Perspectance

Is your organization characterized by conversation silos? I’m betting most organizations are structured as departmental hierarchies that coincidentally keep conversation to a minimum. The focus is probably on getting assigned work done. Therefore conversation, especially between employees across functional team lines and even more so, up and down the “chain of command” is likely viewed as interruption, unnecessary, and typically a waste of time. Can anyone give me an example of an organization that behaves otherwise?

One might be hard-pressed to imagine a more structured organization than the US Army, and so I read with interest LTC Pete Kilner’s description of consequences when one aspect of the C4P community design model (last post) is missing or weak:

If conversation is missing, knowledge may transfer but is unlikely to be generated. If connections are absent, there will be fewer contributions of content and conversation, and the contributions will have less context. If information context is absent, the community is prone to misinterpret content or apply knowledge inappropriately to new situations. Finally, without purpose, knowledge-building will founder.

As Jay Cross continually points out, 80% of what people learn occurs through informal means, yet companies spend 90% of their education budget on formal training. This is a complex problem, but the formal training, conversational silo, limited cross-boundary connection approach constrains knowledge capital to a transfer model, and ignores knowledge generation.

This gets to why it is so crucial to foster conversation in today’s economies. I’m intentionally using the word “economies” to highlight the value proposition inherent in communities of practice design for organizations. What business today still really thinks that knowledge transfer is sufficient? What educator today believes this? Knowledge sharing, building, and most importantly, knowledge generation is necessary to compete in today’s rapid pace of change condition.

Which of the five parts of your knowledge-building community is weakest? Is knowledge generation even occurring? Is it valued?

Tomorrow, I am delighted to be playing host in a CPsquare Research and Dissertation Fest community conference call to Alice MacGillivray, a Canadian knowledge management researcher.

Alice published a chapter in the Handbook of Research on Knowledge-Intensive Organizations entitled, Knowledge Intensive Work in a Network of Counter-Terrorism Communities. There are three things intriguing me in her work:

1. Alice applied a model that considers community of practice design that she learned in 2004 from (then Army Major) Pete Kilner, practitioner designer who created CompanyCommand, a community of practice that has been transforming Army officers.
2. In addition to applying a practitioner’s model, Alice also used a phenomenographic methodology in her research design. Her study approach appears to be replicable.
3. By applying Pete’s model, and publishing a replicable study in an academic work, a practice approach heretofore known mainly to the practical domain in which it originated has the chance of being tried and disseminated through the academic domain.

Alice is bridging a scholar-practitioner divide that exists and many of us experience but is often times difficult to discuss. This may come up in the call tomorrow along with discussion of the applicability of the C4P model.

Pete’s C4P model is an interesting tool that I will immediately apply to my support of curriculum and faculty development communities. You really should read the well-written short paper, but this definition section might tease you:

The C4P framework defines each of these terms in a specific way. Content refers to explicit, static knowledge objects such as documents or video clips, whereas conversation refers to face-to-face or online discussions. The key distinction between content and conversation is that content involves a one-way communication of information (monologue), whereas conversation necessarily includes at least a two-way exchange of information (dialogue) [25]. Connections, as used in C4P, refer to interpersonal contacts between community members that involve some level of relationship. When one member sends an email to another member, a connection has occurred. Information context is the who, what, where, when, why, and how that enables community members to assess whether and how information is relevant to them. This context provides the richness of detail that makes information meaningful and memorable. Finally, purpose is the reason for which the members come together in the community.

Alice’s chapter is available through the publications section of her artful blog (third item down). The CPsquare call tomorrow from 1-2 PST is free and open to invitees. If you are interested, contact either Alice or myself for the bridge number. Skype is good ? : suewolff or amacgillivray.