Knowledge sharing needs to be a continuous process not something to do when someone leaves. It cannot all be captured in writing and in any case the person moving on may not be in the right frame of mind to share. Communities of practice and mentoring are effective ways of sharing your knowledge with others.

However there are three main themes on the topic of knowledge management that seem relevant to this story:

1. What knowledge and information are we basing our views on?
2. What sort of environment has been created for collaborating and learning?
3. How well have the risks been managed?

Let’s deal with these in turn.

1. Most of the information we have to base our views on are directly from the media – television, the internet and the press. My Member of Parliament in the UK, David Heath, recently wrote a press article on the future of political reporting.

“I am very worried about the standards of political and other reporting. If we need new politics, then perhaps we need a new journalism too.

Much that is written in the national newspapers is sloppy and under-researched.  A lot of it comes from press releases and chats over lunch rather than looking for facts.

As a result, much of it is drivel. On top of that you have a layer of unconcealed prurience masquerading as incisive investigation, concentrating on celebrity and trivia over substance, and the whole edifice looks remarkably shallow.”

I have some sympathy with this point of view. The press has moved from reporting news events to providing instant analysis and answers, assigning blame, searching out the high numbers (of casualties, demonstrators or barrels of oil spilt.)  Accuracy is not the aim, finding the highest number someone is prepared to state is.  In addition, the internet reinforces extreme views by replication, which has the effect of seeming more convincing even though there is no more information.

At the same time BP is providing its own information – video feeds of the well head, video explanations of each attempt to cap the well and stop the flow. Some think there is a bias to that information.

We make our judgements based on the information provided, coupled with our own knowledge, biases and values.

2. One of the biggest barriers to learning the lessons from mistakes is the litigious society we have created. Learning and sharing takes place in a trusting environment. So many incidents – from train crashes, to fires, to conflict situations, to explosions -are subject to litigation that people are afraid to open their mouths. Even for minor car crashes our insurance companies instruct us not to admit liability even when our instinct is to explain our actions and assumptions to others involved.

There are few reports of collaboration for this response. BP did acknowledge cooperation between various government agencies and itself. Other oil companies have provided knowledge, experts, equipment and advice to support.  I’d have liked to have seen much more cooperation especially with the US government to fix the problem and clean up first, then learn the lessons, and only then address the issue of who pays and who if any is negligent.  What I saw and read was a mix of assigning blame, politicking and maintaining reputation; hardly the environment conducive to listening and learning from each other. What are the chances of really learning the lessons so that we can prevent something like this occurring again?

3. We need to manage the risks and for that we need knowledge. As individuals we rarely avoid risks altogether else we’d never get out of bed. We all handle risks not avoid them.  When we assess the risk we judge the probability of occurrence, the impact if it happens and the amount of control of influence we have to mitigate the risk. It does come down to judgement and that judgement comes down to having the relevant knowledge.

Malcolm Gladwell in “Blink” shows examples where only a small amount of knowledge is required to make a decision. People who are risk averse often seek more and more knowledge rather than make a judgement. We need less knowledge than we think to make a decision, rather we need the right balance of knowledge and judgement according to our tolerance to risk.  What concerned me was not that BP took risks but the response plan to mitigate the risk did not seem to be operational.

The basic principles of Knowledge Management outlined in “Learning to Fly” are as relevant as ever and are being applied within and between many organizations around the world. It is the application of the techniques that matters and the actions taken once you have the knowledge.

In the company I worked for, the focus was on reuse of knowledge as these provide the quick wins in doing things better, and rather than research they focused on being an early adopter of knowledge. This led to closing some centres of expertise such as refining engineering and encouraging networks, or communities of practitioners (CoPs) based at operational sites, supplemented by external experts.

This in turn led to the belief that there is no such thing as an expert, rather that expertise is the collective knowledge of a CoP.  Together the community can generalise and make sense of what is known collectively, and structure that knowledge is to make it useful.

