Category: Innovation

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What we can learn from Van Gogh for KM and Innovation

On November 11, 2015 I participated in a #PKMChat called, “Van Gogh on Learning” https://kneaver.com/blog/2015/11/pkmchat-van-gogh-on-learning/ it intrigued me as both a knowledge management professional and an artist and definitely gave me something to reflect on over the last week.

(Note: the #PKMChat was based on work that Ger Driesen is doing, he facilitated the #PKMChat along with Bruno Winck, more about Ger’s work can be found by clicking on the link in #2 in the references listed below)

I have been investigating the linkages between/among creativity, innovation, and knowledge management for more than three years, picking up ideas along the way, and experimenting and talking to people. Informally, there seems to be an agreement that there is a connection among the three things, but it’s in the background, below the surface, not immediately obvious to a lot of people. The #PKMChat helped shed some light on these linkages for me, so I am sharing them with you.

There are three main ideas that we discussed in the #PKMChat,

  1. Thinking inside the box
  2. Practice
  3. Reflection

As well as some secondary topics, like qualities of an artist, and how to balance social vs. solo learning.

One of the first things I noticed about comments on the #PKMChat was the perception that artists have a different perspective, that they are more inclined to experiment, and that there is a natural curiosity in being creative. Certainly this echoes other articles and books I’ve come across and was one of the reasons for Xerox’s artist in residence program in the 1990’s.

Thinking inside the box, I found this a bit hard to take initially, because I like thinking outside the box. I think that’s one of the advantages/benefits of KM, on a macro level it advocates diversity of thought, and learning from other industries or sectors, so the idea of “thinking inside the box” seemed counter-intuitive to me. But what this was really getting at was the idea that constraints build creativity and that often “the answer is right in front of you.” “Right in front of you” in this case could mean that there is someone in your organization that could provide knowledge or expertise or perhaps the knowledge you seek is in that repository or lessons learned system.

One of the themes that came up throughout the #PKMChat was the idea to take time to reflect and be curious, to challenge assumptions, to think critically about a challenge that is being faced. This was true in the discussion around thinking inside the box, too. Taking the time to look around your box and see what you have that might provide insight or an answer.

Practice, is critical to learning, for it is in practicing that we find the best solution and refine our techniques, whether we are artists, programmers, building cars, oil wells, or solar panels. Van Gogh practiced drawing heads, hands, and working with colour in order to get his style refined to what is easily recognizable today. Here we consider the 70-20-10 rule for managerial learning. Morgan McCall, Robert Eichinger and Michael Lombardo in their 1996 book, “The Career Architect” assert that 70% of the learning a successful manager does comes from doing, 20% comes from others, and 10% comes from formal education (books and classes). Practice makes perfect, as they say, but the chat participants also recognized that there is a point where perfection stops forward momentum and “good enough” is good enough.

Reflection, as I mentioned a moment ago reflection came up throughout the chat, even when it wasn’t the main topic of discussion. The consensus when it was the topic was that it was key to learning; that it allowed informed improvements to be made in future iterations of an activity rather than doing the same thing repeatedly. There was recognition that it needed to be part of the flow of the project of process and that the activity wasn’t complete until the reflection had taken place.

Van Gogh and artists reflect on their paintings and processes, on what they like or don’t like, what can be improved to more adequately reflect what they are trying to convey in their works.

Finally, we discussed social versus solo learning. There is a benefit to discussing work with others, whether, as in Van Gogh’s case he was writing to his brother, and talking with other artists or we are struggling with a new project we’ve been assigned to and look for others who have worked on similar initiatives before or talk to our friends/family about how they might approach the situation. The consensus here was that it was important to balance solo and social, and that balance was up to the individual to determine. Discussing things with others helps facilitate the challenging of assumptions because the other person/people aren’t as close to the problem as the person working directly on it so they might see things that we are too close to see.

One of the things that got mentioned a couple of times during the chat was the book, “Steal Like an Artist.” The book talks about 10 items but the first one is most relevant at this point, “steal like an artist.” Everything an artist does is based on what’s come before, something someone else has done. While it’s true that an individual artist may combine processes, techniques, and materials in a way that hasn’t been done before, or have their own style, they are building on something they have learned by doing or by being taught.

The question for me after all of this is: where does this fit with the work that I have been doing?

It’s clear that there is a linkage; artists use some of the same processes and activities that organizations do to learn and make better use of knowledge and experience (e.g. reflection, lessons learned, communities). They do it on an individual basis, rather than a group/organizational basis, but that’s just a matter of scale and rigour around the activities.

