I started writing a Radical KM blog on Simpler Media’s ReWorked website in the spring of 2023. You can find my articles here: https://www.reworked.co/author/stephanie-a-barnes/.
It’s an occasional series. I hope you enjoy them.
How to Approach Radical KM
Radical KM is not analytical or creative, it’s both.
Much the same way that to be successful with the analytical side (traditional KM), one needs to work from both the bottom and the top of the organisation chart, to be successful with Radical KM, and therefore successful as we move further into the 21st century and the knowledge economy, we have to be successful with creativity as well as the analytical.
If and organisation believes it has the traditional KM side worked out, but needs help with the creative, then, focus on the creative and the integration points with the analytical, to bring them together.
If an organisation has the creative side figured out, then focus on the analytical and the integration points with the creative.
If both sides are immature, then create a strategy that includes both the analytical and creative and their integration points and move forward from there.
See also: Radical KM and blog posts.
How your KM Program can help you for life after Coronavirus (COVID-19), part 2
Right now (March 2020), hopefully, your KM Program is helping people adjust to remote work. Helping them use the collaboration tools that maybe they’ve only used occasionally before. Helping them facilitate engaging, creative online meetings . But once the initial panic subsides and people become more accustomed to working remotely, what next?
Lots of organisations have KM programs that focus on the traditional KM activities, things like lessons learned, communities of practice, collaboration; activities that support learning and creating new knowledge, or managing and sharing knowledge that already exists. My ex-HP colleague, Stan Garfield, published a list/ presentation of all the things that can comprise a KM program, you can find his list here. It’s a good list, especially if you are new to the world of KM.
When KM is done well, it is pretty invisible. Nobody really thinks about it, and that’s okay, until, it isn’t. Do you have a KM program that is invisible or non-existent? Maybe this is the first time you’ve thought about KM, or maybe you have an existing KM program that is looking to evolve. If you are wondering about the future of your KM program, read on, if not, you can stop now.
Things are shifting at an accelerated pace and also, somehow slowing down; things are chaotic, to say the least. How do we manage that chaos and come through it better off? How do the skills and abilities that exist within the KM Program and those activities help an organisation come through our current, chaotic situation and not just survive, but thrive afterwards, and maybe even during?
How can the KM program help?
KM programs that are successful are about learning, and adapting; they use people, process, and technology to support the organisation in effectively and efficiently using its knowledge and creating new knowledge.
How do those skills apply in this situation, how can the KM program facilitate the successful navigation of the current crisis and help the organisation adapt so that it is ready for what comes after?
What does come after? Do we go back to the way things were? Are things permanently changed?
No one really knows, although lots of people have guesses, and there’s lots of wishful thinking out there. It probably won’t be “business as usual”, but what exactly it will be is anyone’s guess, and depends exactly what happens during this period and how long it goes on.
So, how does the KM program help? What skills and abilities can they share and help others develop that can help.
In my experience, people who are successful in KM are often good at these knowledge culture behaviours:
• sharing openly
• willingness to teach, mentor, coach
• ideas can be freely challenged
• knowledge and ideas can come from other sources (e.g. other departments, organisations, and industries)
• sharing comes through many different means: conversations, meetings, processes, best practices, data bases, and questioning
How can these behaviours be taught, if people don’t exhibit them already?
Well, there are lots of different ways people might learn the things that give them the ability to exhibit these behaviours, some of them are learned when we are children (like learning to share) and stick with us, and others are learned and then forgotten as life progresses and evolves. As adults, how do we remember these behaviours or maybe even learn them for the first time?
The best way is to learn through doing, having the experience or insight ourselves, in a safe, supportive environment.
A group of people who often exhibit many of these behaviours and who are experts at working alone, but also collaborating to get things done, when they need to, are artists.
Artists have an attitude of curiosity, passion, confidence, and resilience, which they refine and hone through their artistic practice: perceiving, reflecting, playing, and performing.
