3 Questions to ask and answer every Tuesday (and how to avoid ‘woe is me’)

So you’ve made it to Tuesday and the working week (for many Monday to Friday) is underway.  Thoughts of what you did at the weekend are now more back of mind than front of mind – and you and your work colleagues probably spent some time yesterday sharing these experiences.  

You may also have spent some time yesterday (Monday) in planning meetings and thinking about the things you need to complete and the actions you need to take during the week.  For many, Tuesday is the day when ‘meetings and thinking turn to action’.

If the above sounds familiar to you, then why not ask yourself the following three questions before you plough into ‘doing the doing’. 

1. Do I have the knowledge (current, accurate, experience, tacit, explicit) I need to complete my work tasks? 
2. If not, where can I get this knowledge (expertise, know how to, lessons learnt, good practice) from? 
3. In what ways should I share my learning and experiences (after action review, updates, story telling, update good practice) from undertaking these tasks?

Many will be familiar with the nursery rhyme/poem which starts with ‘Monday’s child is full of face’ and ‘Tuesday’s child is full of grace’.  Good questions (including those above) demand good answers – http://ianwooler.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/good-questions-demand-good-answers/ – so ask and answer the three knowledge related questions today to avoid becoming a Wednesday child: ‘full of woe!’

Is knowledge management focusing on the right things?

The following will link you to an interesting blog post ‘KM and the bigger picture’ by Patrick Lambe of Green Chameleon and Straits Knowledge. 

Patrick draws our attention to another blog post on the Hong Kong Knowledge Management Society website.  The blog post dated 22 Nov 2011 is titled ‘Is Knowledge Management Losing Sight of the Bigger Picture?’ 

Patrick notes that the post includes “a scathing and important critique of KM in general”. 

Worth a read…http://www.greenchameleon.com/gc/blog_detail/km_and_the_bigger_picture/

Does reinventing the wheel send your organisation into a spin?

The thought I’d like to take for a walk today concerns wheels, or to be more precise, the reinvention of them. 

You know the old saying “if I got a penny every time I heard..…, then I’d be rich”.  Well for me, this would apply to “we need to avoid reinventing the wheel”. This statement has been made to me on countless occasions; in workshops, knowledge management assignments, change management activities, and on training courses I’ve delivered. 

When asked to explain what they mean by the statement clients and delegates say things like:

• “we spend a lot of time duplicating effort and wasting resources”
• “we sometimes create new ways of doing things, only to find that a process/procedure already exists”
• “we’re not good at using what we already have and know”. 

Whilst these responses give a little more context to the statement, they do not clearly explain which particular ‘wheel’ or ‘wheels’ are being talked about.  The responses are also silent on the extent to which ‘a wheel’ has truly been reinvented, or an existing ‘wheel’ improved. 

So the next time you hear the statement “we need to avoid reinventing the wheel” try using the 5 Whys technique to drill down and establish the actual process, approach, system, or issue being discussed.  Once ‘the wheel’ has been identified/established, you can explore the extent to which reinvention or improvement has taken place, and then take the appropriate action. 

One way you can help your organisation to “avoid reinventing wheels” is to use, implement, and embed the Learning Before Doing stage of the Knowledge Management/Learning Cycle in everyday work activities.  Encouraging colleagues to ask “who knows about this?”; “has this been done before?”; “are there examples/case studies/good practice for this?”; and “who are the experts?” before jumping into the doing phase of an activity or project, can help avoid reinvention. 

However, management efforts to avoid ‘wheel’ reinvention should not be at the cost of a reduction in employee effort and energy deployed in improving or enhancing existing ‘wheels’.  Wheels do need to be updated, improved and made more effective and efficient.  For evidence all you need to do is to think about how they have changed over time, and the different and new uses they have been put to. Roll on the next wheel!

Are you getting the most from your open and closed questions?

When preparing for a meeting, conducting an interview, initiating a consultancy assignment, or thinking about your communication and engagement style, it can be helpful to reflect on the questions you typically ask and consider the balance of your use of open and closed questions. 

The following illustrates examples of open and closed questions – asked to find out what a user thinks about their organisations intranet. 

Are you getting the most from your open and closed questions?

