Knowledge Sharing is a voluntary action. It fails to be a process designed for achieving specific ends, in particular understanding the internal and external environments. Thus, it may by-pass the need to work smarter: (Drucker, 1992) “The first question in raising productivity in knowledge and service work has to be: What is the task? What do we try to accomplish? Why do it at all? The easiest – but perhaps also the greatest – increases in productivity in such work comes from redefining the task, and also from eliminating what needs not to be done.” In addition to its limited focus, Sharing ignores the need to understand how one’s own actions contribute to problems. Sharing asssumes that the participant will self-organize and can surmount biases at will to pursue a well informed motive at all times. Leaders have revealed themselves to be rather avaricious and deceitful. Besides, the time and energy available to busy administrators rarely permits this approach.
The natural questioning of generalizations, assumptions and goals in free flow of knowledge reveals the defensive reactions that protect from threat and embarrassment, and learning disabilities that confound reality. Free flow is a process that emerges the reality, aligns team thinking, opens minds, promotes application of knowledge free of personal biases and drives comprehensive thinking. It has to be organized and practiced for development of skills to stretch team members beyond their comfort zones. Only then can learning, superior definition of reality and an effective response o it progress.
Today systematic knowledge flow and the need to interact do not converge. Knowledge Sharing is the best that Knowledge Management ambitions for. This best is not enough for effective application of knowledge. It is perhaps responsible for the failure of Knowledge Management even where it has been pursued with diligence as in case of Enron.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Wednesday, October 8, 2008
The Process Of Truth
At the outset I clarify that presently my blog is not based on evidence. At one time I thought the writings of Peter Senge, Peter Drucker, Tom Peters and their kind were evidence enough but the editors of major Journals were quick to point out they were popular writers while rejecting my efforts to publish my work. The best I can say about my views is that they are supported by my experience, remarkable success of my prototype on the departmental scale, and can be inferred from the writings of acknowledged sages of management.
Per Senge mankind now creates far more information than anyone can absorb, fosters far greater interdependency than anyone can manage, and accelerates change far faster than anyone’s ability to keep pace. Yet, today, busy personnel are the only source of energy for driving knowledge flows. This over-aged and over-burdened paradigm for the driving energy develops an intricate web of downstream human problems that simple sharing of knowledge with normal language rarely penetrates. The web of problems obfuscates operation of the comfort zone.
Senge identifies greater pressure promotes defensive routines and learning disabilities to keep the demand on personnel energy, responsibility, time, and risk bearable. The pressure in effect discourages learning that unsettles the beliefs and actions one is comfortable with, i.e., questions the comfort zone. Submission to comfort denies success by lowering team ability.
Knowledge Management does not address the comfort zone. It only responds to events like mistakes, and to symptoms like the Knowing-Doing gap. They divert attention from the root causes of problems.
Free flow with its controlled process of disagreement strips away the defensive routines that mask reality to avoid pain; the learning disabilities like fixation on the obvious, dodging decisions, enemy-is-out-there and unconscious obsessions stand revealed. Personnel get a passage to the reality behind the obvious. The truth emerges.
Per Senge mankind now creates far more information than anyone can absorb, fosters far greater interdependency than anyone can manage, and accelerates change far faster than anyone’s ability to keep pace. Yet, today, busy personnel are the only source of energy for driving knowledge flows. This over-aged and over-burdened paradigm for the driving energy develops an intricate web of downstream human problems that simple sharing of knowledge with normal language rarely penetrates. The web of problems obfuscates operation of the comfort zone.
Senge identifies greater pressure promotes defensive routines and learning disabilities to keep the demand on personnel energy, responsibility, time, and risk bearable. The pressure in effect discourages learning that unsettles the beliefs and actions one is comfortable with, i.e., questions the comfort zone. Submission to comfort denies success by lowering team ability.
Knowledge Management does not address the comfort zone. It only responds to events like mistakes, and to symptoms like the Knowing-Doing gap. They divert attention from the root causes of problems.
Free flow with its controlled process of disagreement strips away the defensive routines that mask reality to avoid pain; the learning disabilities like fixation on the obvious, dodging decisions, enemy-is-out-there and unconscious obsessions stand revealed. Personnel get a passage to the reality behind the obvious. The truth emerges.
Thursday, October 2, 2008
The Power Of A Law
Warren Buffet saved his investment firm Hathaway from the sub-prime induced ruin by categorically ordering it to withdraw from sub-prime investments even as the market was heating up. He perceived the reality that investments could not be safely anchored on hollow promises. Big investment firms that lacked the discipline to perceive the reality behind the windfall opportunity for profits went on to perish with the crash of the real estate market. It was a classic case of system forces at play: the blame lay not in the crash of real estate, i.e., out there, but in the avarice induced blindness of the leaders that made a mockery of the financial system.
In a sense the ruin was predicted by Sun Tzu thousands of years ago (~500BC):
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
In a sense the ruin was predicted by Sun Tzu thousands of years ago (~500BC):
"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle."
Sunday, August 24, 2008
On the threshold of a law
Long time! Innovation demands persuasion for adoption and that can prove quite demanding: ".... the incredulity of mankind who does not truly believe in anything new until they actually have experience of it. " - Machiavelli (The Prince, 1513).
