(new horizons in management series) tojo joseph thatchenkery, dilpreet chowdhry-appreciative inquiry...

Appreciative Inquiry and KnowledgeManagement

NEW HORIZONS IN MANAGEMENT

Series Editor: Cary L. Cooper, CBE, Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health,Lancaster University Management School, Lancaster University, UK.

This important series makes a significant contribution to the development of managementthought. This field has expanded dramatically in recent years and the series provides aninvaluable forum for the publication of high quality work in management science, humanresource management, organizational behaviour, marketing, management informationsystems, operations management, business ethics, strategic management and internationalmanagement.

The main emphasis of the series is on the development and application of new original ideas.International in its approach, it will include some of the best theoretical and empirical workfrom both well-established researchers and the new generation of scholars.

Titles in the series include:

Organizational Relationships in the Networking AgeThe Dynamics of Identity Formation and BondingEdited by Willem Koot, Peter Leisink and Paul Verweel

Islamic Perspectives on Management and OrganizationAbbas J. Ali

Supporting Women’s Career AdvancementChallenges and OpportunitiesEdited by Ronald J. Burke and Mary C. Mattis

Research Companion to Organizational Health PsychologyEdited by Alexander-Stamatios G. Antoniou and Cary L. Cooper

Innovation and Knowledge ManagementThe Cancer Information Service Research ConsortiumJ. David Johnson

Managing Emotions in Mergers and AcquisitionsVerena Kusstatscher and Cary L. Cooper

Employment of Women in Chinese CulturesHalf the SkyCherlyn Granrose

Competing Values LeadershipCreating Value in OrganizationsKim S. Cameron, Robert E. Quinn, Jeff DeGraff and Anjan V. Thakor

Women in Leadership and ManagementEdited by Duncan McTavish and Karen Miller

Appreciative Inquiry and Knowledge ManagementA Social Constructionist PerspectiveTojo Thatchenkery and Dilpreet Chowdhry

Appreciative Inquiryand KnowledgeManagementA Social Constructionist Perspective

Tojo Thatchenkery

Professor of Organizational Learning, School of Public Policy,George Mason University, USA

Dilpreet Chowdhry

Management Specialist, FannieMae, Washington, DC, USA

NEW HORIZONS IN MANAGEMENT

Edward ElgarCheltenham, UK • Northampton, MA, USA

© Tojo Thatchenkery and Dilpreet Chowdhry 2007

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored ina retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,mechanical or photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the priorpermission of the publisher.

Published byEdward Elgar Publishing LimitedGlensanda HouseMontpellier ParadeCheltenhamGlos GL50 1UAUK

Edward Elgar Publishing, Inc.William Pratt House9 Dewey CourtNorthamptonMassachusetts 01060USA

A catalogue record for this bookis available from the British Library

Library of Congress Control Number: 2006017897

ISBN 978 1 84542 590 6

Printed and bound in Great Britain by MPG Books Ltd, Bodmin, Cornwall

To

Tessy, Sruthi, Manjit, Mina, Tanvir, and the PSOL/ODKM Learning Community

Contents

List of figures viiiList of tables xiAcknowledgements x

1. Introduction: a new adventure 12. Knowledge sharing: a historical perspective 123. The generative potential of appreciative processes 324. How to ASK 495. Private sector case studies 746. Government sector case studies 1167. Public service case study 1398. Summary, conclusion, and invitations 152

Bibliography 155Index 161

vii

Figures

1.1 Knowledge sharing: a historical evolution 31.2 Overview of the ASK process 82.1 Knowledge sharing timeline – Phase 1 122.2 Knowledge sharing timeline – Phase 2 192.3 Knowledge sharing timeline – Phase 3 222.4 Knowledge sharing timeline – Phase 4 292.5 Knowledge socialization – the spiral evolution of

knowledge conversion and self-transcending process 303.1 The general structure of an appreciative system 373.2 The process of appreciation 383.3 The process of appreciation 393.4 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 404.1 Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge steps 504.2 Knowledge enablers and knowledge infrastructure factors 604.3 Interacting elements of future-present scenarios 67

viii

Tables

1.1 Two approaches to knowledge sharing 21.2 Overview of the ASK steps 83.1 Contrasting retrospective and prospective approaches

to knowledge management 434.1 ASK actions 514.2 Knowledge enablers 654.3 Matrix for constructing future-present scenario

statements 695.1 Knowledge sharing matrix with specific examples 1025.2 Examples of possibility propositions 1056.1 Possibility propositions 1277.1 Possibility propositions 1448.1 Overview of ASK steps 154

ix

Acknowledgements

We are indebted to several individuals in the endeavor of putting this booktogether. We thank the Vice-president and the specialized staff at the finan-cial services institution at which we applied the Appreciative Sharing ofKnowledge (ASK) method for their support in trying out the new approach.We also thank the graduates of the George Mason University OrganizationalLearning program who collected the data for three of the case studies. Sincewe cannot reveal the names of those organizations, the identity of the gradu-ates is not mentioned. We are grateful to the following graduates who con-ducted the MARAD project and gave us permission to use the study andtheir names: Raymond Pagliarini, Anita Murphy, Dan Eisen, Julia Nissely,and Ursula Koerner. We are particularly thankful to Raymond Pagliariniwho secured permission to conduct the project at MARAD.

Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge: Leveraging Knowledge Management forStrategic Change (2005), a practitioner version describing step-by-step ASKmethodology was written by Tojo Thatchenkery, co-author of this book, andpublished by Taos Institute. We thank Taos Institute Publications for lettingus use material from the book where appropriate. All such references andcitations are used with the permission of the copyright holder and publisher.We have tried to ensure that necessary credits are given to those individualsand organizations. If we have made an error, please let us know and we willmake appropriate acknowledgement in future editions of this book.

We are also grateful to several colleagues who supported us in manyways, including David Barry, Kenneth Gergen, David Cooperrider, DawnDole, Kingsley Haynes, Roger Stough, William Rifkin, and Ram Tenkasi.We thank Alan Sturmer, Senior Acquisitions Editor at Edward ElgarPublishing for enthusiastically commissioning our book, Tara Gorvine andJulie Leppard for early support, Katy Wight, Promotions Manager for herpublicity efforts, and David Vince, Desk Editor for his excellent and promptproduction support. Without their active assistance and commitment thisproject would not have been possible.

Last, but not the least, we are indebted to our families – Tessy, Sruthi,Manjit, Mina, and Tanvir for their love, understanding, and support.

Tojo Thatchenkery,Dilpreet Chowdhry

x

1. Introduction: a new adventure

Think about a time when you shared something that you knew that enabledyou or your company to do something better or achieve success. What hap-pened? Tell us the story.

Think about a time when one of your colleagues shared something with youthat enabled you or your company to do something better or achieve success.What happened? What did you admire in your colleague? Tell us the story.

Take a moment to think about the answers to these questions. Our guessis that you can easily come up with examples of when you felt overbur-dened, overwhelmed, or stressed at your job, but you may need a fewminutes to think about when you appreciated how you work and how valu-able your work is to those around you.

This should not be surprising. Traditional applications of organizationalchange and knowledge sharing rely on finding and solving problems.While this sort of deficit and critical thinking can be valuable in somecontexts, it often leaves groups of people feeling frustrated, unsatisfied, andunappreciated.

Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge (ASK) turns this upside down. Wedeveloped this model with the idea that it would take the best successes oforganizations and attempt to reinforce and build upon them in a positiveway while working within the existing culture of the organization. We illus-trate the two contrasting approaches to knowledge sharing in Table 1.1below.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING

As the 9/11 Commission Report stated, the most identifiable cause of theSeptember 11, 2001 event was the failure among the intelligence agenciesto share knowledge. Similar challenges exist in most organizations. Thoseorganizations that have addressed knowledge sharing issues productivelyare the best in their field. The study of knowledge sharing has tried to repli-cate practices from the best, but organizations have learned that one sizedoes not fit all. Initially, in the 1990s, practitioners and theorists in the fieldof knowledge sharing assumed that the reason workers were not able tocommunicate was because the infrastructure did not exist to help them do

1

so. They were convinced that technology would solve the problem. Whiletechnology addressed some issues, it fell short in many areas.

With the advent of Lotus Notes and other collaborative software, organ-izations created, categorized, and sliced information in the hopes that bydocumenting their information people could share knowledge moreeffectively. The knowledge sharing toolkit market became saturatedwith companies that wanted to get on the bandwagon. Corporations spentsignificant amounts of resources instituting knowledge sharingarchitectures on the axiom that ‘if you build it, they will come’. People whorapidly needed to turn around time sensitive documents like proposals stillhad to frantically search for current information immediately before thedocument was due, but the knowledge management tools did not alwayshelp because they were not populated with the right information. Often, thetools were not used or contained unusable information and thus becamequickly irrelevant, not meeting business needs.

As it became clear that the knowledge management tools were notdelivering adequately on their promise, attention was focused on thepossibility that the concept of knowledge sharing itself might be an oxy-moron. Using the term ‘management’ implies that knowledge can beplanned, organized, and controlled. Since knowledge mostly resides inpeople’s heads, managing it is inherently problematic. The field of knowl-edge sharing soon made a paradigm shift from knowledge ‘management’to knowledge ‘sharing’. We began to realize that one of the key reasonsthat people were not contributing what they knew was because of theperception that they would lose their control on knowledge once it was

2 Appreciative inquiry and knowledge management

Table 1.1 Two approaches to knowledge sharing

Problem Solving Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge (ASK)

● Knowledge sharing as a ● Knowledge sharing as anproblem to be solved opportunity to be embraced

● Identification of problem ● Valuing and appreciating ‘what is’● Highlight what is broken ● Affirm what is working● Identify knowledge sharing ● Identify knowledge enablers:

problems: What makes people What makes people share knowledge?hoard knowledge?

● Analysis of causes ● Envision what is possible● Generate possible solutions ● Generate future-present scenarios● Action planning and treatment ● Innovating/realizing what will be● Fixing as intervention ● Affirmation as intervention● Looking at what is missing ● Looking at what is present

shared. Subsequently, they might be perceived as less valuable by thecompany.

