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 […]
Piercing the Enterprise Bubble
A few weeks ago I attended a reunion at my alma mater, Yale University. As they always do, Yale offered up some of its most articulate faculty and administrators to describe the current state of affairs at the University. The array of talent, initiative, and innovation on display was dazzling. By the end of the […]
Knowledge is Power — NOT!
Knowledge is power. All of us know this slogan. Those of us in the knowledge professions use it when needed as a banner of professional pride and aspiration. It sounds reassuring, and probably had major validity when Francis Bacon coined it nearly 400 years ago during the Enlightenment. The problem is — it simply is not […]
V.I.T.A.
In my last post “Our radar has failed”, I offered the view that the current financial crisis is actually more than that—it’s a crisis in the ways we use information to make business decisions. We’ve obviously come to another “Where do we go from here?” moment. So, where DO we go from here? I’ve identified […]