Why It s Hard To Be Virtuous In KM. Patrick Lambe. Straits Knowledge 2007 Virtues and Vices in KM

Transcription

1 Why It s Hard To Be Virtuous In KM Patrick Lambe Straits Knowledge

2 Agenda 1. The Seven Deadly Sins of KM 2. The Seven Cardinal Virtues of KM 3. Why It s Hard to Be Virtuous

3 Lust Lust - insisting on best of breed solutions with all the bells and whistles simply because someone some day might conceive of a way to use it : when all you really need are three simple tools to do a handful of straightforward things

4 Gluttony Gluttony : trademarking a successful intervention in one context in one organisation and turning it into a worldwide consulting crusade tied to you and you alone TM # TM # $$

5 Avarice Avarice : imagining that you can capture all your organisation s knowledge into a single knowledge repository

6 Sloth Sloth : hiring consultants in the expectation that they will figure out your problems and solve them all for you with minimal (preferably no) involvement and effort from you or your company s management team

7 Wrath Wrath : making a business of elevating your stature and selling your services by knocking other people down and decrying other methods

8 Envy Envy : looking at what other people are doing in KM and imagining that you can do KM simply by going through imitative motions - aka benchmarking to best practices

9 Pride Pride : in CoPs in consulting and in facilitation thinking you know what s best for a community and making unilateral decisions based on your power status

10 Chastity Chastity (opposes Lust) : taking the time to educate yourself on the technology environment and current possibilities, learning how to specify your technology needs in a way that is closely geared to your business needs, and buying to suit those needs, investing prudently so that you have the capacity to change when your needs change

11 Abstinence Abstinence (opposes Gluttony) : refusing to get carried away by fads, and deploying strategies, methods and tactics only to the extent that they meet your needs and deliver value

12 Liberality Liberality (opposes Avarice) : accepting that a large part of the knowledge value in an organization is based on the free flow of tacit knowledge which may not be codifiable, and creating environments where this can happen without pressure, creating the possibilities of sharing, but then stepping back and trusting employees to share

13 Diligence Diligence (opposes Sloth) : being prepared to resource KM with suitably qualified staff, and devote regular management time, attention and resources to KM efforts

14 Patience Patience (opposes Wrath) : understanding that KM is a new discipline, that there is no clear right and wrong in many areas of KM practice, and that trial and error is to be expected along the way; being prepared to listen to different perspectives, take failures as a learning experience, pick yourself up and move on again

15 Charity Charity (opposes Envy) : engaging with your peers in KM in other organizations and sharing openly with them, seeking to learn from their experiences by understanding their contexts and needs; being open about seeking advice without giving up the responsibility for making your own decisions based on your organisation s unique needs

16 Humility Humility (opposes Pride) : accepting that KM is a collective effort and does not solely depend on a single person s contribution (eg yours); that it needs to be sustainable beyond your tenure as knowledge manager, has an ethic of openness; that you will probably be wrong some of the time, and that the whole thing is not just about you (sorry folks)

17 Why It s Hard To Be Virtuous LUST GLUTTONY AVARICE SLOTH WRATH ENVY PRIDE CHASTITY ABSTINENCELIBERALITY DILIGENCE PATIENCE CHARITY HUMILITY Straits Knowledge

18 Role of KM Consultants Nurse Psychotherapist Depth of involvement Pharmacist Brain Surgeon Depth of Expertise

19 Resourcing KM

20 So How Do We Build Organisational Capabilities in KM? Straits Knowledge

21 Any Questions? Straits Knowledge