organisation

TGIF is an informal gathering of like-minded people who meets every Friday to discuss interesting topics.  The invitation they sent out this week really got me thinking.  Here it is (emphasis added)...

I always enjoy Bob Sutton's blog.  He lists 15 things that he believes in, it begs the question ... do you know what it is that you believe in?

Our beliefs determine our behavior, so it's probably not a bad idea to articulate the things you believe in.  Here's his list ...

I've been pondering the concept of Knowledge Management (KM).  Experts in the field such as Dave Snowden have long been debating whether or not KM has outlived it's purpose.  Many people wonder if it ever had a real value proposition, as there are many large organisations who spent millions on KM, but received very little of the value they anticipated.  In part this is due to the unfortunate confusion of Knowledge Management with Information Management as well as the over-focus on IT and normative approaches such as Communities of Practice (COP) which have proven to be unsustainable in the long-term.

In reading a book by Eugene Peterson, I came across this paragraph:

"Apart from the before the now has little meaning. The now is only a thin slice of who I am; isolated from the rich deposits of before, it cannot be understood. ... The before is the root system of the visible now"

While this is most certainly true for individuals, we also know this to be true for organisations. It once again re-iterates the importance of context when dealing with any kind of change in large organisations. Often times, surveys such as change readiness assessments only give us a current view of the 'visible now' of the organisation, without taking into acount the 'before'. This can be an extremely dangerous thing to do, as change messages may inadvertantly trigger negative knee-jerk reactions based on similar messages associated with negative experiences in the past.