IngeniousPeoplesKnowledge

Over the past few weeks, two persons asked me the same question that I was unable to respond to – which was very strange: They asked me: “What is your approach then?”. I asked them “What do you mean, which approach?”. One of them pointed out that in a conversation, of more than an hour, I had constantly suggested that there is something like an I-P-K approach, without ever making it explicit. The second instance was the editor of our handbook. She came back to us after her first read through asking: “You constantly use the term “our approach” without ever clarifying what it actually is…”.

I realised that although I had a sense that there is something like a red thread that runs through our facilitation and change work, I constantly tried to avoid spelling it out in explicit and clear manner. What ensued was a debate, whether it was an “approach” in the first place – or rather a method, a style, a worldview, a set of principles? But since our handbook is in the making, I no longer had a choice. Or rather a good invitation to get to terms with it. I gave it a try. Read on here:

The Approach of IngeniousPeoplesKnowledge

“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)

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.