What Knowledge Management should do?
March 6, 2010
Organizational reality is often seen in terms of processes and actions that are based on plans and designs. Acting should thus be based on this knowledge. Thinking is understood as different from and preceding acting.
Databases and documents are usually thought of as stores of knowledge. From the mainstream Knowledge Management perspective, knowledge is understood to be created by individuals. It becomes the asset of an organization when it is extracted from those individual heads and stored in documents.
But the everyday experiences we have do not exist in a meaningful way in any documents. What has happened can seldom be understood from the Excel sheets explaining the results of our actions. What really takes place is very rarely a repetition of these documented practices or a realization of the plans we have made.
The actions always vary. As the people with whom we interact change, the context of the interaction always changes. In other words, there is variation in processes, routines and actions. Actions are thus never based on knowledge that is separate from those actions and contexts. Accordingly actions are not explainable through documentation. Knowledge, in this sense, cannot be seen as residing in databases and attempts to store it in documents of some kind will capture only partial aspects of it.
Knowing cannot be separated from acting.
Interaction is the process of knowing!
From the point of view taken here, knowledge is always a process of responsive contextual, live interaction as Doug Griffin points out. It cannot simply be located in an individual head to be extracted as an organizational asset and then shared.
Knowledge is neither a stock nor a flow!
Knowledge is the act of interacting and new knowledge is created when ways of interaction, and therefore patterns of relationship change. The knowledge assets of an organization are the patterns of interaction between its members and knowledge is destroyed when relationships are missing or are destroyed, as is happening widely in the corporate world today. Key corporate assets are lost!
Organizational change, learning and knowledge creation are the same as changes in communication. Enabling new habits of communication and improving the quality of the conversation are the most important processes of knowledge management.
It is about bridging the gap between knowing and acting.
.
March 11, 2010 at 13:16
When considering this, it seems that well-functioning platforms for interaction and conversation are extremely important in companies that wish to create new knowledge. And if interaction and knowledge creation around work subjects happens naturally around virtual platforms, it will also leave a trace that can be reviewed, a sort of storyline or document. This may serve individual development more than work as a traditional documentation of a work process but ultimately personal growth of employees will result in better work outcomes than exact documentation of current reality.
It is however understandable that people have a hard time grasping the idea that interaction is crucial in building new knowledge. Interaction seems so uncontrollable and unquantifiable. Can you measure the quality or value of interaction? When is meaningful new knowledge being produced and when is it not?
March 17, 2010 at 09:25
[...] Kilpi ruotii blogissaan tietämisen ja tekemisen välistä vuorovaikutusta. Interaction is the process of [...]
April 19, 2011 at 07:15
Excellent text. I am just working with one organization where one aim is to increase the level of economical (financial) thinking and action. What is becoming clearer and clearer is that the network (meanin active communication) around financial matters does not work. It is not enough to arrange meetings and events where pieces of info are supposed to travel from a head to another (or from piece of papers ie. reports to the report reading heads). Very little new understanding and action seem to follow.What is needed is responsive reflective process – lively discussions where people, ideas and actions form the lively ever changing and developing setting.
April 19, 2011 at 07:17
Excellent text. I am just working with one organization where one aim is to increase the level of economical (financial) thinking and action. What is becoming clearer and clearer is that the network (meanin active communication) around financial matters does not work. It is not enough to arrange meetings and events where pieces of info are supposed to travel from a head to another (or from piece of papers ie. reports to the report reading heads). Very little new understanding and action seem to follow.What is needed is responsive reflective process – lively discussions where people, ideas and actions form the lively ever changing and developing setting.
Ari Manninen, Avance, University of Jyväskylä
May 19, 2011 at 00:17
Well written blog! The process you are describing for Knowledge Management (KM) is what Knowledge Mobilization (KMb) is all about. You rightly point out that the ideals of KM are about knowledge “plans and designs” and rarely fit the reality of “the everyday experiences we have” and “do not exist in a meaningful way in any documents.” You are so right about this.
This is the problem with trying to pin down knowledge. It’s like trying to pin down water. And like water, knowledge DOES flow as a process. So, I disagree with your statement that knowledge is not a flow. (Unless by flow you mean something else that process and action?)
You state, “Interaction is the process of knowing!” Again, isn’t process another word for flow? Not to focus too much on your use of the word “flow”, but Knowledge Mobilization is all about the process and flow of knowledge – and turning knowledge into action. It’s about creating new ways of interaction and developing new relationships.
But, unlike Knowledge Management(KM) – which tries to capture and organize knowledge in a structured way – Knowledge Mobilization(KMb) is about the flow of knowledge for social benefit. It’s not to say that knowledge can’t be used in a specific way at a specific time – but it recognizes that knowledge is a process that continues to shape our experiences and events in an ongoing manner.
May 19, 2011 at 08:30
Thank you very much for the thoughtful comments. One of the points I try to raise is that I don’t think that what happens between people can be described as a “flow” from one person to another. What happens between people is always “interaction”. In my mind, the meaning of these two words is very different.
May 19, 2011 at 13:59
Thanks for clarifying the use of your meaning. I agree that flow and interaction are different. Knowledge, however, does flows as part of the interaction among people that continues to shape ongoing knowledge.
I also agree that what happens between people is interaction, but this interaction gets passed on through the network of people that these individuals come in contact as such interactions shape individual knowledge and further interaction as part of the flow of knowledge. Whichever words we use to describe this process, knowledge is always changing as we are being influenced by our interactions and influencing others. Again, I appreciate being able to comment and add to knowledge mobilization.
May 19, 2011 at 16:53
Thank you very much for your contribution
June 1, 2011 at 00:09
[...] What Knowledge Management should do? ( Esko Kilpi) ‘Knowing cannot be separated from acting‘ .. Kennis kun je niet delen [...]