Over time that belief has been modified. Some so called experts brought in to help an organisation offer nothing more than their own experience but a true expert offers more than this.

An expert:

1. Is a  member of the relevant community of practitioners with access to the collective expertise
2. Sees patterns and meanings which is not apparent to the less experienced
3. Can apply the knowledge in a variety of situations, some of which have not been encountered before  [“Knowing which tool to take out of the tool box”]
4. Learns new knowledge with little effort and can relate it to what is already known.

So for the enterprise this means:

• Getting access to the expertise by being part of the community and structuring the knowledge to make it useful
• Focus on making sense of the knowledge through pattern recognition and visualisation
• Collaborating with others to boost the confidence to apply the expertise to new situations
• Provide an encouragement to learn, learning becomes a key objective of the organisation.

For existing experts it means offering the enterprise what they need, by providing access to expertise, pattern recognition and collaborating on solutions.

And a word of caution, the more we believe we are the expert, that we know best, the more we close the door on learning something new.

I came to a standstill.

M25 Buckinghamshire – Narrow lanes and speed restriction of 50 mph both ways , major roadworks between J16 M40 and J18, Chorley Wood , in Hertfordshire. Expect delays

Last updated: 3rd December 2009 at 14:12, started: 3rd November 2009, ending: 1st June 2010

They have a great supply of traffic cones and seemingly spend most of the time resetting them. There’s even a Traffic cones hotline for wayward cones! There is no sign of anyone widening the road, or working on it.

It suddenly dawned on me that the road works on the M25 will NEVER be finished; there will always be some part of it being repaired or widened or adjusted. So although we are assured that the work will be completed in June 2010, it just means the hold up will be on a different part of the ring road. Why then do we think we can arrive at the desired state – a fully open M25? Why not plan on the transition state and have 3 sets of 3 carriageways instead of two sets of four carriage ways, so there are always two of them in operation. The third is a bonus to be used depending on where the football matches are that day or to accommodate other changes of traffic flow.

In organisations, change is a bit like the M25. It will be alright when we arrive at the desired state. But given the pace of change, the reality is that we are always in the chaotic transition state. Why then don’t we organise ourselves for this transition state and get comfortable living in that state with some clear structures and processes to enable us to function efficiently through the transition?

I also attended the Information and Knowledge for Development (InK4DEV) conference in Windhoek http://www.ink4dev.net/ and listened to a discussion about indigenous knowledge being lost particularly in communities where there is a generation gap, due to war or AIDS for example.  Again there is a breakdown in the natural flow of knowledge from one generation to another.

That led me to reflect on some of the problems facing communities in the UK. Because of mobility for economic or other reasons, family units are dispersed. There is less opportunity for children to learn about their culture from their grandparents, uncles and aunts for example. Knowledge is not being passed on and they must learn from their own mistakes and those of others.  What mechanisms can be put in place to compensate for these disruptions to flow?  When we see examples of coherent communities what can we learn from them?

In the event those fears were unfounded and I had a very pleasant evening catching up with people I have not seen since our teenage years. It was nothing grand – a spacious private venue, a bar, and a table of buffet food. Much of the buffet was left untouched and the bar staff were underemployed. People were far more interested in catching up and reconnecting.

As I approached the venue – a couple of people stared at me strangely. They were trying to relate the ‘me now’ to the one they remembered all those years ago. I couldn’t place them, so I stared harder. A nickname was mentioned and suddenly it came back to me. Within minutes I was remembering them as they are today not the photo image I remembered as they were then. And amazingly the events, the jokes, the scrapes we were in came back by association. And I suddenly remembered more names.

I went in and as I moved around the room reconnecting, the thing that hit me most was that it was the facial expressions, the mannerisms, the nervous laughter that had remained most unchanged. The body had aged but the spirit of the person was no different.

At the end of the evening there were a few people whose name I knew and remembered but the person was not the same as the one I remembered from way back.

