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| Are you mindful of your knowledge facilitation? |
- 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. - 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.
- 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. - 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.
- Create and disseminate Mindful Knowledge Facilitation Guidelines
- Mindful knowledge access
- Mindful knowledge enhancement
- Mindful knowledge sharing
- Metrics on Improvements expected from mindful knowledge facilitation
- Regular Knowledge Awareness Events
- 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. - Share Fairs, Knowledge Cafés, Working Out Loud Circles
- Anticipated Results
- Individual workers are aware of, ponder benefits of, and explore innovative strategies on their knowledge facilitation.
- Organizations define better knowledge facilitation, track metrics where benefits are seen, and publicly recognize better knowledge work.
- Quantifiable performance improvement will follow.
- Call to action:
- Implement Mindful Knowledge Facilitation
- Urge all organizations to implement Knowledge Management Awareness Week during the 3rd week of September.
- Provide templates and toolkits for organizations to customize and use.
- Create and maintain a Discussion board to log ideas and results.
- Track implementations
What benefits can your organization reveal if
everyone was practicing Mindful Knowledge Facilitation?
4 comments:
Hi Tara,
I like the idea of creating more awareness of the role knowledge plays in our work, regardless of whether we call it Knowledge Management or something else. It's the first step in building the capacity for improved Knowledge Management within an organization. That awareness, at the individual level, can awaken some latent self-interest which can then trigger conversations at the team level, hopefully leading to some actions. We need that spark that will allow the engine to start.
Doing a full week of activities is likely to help build enough momentum to engage a large proportion of the workforce whereas a monthly workshop with 20 participants will likely attract the same small group every time.
Thanks for triggering some thinking for what I am currently working on. :)
Barbara
Thanks for your comment Barbara! Wanting to flesh out some actual MFK activities! Happy to discuss and support any related effort you may be doing in your work!
Interesting that you bring up "meaningful knowledge work." My department's book club is currently reading "Training Reinforcement" by Anthonie Wurth and Kes Wurth. In their book, they stress the concept of "meaningful materials" to help people retain what they learn. Sounds like you are thinking along the same lines.
Thanks for the reference!
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