KM Programs should be working with HR and management to help develop these skills and abilities in their staff. Why KM? Because it’s about knowledge creation, it’s about sharing and learning: that’s KM.
Learning these skills and applying them to business problems helps solve problems that may have, at one time, seemed intractable. It helps to develop solutions that are new and innovative.
Other businesses are doing this, have learned this already, isn’t it time your organisation did too, so that you can come out of this crisis ready for whatever is next?
Note: If you want to see/read more about what is possible by adopting an artistic attitude and practice, read, “Creative Company” by Dirk Dobiéy and Thomas Köplin. You can find more info and get a copy, here.
How your KM Program can help you for life after Coronavirus (COVID-19), part 1
The previous post was about KM should be doing now, at the start of this COVID-19 Apocalypse, this post is how they can help the organisation prepare for life after Coronavirus.
How long is this going to last? No one really knows at this point estimates are anywhere from 6 months to 2 years. Some analysts suggest that we will have periods of tighter controls and looser controls, but first we need to “bend the curve” and stop this exponential growth. Even when a vaccine is developed, testing and then manufacture is going to take many months.
How can KM help moving forward?
In part this depends on whether the organisation sees KM as a “keeper of historic records and events”, i.e. more on the document/information management, lessons learned side of things, or whether they are seen as key enablers of collaboration, sharing, learning, creating new knowledge. Hopefully it’s the latter not the former.
What we know is that there is going to be uncertainty for a while, and we’re not sure what things will look like once we’re on the other side of this. How do we prepare for that?
By being adaptable and self-aware.
These things are ultimately up to the individual, not the organisation, and yet, the organisation can help. In particular HR, KM, and managers all have a role to play in encouraging employees to learn these skills and to become/be self-aware.
How?
Give employees the opportunity to learn, to try things out, to reflect, to ask questions. Wait, that sounds like knowledge management! It also sounds like quality management (plan-do-check-act), trial and error, being agile, and several other modes of learning/being.
Mostly it sounds like encouraging creativity. And what group are known for their creativity?
Artists!
So, what can we learn from artists? (Learning from other disciplines, that sounds like KM, too.)
First artists have an artistic attitude, they are curious, passionate, confident, and resilient. And then they refine and hone these skills through their artistic practice: perceiving, reflecting, playing, and performing.
Pausing for a second, we were all once creative, but our creativity was educated out of us:
On psychological tests of creativity:
Only 5 percent of people 18 and older registered in the “creative” range?
Among 17 year-olds, 10 percent scored “creative.”
But among 5 year olds, more than 90 percent demonstrated the creativity to suggest innovative ways of looking at situations and the ability to dream up new ideas.
Source:
https://ideapod.com/born-creative-geniuses-education-system-dumbs-us-according-nasa-scientists/
So, we were all artists/creative at one time and we’ve unlearned it. What do we do about it?
We develop an art/creativity practice. Except, we are doing it for another reason, we are doing it to re-learn something we lost. We are re-learning so that we become whole again, so that we can apply it in other areas of our life, because it’s been missing. We are doing it to help us be more successful in our careers, to bring us more balance and satisfaction. We are doing it to be more sustainable.
Back to the original question: How can the KM program help?
One of the motivations for doing KM has been about knowledge creation, some organisations have focused on that as a primary reason for their KM or a secondary reason for KM.
Knowledge creation takes space, it takes questioning, it takes trial and error, as well as collaboration and all those other Artistic Attitudes and Practices that were mentioned above.
To give people a sense of that, of what it feels like, what works and what doesn’t in a safe, supported atmosphere is key. So, in this case, we do, in fact, use art/creativity as a metaphor, as a means to an end.
How does it feel to experiment with different art supplies, or different creative modalities, e.g. poetry, music, to name two, although there are lots more? When people have these kinds of experiences, in a safe supportive atmosphere, it gives them confidence and resilience that transfers to other areas of their lives.
KM Programs should be working with HR to facilitate this experience and the building of these skills and abilities. There are benefits to the organisation as well as the individual–it’s a Win-Win.