Overall, organizations were beginning to understand the power ofunleashing knowledge among individuals. What they struggled with washow exactly to unleash that power, given that the very behavior of hoard-ing the knowledge is what makes employees successful. After all, it is pri-marily the hyper-competitive culture of many organizations that creates theknowledge hoarding climate. The challenge then is figuring out how tocreate a knowledge sharing culture.

One of the basic tenets of this book is that if we share knowledge appreci-atively, managing knowledge will no longer be an issue. Affirmation mayvery well be considered a psychological need. Knowledge sharing is one waythis need is fulfilled in organizations. If knowledge sharing is done in anappreciative manner, more people are willing to share. The presence of anexplicitly appreciative format allows others to say what is on their mindwithout being questioned, critiqued or put on the defensive.

In this book we expand on the concept of appreciation and show howorganizations can create appreciative systems that would institutionalizeknowledge sharing and create organizational excellence. We also give

Introduction 3

Notes:

● Stage 1 (1990–1993) – Focus on technology infrastructure as the solution to the KMproblem

● Stage 2 (1991–1999) – KM tool saturation, widespread use of KM tools, companies‘getting on the bandwagon’

● Stage 3 (1999–2003) – Knowledge sharing as an oxymoron; knowledge cannot bemanaged but instead must be shared

● Stage 4 (current) – What will help people share knowledge? Appreciative Sharing ofKnowledge (ASK).

Figure 1.1 Knowledge sharing: a historical evolution

Knowledge sharing: a historical evolution

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examples of organizations that have already planted the seeds for theknowledge exchange to happen.

The ASK process can reinvent – in a sustainable manner – the way wethink about organizing. By linking practices, artifacts, technologies, andmanagerial skills, the ASK perspective offers a creative way to manage awide range of enterprises. As knowledge becomes central to organizations,networks, and markets, the principles and practices of ASK empower a life-affirming process of creating value. The first part of this work is focused onproviding information in order to re-center ourselves regarding the valuesof appreciation.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING: A HISTORICALPERSPECTIVE

Chapter 2 provides a historical context for the concept of knowledgesharing, part of which is outlined in Figure 1.1. Knowledge sharing isof crucial importance in societal evolution. From our ancestral hunter-gatherers to current copy machine technicians, knowledge sharing haswithstood the test of time. The hunter-gatherers’ organizational structuredating back to 10 000 BC provides a powerful testimony of knowledgesharing’s value. By optimizing and making the best use of the knowledgearound them, the hunter-gatherers were able to lead a lifestyle that maybe seen as healthy even by today’s standards. The hunter-gatherers devotedonly a few hours a day to searching for food and sent out only a fraction ofthe able-bodied foragers each day. By making superior use of theirmembers’ knowledge, they were able to survive harsh conditions (Ehin,2000, p. 58).

Using historical data, we show that the knowledge managementmethods of hunter-gatherers bear a surprising relevance to contemporaryorganizational knowledge sharing practices. In this chapter, we alsoexplore other similarities between the rich knowledge sharing culturesrooted in history and those of today’s organizations. We conclude by sum-marizing the lessons learned from the past regarding knowledge sharingand by articulating the concrete ways that learning might apply to thecurrent challenges faced by knowledge sharing. We show that the coreelement of all successful knowledge cultures of the past was the presenceof some form of appreciative system. Such approaches did not definehuman endeavors in deficit terms but as presence, almost like a form ofunconditional acceptance of whatever happened.


THE GENERATIVE POTENTIAL OF APPRECIATIVEPROCESSES

In Chapter 3 we explore the concept of appreciation and its generativepotential in detail. The concept has strong roots in the philosophical the-ories of organizational and social sciences. Our goal in this chapter is toestablish the foundation for a strong theoretical premise to support theconcept of ASK.

The root of appreciation is linked to the Pygmalion and Galatea effects.In Roman mythology, Galatea was the name of a statue of a beautifulwoman that was brought to life by Venus, goddess of love, in response tothe prayers of the sculptor Pygmalion, who had fallen in love with his cre-ation. Considerable research evidence and literature exist regarding thisphenomenon, which is variously called a ‘self-fulfilling prophecy’, thePygmalion effect, and the Rosenthal effect (Murphy, Campbell, andGaravan, 1999; Kierein and Gold, 2000; Reynolds, 2002; Rowe andO’Brien, 2002). We have chosen the term ‘Galatea effect’ to underscore thefact that it is the beauty of the statue that created the desire in Pygmalion.The adoption of the Galatea effect to this aspect of appreciation andknowledge sharing creates significant differences in the way people feelabout their capacity to create change in organizations. Essentially, once theknowledge enabling properties are correctly identified, building on them ispossible because each individual imagines the ideal future as if it hasalready happened.

It may seem simple and obvious that people who appreciate each otherin the workplace will have a better working relationship than those whohave an adversarial relationship. So what then makes it challenging tocreate an appreciative environment? Over the course of this book we rec-oncile how to meld our innate appreciative needs with our critical problemsolving minds.

The most common misnomer is that appreciation is as simple as ‘turninga frown upside down’. However, doing so is not an appreciative act at all.The appreciative approach asks the participants to take a hard look at thereality around them, but affirmatively. But this does not mean ignoring orneglecting the current reality. In this chapter we discuss how the need forthe appreciative mindset has historically evolved for knowledge sharing.We provide two ways of looking at knowledge: a retrospective and aprospective approach. In the former, the focus is to look back at what hap-pened with a critical and analytical mindset. This approach, similar todissection in a biology laboratory, a postmortem of an event, or a casestudy, has certain merits. It is clearly the dominant approach and has beenhistorically used in a wide range of fields. Examples include the case study

Introduction 5

of a patient in a medical school, the After Action Review that the U.S.Army uses immediately after a training or practice engagement in the field,and the well-known case study approach used in business schools world-wide. The retrospective approach in knowledge sharing looks at what isbroken in an organization regarding how knowledge is utilized, isolates thecauses for the broken state of affairs, and comes up with remedial actionsor ‘fixes’ to correct the inefficiencies in the system.

In this chapter we also explain the connection between languageand knowledge sharing. Encouraged by the strong support expressed insocial constructionist writings (Gergen, 1999; Gergen and Thatchenkery,2004), a specific question is raised in this chapter: what happens when thelanguage to address the organizational knowledge sharing problem itself ischanged? What happens if the new approach doesn’t even look at problemsas problems?

We believe that one such approach that can achieve a significant impactin the knowledge sharing field is Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge. Wealso show how the ASK approach itself is a derivative of a widely success-ful organizational development tool called ‘appreciative inquiry’, originallyproposed by Cooperrider and Srivastva in 1987.

HOW TO ASK?

Chapter 4 explores the process of how to do an ASK initiative. We expectthat by the time the reader reaches this stage after reading the case studiesof diverse organizations, he or she would have a good sense of the prag-matic issues involved in the process. That is why this chapter provides asystematic way of initiating and completing an ASK initiative for anyorganization. The chapter is more like a tool kit, or workbook explainingthe ‘nuts and bolts’ of the ASK process, most of which is borrowedfrom Thatchenkery’s previous work titled Appreciative Sharing ofKnowledge (Taos Institute, 2005). To give a taste of this approach, wemention a few aspects of the process below, repeating what we have men-tioned earlier.

Think about a time when you shared something that you knew that enabledyou or your company to do something better or achieve success. What hap-pened? Tell us the story.

Think about a time when one of your colleagues shared something with youthat enabled you or your company to do something better or achieve success.What happened? What did you admire in your colleague? Tell us the story.

Such questions provide an outline for the foundation of ASK. Pose themto a group of approximately 30 people and you will be positively impacted


by the stories that you hear. It is akin to the sparkle that your child feelslistening to a teacher speak of Harry Potter-like wizardry.

The reactions to the questions above will help you determine the pre-existing climate for knowledge sharing in your organization. If key peopleview this exercise as a waste of time, that might be your first indication thatthey are not treating knowledge sharing as a high priority. Senior leaderswho might have this attitude may unconsciously encourage knowledgehoarding behavior.

The key ingredient for Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge is climate.Does the organization support sharing? Do people feel they have to hoardtheir knowledge in order to survive? What has been the history of knowl-edge sharing initiatives in the organization? Responses to these questionsplay a key role in deciding when and how you would introduce ASK in anorganization.

Many people find organizations to be alienating and oppressive environ-ments. Hence it should not surprise an ASK enthusiast that the appreci-ative climate is not present in every organization. However, this does notmean that an ASK initiative or approach will not work there. An apprecia-tive climate can be created with top management support. As pointed outin the first chapter, creating an appreciative outlook needs a certain amountof reframing of organizational reality. One has to look consciously to findknowledge sharing events or experiences even when they seem absent atfirst glance.

Overview of the ASK Process

As in any organizational change technique, we begin ASK by focusing onthe current state or ‘what is’. Steps 1, 2, and 3, which are explained in laterchapters, will help the practitioner or change agent discover the appreci-ative temperature of their organization with a series of questions asked ina facilitated session using interviews. The goal will be to capture what hasworked so far in the organization and to extract the core processes sup-porting knowledge sharing. During these steps a set of key themes or‘knowledge enablers’ will emerge throughout several of the stories that theparticipants share. Steps 4, 5, and 6, also described in later chapters, vali-date the knowledge enablers through a series of interviews and subsequentorganizational analyses. Finally, we will also build upon them to create aset of ‘future-present scenarios’ that are similar to a specific vision of afuture that one can perceive in the present. Step 7 takes that list further byexpanding and prioritizing them into more manageable and actionableoptions. The resulting step 8 creates an action plan to make ‘what will be’real. Figure 1.2 and Table 1.2 depict and summarize the steps.

