We Know So Much but Understand So Little It is through conversation we make sense of the world

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Knowledge Management tends to focus on the management of information in the belief that if we have more information, better quality information, and more accessible information, we will do our jobs better. This belief is just not true. We need more.

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Let’s say we had perfect information – stored in a single, enormous, readily available database. Let’s say we had experts with complete knowledge who were readily available and with whom we could easily talk. Whatever we wanted to know, we could obtain. It was there at our fingertips. Would it make that much difference?

Michael Schrage doesn’t think so:

I think "knowledge management" is a bullshit issue. Let me tell you why.

I can give you perfect information, I can give you perfect knowledge and it won't change your behavior one iota.

People choose not to change their behavior because the culture and the imperatives of the organization make it too difficult to act upon the knowledge.

Knowledge is not the power. Power is power. The ability to act on knowledge is power.

Most people in most organizations do not have the ability to act on the knowledge they possess.

End of story.

Credit: Michael Schrage

And there is another issue – as a business development manager in a KM presentation once observed to me:

Knowledge Management should be about liberating people to think – not all this technology stuff.

Or a down-to-earth comment from a business consultant I invited to a KM conference:

David – this KM business misses the point. It does not address the quality of the decision-making!

What is the point of having all this so-called KM technology in place if people still make lousy decisions – or if they don’t use it or if they do the wrong thing – even exceptionally well?

They would do better to do the right thing very badly and not bother with KM at all!

And then, a few years back, in the Culture section of The Sunday Times, I found a fascinating article on creative writing by the author Joanna Trollope. This is how the article started:

“I am always fascinated by the idea of creative writing courses. I completely accept that you can teach the craft, that you can give instruction how to structure a book, how to vary the pace and tension, how to write dialogue.

But what you can’t teach, it seems to me, is the right kind of observation or the right kind of interpretation of what has been observed.

It worries me to think of all those earnest pupils who have diligently mastered the mechanics, wondering with varying degrees of misery and rage why the finished recipe just somehow hasn’t worked.”

Credit: Joanna Trollope

We can have fabulous technology, we can have perfect information, we can have complete knowledge, and we can have mastered the mechanical skills to do our jobs. Still, there is no guarantee that we will make wise decisions or put our knowledge to productive use.

We focus too much on the mechanics of business life and, in Joanna Trollope’s words – not enough on “observation and interpretation” or, in my words, not enough on “awareness and understanding.”

We tune out what we don’t wish to hear. We ignore information that does not seem relevant or does not fit our preconceived ideas. We assume we have the answers and look no further. We refuse to talk to other people in case they question our decisions. We override them when they do.

There are no single solutions responses to these problems, but one element is too often missed: the role of conversation.

There are two barriers to effective communication. First, we do not listen to each other. Second, we do not say what we think. We do not tell the ‘truth’ – we do not effectively communicate our different perceptions. If we wish to improve our knowledge and make it productive, there is one fundamental thing that we need to learn to do, and that is to converse more openly. This will raise our awareness and understanding of our world, and all that follows will benefit.

Let me leave you with one last quotation from David Weinberger from the book The Cluetrain Manifesto:

For all our knowledge, we have no idea what we're talking about.

We don't understand what's going on in our business, our market, and our world.

Knowledge Management shouldn't be about helping us to know more. It should be about helping us to understand.

So, how do we understand things? It's through stories that we understand how the world works.

Credit: David Weinberger

We make sense of the world through conversation, and one of the most powerful tools we have to do this is a Sensemaking Café. 

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• We know so much but understand so little. #KM #KMers

Things Todo

• Action: Spend less time seeking to know and more time seeking to understand

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