You will note (we all know this, but seldom think about the consequences) that we get different types of responses to open and closed questions.  You have only to watch or listen to a news programme on TV or radio to experience good and bad use of open and closed questions – and sometimes the question posed includes both types, and/or two/three questions rolled into one.  No wonder we can be left dissatisfied with (or confused by) the answer. 

So, for those readers who are Knowledge Managers and about to undertake a Knowledge Harvesting interview or facilitate an After Action Review, make sure you have thought about how you plan to use open and closed questions to achieve your objective, and take time out to learn not just from the responses, but from the impact and effect these types of questions have. 

If you’re thinking that ‘good questions demand good answers’ you might be interested in my blog post http://ianwooler.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/good-questions-demand-good-answers/

Are we too easily seduced by stories?

In the following TedTalks video Tyler Cowen, an Economist, encourages us to be suspicious of stories. 

Whilst acknowledging and reinforcing the view that “to think in terms of stories is fundamentally human” and that “stories have social power”, he goes on to question whether stories are too simple and suggests that we can get easily seduced by them. 

Those Knowledge and Information Managers using and promoting the use of story telling and narrative in their organisations are likely to find the video of interest. 

Internal and External Communication Managers might also find the video of interest – parts of which reminded me of the adage ‘you cannot, not, communicate’.  Maybe this should be added to or replaced by ‘you cannot, not, tell stories?’ 

MBTI practitioners looking at the video will see patterns of STJ and NFP related thinking and Brand Managers (particularly those responsible for cars) will enjoy the ‘story’ about selling. 

In summary, there is something in the video for all – least of which because “to think in terms of stories is fundamentally human”; but then that’s my take/my story! 

 

 

Does your team have a common purpose or goal?

Almost a year ago to the day I made a blog post about the characteristics of effective teams.  In the post I listed 7 characteristics, the first of which was: 

1. Common purpose – an effective team has a clearly identifiable common purpose or goal.  All parties are aware of, and committed to, the goal or purpose. 

I was reminded of the importance of this particular characteristic over the Christmas/New Year Period when taking a short flight and when watching sport.  The team concerned with the flight was an airline flight-deck and cabin crew.  They made it clear to all concerned that “your safety is our number one priority”.  In common with other teams, each member of the crew had other tasks/objectives to complete (some undertaken individually, some with others) but at all times their explicit common purpose was safety.  The team concerned with sport comprised football players and coaching staff.  They made it clear to all concerned (in pre, during and post match communications) that “we are all about winning”.  In common with the airline flight-deck and cabin crew team, each footballer and member of the coaching staff had other specific roles and responsibilities, but as a team were united (no pun intended) by a common purpose; that of winning. 

As we know, team membership in the examples given above can and does vary – and that this is often on a week to week basis.  But as new members join and existing members leave, the common purpose (and focus) remains unchanged. 

Now compare and contrast these examples with that of your own work team – be it a team of Librarians; Knowledge Managers; Consultants; Information Specialists etc.  When each team member is asked, individually, “what is the common purpose of the team”; how would they respond?  Would it be in a clear and consistent way e.g. the equivalent of “your safety is our number one priority”, or would there be a variety of responses – each with a slightly different emphasis or interpretation on the team’s goal or common purpose? 

There’s only one way to find out – and that is to ask the question.  From my experience there are likely to be three themes to the responses; each requiring a different approach: 

Broad agreement and consistency – in which case this is good news and is fit for purpose; provided that the team’s common purpose is linked and aligned with the wider objectives of the organisation and that the members of the team also have their personal goals and objectives aligned with both. 

Some agreement and evidence of inconsistency – in which case urgent work is required, perhaps in the shape of a team event/workshop, to explore the responses and to work toward shared understanding and articulation of the common purpose. 

Little or no agreement – in which case either very urgent ‘team building’ work is required, or, the responses are evidence of the fact that the individuals concerned are not a team (as described in the examples earlier); nor do they need to be a team.  They might just be a collection of individuals working for the same person, or function, or group.  Applying or forcing team building activities or getting individuals to sign up to a common purpose is likely to be counter productive.

Photograph from ekkebus’ Photostream on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/ekkebus/with/5020840511/