Introduction 7


Figure 1.2 Overview of the ASK process

Table 1.2 Overview of the ASK steps

Step Action

Step 1 Negotiating top management commitment and supportStep 2 Presenting the appreciative knowledge sharing paradigmStep 3 Identification of knowledge enablersStep 4 Expansion of knowledge enablers using appreciative

interviews designed and conducted by the ASK teamStep 5 Thematic analysis of the data to undertake a knowledge

infrastructure analysisStep 6 Constructing future-present scenariosStep 7 Consensual validation of the future-present scenariosStep 8 Creating and mandating an implementation team

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These steps can be adopted based on the needs of your organization. Byadopting them you may ignite the generative potential that already resideswithin.

CASE STUDIES

Chapters 5, 6, and 7 show case studies of five organizations where the ASKapproach was used. Each of them starts with a description of the organiza-tion and the status of the organization before the ASK process began, anddescribes how the ASK initiative was negotiated and conducted, lessonslearned and future directions. Chapter 5 describes the first of the ASKstudies which were conducted in a large financial services organization in theUS, the GCB Bank (not the real name), and an environmental informationtechnology company, ITC, which is also a fictional name to protect its iden-tity. Chapter 6 narrates how the process worked in two government organi-zations: the Maritime Administration (MARAD) and another federalagency, identified only as AFA to protect its identity. Chapter 7 provides anASK example in a public service organization. These stories give the readera detailed blueprint for the techniques of designing and implementing anASK initiative. These chapters also contain an analysis of what factors werepresent in each of these organizations that helped them become knowledgeenabling cultures.

For example, in Chapter 4, ITC wanted to learn more about the knowl-edge sharing currently taking place. The recently appointed ChiefKnowledge Officer wanted to use this to set the foundation for the knowl-edge management program that she hoped to create. Another objective wasto find out ‘who knows what’ and to learn if ITC’s infrastructure couldsustain continued growth and support new clients.

With approximately 300 employees ITC was soon going to grow to 500employees due to increased work demand. Accessing and sharing theknowledge of each and every employee was crucial to its success andfurther growth. Sharing information, keeping it current, and becomingaware of what other members of the organization were thinking about anddoing were necessary to improve the bottom line of the company. ITC wasworking to increase knowledge sharing – both internally, to ensure that itsinfrastructure would sustain and encourage growth, and externally, to con-tinually support and increase its number of clients – in order to continuethe success of its previous ten years.

The following stories, which we refer to as quintessential stories,appeared in multiple interviews and in a number of other interviewsacross the team:

Introduction 9

● Gary (fictional name) created a developer’s portal for the internetteam. He had been an analyst and he started analyzing pages,grouped and linked white papers on new technologies, and built aportal. He started telling people in the company and they’d look atit. And they’d send him stuff to add to it. It has a database you canuse to search proposals; it has tools for cutting graphics, web sites arecategorized, and it has statistics. What started out as a personal inter-est became a valuable company tool.

This frequently shared story became a quasi legend within the organizationand was used as a testimony that showed employees, current and future, thatindividual initiatives were recognized and genuinely valued by the company.

● ‘My colleague and I were meeting in an ITC conference room, andwe could hear through the wall a conversation that a client washaving with an ITC consultant. This unintentional eavesdroppingbecame intentional. So, we pulled the consultant out of the room andtook him to another conference room. We told him that we heardwhat he and the client were talking about, and shared our knowledgethat was relevant to the client’s issues. This informal sharing ofknowledge resulted in a good outcome for ITC as well as the client.Our decisions, based on that informal knowledge sharing, were val-idated by positive feedback from the client.’ (Personal interview withauthor, 2000)

This story enforces the informal organic interactions that help the organ-ization thrive.

● ‘When the “Green Team” cleaned up a section of highway for theAdopt-a-Highway program, the president provided money to buyplants for the area under the highway sign that let people know ITCadopted this section. What was neat about this project was that it wasabout giving back to the community. Some people used part of theireight hours of volunteer time for it, and we got to know each otherbetter – those relationships provided a foundation for working withpeople. Through our informal conversation, we also learned whateach other does.’ (Personal interview with author, 2000)

These two stories reveal the sense of community and the comfort withknowledge sharing that pervaded ITC.


SUMMARY, CONCLUSION, AND INVITATIONS

Chapter 8 provides a summary of what has been provided in the previousseven chapters, generates some conclusions and generalizations on whathas been learned, and asks the practitioner community to continue to usethe process for organizations of all types. We believe our success with theprocess has allowed us to share what we have learned about this unique andinnovative knowledge sharing tool.

At a time when change is the permanent fixture in organizations’ effortsfor growth and survival, ASK is a refreshing approach in the field of knowl-edge sharing. This book shares stories of appreciation and knowledgesharing experienced by several organizations and gives you tips and toolsto jump-start a knowledge sharing culture to leave your organization witha culture that realizes its fullest potential. We hope that you will have asmuch fun engaging with the process as we did.

Introduction 11

2. Knowledge sharing: a historicalperspective

Knowledge has always played an important role in societal advancement(Figure 2.1). Moses is thought to have faced the challenge of sharingknowledge while wandering in the desert in search of the Promised Land.The Phoenicians were implicitly concerned about how knowledge abouttrade logistics and merchant practices was built, transferred to employees,and applied to make operations as successful as possible. With that muchhistory behind us, claiming that we now live in a ‘knowledge society,’ as ifit is something unique, is no more informative than saying that we now livein a ‘power society’, or ‘money society’ or ‘culture society.’

Yet knowledge sharing is of crucial importance in societal evolution.People have attributed the survival of humanity to many things such as

12

Figure 2.1 Knowledge sharing timeline – Phase 1

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leadership, the prevailing of good over evil, and political ideologies(democracy over totalitarianism). In this book, we add appreciative knowl-edge sharing as another process that helped in the evolution of industrialsociety to what it is today. From our ancestral hunter-gatherers to currentcopy machine technicians, knowledge sharing has been around and hasstood the test of time.

HUNTER-GATHERERS

The hunter-gatherers’ organizational structure dating back to 10,000 BC

provides a powerful testimony of the value of knowledge sharing. Byoptimizing and making the best use of the knowledge around them, theywere able to lead a lifestyle that may be seen as healthy even by today’sstandards (Ehin, 2000). As mentioned earlier, the hunter-gatherers usedonly a fraction of their able-bodied foragers, who then devoted only a fewhours a day searching for food. Their hunting and gathering techniqueswere based on superior knowledge sharing (Ehin, 2000), as is the case formany industries today.

The best survival strategy for the foragers was to function in small, egali-tarian, self-organizing organic networks in which interdependence, inti-macy, equity, trust, and sharing flourished. According to Ehin (2000),knowledge sharing occurred in their tribal structure because their organ-ization was rich in connections and relationships that made it possible forthem to know what they knew. The knowledge sharing also made it poss-ible to create other values and practices, all of which are seen as highlydesirable in current management thinking. For example, Ehin (2000) pointsout that members of foraging groups were fully accepted for what theywere: skilled in certain areas and less skilled in others (the value of appre-ciation). All individuals were considered to be of equal intrinsic worth andable to control and regulate their own lives (the value of respecting auton-omy). One knowledge sharing characteristic we can take away from thisexample is their ability to develop rich relationships and networks.

The hunter-gatherers divided up their work based on a smart allocationof individuals’ skills. Even with the division of labor they were able to shareknowledge across ‘bands’ or organizational units (Ehin, 2000). Tribes con-sisted of approximately 150 people with small bands of 30 to 50 people.These bands were very tightly knit groups that were loosely connected toan organic network of similar small bands located in the same region.Everyone lived by a strong ethic of sharing leading to a structure that wasextraordinarily egalitarian with no hierarchies or class differences. Thesebands of foragers periodically (as often as every five weeks) gathered as a

Knowledge sharing 13

larger societal group for festivals lasting from days to a few weeks. Theselarge gatherings were periods of intense social interaction that includedvisiting, feasting, gambling, gift exchange, marriage brokerage, and trancedancing (Power, 1991, p. 227). Such a pattern of information exchange pro-moted the development of a collective memory (including myths) thatserved as an organizational vision, keeping all tribal members on the samecourse without restraining individual initiative.

Reciprocity and knowledge sharing were two of the key egalitariansocial values of the foragers. Even the tribal demography was the result ofhighly efficient knowledge sharing and resembled the micro-communitiesof practice, which is central to knowledge management theories today. Thecommonality between the knowledge management practices of hunter-gatherers and the workforce today is striking. For example, individualsowned their own means of production similar to that of the knowledgeworkers of today who carry their means of production or intellectualcapital in their heads. That is, land and its resources were collectively usedbut tools, weapons, and other personal items were the property of thosewho possessed them. Further, leadership was fluid and situational. Noauthoritarian chiefs existed to enforce their will on others.

Having discussed the knowledge sharing practices of pre-literate soci-eties, let us now move on to knowledge sharing in literate societies.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN LITERATE SOCIETIES

The capacity to acquire and share knowledge has always been the route topower and wealth. This was as true in 8000 BC as it is in 2007 AD.Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq) is the site of the earliest human civi-lization. According to Van Doren (1991), as early as 8000 BC, a kind ofprimitive writing was developed here which by 3100 BC had clearly devel-oped into the Sumerian language. ‘Knowing how to read and write was theway to wealth and power among the Sumerians, the Akkadians, theBabylonians, and the Assyrians who succeeded the Sumerians’ (Van Doren,1991, p. 10). Five thousand years later, acquiring knowledge is still the wayto wealth and power!

In ancient Egypt, which flourished from about 3000 BC to about 500 BC,priests in temple schools taught not only religion but also the principles ofwriting, the sciences, mathematics, and architecture. Priests became theprimary agents of knowledge sharing and therefore became educators.Similarly in India, priests conducted most of the formal education.Beginning in about 1200 BC Indian priests taught the principles of the Veda,the sacred texts of Hinduism, as well as science, grammar, and philosophy.


Formal education in China dates to about 2000 BC, though it thrivedparticularly during the eastern Zhou Dynasty, from 770 to 256 BC. Thecurriculum stressed philosophy, poetry, and religion, in accord with theteachings of Confucius, Laozi (Lao-tzu), and other philosophers.

