV and Channel 4.

Bond movies were always shown on ITV, usually twice a year and in a random order.  This didn’t matter regarding the plots but made little sense in terms of the actors playing Bond – one Easter I might catch the first 20 minutes of a Roger Moore movie and 5 months later I’d see the opening sequence to a Sean Connery one.  And so on.

So it was a big deal for me to be able to buy DVDs and watch what I wanted, when I wanted.  At work, I have been increasingly impressed by the ways in which we can summon up the people, documents, information and knowledge that we want, when we want them.  I have got used to this way of working but will always retain a frisson of amazement and glee at being able to do so.

Back to my daughter.

She likes the Ice Age animation films.  We have cable TV and can pay for movies, to watch what we want, when we want.  So, before I bought the DVD box-set, my daughter would think nothing of asking to watch ‘Ice Age 1’, or ‘Ice Age 3’ or perhaps the ‘Christmas Special’.  Moreover, being an indulgent Father who refuses his daughters’ requests less often that he should, she has already become used to getting what she wants, when she wants.

Now, let’s fast-forward again to 2029 and beyond and imagine she is considering employment or university.

What sort of student will she be?  What sort of employee?  What sort of customer?

As a student, will she settle for anything other than an educational environment when she can summon up textbooks, quotes, insights and feedback instantaneously?

As an employee, will she tolerate anything other than instant connection with the people whose knowledge and inputs she needs to help her with her work?

As a customer, will she buy from any company that doesn’t give her what she wants, when she wants it?

No chance. 

My indulgences have hard-wired into her from the earliest age an expectation that she can find information, knowledge, people and products with almost no effort at all.  Companies are going to have to up their game to get her commitment as an employee and win her business as a customer.

And it’s all my fault.  Sorry about that.

For a conversation about sharing knowledge and using it to win business from high-maintenance little madams like my 4yr-old, or just to hear how well she is doing at school, please contact me direct or via the Knoco web-site.

How can George Orwell help us learn about learning?

George Orwell was the famous author of ‘1984’, ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘The Road To Wigan Pier’.  One of his lesser known works is the essay, ‘Politics And The English Language’ which I shall now use to demonstrate the difference between adaptive and generative learning.

We have looked at these two ideas before.  To repeat, adaptive learning is what we do when we respond to a change in our environment.  We change, the environment does not.  Its outlook is short-term.

Generative learning is what we do when we develop a capability that will anticipate and respond to changes in our environment.  Its outlook is long-term.

Orwell’s essay includes 6 rules that aim to keep prose clear and concise.  Orwell hated verbosity and obfuscation because of the risk that such devices obscure the truth.  His 6 rules are:

1. Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
2. Never use a long word where a short one will do.
3. If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
4. Never use the passive where you can use the active.
5. Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
6. Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.[1]

How do these help explain the difference between adaptive and generative learning?

Let’s imagine a company wants to improve the success rate of its pitches to clients and seeks my help.  An audit of their processes reveals a tendency to waffle, prevaricate, obscure and pad out their proposals, presentations and other communications.

I recommend the company employ me to edit, cut out, reduce and clarify all of the above.  I propose a fee based on the initial size of each document at 50 pence for each word that I remove.

Work begins and becomes a nice little earner for me.  The company is also happy because they notice a reduction in the response time it takes potential clients to review their documents and an increase in the number of successful bids.

This initiative is an example of adaptive learning.  We have addressed the problem of poorly worded proposals and, provided the value of the new business exceeds my fees, everyone is happy.

Some questions:

• Does this proposal help us to identify a root cause?
• If I dropped dead tomorrow or got bored of this work, would the company be able to maintain its current success rate?
• Has the company developed a capability that it lacked before my involvement?

No.

Now let’s look at how generative learning might address the same problem.

Following the audit (the one which identified a tendency to waffle, prevaricate, obscure and pad out their proposals, presentations and other communications), I propose:

• Market analysis for existing and abortive clients (i.e. what sort of proposals succeed in Asia, Africa, Scandinavia etc?  How do we adjust our style to meet their expectations?)
• Exploration of why proposals have been so verbose up until now (i.e. how does the Boss write?  Is there a culture of pretension in place? Do people feel the need to demonstrate overt intellect or education because their daily work provides no such opportunity?);
• All proposal-writing staff to read George Orwell’s essay;
• Design and delivery of a short training package to all proposal-writing staff to help them apply Orwell’s 6 rules where appropriate;
• Update of recruitment criteria for proposal-writing staff to ensure successful applicants can use various styles and understand clarity and conciseness.

If time is short, the initial adaptive response remains valid.  However, the company will only develop new capabilities if it examines root causes and understands its client base.
Those questions again:

• Does this proposal help us to identify a root cause?
• If I dropped dead tomorrow or got bored of this work, would the company be able to maintain its current success rate?
• Has the company developed a capability that it lacked before my involvement?

