IngeniousPeoplesKnowledge

Time and again, we come back to the question of how to create a knowledge sharing culture. One of the constantly recurring points is: we need to stimulte people by building KM into the performance management frameworks, we need to provide all sorts of incentives.

Well, maybe we – once more – have been on the wrong track. Watch this – and think again…

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

So let’s assume we have successfully co-defined with the organisers what the intent and purpose of an event is. We would then ask them to give us “carte blanche” to do an initial design of the event. They give us some key elements to use as building blocks (ie. they tell us to include a slot for this and that keynote speaker, to consider a session on xyz) and we then try to design a process that meets the purpose as we understand it.

Now at this stage our partners are often a bit surprised with what we come up. They were “courageous” in asking for something different and thus leaving their comfort zone, but when they see an agenda, which has so little resemblance with what seems to be an orderly, respectable (speak: conventional) meeting agenda, they often get cold feet. They then often ask us: “Don’t you think this is a bit risky? You know we must make sure we meet our goals and get to concrete feasible outcomes at the end of the workshop”.

Well, what risk are we talking about? Yes, we’re convinced it is very risky: there is the risk to have finally sufficient time to exchange and discuss real issues; the risk that participants genuinely engage; the risk that we meet the interest of the audience; after all: there is a huge risk that we achieve the objectives of the workshop and come to concrete results over which participants have ownership! There is the risk that we avoid death by PowerPoint, that we miss out on talk shops. In short: the risk that we do well! Honestly: how many conventional workshops have you seen that did not fulfil your expectations, that missed the real points, that did not have enough time to discuss and share, that failed to come up with concrete outcomes; in short: that missed the goal?

So then what is the real risk? That we are doing better? Maybe the bigger risk is not to be courageous, not to change but to stay with the conventional. If you want to risk to do well, then it might be worth going the other way!

We often get inquiries from organisers of events of all sorts – they have heard from someone somewhere that we have facilitated events, meetings, conferences, workshops, that apparently were successful, exciting, different. They then send us their tentative programmes that they have already put together.

A dear colleague of mine, Allison Hewlitt, who used to work with Bellanet and IDRC, once said: “I never facilitate other people’s events”. What she wanted to say, is, that it is very difficult and thankless to take over the facilitation task of an event at a late stage – when many of the decisions on format, structure and so forth have already been taken. Why? 80% of the success of an event lies in the preparation (because once the event starts, the ball is rolling, just like in a marble run). With regard to outcome and impact of an event, the most crucial part of the preparation work is designing and structuring the overall event. So the main task of the facilitator lies more in the work accomplished before the facilitation task during the actual starts – or to put it differently, the most important part of the job of a facilitator is to facilitate the lead phase to the event.

The main challenge of this design work is to define the expected outcome/ impact of the event – we’re talking not just about output! People who come to us often are very clear about what they want to see at the end of the event: people have heard about this and that topic, they have shared their ideas and knowledge, they have drafted a plan or strategy, … But that’s not our main concern! We then ask them: what do you want to see happening in the six months after the workshop, that will lead you to the conclusion that the workshop was worth all the time and effort? What criteria will you use at that stage to judge the workshop and our contribution to it? Because once we as facilitators know the answer to that question, it is then our task to design an event and outputs that best lead to that impact. However, usually when we ask this question, people on the phone get very silent – telling us that this is a good question – and ask us to give them a few days to figure it out…

“We would like to dethrone measurement from its godly position, to reveal the false god it has been. We want instead to offer measurement a new job – that of helpful servant.” (M. Wheatley and M. Kellner-Rogers)

Measuring for accountability examines “what”, the products, the “things” and assumes that knowledge is a package that can be counted. Measuring for learning makes sense of the “how”, the process rather than the product, and the relations between things. Measuring is not a bad thing in and of itself, the problem emerges when measurement is used for the wrong things. Measuring is good at accounting for what we have done against what we planned and thus should be used for gauging input and outputs. However, one cannot attribute impact to input because of the complexity and therefore measuring impact is almost impossible. Measuring for accountability does not appreciate what is of greatest value and in a knowledge management environment this is likely to be a catalytic conversation or a new idea for innovation.

Within the scientific domain, “measurement reduces and standardises. In order to make sense of complex systems and processes, measurement first uses models and frameworks to reduce them to manageable segments” (Taylor, J. and Soal, S. (2003) Measurement in development practice. CRDA: South Africa, p.4). This is contrary to I-P-K’s approach which encourages complexity by inviting it into one room.

Measurement for learning can be used to improve development practice by creating a picture of what we want to achieve and once the activity is complete by taking time to reflect on why it did not go as planned or why it did not turn out as intended. This reflection and learning should be incorporated into future planning to improve practice. If this does not happen, there is no behaviour change and the project continues as it has been. This cannot for work for any development initiative. Measuring for learning can help ensure that the changes you make to your practice will make you a more effective organisation.

(Text by Margaret Jack, I-P-K)

Considering a knowledge management/ sharing strategy for your institution? You are embarking on an exciting journey that may profoundly transform your organisation. Well, in fact I feel it has to do that – and accordingly you must be ready to engage in such a transformative experience – if KM/S should be more than just an attribute. Unfortunately I have seen many organisations, which travel down the KM road because everybody else is, because this is what one needs to do and have, because donors and partners expect it. I have seen strategies that are not even worth the paper they are written on: because they have been imposed on the organisation, because nobody has real ownership, because the organisation is not profoundly convinced about the value and necessity, let alone is it ready to truly change the way it works.