APPRECIATIVE KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN THEANCIENT INDIAN SYSTEM OF GURUKUL

The Gurukul was an ancient Indian system of knowledge sharing within insti-tutionalized settings. (The word ‘Gu’ means darkness, ‘ru’ means remover.‘Guru’ means someone who enlightens you besides being a friend, philoso-pher, and guide. ‘Kul’ means house, home, or household.) In ancient times,Gurukuls were the centers of education, and this system was believed to bethe ideal one. A child was admitted to a Gurukul under the aegis of aguru who would spend the next 14 years developing his knowledge, charac-ter, and physical skills. The success and worthiness of the system were appar-ent to the public because it produced great writers, scholars, and philosophers.

In the Gurukul system, the relationship between the teacher and thestudent was not contractual but holistic; in that the class lessons focused onboth learning and life. The guru and the students were dedicated to eachother. Their living was temperate, wholesome, and humble. Their devotionand dedication naturally provided the pupils with an opportunity forawakening their powers. In fact, the student resident of a Gurukul could seekthe guidance of the guru in every difficulty. With the guru’s help, he could facethe most difficult predicament undaunted. Much like formal and informalmentoring systems in today’s organizations, the model of a subject matterexpert connected with a novice is a powerful knowledge sharing paradigm.

The guru–pupil relationship was based on mutual appreciation. Thepupil appreciated the guru’s knowledge and the guru appreciated the pupil’sdedication. Underlying the rigor of the Gurukul form was the sense of con-stant and unconditional affirmation that the pupil received from the guru.The knowledge sharing in this context was absolute. The guru would beextremely happy if the pupil’s knowledge surpassed his, which happened ina few celebrated cases.

APPRECIATIVE KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN THEGREEK ‘EXPLOSION’

According to Van Doren (1991), there have been two knowledge explosionsin human history. The first began in Greece during the 6th century BC. The


second began in Europe four or five centuries ago and is still going on.Knowledge explosions may be seen as ‘intense’ knowledge sharingprocesses. Their size and scope can produce a certain level of intensity thatcould last several hundred years, as was the case with the Greek explosion.The knowledge sharing spread quickly and finally affected the entire knownworld. As Van Doren (1991) points out, ‘it [knowledge sharing] com-menced with the discovery of a new communications device and a newmethod for acquiring knowledge, continued with the help of strikingadvances in mathematics, and in revolutionary theories about matter andforce’ (Van Doren, 1991, p. 29).

As practitioners interested in the knowledge economy, we often discusshow to exchange knowledge. This would not have been possible without theimportation of papyrus in the 8th century BC. Suddenly, Greek writtenmaterials began to be produced, and commercial records and treatises ontechnical subjects began to be distributed throughout the Greek world.And with it began the creation of inventions and ideas, centered in Miletus,in a climate that looked like that of a university, think-tank, or research anddevelopment division of a large corporation (Van Doren, 1991). Around625 BC, this city gave birth to Thales, who is known as the first philosopherand the first scientist.

Since the city of Miletus impacted society by producing such greatminds as Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates, we should note how Miletuscreated the right conditions for appreciative knowledge sharing. As VanDoren points out, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle were more than justontologists (experts about being) but had something to say about every-thing, not just form and matter. In other words, their entire life was aknowledge sharing expedition. In fact, as Van Doren shows, they camefrom the Sophists, a group of wandering teachers who began to teach inAthens. The Sophists claimed that they could teach any subject or skill toanyone who wished to learn it. They specialized in teaching grammar,logic, and rhetoric; subjects that eventually formed the core of the liberalarts. They were, in a way, the wandering, and first knowledge managementexperts because they shared freely what they knew and learned from oneanother.

Socrates sought to discover and teach universal principles of truth,beauty, and goodness. He claimed that true knowledge existed withineveryone and needed to be brought to consciousness. His educationalmethod, called the Socratic Method, consisted of asking probing ques-tions that forced his students to think deeply about the meaning of life,truth, and justice. Thus, his full focus was knowledge creation and sharingthrough dialogue. He claimed that he knew nothing himself and spent histime interrogating his fellow citizens, and especially the professional


Sophists, who claimed that they did possess knowledge. If Socrates didnot know anything with certainty, he surely knew how to argue and toask hard questions. Socrates was a great example of knowledge creationthrough dialogue, though the dialogue expressed itself in a question-ing mode.

Socrates wrote nothing, but many of his teachings and conversationshe had with eminent men and Sophists of his day are recounted in Plato’sdialogues (Van Doren, 1991, p. 43). Plato spent several years travelingabout Greece sharing his knowledge. During that time he became afriend of Dion, the tyrant of Syracuse, whom he tried to instruct in phil-osophy in hopes of making him a ‘philosopher-king’. This was the firstknown attempt to institutionalize knowledge sharing from top down andto legitimize intellectual inquiry. The second most important effort atinstitutionalizing knowledge sharing happened in 387 BC when Plato,Socrates’ student, established a school in Athens called the Academy. TheAcademy was originally a public garden or grove in the suburbs ofAthens, in which he opened a school for those inclined to create and shareknowledge.

Plato believed in an unchanging world of perfect ideas or universal con-cepts (Van Doren, 1991). He asserted that since true knowledge is the samein every place at every time, education, like truth, should be unchanging.Hence he placed great significance in sharing it with others. The outcomewas probably the first book on knowledge management, the Republic, alsoseen as one of the most notable works of Western philosophy. Plato’sRepublic describes a model society, or republic, ruled by highly intelligentphilosopher-kings who possess great intellectual capital. Managing intel-lectual capital is thus not a new challenge, as claimed by several writers inthis field. Intellectual capital of some sort existed in all times in history. Theonly difference is that the magnitude of information is higher today than itwas in Plato’s time (at least we think so!).

Plato founded the Academy for the systematic conduct of research inphilosophy and mathematics, presiding over it the rest of his life. TheAcademy may be seen as one of the first attempts to institutionalize the cre-ation and sharing of intellectual capital. Plato wrote dialogues whichincluded Socrates as the chief speaker and others in which an ‘Athenianstranger’ takes the leading role, an earlier form of storytelling.

The next leader in knowledge sharing was Aristotle, the disciple of Plato.He was sent to the Academy in 367 BC and spent 20 years there as Plato’smost famous pupil. The two men disagreed about many things, which onlyled to a productive partnership between them and more knowledge cre-ation. Following Plato’s death in 348 or 347 BC, Aristotle left Athens andtraveled for 12 years, founding new academies in several cities (Van Doren,


1991, p. 43). This was probably one of the most intense and sweepingefforts in knowledge sharing at that time. Returning to Macedonia, hespent three years tutoring Alexander, the son of King Philip. This wassimilar to the efforts of Plato in reaching out to the powers that be andwinning their support in knowledge sharing. In 335 BC, Aristotle foundedhis own system of knowledge sharing in Athens called the Lyceum. Thisschool, as opposed to the Academy, was devoted to scientific work.Believing that human beings are essentially rational, Aristotle thoughtpeople could discover natural laws that governed the universe and thenfollow these laws in their lives.

Aristotle taught us to use reason in the world we see and know: heinvented the science of logics, which is the rule of thinking, and inventedthe idea of the division of the sciences into fields distinguished both by theirsubject matter and by their methods. When approaching any subject, healways reviewed the contributions of his predecessors and adopted what hethought was valuable. Moreover, he believed in and practiced collabor-ation, a basic component of knowledge management these days, by creat-ing research teams to study particularly difficult subjects, like botany andcurrent political theory. Most importantly, Aristotle believed that to shareknowledge, one must publish. As a result, he wrote and published manybooks, and they were carried everywhere Greeks went. Even Alexanderthe Great, who had been his pupil, enlisted himself as one of Aristotle’sresearchers, sending back reports to his old teacher, together withzoological and botanical samples for the master to analyze and categorize(Van Doren, 1991).

Aristotle’s firm belief in appreciatively sharing whatever knowledge hehad led to groundbreaking progress in the dissemination of intellectualcapital and even other methods of knowledge sharing. For example, in the4th century BC Greek orator Isocrates developed yet another method ofknowledge sharing which was a method to prepare students to be compe-tent orators.

The Greeks created and shared knowledge by having an intellectualcuriosity and by traveling to alien places. In addition, they invented organ-ized knowledge itself by their revolutionary discovery of how to learnsystematically.

There were others as well who joined in this knowledge sharing pursuitbut who are not as well known as Plato or Aristotle. For example, anthro-pologists generally regard Herodotus, a Greek historian who lived in the400s BC, as the first thinker to write widely on concepts that would laterbecome central to anthropology. In the book History, Herodotus describedthe cultures of various peoples of the Persian Empire, which the Greeksconquered during the first half of the 400s BC.


EARLY MEDIEVAL IRISH MONASTERIES ASCENTERS OF KNOWLEDGE SHARING

Paul McGrath (2005) has insightfully explored the organizational, manage-ment, and knowledge sharing practices of early medieval Irish monasticcommunities (of the late 4th century AD). As he points out, these monas-teries were initially established as quiet retreats, places of strict disciplineand asceticism, and refuges from worldly concerns. Despite this, the monkshad an outward focus to share their secular learning with all levels of Irishlife. During this ‘Golden Age’ (McGrath, 2005, p. 549), Ireland wasregarded as a knowledge society, because of the peculiar mix of ecclesiasti-cal and secular knowledge focused in and around a small number of monas-tic settlements. The knowledge they developed, protected, and shared aswell as the religious teachers they produced during this unique period had aprofound impact on the re-establishment of organized intellectual and cul-tural life on continental Europe in the early Middle Ages (Bieler, 1966).

Despite the spiritual focus, the Irish monasteries quickly developed intocomplex ecclesiastical centers or cities. The flowering of literature andlearning in Ireland is indelibly linked with the development of Christianmonastic schools that came to prominence in the second half of the 6th



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century (McGrath, 2005). Sixth century Ireland provides the best and earli-est example of the successful fusion (Ryan, 1972, p. 376) of religious andsecular knowledge. Aristocrats, monks, priests, nuns, devout laity, tenants,and artisans congregated and shared knowledge freely within these monas-tic cities (Ryan, 1972, p. 12). The monks created an environment that appre-ciated and valued diversity and the result was an interesting combinationof higher learning and knowledge sharing.