What else? Does creativity and the processes it utilizes lead to innovation? Certainly the participants in the chat seemed to think so, there was agreement that being creative lead to asking more questions, and challenging the status quo and that this impact was felt regardless of the field people worked in, i.e., non-artists and artists alike believed that either being exposed to art or participating in an artistic practice made them more curious and open to experimentation.

Creativity leads to innovation, both are facilitated by knowledge management practices, and both contribute artefacts that build the knowledge base of an individual or an organization.

 

References:

  1. Xerox case study about their artist in residence program, https://www.amazon.com/Art-Innovation-Artist-Residence-Leonardo/dp/0262082756
  2. Learning Solutions Magazine article on Van Gogh as a painter and learning coach https://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1560/emea-reporter-vincent-van-goghpainterand-learning-coach
  3. Jay Cross blog post on implementing 70-20-10 for learning, https://www.internettime.com/2013/02/50-suggestions-for-implementing-70-20-10/
  4. Steal Like an Artist book, https://austinkleon.com/steal/
  5. Steal like an Artist list https://www.austinkleon.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/poster-0.gif
  6. Steal Like an Artist workshop on Slideshare, https://www.slideshare.net/pederrudbeck/steal-like-an-artist-workshop-uxstoriesdk
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The Second KM Silver Bullet: One isn’t enough

As a friend of mine pointed out, it’s not enough to just create a strategy, it’s about the execution of that strategy.

And he’s right, strategies can sit on shelves, certainly I have had more than one client, that for various reasons did not implement the strategy we had developed together.

So what does it take to successfully implement a KM strategy?

A bunch of things, senior management buy-in and budget among them, but I would argue the most critical component, and the one that my friend posited, is Change Management.

There are many good books on Change Management by authors such as Peter Senge and John P. Kotter, to name two of my favourites. But what it all boils down to for me, is communication. Not just some manager decreeing, “thou shalt do knowledge management,” but a real conversation between the KM team and the rest of the organization. What do they need to be able to be effective in their jobs? How can the KM team help them? What do the users of the KM activities need to know about how to use the technology and the processes? What will aid them in their decision making and other things they are responsible for?

KM is there to serve the organization, to help it to be more efficient, effective, innovative, whatever the KM strategy identified as the business case for KM. It does that, in part, through the execution of the change management plan to support the transformational change that KM demands.

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Notes from KM Legal Europe January 2015

I attended KM Legal Europe last week in Amsterdam; I enjoyed the conference very much. I got to talk with many of the speakers and attendees and learn more about what the law firms and corporate legal departments in Europe are doing in the KM space. I was impressed by their thoughtfulness and recognition of the fact that KM can bring them efficiencies and effectiveness as well as innovations and competitive advantage. They were a passionate group of practitioners.

While KM in law tends to focus on documented knowledge because of the nature of the sector and the need to track matters and precedents, there were discussions of lessons learned and sharing tacit knowledge too.

One of the things that (pleasantly) surprised me, was the discussion of automated document creation, when I have spoken with other organizations (not just law firms) about this technology they haven’t even known what it was, so to sit in a room where many were enthusiastic users was refreshing.

Other things that I found refreshing were the discussion of continuous improvement, six sigma, and process re-engineering. Again, all things that utilize an organization’s knowledge and especially, at least in my mind, the use of lessons learned processes and activities. This probably deserves its own blog post, as the participants were quite interested in this area and unfortunately we ran out of time.

One final thing that I found gratifying was the group’s willingness to not only share and learn from each other, but the interest in my experience working in other industries and sectors. They seemed to recognize that KM is KM and that they were behind many other sectors, so there were many things that they could learn from those who have gone before them.

All-in-all a wonderful few days with wonderful people, so glad I was able to take part.

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Knowledge Management, Creativity, and Innovation: Part 2

Talking about design and balance and creativity and knowledge management makes me happy, joyful even. Bring on the joy.

In Part 1 I talked about how important TIME is knowledge creation and reuse, creativity practices that allow us to take knowledge and either transform or apply it in order to create something new. What does it mean to design time for this into our activities?

Well…

Design thinking is characterized by being purposive; human centered; a balance of analytical and creative; uses abductive reasoning, i.e. inference from best available explanation; and iterative, it uses prototyping and play testing to achieve success.

Here’s how these principles are applied in knowledge management:

Purposive: we look at the organization’s strategy, goals, and objectives and assess how knowledge management best supports those activities. The knowledge management strategy outlines how the organization’s goals and objectives are furthered through the application of knowledge management activities.