But, it’s not a straight-line, the accountants will hate it, however, it is necessary if we are going to come out the other side of this and be able to move forward with whatever the future holds for us as organisations and individuals.
Note: If you want to see/read more about what is possible by adopting an artistic attitude and practice, read, “Creative Company” by Dirk Dobiéy and Thomas Köplin. You can find more info and get a copy, here.
How is your KM Program Helping you Through the Chaos of Coronavirus (COVID-19)?
Do you see your KM program as a key partner in your strategy to deal with the chaos of Coronavirus or just an extra, a nice to have, a luxury, and not a serious component of your business and emergency preparedness strategies?
If you see them as a key partner, are they helping you with disaster planning/emergency preparedness? Are they making sure everyone has access to the same knowledge and information when they are working from home as when they are in the office?
Are they making sure people know how to use the tools at their disposal for collaboration, knowledge creation, and sharing?
Are they helping you map key knowledge resources within your organisation?
Are they making sure the knowledge that can be documented is? How about retention, are they helping you make sure that knowledge is retained and protected?
Are they helping you prepare for the time in the future, when all of this is a distant memory in a couple of years. The future of work is here, KM can take a lead and help facilitate the change.
Now is the time to be engaging KM in these activities, not later, not “when things calm down”, now. There is no good time, start now, take the first step now.
Brick Wall Chats
I have decided to start a new video series.
I’ve had nice/good/supportive feedback from the videos I’ve been doing with John Girard (the KM and Creativity series) and Paulina Larocca (the Creativity Chats series) but scheduling time to record them with John and Paulina has been come increasingly challenging because of our schedules and the timezone differences, so, I’m going it alone.
I’ve decided, at least for now, to call the new series: Brick Wall Chats because of the background I’m using in the videos. People seem to like the background because it’s colourful and different and interesting, which is why I liked it too.
Right now (June 3, 2019), I have recorded 15 videos and will release one per week. The topics range from the business to the personal: metrics and digital transformation to how I have come to be doing the work that I am doing.
If you have a topic suggestion, feel free to get in touch, the same goes if you have comments or feedback about any of the videos. You can subscribe to my channel here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCQHNT4UDtM4o-Dcqd9cLGw?view_as=subscriber.
Looking forward to sharing my thoughts and experiences with you.
Taking Your KM Program to the Next Level
What is KM about?
It depends on who you ask and what their experience is with it. Some people/organisations focus on technology, some on people, some on process, a very few recognise that it needs to be a balance among the three, and for good measure also create a strategy to support their plans and ideas and to ensure alignment with the organisation.
But beyond that, what is knowledge management about? Why do we/our organisations do it?
For many organisations and people the answer, has to do with learning, and being able to do their jobs efficiently and effectively. I always liked to say it’s about giving people the knowledge they need to do their jobs, whatever form that knowledge took. But, what if it’s not quite that easy, especially as jobs, like life, are becoming ever more complex?
It’s really not enough to give people a database or app or platform to share knowledge. It’s not enough to implement a lessons learned process, or communities of practice. All good and noble pursuits, but what if that’s not enough to deal with the complexity?
The World Economic Forum’s most recent Future of Jobs Report, a summary of which you can read here, says we need to be life long learners. It also lists the top 3 skills that are growing in need/importance:
- Analytical thinking, and innovation
- Active learning, and learning strategies
- Creativity, originality, and initiative
What struck me most about the #1 item on that list, is that is is both analytical and creative, it requires “both sides of your brain” (yes, I know that we have found that that’s not physically how the brain actually works, but I like the metaphor of it, so I’m using it anyway). But so for so many people their creativity was educated and socialised right out of them. They needed to get good marks in school, do well at their jobs, etc. and so in order to fit in they learned to regurgitate facts and think like everyone else.
However, in today’s world, and in the world that is quickly coming at us, regurgitating facts and doing what we’re told, isn’t enough, doing the “same old, same old” isn’t enough. It’s time to look at things differently, to learn new ways of doing things, to re-learn our lost creativity. KM programs should be supporting that, after-all they are about organisational learning, creating new knowledge (which is innovation, by the way).
