Rethinking Knowledge Facilitation: Mindful Knowledge Work

Are you mindful of your knowledge facilitation?

Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

1. Introduction: It is been shown that the knowledge of an organization inside the files, databases, and heads of the people make up the most valuable assets of the organization.  Yet, when it comes to recognizing the importance of Knowledge Management, there are still difficulties with getting agreement on committing resources.  Why is this?  I assert that the creating, accessing, referring to, enhancing of, replication of and sharing of the knowledge stores is so commonplace and ubiquitous that we do not even realize that we are doing it anymore. 
    
   Getting things done is simply taking the steps to do it.  To get tasks done, we automatically consult our knowledge stores (in our head), the external knowledgebases we know about, and ask others what they know.  Things continue to get done, so everything is fine, right? 
   
   Even though things get completed there are significant gaps where the tasks could have been done better, faster, more comprehensively, shared more widely, done more collaboratively, and fostered more innovation.  By default we do not notice the nuances of our knowledge work where we could capitalize on the efficiency and expediency.  These slivers are where KM could be further embedded into our existing processes, resulting in greater quantifiable and qualitative results.
2. Practicing Mindful Knowledge Facilitation can close the gaps.  MKF is maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of the knowledge being absorbed, used, consulted, and shared while remaining cognizant of potential adjustments to leverage improvements and greater harmony. 
3. Mindful Knowledge Work Campaign
   There needs to be a concentrated effort to reveal the benefits of being mindful of our knowledge work.  We must rethink knowledge facilitation.
1. Communication and Change Management - Launch a public campaign presenting the mindful knowledge facilitation basic guidelines.  Meet with divisions, offices, teams, knowledge nodes, and individuals to discuss and craft the mindful way forward.
2. Create and disseminate Mindful Knowledge Facilitation Guidelines
1. Mindful knowledge access
2. Mindful knowledge enhancement
3. Mindful knowledge sharing
4. Metrics on Improvements expected from mindful knowledge facilitation
4. Regular Knowledge Awareness Events
1. Knowledge Management Awareness Week,  Presentation
   Annually during the 3rd week in September. About the Week:  Several activities (See Agenda on KM Awareness Week Outline) are suggested for each day of the week.  Each KM Leader can host as many or as little as he or she wants.  There is no requirement to host an event during the week, although scheduling an event during the week makes sense. This is a perfect event to launch and bolster MKF.
2. Share Fairs, Knowledge Cafés, Working Out Loud Circles

1. Anticipated Results
1. Individual workers are aware of, ponder benefits of, and explore innovative strategies on their knowledge facilitation.
2. Organizations define better knowledge facilitation, track metrics where benefits are seen, and publicly recognize better knowledge work.
3. Quantifiable performance improvement will follow.

1. Call to action:
1. Implement Mindful Knowledge Facilitation
2. Urge all organizations to implement Knowledge Management Awareness Week during the 3rd week of September.
3. Provide templates and toolkits for organizations to customize and use.
4. Create and maintain a Discussion board to log ideas and results.
5. Track implementations

What benefits can your organization reveal if everyone was practicing Mindful Knowledge Facilitation?