Yet, there is another way, but it demands that the organisation really commits to the process and is ready to change structures and processes, but in particular values and power relations; that it dedicates some considerable resources in terms of time, energy, staff and finances – initially it is a true investment into the future. I have never ever seen some real quick fixes and quick returns that were worth the effort – but I have seen long-term changes, that have been truly rich. This means clearly that KM/S will only bear fruit after several years of consistent and convincing practice – I believe there is not one single case that proves otherwise.

Today, after all these years, I am convinced, that KM/S can have value if it involves systemic change, that includes the whole system, where all the staff is fundamental part not only in the execution, but already in the co-creation of the way forward. At its core, KM/S is a change of attitude, and that can’t be imposed to people, nor can you “sell” it to them. Consultation and seeking buy-in is not enough, it leads to inefficiency, lacking impact, lacking sustainability, disappointment. Therefore, I would choose a highly participatory, transformative process, involving all the staff to already create a strategy – not just consulting them on their needs and ideas. With some effort, such processes can be conducted very efficiently and in relatively short time, but they request the consent of the top-management to go some unconventional roads and to trust their staff. Best of all this way starts of by practicing what KM/S preaches. There is nothing more convincing than starting KM/S in a truly lived KM/S way.

KM/S must serve the purpose of empowering people in their workplace, in creating space and freedom to discover what matters to them and how they can engage, connect and build meaningful relationships to share and improve. It is about working with the whole system, to explore it together with people and understand how to improve it. There is not much value in constructing, tightly manage, control and monitor – these approaches from the “control & command paradigm” are inefficient and with little effect and impact, and much to often even detrimental, demotivating and disengaging. Just as an illustration: today we are rapidly moving away from the idea of “good/ best practices” when dealing with complex systems or situations. They are an attempt to control and standardise processes, remnants of the old, but outdated understanding of how we can achieve efficiency and effectiveness. Today we dismiss this kind of thinking, because we have learnt, that the underlying assumptions are fundamentally wrong. Knowledge is not a “thing”, which we can “capture” and transfer from one place or person to another (a “knowledge product” is an oxymoron, a paradox itself), but it is rather a process in constant transformation. If we want to have meaningful impact, we must find ways to respect this and do justice to the complex nature of our work.

After many years of practice I don’t see much value in trying to convince people. The way is to start living and applying certain practices and through alternative ways of working evoke the curiosity, desire and vision of people to go for more. In some of the most convincing cases, staff was even not really aware that they did practice a KM/S way of working, however they did notice that things changed – and they liked it. That is for me a truly promising way to go.

Sometimes, we get the feedback, that some recommendations, a paper or presentation that we do, are a bit “theoretical”. Well, that’s exactly what we are striving for: to substantiate our findings and recommendations with a conceptual framework (which by its nature is always theoretical). It’s our conviction, that many development initiatives, plans and reports are ineffective, headless and without meaning, precisely because of the lack of a conceptual/ theoretical basis. You may know, as Kurt Lewin (the father of Action Research) said, there is nothing more practical than a good theory! So we put particular emphasis and effort on overcoming this weakness – and consequently we are happy if people comment that we have successfully done so!

However, it is clear, that this may never result in simple “cookbook recipes” on what to do and how to go about a particular thing. In development work, when the complexity of situations and tasks are is too high, simple action plans and recommendations don’t work (you may know that the last space shuttle crash was partly due to ignoring the complexity of the situation, among others through bullet lists (–> PowerPoint), reductionist thinking and the like). If we would give simple recommendations in our reports, presentations etc., they would rely too much on particular moments, occurings and views. Therefore, on the opposite, we try to provide a framework, which goes beyond a particular moment or perspective. This however requires that everybody engages with it, plunges into it, puts efforts in understanding, sense-making and translating – and eventually that everybody takes ownership and responsibility for the steps to take, that conclude. There is no other way.

I-P-K has recently been asked to assess a Knowledge Management Project. The initial e-mail exchange with our client (who sketched some of the fundamental difficulties they encountered in their project) prompted me to think about what’s wrong so often? Haven’t we figure things out quite nicely?

The reason is, that quite a few of our assumptions that we build on are simply wrong, in several ways:

1. Knowledge is not a product that can be generated and then disseminated and applied. Knowledge is a process, and it must be dealt with as such. This must take into account the true nature and complexity, and either we understand and respect it appropriately or we will not move forward. Mechanistic models of Knowledge Sharing have not worked in a single case.
2. Most of the KM initiatives are supply-driven – they generate knowledge and then try to “sell” it. Almost any initiative or project on paper declares the opposite, ie. wants to be demand-driven, but just writing this into a project document is obviously not good enough. Becoming demand-driven takes a real change in approach – and the willingness of donors and implementers to shift their thinking.
3. If change and transformation in a complex situation (living system) is the purpose, then once the knowledge has been “generated”, it’s too late to carry it out and expect it to become absorbed and active. We must seriously and thoroughly acknowledge what change management, complexity science and whole system work teach us: that knowledge must not be generated by scientists and experts in isolation, but it must be co-generated by all members of a system; we can’t devise the generation process and the transformation/ action process, they must be one and the same, an integral flow.
4. This implies that those who eventually are to take an active role must be part of the generation from the first minute. We must get to a new, higher level of participation and move away from the expert culture where some tell others what the right thing is.
5. In these contexts there is no such thing as “good practices” – in our complex social/ living systems, that has been probably one of the most obstructive dead-end roads. Only situation-specific, generic solutions, created in this participatory way, can lead to change.
6. It is a delusion to think that we can measure knowledge and knowledge processes – and with it is as a matter of principle to make clear cause-effect attributions in this area.