And, one of the best things about focusing on creativity and innovation is, people understand what those terms mean, no one understands what knowledge management is. Another great thing about creativity and innovation, is that there is lots of research that supports its importance to people and the workplace, something that can’t be said about KM (mostly because KM can’t decide what it is, not that it’s not useful).
So, for all you KM people out there, don’t you want to take your KM activities to the next level of organisational learning? Help make your organisations innovative and creative? Help them meet the challenges of the age we live in?
Let’s talk about helping people re-learn their creativity!
Creativity and Innovation for KM Programs
If you know me and/or have been following this blog, you know that since mid-July I have shifted my focus to creativity and innovation, something that I have been working on for the last six or more years.
As I have shifted focus I have reached out to some of you in my KM network, because I wanted to share the news with you and renew our connection. I also asked for a favour of some feedback on what I was doing or if you knew anyone who might be interested in what I’m doing. Most of you were happy to help, and a few of you admitted that you couldn’t, which was a perfectly acceptable answer.
Anyway, with that first round of feedback and conversations, I realised that I wasn’t doing a good job of conveying my excitement over my shift, and why I thought I was particularly relevant for KM programs. I’ve taken a few weeks to reflect on how to do this better and received some coaching about how to approach it and have developed a short slide deck, which you can see below.
I’d appreciate it if you have a couple of minutes (there are only 6 slides), to take a look at it and let me know what you think.
Thanks!
Leaving 19 years of KM behind?
Since deciding a few weeks ago to fully evolve into creativity and innovation, I have had a few people ask me about leaving 19 years of knowledge management behind (4 in a full-time position, and 15 as an independent consultant), after-all I’ve written books, chapters, articles, spoken at conferences around the world, and worked with clients on 4 continents. They are surprised, to say the least.
However, I don’t see it as leaving KM behind, I see it as an evolution. The metaphor I’ve used is that instead of dragging my KM box with me, l am standing on that box. It’s here supporting me instead of me carrying it around. It’s a good feeling to stand on that 19 years of experience and knowledge and to be using it to support my next steps.
My path to creativity
In my introduction, last week, when I spoke at the Future Females: Berlin creativity event. I made a joke about being an accountant and a IT professional and that I was going to talk to them about creativity. I said, “I know what you’re thinking, what is and accountant and IT person going to tell us about creativity?” and really, how does someone who studied accounting and IT come to be doing creativity?!? I mean, really???!!!
You’re going to have to trust me that it is all connected, I don’t want to bore you to death with all the details, but the short answer is, that after having the creativity, figuratively, if not literally, beaten out of me of during years of education, I came to realise how important it is.
I was exhausted and burnt out and a bit bored because I had finished my MBA and didn’t have any hobbies, after-all who has time for hobbies when there is school work to be done. So, I started trying things out: drawing (oooh, this is math, I can do math), photography (oooh, nice to be outside, what happens when I do this with the shutter speed?), rock climbing (hated it, never again), going to the symphony (loved it), painting (ooooooh this is amazing, this one REALLY stuck). As I tried out all these things some of them stuck, and some of them didn’t, but I slowly started to figure out who I was, other than a student. Who I was, when I wasn’t trying to do a “should” or a “supposed to” and it was fantastic. Having these creative outlets helped me be more balanced, to be better at my career, because I thought more critically, and I was more resilient.
I decided a week ago to leave the knowledge management consulting that I had been doing for 15 years behind, and to step fully into the creativity and innovation work that I had been developing over the last 6 years and it feels like, this is it, this is what I am here for, this is what this long, circuitous journey has been about: getting me ready to use all the skills and knowledge I have accumulated along the way to help organisations and people to be more balanced, to use both sides of their brains, to look at things differently if they want different outcomes; to apply artistic practices and principles to all kinds of problems to arrive at better, more balanced, more useful solutions.
I am so excited to be here!