Bieler (1966, p. 215) suggests that this period of Irish Latin culture wasremarkably superior to anything that could be found in Saxon England,Lombard Italy, or Merovingian France. This period, sometimes referred toas the ‘wandering Irish scholars’ (O’Croinin, 1995, p. 244), is considered byBieler (1966) as one of the most important European cultural phenomenaof the early Middle Ages. The wandering Irish scholars were spreadingknowledge to the masses appreciatively and without judging them.

While the greatest impact of the Irish monks was in the field of religion,they and their disciples were deemed to have had a profound influence inall areas of continental contemporary scholarship during this period(McGrath, 2005). From the 6th to the 9th centuries, Ireland was asignificant recipient of and contributor to the Christian Latin culture ofEurope (O’Fiaich, 1994; Bieler, 1966). What can we learn from these monkswho had a profound impact on society and who created a new path of dis-covery through collaborative learning and mutual respect?

Networking

One trait that made the Irish monks radically different from the otherchurches at the time was their organizational model. Their structure was‘networked’ rather than the traditional hierarchical church model. Theearly Irish church had abbots/abbesses at its center, while the continentalchurch model was largely bureaucratic since it was headed by bishops incharge of clearly defined territorial dioceses (O’Croinin, 1995, p. 147). Thedominant monastic system adopted a network form of structure which isthe core architecture of many knowledge management efforts today. Thisnon-territorial system of monastic paruchiae gradually won over the rigidcontinental diocesan model headed by bishops over the course of the 7thcentury (Hughes, 1966, p. 124).

The monastic communities networked at a number of levels, internallyand externally. The community of monks shared knowledge constantlyas well as openly through one-on-one teaching sessions and the writtenword. Because a large part of their job was teaching, they also networkedextensively with clients and patrons. While each monastery first relied onits own members, direct kin, clients, and lay allies for survival, there is


some evidence of cooperation and networking between monastic sites.Bitel (1990, p. 220) recounts a number of examples of monastic inter-community alliances formed in the face of an external challenge to the pre-vailing socio-political order.

The primary motivation underlying much of the daily life of a monk waslearning, preservation, and the perfection of Christian religious knowledge.This knowledge was then to be applied to the benefit of the wider com-munity through an appreciative process of knowledge sharing.

Appreciation of Diversity

An unusual feature of the Irish monastic schools was their willingness toappreciate the works of authors who did not share their views. The Irishmonks believed that anything that was not absolutely opposed to the teach-ing of Christianity could be used to enrich existing knowledge. The increas-ing diversity and non-religious content of much of their work would suggestthat they were driven by a thirst for knowledge and a general love of all learn-ing, including the attainment of religious insights. This focus on the collec-tive perfection of knowledge, which clearly required extensive and ongoinginterpretation, necessitated a diverse and life-long approach to learningunderpinned through the successful fusion of collective teaching and learn-ing and a high degree of individual contemplation (McGrath, 2005). Anopen or liberal approach to knowledge development and diffusion within themonasteries was compatible with, and was assisted by, a high emphasis onand encouragement of general intellectual pursuits. The focus on teaching,in turn, represented a key method of organizational self-renewal.

The majority of the manuscripts produced in the monasteries were thework of school masters and not expert scribes or calligraphers. This showsthat knowledge was not located hierarchically but distributed. All knowl-edge, old and new, was to be freely shared both in written and oral form.There was no advantage to be gained in an individual monk hoarding orhiding knowledge. Indeed, acclaim within monastic schools came with theability to analyze and impart knowledge, not from its hoarding, an import-ant issue in reinforcing the monastic principle of common property(Graham, 1923, p. 100).

APPRECIATIVE KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN THEMIDDLE AGES

During the Middle Ages, or the medieval period (5th–15th centuries),knowledge sharing in Western society was shaped by the Roman Catholic


Church. During this time 12 Benedictine monasteries undertook the daunt-ing and most challenging knowledge management task of organizing,sorting, classifying, and copying classical materials handed down from theglorious Greeks and Romans. These monasteries played a significant partin knowledge preservation and sharing. In terms of magnitude or volume,the knowledge management problem they faced was significantly morechallenging than that which managers face today. Imagine making sense ofcenturies of knowledge handed down in unorganized material form. Andno computers or scanners!

KNOWLEDGE SHARING BY ARABIC SCHOLARS

In the 10th and early 11th centuries, knowledge sharing by Arabic scholarsfurther enhanced Western knowledge. The outcomes were new ways ofthinking about mathematics, natural science, medicine, and philosophy.The Arabic number system was especially important, and became the foun-dation of Western arithmetic. Arab scholars also preserved and translatedinto Arabic the works of such influential Greek scholars as Aristotle,



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Euclid, Galen, and Ptolemy. Because many of these works had disappearedfrom Europe by the Middle Ages, they might have been lost forever if Arabscholars such as Avicenna and Averroës had not preserved them.

In the 11th century medieval scholars developed a knowledge sharingsystem called Scholasticism, a philosophical and educational movement thatused both human reason and revelations from the Bible (Van Doren, 1991).In a way, this was a serious effort in appreciation. The Scholastics attemptedto reconcile Christian theology with Greek philosophy. Scholasticismreached its high point in the Summa Theologiae of Saint Thomas Aquinas,a 13th century Dominican theologian who taught at the University of Paris.Aquinas reconciled the authority of religious faith, represented by theScriptures, with Greek reason, represented by Aristotle. In this great work ofappreciative knowledge sharing, Aquinas described the teacher’s vocation asone that combines appreciation, love, and learning (Van Doren, 1991).

The work of Aquinas and other Scholastics took place in the medievalinstitutions of knowledge sharing, the universities. The famous Europeanuniversities of Paris, Salerno, Bologna, Oxford, Cambridge, and Paduagrew out of the Scholastics-led intellectual revival of the 12th and 13th cen-turies. In a sense, these universities may be seen as a true community ofpractice because their core value was free, appreciative knowledge sharing.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING DURING THEPROTESTANT REFORMATION

The religious Reformation of the 16th century marked a decline in theauthority of the Catholic Church and contributed to the emergence of themiddle classes in Europe. Protestant religious reformers such as John Calvinand Martin Luther rejected the authority of the Catholic pope and createdreformed Churches. In their commitment to convince followers to read theBible in their native language, reformers extended literacy to the masses,making information more accessible. By doing so they unwittingly gener-ated significant amounts of knowledge sharing to the entire public. Theyestablished vernacular primary schools that offered a basic curriculum ofreading, writing, arithmetic, and religion for children in their own language.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING IN THE 17TH CENTURY

The work of English philosopher John Locke influenced education inBritain and North America. Locke examined how people acquire ideas inAn Essay Concerning Human Understanding (Locke, 1695a). He asserted


that at birth the human mind is a blank slate, or tabula rasa, and empty ofideas. We acquire knowledge, he argued, from the information about theobjects in the world that our senses bring to us. We begin with simple ideasand then combine them into more complex ones.

Locke believed that individuals acquire knowledge most easily when theyfirst consider simple ideas and then gradually combine them into morecomplex ones. In Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1695b), Locke rec-ommended practical learning to prepare people to manage their social, eco-nomic, and political affairs efficiently. He believed that a sound educationshould begin in early childhood and insisted that the teaching of reading,writing, and arithmetic be gradual and cumulative. Locke’s curriculumincluded conversational learning of foreign languages (especially French),mathematics, history, physical education, and games.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING DURING THEENLIGHTENMENT

The Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century generated significantimprovements in knowledge sharing. During the Enlightenment, alsocalled the Age of Reason, people increased the emphasis on appreciatingthe value of reasoning or logic with the hope that knowledge acquiredand shared by that process would improve society. In fact, the knowl-edge sharing had a significant impact on the American Revolution(1775–1783) and early educational policy in the United States. Forexample, American philosopher Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson,the third president of the United States, stressed the importance of knowl-edge sharing through utilitarian, scientific, and civic education to themasses. This focus on knowledge sharing became the foundation ofAmerican society, which resulted in the creation of the largest number ofeducational institutions in the world. At the same time, thanks to the riseof modernity, knowledge started to become commodified (Lyotard, 1984).

THE DECLINE OF APPRECIATION AND THE RISEOF MODERNISTIC KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

In 1984, ‘La Condition postmoderne’, originally written in 1979 by JeanLyotard at the request of the Consel des Universite’s of the Quebecgovernment as an interim ‘report on knowledge’, was translated into English(‘The postmodern condition: a report on knowledge’). It became recognizedas a landmark work in consolidating the tenants of postmodernism.


Lyotard argues that we live in a ‘postindustrial society and postmodernculture’ (Lyotard, 1984, p. 73), where postmodernism means a generalprocess of delegitimation, a loss of confidence in the modern idea ofprogress and emancipation. ‘Postmodern’ is defined as an ‘incredulitytowards grand narratives’ (Lyotard, 1984, p. 8), and Lyotard thinks thatthis is a general cultural condition in societies which have entered thepostindustrial age. According to him, modern science is legitimated by twokinds of meta-narratives of progress: the meta-narrative of emancipationand the meta-narrative of unified knowledge. Examples of the former are1) the Enlightenment narrative of emancipation from serfdom throughknowledge and equality; 2) the capitalist narrative of emancipation frompoverty through industrial development; or 3) the Marxist narrative ofemancipation from exploitation and alienation through socialization oflabor. The latter, the meta-narrative of unification of knowledge, is bestrepresented in organizational sciences in the Parsonian systems theorywhich neglected pluralism, or in Marxism which overstretched dialectics.