My work offers a compelling method for communication. Its free flow of knowledge will create time and energy as well as the means for organizationl learning and team empathy with the barest of disruptions. But that is not enough. I do not have the proof point, i.e., the evidence, to convince wary enterprises that my work delivers free flow and that free flow is the way to success. The big IT players, pre-occupied with their products and strategies, do not wish to participate.
Why is free flow the way to success? Peter Senge and Daniel Goleman have in seminal works established that it emerges the reality and imparts teams the power to get what they want. However, free flow today demands sustained organization and drive, i.e., a culture for sparing quality time and energy to share knowledge. The culture is so rare that the path of truth invokes more cynicism and less belief amongs senior professionals.
It is possible that a proof point of my work will establish free flow as a law for the delivery of success. The belief in truth for the happiness of mankind is as old as religion, be it Christian, Moslem or Hindu. The only missing element to establish the law, on the same plane as the laws of Thermodynamics, is a reliable means to deliver free flow.
My work offers a compelling method for communication. Its free flow of knowledge will create time and energy as well as the means for organizationl learning and team empathy with the barest of disruptions. But that is not enough. I do not have the proof point, i.e., the evidence, to convince wary enterprises that my work delivers free flow and that free flow is the way to success. The big IT players, pre-occupied with their products and strategies, do not wish to participate.
Why is free flow the way to success? Peter Senge and Daniel Goleman have in seminal works established that it emerges the reality and imparts teams the power to get what they want. However, free flow today demands sustained organization and drive, i.e., a culture for sparing quality time and energy to share knowledge. The culture is so rare that the path of truth invokes more cynicism and less belief amongs senior professionals.
It is possible that a proof point of my work will establish free flow as a law for the delivery of success. The belief in truth for the happiness of mankind is as old as religion, be it Christian, Moslem or Hindu. The only missing element to establish the law, on the same plane as the laws of Thermodynamics, is a reliable means to deliver free flow.
Sunday, February 17, 2008
Who is the enemy?
Virtual Workgroups, Creating and Sharing information and business agility is the perspective Microsoft adopted post winning the browser war. Business @ The Speed Of Thought to progress success, articulated by Bill Gates in 1999, was the mission. It envisioned a Digital Nervous System for enterprises to learn, evolve, heal themselves, be as agile as small companies and get what they want. It concluded that all it needed was well-conceived digital tools and a culture to use them and share information. The culture has proved most difficult to establish though the desire for success is universal among CEOs and the tools have matured considerably. It is possible that the delay in progressing its mission is causing MS to rethink. Should it embrace its competitor’s mission?
In the meanwhile Google has progressed its mission to organize the world’s information and is seeking to open up the huge enterprise market. In principle there is a limit to the value Google can deliver the enterprise as E 2.0 has yet to work to transform the enterprise. However, a “cloud” has practically formed over the Microsoft domain and Google is not the only marauder. The internet has joined in with its open source and stealth operators like Xcerion. Microsoft is doing a great job of battling back but perhaps a perspective has been lost.
Earlier the enemy in Microsoft’s crosshairs were the forces that deny success to enterprises. As late as 2006 Bill Gates spoke of frictionless computing to make it easier for personnel to apply their talent, share their ideas, work hard and lead richer, more productive lives with a greater sense of fulfilment. Success would be a by-product. Microsoft would keep its hold over the desktop. Even, perhaps exploit the Knowledge – ad. link to generate ad. revenues. Now, with the pressure on its captive markets, it is possible MS perceives Google as the prime enemy.
The transformation of priorities has major implications. The customer is left alone to battle for success. This is a battle that has been fought with human energy since the dawn of organizations. Sun Tzu perhaps wrote the first book on the pursuit of success about 500 BC and it is as valid today as during his time. The change is that the environment has become far more demanding. The imbalance between the demand for energy to pursue success and its availability is growing. It would be a pity if the industry locks itself into a battle that is of no relevance to the war looming for mankind.
In the meanwhile Google has progressed its mission to organize the world’s information and is seeking to open up the huge enterprise market. In principle there is a limit to the value Google can deliver the enterprise as E 2.0 has yet to work to transform the enterprise. However, a “cloud” has practically formed over the Microsoft domain and Google is not the only marauder. The internet has joined in with its open source and stealth operators like Xcerion. Microsoft is doing a great job of battling back but perhaps a perspective has been lost.
Earlier the enemy in Microsoft’s crosshairs were the forces that deny success to enterprises. As late as 2006 Bill Gates spoke of frictionless computing to make it easier for personnel to apply their talent, share their ideas, work hard and lead richer, more productive lives with a greater sense of fulfilment. Success would be a by-product. Microsoft would keep its hold over the desktop. Even, perhaps exploit the Knowledge – ad. link to generate ad. revenues. Now, with the pressure on its captive markets, it is possible MS perceives Google as the prime enemy.
The transformation of priorities has major implications. The customer is left alone to battle for success. This is a battle that has been fought with human energy since the dawn of organizations. Sun Tzu perhaps wrote the first book on the pursuit of success about 500 BC and it is as valid today as during his time. The change is that the environment has become far more demanding. The imbalance between the demand for energy to pursue success and its availability is growing. It would be a pity if the industry locks itself into a battle that is of no relevance to the war looming for mankind.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)