IngeniousPeoplesKnowledge

Adrian Gnägi from the Swiss Development Cooperation (SDC) has written an interesting blog article on “What is wrong with Managing for Development Results?”, reflecting an essay of Andrew Natsios, former head of USAID.
The article deals with “«Obsessive Measurement Disorder» (OMD), … an intellectual dysfunction rooted in the notion that counting everything in government programs will produce better policy choices and improved management”. We have gone over the top with the well-intended desire to ensure results and to be accountable. But we have set the fox to keep the geese: all the attempts to monitor and evaluate are in themselves becoming one of the biggest impediments for efficiency and effectiveness… Our current M&E practice has in fact become one of the big problems rather than a solution to anything…

Read it on the SDC Blog, it’s worth it!

Already 11 years ago, Meg Wheatley wrote a very similar article on the obsession of measurement, and it’s more topical than ever:
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/whymeasure.html

There is a second article of her speaking to the same issue, a nice illustration from the educational system in the US:
http://www.margaretwheatley.com/articles/largescalechange.html

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.

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.