Yes.

So there we are - an explanation of the difference between adaptive and generative learning, thanks to George Orwell.

Read his essay!

For a conversation about learning, knowledge management or even George Orwell, please contact us direct or through the Knoco website.

 

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[1] Taken from http://www.orwell.ru/library/essays/politics/english/e_polit/; accessed 5 Feb 2013.

5 things Knowledge Managers can learn from Samaritans

Samaritans is a UK charity that provides emotional support to people in crisis, including those that may be feeling suicidal.  There are many similar organisations worldwide that offer people an opportunity to explore their feelings in various ways, such as face-to-face, over the phone or even via text message or email.

I worked as a Samaritan for a number of years and found it both a rewarding and challenging experience.  As well as being in the privileged position of being trusted to hear people’s most intimate thoughts and feelings, I learned many things, about myself as well as skills that I have used in my career as a Knowledge Management (KM) consultant.

On a bike ride this morning, I thought about the relationship between KM and the work of Samaritans and I think many of us working in Knowledge Management have much to learn from this particular line of work.

Judge not, lest ye be judged

Samaritans do not judge those that get in touch, seeking their help.  Samaritans may hear things of which they disapprove, be they attitudes, opinions or things that people have done that have harmed others, perhaps in unbelievably cruel ways.  But there is never any judgement from the person taking the call.

In KM also, objectivity is vital.  KM people and teams should remain impartial as they learn (and facilitate wider learning) what has worked and not worked in their organisation.  Whilst the KM team has to appear somewhere on the org chart, they should be beholden to no-one whilst helping everyone equally.

Listen, then listen again

Listening is at the heart of the work that Samaritans do.  They create and provide a supportive environment in which callers or visitors can open up and express thoughts and feelings that they may not yet have actually heard out loud.  Samaritans know that sometimes silence is the most effective way of getting someone to speak – few of us will resist the urge to fill that vacuum.  Also, the way things are said is sometimes more important than what is being said.  Listening – really listening – can help Samaritans pick up on tone, mood and emotion. 

In KM, listening is essential.  Creating an atmosphere that enables people to express ideas, concerns and suggestions alike is an important element of a KM framework, through and around which knowledge can flow.  When running lessons capture meetings or knowledge retention interviews, listening – really listening – tells you far more than just ‘what was said’ and can inform where the discussion goes next.

Who you are doesn’t matter; what you say does

When they contact Samaritans, people can give their name if they want, or another, or none at all.  Anonymity helps people open up, as does the knowledge that what they say will be treated in confidence and will not be shared with anyone outside Samaritans.  It’s easier to share things that might be embarrassing or shameful with someone that we don’t know and will never know.

Anonymity and confidentiality have their place in KM also but must be used carefully.  A key part of knowledge management is the enabling the connection between people that need knowledge with those that have it – hard to achieve at the best of times…even harder if people remain anonymous.  Nevertheless, diagnostic tools such as KM assessments and surveys are a good way of getting under the skin of an organisation and people are more forthcoming if they know they can speak freely.  Similarly, lessons capture meetings may be recorded to help transcription of the discussion but the recordings are discarded once the lessons are typed up.

Sharing is a good in itself

We can never know for sure but there is a strong argument to be made that suicide sometimes occurs not as the result of bad feelings (i.e. shame, guilt, depression, grief, worry etc.) but because of the apparent inability to express or handle those feelings.  It is the ability of Samaritans to get people to share these feelings that helps them and can reduce the temptation of suicide.

At its heart, knowledge management is all about sharing.  KM people see the sharing of knowledge as a good in its own right and work to facilitate this, through: the recruitment, training and retention of the right people; the development of supportive processes; the procurement of useful technology and the creation of a governance structure and culture that encourages sharing and discourages hoarding.

The harder you push, the greater the resistance

One of the central tenets of Samaritans’ work is the recognition that everyone has a right to make their own decisions, including whether to take their own life.  In practice, this means that all callers are asked if they are feeling suicidal and, if they are, the call proceeds in a sympathetic but straightforward manner.  This may seem counter-intuitive but one of the things that makes Samaritans different from friends, family, colleagues and others is that they will not try to talk people out of suicide.  Samaritans don’t want people to take their own lives, any more than anyone else would.  But they know that attempts to ‘talk people round’ usually fail, they create resistance and they indicate to the caller that even Samaritans just don’t get it.
KM practitioners benefit from an awareness of the way feedback loops work (i.e. part of ‘systems thinking’).  This approach acknowledges potential resistance to initiatives and works to develop ways of reducing it – as opposed to ‘pushing even harder’.  Such efforts will almost always fail, or will leave all parties bruised and battered.  Asking people about their concerns and fears can reduce them.

For a conversation about KM with one of the world's leading firms of Knowledge Management consultants, please get in touch direct or via the Knoco website.