Lyotard (1984) defines as modern ‘any science that legitimates itself withreference to a meta-discourse, . . . such as the dialectics of spirit, thehermeneutics of meaning, the emancipation of the rational or workingsubject, or the creation of wealth’ (Lyotard, 1984, p. xxiii). In primitive soci-eties such as the Cashinahua Indians of South America – which is Lyotard’sfavorite example – functions of narratives are embodied in clear sets of rulesabout who has the right and responsibility to speak and listen. In this group,the storyteller begins his narrative by identifying himself with hisCashinahua name, thereby affirming his tribal authenticity and consequentright to speak. In the process, he also evokes the listener’s responsibility tolisten. Lyotard considers this as an example of self-legitimation, establishedby telling the story in a certain way. A set of pragmatic rules that constitutesthe social bond is transmitted through these narratives. The strength of thisnarrative form, or meta-discourse, lies in its ability to ground the very rulesof the language game upon which its existence is predicated: narratives‘define what has the right to be said and done in the culture in question, andsince they are themselves a part of that culture, they are legitimated by thesimple fact that they do what they do’ (Lyotard, 1984, p. 23).

Lyotard (1984) asserts that in the end it is by these very narratives alonethat science is given authority and purpose. He identifies two forms of nar-ratives to which science has recourse – political and philosophical – andmaintains that these narratives are teleological because inherent in them isthe notion of a journey toward a final goal. They are also ‘meta-narratives’,that is narratives which subordinate, organize, and account for othernarratives to the extent that every other local narrative, whether it be thenarrative of a discovery in science or the narrative of personal growth and


self-actualization, is given credence by the way it represents and confirmsthe grand narrative of progress.

APPRECIATION AND GRAND NARRATIVES

The process of appreciation that was the foundation of knowledge sharingcracked under the weight of modernism. The goal of the modernist systemis to obtain the best equation between the input and output (Lyotard,1984). In that context, knowledge is transformed into productive forces forcapital and subsumed under the principle of ‘efficiency’ and ‘perform-ativity.’ This has resulted in the ‘commodification’ of knowledge.

Lyotard stated that science has been transformed into production forces.To quote him, ‘knowledge is and will be produced in order to be sold, it isand will be consumed in order to be valorized in a new production: in bothcases, the goal is exchange. Knowledge ceases to be an end in itself, it losesits “use-value” ’ (Lyotard, 1984, pp. 4–5). The best equation between inputand output is what is required in knowledge management. Lyotard callsthis ‘performativity’ of sciences which displaces the Enlightenment projectof truth for humanity. Lyotard characterizes this as a process of‘commodification’. His own words make this explicit:

A technical apparatus requires an investment; but since it optimizes theefficiency of the task to which it is applied, it also optimizes the surplus-valuederived from this improved performance. All that is needed is for the surplus-value to be realized, in other words, for the product of the task performed to besold . . . A portion of the sale is recycled into a research fund dedicated tofurther performance improvement. It is at this precise moment that sciencebecomes a force of production, in other words a moment in the circulation ofcapital. (Lyotard, 1984, p. 45)

It is not surprising that commodification became the driving force ofmodernity which resulted from the collapse of religious authority and therise of a rationalized, bureaucratic social order. Separate groups of profes-sionals, each with their own special expertise and technical abilities, weregranted responsibility for independent areas of activity. Scientists overseenature, critics determine taste, lawyers administer justice, physicians main-tain health, therapists and the clergy provide psychological well being,and so on. The central assumption of this era was that specialization andrationalization ‘would promote not only the control of natural forces, butwould also further understanding of the world and of the self, wouldpromote moral progress, the justice of institutions, and even the happinessof human beings’ (Habermas, 1984, p. 9).


THE NARRATIVE OF PROGRESS IN MODERNISTICKNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

Modernity’s version of knowledge management is solidly based on thenotion of knowledge as progressive. Research creates knowledge on howto increase organizational efficiency/effectiveness, improve organizationalclimate, generate more participation in decision making, create egalitariancommunication structures and democratic leadership styles, and, aboveall, sustain a better quality of work life. According to Cheal (1990),modernity is a project, in which the goal of progress is achieved throughthe managed transformation of social institutions. The project of moder-nity dominated the classical formulations of knowledge management pri-marily because its theories were developed during the era of modernism ina world dominated by industrialization, technology, secularism, individu-alism, and democracy. The industrial organization was perceived as thesource of human unity and progress (Comte, 1970). For example, DanielBell’s (1976) thesis of modern (postindustrial) society is that it is ‘organ-ized around knowledge for the purpose of social control and the directingof innovation and change . . .’ (Bell, 1976, p. 20). Theoretical knowledgeis supposed to offer a ‘methodological promise’ for management of ‘organ-ized complexity’ in the modern world. Intellectual technologies availablefor this, according to Bell, are information theory, cybernetics, decisiontheory, game theory, utility theory, and so on. Their function is definitionof rational action and the identification of means to achieve this goal.Above all, it is ‘performance’ rather than size that distinguishes modernorganizations (Bell, 1976); this is expressed in the ‘economizing’ mode, asseen in productivity.

The proliferation of ideas on knowledge management reveals that thetendency is to treat knowledge as a thing that can be possessed, measured,stored, processed, and readily distributed to people who are designated as‘users’ of knowledge. In this case, knowledge is identified as somethingphysical and is described as an asset. Organizations are urged to leveragetheir intellectual capital by treating knowledge as yet another commoditythat can be exchanged and managed.

Knowledge management is rooted in many disciplines, including eco-nomics, education, information management, organizational behavior,psychology, and sociology. It embraces the perspectives developed in thesesubject areas, but operates from the basic premise of the tacit natureof knowledge. Tacit knowledge is personal knowledge rooted in individ-ual experience and involving personal belief, perspective, and values.Philosopher of science Michael Polanyi (1967) famously characterized tacitknowledge as that ‘which we know but cannot tell’. It is now understood


that a key aspect of knowledge management should be about finding waysto apprehend such tacit knowledge possessed by long time employees, cus-tomers, clients, or other stakeholders.

Typically, people may not want to share what they know for variousreasons, such as feeling possessive about their knowledge and the fear thatonce shared, they may not be wanted by the company anymore. Later in thebook, this question of how to help share the tacit knowledge organization-wide will be discussed using the principles of appreciation and the method-ology of ASK.

Knowledge is dynamically embedded in networks and processes as wellas in the human beings that constitute and use them. In other words,people typically acquire knowledge from established organizationalroutines, the entirety of which is usually impossible for any one person toknow.

The acquiring of knowledge is, in essence, a mutually constructed activ-ity. To build it alone and to keep it to one’s self is to create a singleness ofmind – taking away the usefulness of the knowledge, wisdom, and aspir-ations of the ‘knower(s).’

Well known social scientist Kenneth Gergen suggests, ‘[I]f we are to gen-erate meaning together we must develop smooth and reiterative patterns ofinterchange – a dance in which we move harmoniously together’ (Gergen,1999, p. 60). He goes on to suggest that in order to mutually constructour world, we must engage in coordinating discourse where there is asignificance of self-expression, active affirming of each other, and regularrecreation of our worlds (Gergen, 1999, pp. 158–64).

ASK must become an integral part of organizing – whether in the work-place or otherwise, with an invitation to bring together and share knowl-edge in order to maximize the value of knowledge management.

RECLAIMING APPRECIATION IN KNOWLEDGEMANAGEMENT

There has been a gradual attempt to reclaim appreciation in managingknowledge since the mid 1980s. Efforts in this regard began indirectlythrough an approach called Appreciative Inquiry that began at the CaseWestern Reserve University in 1986. Appreciative Inquiry (discussed inmore detail in the following chapter) is an organization developmentapproach, and therefore not specifically focused on knowledge management.Thatchenkery (2005) has used some of the Appreciative Inquiry principlesfor knowledge management and created a methodology called AppreciativeSharing of Knowledge.


NONAKA AND KONNO’S KNOWLEDGECONVERSION PROCESS

Nonaka and Konno explore the knowledge conversion process by tracing theevolution of knowledge from tacit to explicit back to tacit, or vice versa(Figure 2.5). Knowledge is transferred by first sharing what is known(socialization), then translating what is known to a reusable format (exter-nalization), then understanding that knowledge is applicable to a newenvironment (combination), and finally using that knowledge in a differentsetting (internalization). This knowledge spiral continues as the knowledgeis transferred from setting to setting.

During a speech given at the Buckman Laboratories which bear his name,Bob Buckman made a statement that approximately 90 percent of knowledgeis in the heads of people (tacit) and 10 percent is on paper (explicit).Managers spend approximately 75 percent of their effort on that 10 percent.Buckman’s statement points out that most of the knowledge lies in the social-ization quadrant of Figure 2.5, but yet that is the quadrant that is leasteffectively accessed. Perhaps people do not have the tools they need to enableeffective ‘socialization’. This is where ASK first time comes in. It plants the



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seeds to enable effective storytelling, a commonly accepted knowledgesharing practice expanded by Steven Denning (2000) and others who arefond of the narrative approaches to organization studies. Storytelling enablessocialization, which creates a space for that tacit-to-tacit exchange to happen.

In his book The Springboard, Steve Denning (2000) has given a usefuldescription of his quest for convincing key stakeholders of the need forstorytelling for change in organizations. Denning uses storytelling as aknowledge management tool and as an organizational change tool. Hisapproach is to share a story to create the space for the client to imagine whatmight be in their organization. According to Denning (2000, p. 12), thestoryteller skilfully gets into the minds of key stakeholders and richlyportrays how they feel and think in the process of creating and recreatingtheir organization. He shares stories of events that are already working wellin the organization. This creates a framework to generate more ideas ofwhat else could easily work well in the organization.

Denning talks about a specific type of story that enables change called aspringboard story. A springboard story is a ‘story that provides the kind ofplausibility, coherence, and reasonableness that enables people to make senseof immensely complex changes that are being discussed. The story holdsthe disparate elements together long enough to energize and guide action,plausibly enough to allow people to make retrospective sense of whateverhappens, and engagingly enough that they will contribute their own inputinto creating the future of the organization’ (Denning, 2000, p. 54). Story-telling can create a powerful collaborative tool because it allows people tomake sense of something that on the surface may not make sense. People can


Figure 2.5 Knowledge socialization – the spiral evolution of knowledgeconversion and self-transcending process (Nonaka andKonno, 1998)

Tacit knowledge Tacit knowledge

Tacitknowledge

Tacitknowledge

Explicitknowledge

Explicitknowledge

Explicit knowledgeExplicit knowledge

Socialization Meetings and discussions Storytelling

Internalization Combination Email a report

Externalization Write a report

Learn from a report

connect with a story in whatever way they know how. They can take withthem precisely what they need to enable the change in their environment.