Human centered: the best knowledge management implementations consider the people of the organization, e.g. how they work, what makes their work-lives easier, what the culture of the organization is like and works with those requirements to make the organization more efficient and effective in its knowledge processes and activities.

A balance of analytical and creative: KM should be a balance of analytical and creative. It should capture knowledge and make it reusable, but it also needs to leave space, ba, to allow for knowledge creation. This space can look like lots of different things, e.g. giving employees 10% of their time for projects they want to work on/explore, foosball tables, basketball courts, gyms, art/creativity space, and communities of interest; activities that encourage different connections to be made.

Abductive reasoning: this sums up the belief in KM in general. It can be very difficult to prove a causal link between improved knowledge activities and improved organizational performance, metrics and ROI continue to be a significant hurdle for many organizations. However, anyone who has experience with implementing knowledge management successfully knows that efficiency and effectiveness in an organization are improved through the use of knowledge management activities.

Iterative: successful KM starts small and grows. It starts with an over-all strategy and plan, but then moves to pilots, which bring in small parts of the organization, so that lessons can be learned and adjustments made as the people, process, and supporting technology are implemented across the organization.

Make sense?

Now here’s another piece: We create knowledge through right-brain activities, which is then managed through knowledge management activities. Knowledge management activities can also help us put the pieces together in a different way (with new and existing knowledge) to create a new picture. We do this through:

  1. Leaving space for creativity and discovery and “rearranging the pieces” (right brain);
  2. Organizing and sharing our learnings so that they can be reused by the next person/team/group (left brain).

Have your worlds collided?

Do you see how this collision of the worlds of creativity, innovation, and knowledge management work together?

Do you see why I care and am positively joyful about this collision of worlds to make connections, meet new people, learn new things and share what I know with others?

Do you care?

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Knowledge Management, Creativity, and Innovation: Part 1

“Knowledge Management, ho hum, who cares? I have more important things to worry about than some esoteric discussion about knowledge. I have a job to do.”

I know that’s what they’re thinking with the glazed-over look in their eyes as they search around the room to see who else is around that they can talk to.

I’m not going to tell you why you should care; I’m going to tell you why I care.

I like to make connections, meet new people, learn new things and I like to share what I know with others. I like to make my job as easy as possible, and I like to help others do the same thing. I like to learn from my mistakes and not make the same mistakes repeatedly.

So, you’re probably thinking, where is she going with this? This isn’t knowledge management; this isn’t creativity; this isn’t innovation.

And to that I say, “ah, but it is.”

One definition of creativity says:

  • It is the reorganization of experience into new configurations;
  • A function of knowledge, imagination, and evaluation.

In other words, the use of knowledge. Knowledge is about holding information learned through experience or study. Knowledge management wants you to do something with that knowledge.

Sometimes that “thing” is something routine, like an answer for someone who’s called a customer support desk. Sometimes it’s something non-routine, like solving a problem, completing a project, or creating a strategy. Sometimes it’s something brand new, like improving out-patient experiences at a hospital by the whole process. Or like the creation of the iPhone.

Knowledge management behaviours are actions that support these activities. They are the left-brained processes that enable these things to happen, whether they are routine, non-routine, or brand new. Knowledge management is not technology, it is not esoteric, it is practical and necessary to live our lives, and to do our jobs.

I am an accountant by training. This training (and subsequent experience) helped me develop my left brain — it’s a lot of process, and numbers, and guidelines. It also introduced me to the idea of knowledge management. We didn’t call it that at the time, but we were expected to re-use the previous year’s audit or tax file: we had checklists to follow to make sure we didn’t miss anything, and we were supposed to talk to whoever had worked on the file the year before, if possible. Another knowledge management activity was the need for time to learn and plan: learn from last year’s file and plan for the current year’s. The knowledge management strategies made us quicker completing the current year’s audit/tax than the year before, which meant the fee to the client stayed the same (client happy) and our earning power went up (boss happy). Efficiency and effectiveness.

So where do the creativity and innovation come in? TIME.

TIME is what is necessary to create new knowledge. The reorganization of experience into new configurations through the use of knowledge, imagination, and evaluation are right-brain activities: creativity and innovation practices. Designing time into our processes and activities to create new knowledge or finding existing knowledge is the key success factor.

And time is what we’re run out of, more on design in Part 2.

 

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ColaLife Documentary

I will write more about this later, but I wanted to get some initial thoughts down tonight, while it’s fresh in my memory.

