As I continue to develop my ideas around the intersection of knowledge management and creativity, I picked up a book called Engaged Knowledge Management by Kevin Desouza and Yukika Awazu as I believe that being creative leads to greater engagement, plus a client had recently had an email exchange about some engagement issues he was having with the KM program at his organization. The book was really meant to give me some more ideas of things to suggest to him, other than change management and alignment with processes–pretty left-brained stuff.
I started at chapter 2 and was immediately caught by the metaphor the authors use about KM being a balance of tensions, much like a work of art and I thought, “ah ha, I love this book already!”
The authors describe knowledge management as both art and work because of the balance that has to be struck between having imagination and vision about what a knowledge-based organization should look like–identifying its attributes and its dimensions and how all the pieces fit together and how to construct/execute that vision.
They talk about what happens when the balance isn’t balanced and the dysfunction that results and the failure that it leads to. They say we (knowledge managers) need to promote the art side through creativity, decentralization, and looseness in control. Then to enable the work side we need to control the process, and centralize.
When I read these words, I reflected on projects that have been successful and those that have not, and realized that the ones that were successful were the ones that were okay with this balancing act between loose and tight, decentralized and centralized, left and right brained.
I am on the right track with thinking about KM like this, in this creative context and am excited to find that some others have gone before me with some of these thoughts, so I can build on their ideas and take them another step further.
I love the idea of the intersection of tensions, and it immediately makes me think of Robert Fritz’s work on creativity and bringing the creative process into every aspect of life – in fact, actually creating one’s own life as if it were a work of art. (And after all – isn’t it?)
If you haven’t already read any of his books, you might add them to what I know is already a pretty impressive pile. I’ve read three of them, haven’t hit his books on the creative process for managers, but that actually might be where you could start? though his first book, The Path of Least Resistance, might be the best starting point.
(If I’ve already suggested these, well, consider this a further testimonial to their importance!)
Thanks, Grace, I don’t remember you mentioning them before, so I’ll take a look. I’ve been trying not to add more books to the pile until I make progress on the ones I already have, but these might have to get bumped to the top of the pile 😉