It struck me that knowledge is like this. Once we learn and know something then it is a photo image and it is real and even though time has moved on, and the world has moved on, we are stuck with the frozen image of that knowledge. And by association we assume all related knowledge remains the same. Sometimes it takes a ‘reunion’ to reframe that knowledge, and there will be some that is so etched in our brain that we cannot let go of the knowledge that was. When we stop learning, stop being receptive, then we risk being stuck with outdated knowledge that is not relevant.

Someone shared a simple example of this at a recent meeting at Henley KM Forum.

Which of these two lines is longer?

<—————————————>

or                                        >——————————————<

It’s a familiar trick and we respond automatically ‘They are both the same.’

But they are not. It is a different context and actually they lower line is longer. Because knowledge is familiar we shouldn’t stop seeing it afresh.

It was great to see everyone again!

It was Scotland Yard’s first use of a shoot-to-kill policy designed to tackle suicide bombers, and came the day after four unsuccessful attempts to detonate devices on London’s transport system. Let’s remind ourselves of the context. Two weeks earlier there were a series of coordinated bomb blasts that hit London’s public transport system during the morning rush hour. The bombings killed 52 commuters and the four suicide bombers, injured 700, and caused disruption of the city’s transport system and creating fear and panic amongst those who lived and worked in London, and beyond.

Just two weeks later with the security forces on high alert, four attempted bomb attacks again disrupted part of London’s public transport system.  Fortunately only the detonators of the bombs exploded and the bombers escaped. There followed an intense manhunt for the bombers believing them capable of striking again at any moment.

Police were hunting the four men, and they thought they may have found one of them. They were stalking a block of flats because the address was written on a piece of paper found in one of the rucksacks holding a failed bomb.  Menezes happened to live in another flat in the block and was followed as soon as he left the building that morning.

It is horrific that someone innocent died, a tragedy for the family and traumatic for the policemen involved. It is a pity that we cannot focus on the lessons to learn in preparation for when it might happen again rather than trying to assign blame. The current inquest is designed to get at what happened, but the press seemed more concerned with witch-hunts and forcing resignations.  I am sure the intent that day was to protect the lives of the public and the police were very conscious their own lives were at risk.

But have we learned the lessons of past experiences?  Unfortunately it is not the first time that an innocent man has been killed by the police.  Malcolm Gladwell author of The Tipping Point had months earlier published another book called “Blink.”

In it he explores moments when we know something without knowing why, when we make snap judgements by blocking out the irrelevant and focusing on narrow slices of experience. It can be powerful when it works but it can be disastrous when it goes awry.  When stress levels rise we narrow our focus, time slows down and in Gladwell’s view we become temporarily autistic.

Chapter 6 is entitled “Seven Seconds in the Bronx.” In it he recounts a real incident in which four police officers end up killing an innocent man, Amaddou Diallo, who was an immigrant from Guinea. He had stepped outside his apartment at half past midnight to get some air. The cops, on patrol in a Street Crime Unit were travelling together in one vehicle, decided he looked suspicious as they drove past. They backed the car up for another look.  He stayed where he was, a behaviour the police decided was brazen. He was simply curious.  When two of the cops got out of the car and moved towards him he turned slightly to his side and went for something in his pocket. They decided he was dangerous.  He was not. He was reaching for his wallet to show ID. The cops between them fired 41 bullets into him, killing him instantly.

There is no evidence that the police were bad people, or racists or out to get Diallo. On the other hand it was not a simple accident, because the policemen made a series of a catastrophic misjudgements, and an innocent man who was outside his home for a breath of fresh air was gunned down.

The parallels with the Stockwell shooting are apparent.  What can we do to prepare our police to cope with those high stress situations and still make the correct judgements?

How do we create the right conditions to learn from mistakes, rather than identify who is to blame and make them suffer?  Think about your own organisation.  What can you do to encourage learning from mistakes?  What do you need to do differently to enable the right conditions?