The 8 Principles of Fun

The adventures of managing knowledge have kept me quite busy the last few weeks. Blogging did not have it's due during this time. To make it up to you, I'd like to introduce you to a wonderful little movie called 'The Eight Principles of Fun' put together by Michael Bungay Stanier, principle of Box of Crayons. The movie is a wonderful little reminder of what is important as we move through life with some great quotes.

http://www.eightprinciples.com/

It also is a reminder of how we can take what we have learned and share it with the world. Want to engage your staff or your group? Get them to write their most impactful lessons of the last week and share with each other at the end of the week. Better yet, have them written down without an authors name and guess who learned which lesson.

Want to create a strategy that people can really get behind? Write a story of the future as if that strategy were actually implemented. What would the world, your organization, your family, look like if that strategy had been put in place. Now, put it in the format of a Life Magazine article or a Newsweek column. In other words, make it real. What an impact that kind of story telling can have.

Don't sit back and wait for someone else to tell the truth. Have the courage of your convictions and do it. You are the role model for sharing experience, knowledge, wisdom....and doing it with honesty and without an agenda. Do not manipulate....communicate! And be willing to accept the consequences.

And in the meantime, have a great weekend. Glad to be back on the blog!




http://www.eightprinciples.com/

The Stories We Tell Ourselves

I did something I have not done before, this last week. As I drove through Nebraska, from Kearney up through the Sandhills, through the rolling hills, valleys and plains of Eastern South Dakota, back into Minnesota, I stopped at every historical marker I saw. Why, you ask (with good reason) would you do this?

Well, for those who are efficiency minded, it did add time to the trip. A good amount of time. But it also added context. I was driving across territory I had never before seen and I wanted to understand the land, the history, the context of the vast territory upon which I was driving. I wanted to learn, to understand what knowledge and wisdom was to be shared with me, from the past.

What I learned, one more time, is that everything is contextual and is portrayed through the lens of one view. I was amazed, actually, and saddened.

I stopped at historical markers all along the way that spoke of the conflict between the Native American and the soldiers who were assisting in the 'settling' of the land back in the 1860s. Each told a 'story'. I soon came to understand the voice, the view, the point of truth of that story depended completely on who erected the monument, who wrote the inscription, who paid for the piece. And who won the war.

I read continually about the bravery of the soldiers, but little about the plight of the Native Americans. There was little context behind the conflict except that this was a 'wild' land and that the soldiers bravely fought to ensure the settlers were safe. I will admit that I may have missed something along the way, but I found no markers that described how the world of the Native American was ripped apart, changed, without any understanding of why or to what.

One of the places which most impacted me on this trip was called Fort Release. There were two markers designating 'Fort Release'. One, a large obelisk in the middle of a circular drive, described the release of 269 hostages, held by 'hostile Sioux', to General Henry H. Sibley after a 'signal victory' at Wood Lake.

The second marker, a black and bronze sign standing by itself just across the driveway, talked about a Dakota peace faction that kept watch over the hostages, risking their own lives to keep the hostages alive. This marker described how the Dakota peace faction saved the lives of the hostages.

These two markers were not more than 20 feet from each other and told different stories of the same event. My guess is that the truth does not fully lie in either marker.

We must be aware of the issue of point of view in all of our work in managing and sharing knowledge. The truth does not lie in the view of one person, it lies in the mixture of many, and the context of each. You might think this makes sharing knowledge impossible. No, not at all. But it does mean there is a deep responsibility for those of us in the field to check our assumptions and the assumptions of those around us. We must check facts, stand in curiosity and not in ego. We need to remember there are reasons why things happen. Be curious, be mindful and be respectful of what is being shared to whom.

I know we can do this well. I have seen it done, experienced it myself and worked to build processes to assist others share knowledge authentically. But I know it takes thought. It should. That is the responsiblity that comes with our work. We must hope none of us are responsible for two markers, so close together, telling two totally different stories.

Being Authentic in Managing Knowledge

It's another day of learning and of applying what we discover to managing knowledge. Today's theme centers on being authentic. Coming from a place of no agenda (or as little as possible), to share what we have learned, how we think, what we know to be true, and our perception of what went wrong, is critical to sharing knowledge and to learning.

Yet inside and outside of organizations, people find being authentic a challenge. They are worried about repercussions, ramification, or in other words, fallout. I am finding they are so fearful, in fact, that they simply let things slide rather than speak up for the truth. What are they worried about? Losing their jobs, losing respect or trust, losing face, the list goes on. It's a long list. Yet, where is the benefit in not speaking up, in not being authentic? Perhaps in the short term they avoid confict, but in the long term they sacrifice sustainable organizational success, and even their own self respect.

When will we learn that playing it safe can lead to the downfall of entire companies.? It is sad and it is true. Being authentic is not always easy, but it allows knowledge to be trusted and better yet, you get to sleep at night.