One of the springboard stories that Denning uses is the story of a health-care worker in Zambia:

Clearly the 21st century is going to be different. But how? The story of the healthworker in Zambia offers the possibility of viewing the future, which, I suggest,is going to be like today. Thus in June 1995, a health worker in Kamana, Zambia,logged on the CDC [Center for Disease Control] web site and got the answer toa question on how to treat malaria.

This story happened, not in June 2015, but in June 1995. This is not a richcountry: it is not even the capital of the country: it is 600 km away. But the moststriking picture is this: our organization [the World Bank] isn’t in it. Our organ-ization doesn’t have the know-how and expertise in such a way that someone likethe health worker in Zambia can have access to it. But just imagine if it had.(Denning, 2000, p. 41)

This story helps convey examples of how the World Bank where he usedto work can get involved in circumstances around the world. By sharing it,people put themselves in a place of possibility in addition to focusing onthe organization they know on a day-to-day basis.

Springboard stories also enable ‘a leap in understanding by the audi-ence . . . A springboard story has an impact not so much through transfer-ring large amounts of information, but through catalyzing understanding.It enables listeners to visualize from a story in one context what is involvedin a large-scale transformation in an analogous context’ (‘What is a spring-board story? How does it work?’ available at: www.stevedenning.com/springboard_story.html, accessed September 20, 2006). His story paints apicture of what is currently happening and also paints a picture of whatcould be. The picture is tangible because it is based on something that isalready working. The springboard story can be a useful way to inspireinnovation and help understand change.

KNOWLEDGE SHARING CONTINUES

As you can see, knowledge has been shared throughout time. It is humanto connect with others, by sharing stories, education, mentoring, and othermechanisms that we have discovered throughout time. In the next chapter,we will explore appreciation, its roots, and meaning.


3. The generative potential ofappreciative processes

It is said that in the Babemba tribe of South Africa, when a person actscriminally or irresponsibly, he is placed in the center of the village, all byhimself. The men, women, and children in the village gather in a large circlearound the accused. Everyone, including the tribal elders and peers, isencouraged to share stories of the accused where he did something positiveand exemplary. His good deeds, strengths, and kindnesses are brought tofocus intentionally during the sharing. The tribal ceremony ends wheneveryone has exhausted the positive feedback she or he can muster aboutthe person in the center. In the end, the person is welcomed back to thecommunity through celebratory rituals (Walker, 2001).

While this tradition, deeply embedded in the unique cultural and socialcontext of the tribe, may not be easily replicated elsewhere, it still reveals animportant lesson about the power of reframing. By intentionally focusingon the person’s positive attributes, a reality different from the ‘problemperson’ is created. The tradition itself transforms the person.

Traditional applications of organizational change and knowledge man-agement rely on finding and solving problems. The notion is that organiz-ational systems have inherent flaws that need to be fixed through systematicproblem solving and interventions. While this sort of deficit and crit-ical thinking can be valuable and informative, it often leaves groups ofpeople feeling frustrated (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987). Appreciativeprocesses have the potential to reframe these problems into opportunitiesand possibilities by intentionally focusing on what is present as opposed towhat is missing.

WHAT IS APPRECIATION?

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, FourthEdition, defines appreciation as:

ap·pre·ci·a·tion (-prsh-shn) n.1. Recognition of the quality, value, significance, or magnitude of people and

things.

32

2. A judgment or opinion, especially a favorable one.3. An expression of gratitude.4. Awareness or delicate perception, especially of aesthetic qualities or values.5. A rise in value or price, especially over time.

Appreciation is feeling validated for our opinions, our efforts, and theunique qualities we bring to bear on a situation. In appreciation, there isalso a deliberate action of selectivity and judgment. The perceiver is choos-ing to look at some stimuli intently and in the process see them more fully.

When changing the way that we perceive a new situation, we have thepower to switch the deficit thinking that is inherent in an organization. Theway we are trained makes it easy to focus on the negative and what is notworking in an organization. Venting may be appropriate for a small amountof time because it allows for release and sense making. The real power fromventing comes from the time when the venting turns to empowered actions.

It may seem simple and obvious that people who appreciate each other inthe workplace will have a better working relationship than those who havean adversarial relationship. So what then makes it so hard to create anappreciative environment? Is it that we do not accept that as humans we havefundamental needs or that we should not be concerned with those needs inthe workplace? Over the course of this book we will reconcile how to meldour innate appreciative needs with our critical problem solving minds.

Being appreciative is harder than finding problems. To be appreciative,we must experience a situation, accept the situation, make sense of the situ-ation (pros/cons), and do a bit of mental gymnastics to understand the situ-ation with an appreciative lens. Not only that, the appreciative lens that weput on the situation impacts our next experience as well.

When people interact with each other on a frequent basis, they are goingto experience conflict. To think that organizational problems can be fixedwith a one-size-fits-all paradigm would trivialize humans’ fundamentalnature. Appreciation, if nothing else, helps us admit and accept that we maydisagree with our co-workers’ philosophies but can appreciate these sameco-workers for their strengths (even though those very strengths are theones that bring out our weaknesses).

There are various ways to understand the power of appreciativeprocesses. Using the model of self-fulfilling prophecy is one. In Romanmythology, Galatea was the name of a statue of a beautiful woman thatwas brought to life by Venus, goddess of love, in response to the prayers ofthe sculptor Pygmalion, who had fallen in love with his creation. We havechosen the term Galatea effect to underscore the fact that it is the beautyof the statue that created the desire in Pygmalion. In the knowledge sharingcontext, knowledge enablers are like Galatea, having highly desirable andattractive attributes. Once people imagine these desirable enablers, they see

The generative potential of appreciative processes 33

more in their work settings. The adoption of the Pygmalion/Galatea effectto this aspect of appreciative knowledge management creates significantdifferences in the way people feel about their capacity to create change inorganizations. Essentially, once the energizing properties or knowledgeenablers are correctly identified, building on them is possible because eachindividual imagines the ideal future as if it has already happened.

In the play My Fair Lady, George Bernard Shaw created a characternamed Professor Henry Higgins who makes a wager that he can take a poorflower girl and train her to be a lady at the embassy ball. Once ProfessorHiggins treats the flower girl, Ms Doolittle, like a lady, she starts to behavelike a lady. And before you know it, she becomes a lady.

During the 1964–1965 school years, Harvard’s Robert Rosenthal con-ducted an experiment to see whether a teacher’s expectations impacted stu-dents’ performance. The teacher was given the names of the ‘gifted’students, who were, in fact, no smarter than the rest of the class. At the endof the term, those students who were identified as gifted, performedsignificantly better on the exams than did their peers. In a story widely cir-culated among organizational development practitioners, a manager washired to improve the morale of a small work unit which had various per-formance issues as well as low morale and team cohesion. The newly hiredmanager’s boss informed him (the manager) that several managers beforehim had already tried various approaches to improve the morale and teamproductivity but nothing seemed to have worked. The boss hoped that thenew manager would do something unique based on his reputation thatwould change the behaviors of the workers in the unit. A year later, theexecutive met with the manager and commented very favorably that themorale of the team had improved significantly and based on his recordsthe performance of the team had gone up. While complimenting themanager, he asked how he had done something that most had failed in thepast. The manager responded that he did not have to do anything becausehe learned that they were a group of intelligent workers who were not chal-lenged enough. When asked to elaborate the manager replied that whilechecking the personal files of the employees, he learned that their IQs werein the range of 110–130. The manager determined that what the staffneeded were more challenging tasks, respect, and an appreciation of theirintelligence and performance capabilities. The manager also created newwork procedures whereby the staff would be autonomous and responsiblefor accomplishing many of the tasks. The manager also showed a great dealof respect for the staff and treated them like they were his colleagues,capable of living up to whatever was asked of them. At this point a sur-prised executive pointed out that the numbers he saw on top of his files werethe file folder numbers and not the IQ!


While it is not easy to confirm the veracity of this story, it can be notedthat it is not very different from the original Rosenthal effect experiment.Just as the school teacher in the Rosenthal experiment thought that someof her elementary school kids were highly intelligent, this manager believedthat some of the employees were highly intelligent. An expectation canchange how a manager relates to his subordinates. Just as in the Rosenthalexperiment it is also easy to see how the staff would have reacted differentlyto this new manager, when they observed that he treated them differentlyand with more respect. Therefore the story plays out very well within theexisting literature of self-fulfilling prophecy and the Pygmalion effect.

Consciously or not, we establish expectations of people, places, andthings and we communicate these expectations by verbal and non-verbalcues. The Pygmalion effect is an important key to creating and improvingthe workforce. The results of these studies are profound because employeescan create their own reality for each other and the organization. As thesetheories and cases show, expectations can create a different reality.

VICKERS AND THE HERMENEUTICS CIRCLE OFAPPRECIATION

The term ‘hermeneutics’ comes from the classical Greek verb Hermeneuein,to interpret. During the 17th century, hermeneutic study emerged as adiscipline devoted to establishing guidelines for the proper interpretation ofBiblical scripture (the Protestant Reformation created a need to interpretthe scriptures without church authority). Since then, hermeneutic study hasevolved into a form of inquiry primarily concerned with the processes bywhich human beings interpret or discover the meaning of human action ingeneral and linguistic expression in particular. The theory of hermeneuticsexplores the concept that texts are understood differently by different peopleat different times.

The hermeneutics circle indicates that the interpretive scheme one bringsto a situation significantly influences what one will find. Seeing the world isalways an act of judgment. One can take an appreciative judgment or a crit-ical or deficit oriented judgment. In general, societal discourses are gearedtoward a problem solving kind of dialogue thanks to the deficit orientedcritical thinking cultivated in social sciences.