I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend to attend a University of Waterloo Alumni event this evening. At the event they were screening the Canadian premiere of ColaLife a documentary about an organization that is “is working in developing countries to bring Coca-Cola, its bottlers and others together to save children’s lives by opening the distribution channels which Coca-Cola uses, to enable ‘social products’ such as oral rehydration salts and zinc supplements to use similar routes. We began with the concept of using space in Coca-Cola crates – but have extended into a range of innovations, some based on Coca-Cola’s expertise and networks – but many based on questioning the status quo.” (This comes from their webpage, here https://www.colalife.org/about/colalife-about/)

It was a fantastic story about trying to save the lives of children, but for me it was also a story of creativity, innovation, and knowledge management and design thinking. Why? Because ColaLife wasn’t afraid to think outside of the box, to say who is getting their products into remote regions in Zambia and how are they doing it? CocaCola, that’s who. How? Shopkeepers want to carry their product because they can make money selling it, so they transport it “the last mile” from a distribution centre to their shops. (Knowledge management–sharing knowledge/best practices from CocaCola.)

ColaLife then designed their packaging to fit in the space between the tops of the bottles in the case, so that they can be packaged together. They also had some innovations in how the oral hydration salts and zinc were packaged to make it easier to mix and taste better for the children who had to take it (design, creativity, and innovation).

What you also need to know is that it took 20+ years to get this made. Why did it take so long? It needed social media to get the word out and get the right parties involved, that’s why. (Knowledge management, and innovation).

When I heard the 20 years and social media part I thought: serendipity, everything coming together at the right time at the right place. But what if you could make “serendipity” happen more often? What if by taking a more purposeful approach to creativity, innovation, and KM you could help your organizations and all organizations generally, make connections quicker? Wouldn’t that be a good thing?

What are you doing to make that happen?

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Joyful Knowledge Management

Joyful knowledge management.

Yes, knowledge management is joyful, at least it is to me.

I enjoy it when I can find what I’m looking for: the answer to the question, the person who has done a project before and can share her/his experience and lessons learned with me. I enjoy pulling together the pieces to make a new picture, creating new pieces where necessary.

In fact, I think the creating is the best part, whether we’re talking about something that is completely new, something that is new to the organization, or something that is an improvement on something that has been done before (partly new).

How do we do that creating?

We can take a left-brained approach and use knowledge management activities, like expertise location systems, communities of practice, enterprise content management–processes and technology to help us find things that may be similar or provide a piece of the puzzle, activities that help make new/different connections.

We can take a right-brained approach and create space for knowledge creation activities like painting, drawing, photography, playing foosball, running, walking, swimming, playing squash. Activities that let us do something new, different, unexpected. Activities that create the space for us to make different connections and have different experiences rather than the “same old thing”.

I revel in the joy of finding a solution to a problem; I especially revel in it if it’s something new, different, unique. Something that someone else says, “wow, I’ve never thought of it that way before” or “I’ve been trying to figure that out for ages”.

I find things that I learn painting, helps me in my consulting, whether it’s to remind me of the importance of balance or giving things the time and space to develop into what they’re going to be.

This is joy, balanced, right-side, left-side, joy.

Joy with watermark sm

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Knowledge by Design

I have been doing some more research, reading, and thinking about this creativity-innovation-knowledge management area and am coming to the realization that to a certain extent KM by design is what I’ve been doing all along, I’m just becoming more aware of it and kicking it up a notch.

Let me explain…

What I have been doing is knowledge (management) by design, and I say that because, I’ve always believed in looking at what knowledge activities were need to meet the needs of the organization  I’ve never said, “you need xyz technology, or you need a lessons learned process,” without understanding what the organization was trying to achieve with knowledge. I’ve always focused on the left-brain activities, the process, the activities, the technology, the information architecture, etc.

What I’m incorporating now is more right-brain thinking, which takes me and my knowledge management consulting into the innovation and creativity arena and making space for knowledge creation–ba, to use the term made familiar in Nonaka’s knowledge management work and writing.

How am I going to do that? Through having people do right-brain activities in the workshops that I run, but also by working with organizations to include more of these kinds of activities in their daily activities.

Opening up space for knowledge creation and innovation leads to enhanced productivity, collaboration, employee engagement, thought leadership, and sense of community.

This isn’t to the exclusion of lessons learned, and information architecture, etc. it’s a balancing out of both sides of the brain: the detailed, tactical with the strategic, problem solving.

Knowledge by Design.