I may have finally broken a writing block. Aside from two book chapters in the last couple of months I more or less completed a paper length opinion piece for a report ARK are producing on KM in the Legal Profession. The title includes one of those words which has multiple and different meanings namely render which is allowing me to play games between the poetic meaning and that of rendering something down to fat. As a part of that paper I updated my original three rules of knowledge management to seven principles which I share below.
- Knowledge can only be volunteered it cannot be conscripted. You can’t make someone share their knowledge, because you can never measure if they have. You can measure information transfer or process compliance, but you can’t determine if a senior partner has truly passed on all their experience or knowledge of a case.
- We only know what we know when we need to know it. Human knowledge is deeply contextual and requires stimulus for recall. Unlike computers we do not have a list-all function. Small verbal or nonverbal clues can provide those ah-ha moments when a memory or series of memories are suddenly recalled, in context to enable us to act. When we sleep on things we are engaged in a complex organic form of knowledge recall and creation; in contrast a computer would need to be rebooted.
- In the context of real need few people will withhold their knowledge. A genuine request for help is not often refused unless there is literally no time or a previous history of distrust. On the other hand ask people to codify all that they know in advance of a contextual enquiry and it will be refused (in practice its impossible anyway). Linking and connecting people is more important than storing their artifacts.
- Everything is fragmented. We evolved to handle unstructured fragmented fine granularity information objects, not highly structured documents. People will spend hours on the internet, or in casual conversation without any incentive or pressure. However creating and using structured documents requires considerably more effort and time. Our brains evolved to handle fragmented patterns not information.
- Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success. When my young son burnt his finger on a match he learnt more about the dangers of fire than any amount of parental instruction cold provide. All human cultures have developed forms that allow stories of failure to spread without attribution of blame. Avoidance of failure has greater evolutionary advantage than imitation of success. It follows that attempting to impose best practice systems is flying in the face of over a hundred thousand years of evolution that says it is a bad thing.
- The way we know things is not the way we report we know things. There is an increasing body of research data which indicates that in the practice of knowledge people use heuristics, past pattern matching and extrapolation to make decisions, coupled with complex blending of ideas and experiences that takes place in nanoseconds. Asked to describe how they made a decision after the event they will tend to provide a more structured process oriented approach which does not match reality. This has major consequences for knowledge management practice.
- We always know more than we can say, and we will always say more than we can write down. This is probably the most important. The process of taking things from our heads, to our mouths (speaking it) to our hands (writing it down) involves loss of content and context. It is always less than it could have been as it is increasingly codified.
Comments (8)
Re: Rebooting.
I'm not sure you can rule this out for humans.
For example:
"Most architects think by the inch, talk by the yard, and should be kicked by the foot."
Prince Charles, as quoted by J.D. Barrow (1998), 'Impossibility', Oxford University Press, p.211.
Posted by Russell | October 11, 2008 2:25 PM
Posted on October 11, 2008 14:25
thanks for the 3Cs: concise, clear, and contrarian.
Posted by christianhauck![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/nav-commenters.gif)
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October 13, 2008 7:48 AM
Posted on October 13, 2008 07:48
Dave - this rule: - Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success - i believe
Do you have research that shows this? I have spent some time trying to find a non-Snowden reference saying the same thing, but can't - am trying to write ten routes to failure in dealing with communities/neighbourhoods and am looking for a reference that supports such an approach based on this KM principle of yours.
Posted by Jonathan Carter | October 13, 2008 7:53 AM
Posted on October 13, 2008 07:53
Well I heard Andrew Parker a neuro-scientist at Oxford say a similar thing today at an event in Singapore, more specifically that we fear loss more than gain (which is a consequence). There are several papers but i don't have them with me. You could try the science blogs like Neuro-anthropology and do a search there. I normally use two examples (i) a child burning a finger on a match learns from about fire than by not-burning & (ii) the rhetorical question, What stories spread fastest in your organisation.
Posted by Dave Snowden![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.cognitive-edge.com/blogs/dave/nav-commenters.gif)
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October 13, 2008 10:45 AM
Posted on October 13, 2008 10:45
The last two principles when combined paints such a bleak picture for someone trying to be very organized and process-oriented in their knowledge sharing efforts! Makes me think....hard!:-|
Posted by Nimmy | October 13, 2008 12:18 PM
Posted on October 13, 2008 12:18
Thanks for the update. I will blog on them. You (unintentionally?) link this update to your work on KM in the legal profession. I'd say these principles aren't limited to that profession, are they?
Posted by Samuel | October 16, 2008 3:08 PM
Posted on October 16, 2008 15:08
Just occurred to me...the second rule could possibly have an addendum (not a rule for knowledge sharing per se but one relevant to KM nevertheless) - *We are sure of what we know and are capable of improving it only when we act on it.*
Posted by Nimmy | November 11, 2008 11:08 AM
Posted on November 11, 2008 11:08
Rule 7: Unfortunately there are also people who know nothing (or little) yet say/write plenty.
Posted by Robert Davison | December 8, 2008 10:18 AM
Posted on December 8, 2008 10:18