(My title comes from a former colleague who buried this bon mot in a client deliverable – if she wishes me to name her, I shall. Else, know this headline gem is just something I wish I’d written.) I interjected myself into a listserv conversation last week, stating “documents present a barrier to knowledge –Read… Read more »
“Human beings are social animals. We come together two by two in friendships and marriages; we form families and teams and the larger aggregations of practices, communities, societies, and nations. These groups assemble to achieve distinctive aims and to provide the satisfactions of sociability…Management thinkers, influenced by economists, have been slower to see the importanceRead… Read more »
Remember the first time you rode a bike without help? When the steadying hand came off the seat or your training wheels were unscrewed and set aside for a future toddler? Remember what you were wearing? For me, it was a tweed suit, with shorts and a cap. And the hand coming off the seatRead… Read more »
Gary Berg-Cross poses an interesting question, soliciting ideas on the top priorities for Open Government. I started to leave a comment on his blog, but found myself extending and revising my remarks, and exceeding the reasonable length for a comment. Perhaps the priority for Open Government is to aim for something beyond Openness. While theRead… Read more »
In a recent listserv conversation, someone asked a very reasonable question: What does the literature say about how change agents are received? This was in the context of knowledge management (KM), and the inquiry stemmed from an honest attempt to understand the hostility experienced from some in the workforce upon being introduced to KM initiatives.Read… Read more »
Let’s face it. You cannot truly measure employee output, once you are managing people who are not producing or processing widgets per hour – people we call, erroneously, “knowledge workers.” People who are useful and productive because of the relationships they maintain, the external sources they consult to solve problems, and the imagination they bringRead… Read more »
Recently, I was engaged in a listserv conversation (remember those?) regarding the balance between standards-based enterprises and the need to engage creative talent who may bristle at standard processes. The conversation moved to the question of new processes and standards that respected the nature of complex organizations (rather than early 20th century bureaucracies), and IRead… Read more »