Knowledge Strategy, Organization and Management
A brief pause
Once we have moved past the darkest night of the year, the fortunate among us hit pause on our busy lives to reconnect and hang with friends and family — to drink, dine, talk, laugh, maybe even sing and dance — and to reboot our mental circuits. For me, it’s also a chance to search […]
Knowledge Strategy, Organization and Management
Enterprise Knowledge: What is it?
I refer often to “enterprise knowledge” — but what do I mean? (And no, not discussions about which are the best Star Trek episodes.} Last month at KMWorld23, the range of content-rich presentations I heard and absorbing conversations I had reminded me of the Hindu tale of the six blind men and the elephant. Each […]
Branding and Reputation, Competitiveness and Innovation, Knowledge Strategy, Organization and Management, Security and Privacy
Knowledge governance in the age of AI
Governance: what is it good for? I’ve recently had the good fortune to observe a lot of the enlightening programming by Paul Washington and his team at The Conference Board’s ESG Center. It’s clear to me that, while “E” environmental and “S” social goals are ones that most of us can understand and relate to, […]
Knowledge Strategy, Organization and Management
Zombie Knowledge
Whenever I teach or lecture, I count it a success when I also discover something new. My knowledge dynamics workshop with a roomful of enthusiastic knowledge practitioners at KMWorld 2022 provided me with a huge insight on the nature of change in knowledge. What is knowledge dynamics? Two related constructs formed the core of our […]
Knowledge Strategy, Organization and Management
Knowledge Erosion: How to Avoid It
I encourage knowledge professionals to continually engage — as directly as possible — with the most pressing strategic challenges facing their client organizations. And I rarely give advice I don’t follow myself. So when I was recently invited by Fisher Yu and his team at MentoringCo to address the issue of the erosion of tacit […]
Your Business: It’s PEOPLE!
Throughout my long and fascinating business career, it’s become a shop-worn organizational truism that “people are our most important asset.” Sure, that makes those of us hearing it — who (needless to say) are ourselves people — feel good. But most companies have never fully acted as if they took this cliché too seriously. Who […]
The Power of Purpose
In my recent study of corporate purpose for The Conference Board (TCB), I conclude that, “Purpose is a key element in the corporate narrative—the story a company continually tells to its various constituencies [i.e., stakeholders]. It is, in short, why the company exists. While different organizations have varying ideas of what constitutes Purpose, The Conference […]
The Hierarchy of Intention
I’ve been working with a client on the issue of increasing engagement and motivation among knowledge workers. In so doing, I’ve been reconsidering intention — what motivates us, as individuals, to do things — and how does that translate to how we behave in groups and organizations? The masons and the cathedral I love the parable of […]
Uncertainty + Danger = Fear
When people are in a crisis, a flow of good information can help them to focus, quiet their nerves, and lead to productive outcomes. Bad information — much more readily available — can increase anxiety and confusion, and quickly becomes unproductively disruptive. The tank crew effect I came across a study years ago — I […]
What Drives Effectiveness?
The name Drucker always gets my attention. Peter “the Great” Drucker wrote the only book (Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices) that I can honestly say changed the course of my life. After reading it I switched from pre-medical studies to management, and the rest is my personal history. When I read things now that Drucker wrote […]
Seed and Soil
Siddhartha Mukerjee, the brilliant Columbia oncologist and Pulitzer-winning writer, has struck again. In a recent New Yorker magazine (September 11), his article “The Invasion Equation” describes a striking leap of insight that could transform cancer research. This insight, called “seed and soil,” brings ecological or systems thinking to studies of cancer research — and could […]
Meetings Will Make You — or Break You
Most of us work in virtual meetings often, some of us almost exclusively. People call in using Google Hangouts, Skype, GoToMeeting, WebEx, JoinMe, Free Conference, and so on. (I’m speaking here of “virtual meetings for the rest of us,” not the high-end meeting rooms costing hundreds of thousands.) The hybrid meeting I’ve been part of […]