Geoffrey Vickers, a professional manager turned social scientist, was thefirst to talk about appreciation in a systemic way. Peter Checkland, a pro-fessor of systems at the University of Lancaster, is a well known interpreterof Vickers’ work and has simplified his abstract writing. According toCheckland (1986, p. 3), when Sir Geoffrey Vickers retired from 40 years of


full-time professional life he wanted to make sense of all his experiences byconstructing ‘an epistemology which will account for what we manifestlydo when we sit round board tables or in committee rooms’. The outcomewas a number of books and papers unique to the field of managementthinking. Vickers’ main contribution is that of ‘appreciation’ and the‘appreciative process’ which constitutes a system. An appreciative systemmay be that of an individual, group, or an organization.

In explaining appreciation, Vickers used systems thinking, which pro-vided basic concepts to describe the circular human processes of perceiv-ing, judging, and acting. Vickers’ work was thus part of the ‘soft systems’approach within the systems movement, but was carried out independently.However, it is possible to describe soft systems methodology as an oper-ationalization of the process Vickers calls appreciation.

Vickers focused on five key elements of appreciation:

● The experience of day-to-day life (similar to Schutz’s Lebenswelt) asa flux of interacting events and ideas.

● Separate judgments about what goes in the present or moment(‘reality judgments’) and a value judgment about what ought to begood or bad, both of which are historically influenced.

● An insistence on ‘relationship maintaining’ (or norm seeking) as aricher concept of human action than the popular notion of goalseeking.

● A concept of ‘action judgments’ stemming from reality and valuejudgments.

● Action, as a result of appreciation, contributes to the flux of events andideas, as does the mental act of appreciation itself. This leads to thenotion that the cycle of judgments and actions is organized as a system.

In other words, as humans we are in a state of flux. We judge the events weexperience based on our individual history. We make meaning based on theinteractions with other humans to enrich our lives. Our judgments, relation-ships, and values dictate how we act in subsequent events. By framing our per-ceptions and judgments on appreciation, we can change our behavior. We canchange the way we hoard knowledge to a philosophy of sharing knowledge.

THE MODEL OF THE APPRECIATIVE SYSTEM

In order to model appreciation, we must break down the act of appreciationinto steps. Schutz (1966) describes appreciation as an interacting flux of eventsand ideas unfolding through time. We have the ability to select and choose


what reality we perceive from the event based on our judgments and values.The perception we have of the event impacts the next event that we experience,thus creating a recursive loop. Figure 3.1 visually depicts how appreciationimpacts action based on the flux of events and ideas throughout time.

Vickers breaks down the decision making components even further:

Those who are engaged in a course of decision-making soon become aware thateach decision is conditioned not only by the concrete situation in which it istaken but also by the sequence of past decisions; and that their new decisionsin their turn will influence future decisions not only by their effect on the historyof event but also by the precedents which they set and the changes which theymake in the way decision makers in the future will see, interpret and respond toevent, a separate development which for the moment I will label the history ofideas. Thus human history is a two-stranded rope; the history of events and thehistory of ideas develop in intimate relation with each other yet each accordingto its own logic and its own time scale; and each conditions both its own futureand the future of the other. (1965, p. 15)

As you can see in Figures 3.2 and 3.3, in any situation a person has thechoice to perceive the relevant ‘facts’ based on their interest or concerns.Once that person has extracted their facts, they place a value judgment onthe situation (good/bad, acceptable/unacceptable) and therefore create anaction based on their value judgment.

MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS ANDAPPRECIATIVE PROCESSES

Abraham Maslow (1954) is known for establishing the theory of a hier-archy of needs. The logic behind the hierarchy of needs model is that


Figure 3.1 The general structure of an appreciative system (Checkland, 1985)

Time

ActionAppreciation

human beings are motivated by needs. Certain lower level needs should besatisfied before the higher needs can be satisfied. Maslow studied exem-plary people such as Albert Einstein and Eleanor Roosevelt as well as thementally ill, like many other scientists of his time, such as Seligman. Hepointed out that people are basically trustworthy, self-protecting, self-governing, and tend toward growth and love.

According to Maslow, there are certain types of deficiency needs – phys-iological, safety, love, and esteem – that must be satisfied before a person canact unselfishly. As we satisfy these needs, we are moving toward growth andself-actualization. The hierarchy is displayed in Figure 3.4. Most knowledgeworkers today have some or most of their deficiency needs satisfied, and aretherefore focusing on the needs of self-esteem and self-actualization.However, organizations (comprising groups of knowledge workers) arelower on the hierarchy chain. Appreciation provides us with the means forgroups of people to go up the pyramid. It provides us with the foundationrequired to create a safe environment to pave the way for and encouragelove, self-esteem, and self-actualization.


Figure 3.2 The process of appreciation (Checkland, 1986)

Standards of factand value: good/bad, acceptable/unacceptable

Interests, concerns

Perceived ‘facts’of the situationrelevant tointerests, concernsSelected ‘facts’

relevant to thecurrent situation

Significance of the ‘facts’(good/bad, acceptable/unacceptable) in terms ofregulatable relationships

Hypothetical forms ofrelevant relationships

Selected form of relevantrelationships deemed good enoughin the current situation

39

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RETROSPECTIVE AND PROSPECTIVE APPROACHESTO KNOWLEDGE SHARING

Two ways to differentiate knowledge management approaches (paradigms)are to delineate them into retrospective and prospective practices. In theformer, the practice is to look back at what happened with a more or lesscritical and analytical mindset, like a dissection in a biology laboratory,a postmortem of an event, or a case study. This approach has certain merits,is clearly the dominant approach, and has been historically used in a widerange of fields. Examples are the case study of a patient in a medical school,the After Action Review that the US Army uses immediately after a train-ing or practice engagement in the field, and the well-known case studyapproach used in business schools worldwide. The retrospective approachin knowledge management looks at what is wrong in an organizationregarding how knowledge is utilized, isolates the causes for the broken stateof affairs, and comes up with remedial actions or ‘fixes’ to correct theinefficiencies in the system.

While appearing to be objective, data based, and tangible, the retrospectiveapproach tends to generate costly and damaging fissures in the morale and


Figure 3.4 Maslow’s hierarchy of needs (1954)

AbrahamMaslow’s

Hierarchy ofNeeds

LowerOrderNeeds

Appreciation

HigherOrderNeeds

(Like KnowledgeManagement)SELF-

ACTUALIZATIONPursue Inner Talent,

Creativity, Fulfillment

SELF-ESTEEMAchievement, MasteryRecognition, Respect

BELONGING – LOVEFriends, Family, Spouse, Lover

SAFETYSecurity, Stability, Freedom from Fear

PHYSIOLOGICALFood, Water, Shelter, Warmth

organizational climate. It is extremely difficult to engage in an analysis ofwhat went wrong without assigning responsibility. As soon as that processbegins, the organizational climate is polluted with a wave of the ‘blame game’.

The prospective approach, on the other hand, does not analyze whatwent wrong but considers what needs to happen for an individual, group,or organization to reach a desired state or vision. Applied to the knowledgemanagement domain, this approach will raise the question ‘what needs tohappen in this organization for people to share their knowledge?’ Theprospective approach purposely focuses on a new and ever-changing futureof information exchange, as well as increasing opportunities for harmon-ious knowledge sharing at every level in an organization.

Though not intentional, the retrospective approach appears to reproducekey features of the ‘learned helplessness’ phenomenon popularized by wellknown psychologist Martin Seligman in 1965. In the beginning of hisexperiments, laboratory dogs were given an electric shock, which causedthem to try to escape the shock by jumping over to another chamber, onlyto find that the bar was too high. After a few repetitions the height of thebar was reduced significantly so that any dog could easily jump over. But,to Seligman’s surprise, the dogs did not and instead chose to resign them-selves to continuing to receive the shocks and be in pain.

Based on subsequent more rigorous research, Seligman argued thatexposure to uncontrollable negative events can lead people to develop abelief in their inability to control important outcomes, and consequently aloss of motivation and failure to act. The internal dialogue that one cannotcontrol important events tends to lead to lowered persistence, motivation,self-esteem, and initiative.

Two decades later another event prompted Seligman to look at theexperiments in a different way. In his best selling book Learned Optimism(1991), Seligman showed that based on individual explanatory stylesone person may see despair in a situation while another sees hope. Heresearched entrepreneurs who, unlike his dogs, did not give up after severalsuccessive failures but rejuvenated each time, learning from their mistakesand eventually succeeding in their businesses. Seligman showed that suchpeople continuously reframed their reality into possibilities as opposed tolimitations, eventually developing ‘learned optimism’.

The retrospective, problem solving approach to knowledge managementbears an uncanny resemblance to learned helplessness. In the retrospectiveapproach, the consultant looks at the causes of the failure in knowledgesharing. Using the same logic as in Seligman’s experiment, a consultantcould conclude that the real cause was the height of the bar. In the prospec-tive approach, the questions will be about the modalities of reframing. Howcan the client system look at the current status of knowledge sharing using


an explanatory style of learned optimism so that they may see the organ-izational environment as full of possibilities?

Yet another distinguishing feature of the retrospective approach toknowledge management is the prolific presence of defensive routines, anorganizational process first articulated by the well known organizationallearning theorist Chris Argyris (1990). A defensive routine is an insti-tutionalized, ongoing, and routinized mixed message about which discus-sion is taboo. It is an elaborate double-bind whose purpose is to preventembarrassment, threat, and awkward situations, to maintain the statusquo, and avoid unwanted change.

To demonstrate defensive routines, Argyris (1990) asked a group ofexecutives to describe a key problem in their organization and to narrate animaginary meeting in which they were talking to the person of their choiceabout the problem and solutions. On the left side of a split page he askedthem to write what they would actually say and on the right side the ideasand feelings they would have but not communicate for whatever reason.Argyris was struck by the discrepancy between the two and felt that whatwas not shared was just as significant as what was. The bigger the discrep-ancy, the stronger the defensive routines.

Because organizational defensive routines are intended to avoid theexperience of embarrassment, they make it unlikely that the organizationwill ever genuinely address the contributing factors for the lack of knowledgesharing. This would be true even if external knowledge management con-sultants were brought in. In the prospective approach to knowledge sharing,the consultant does not try to solve or fix the defensive routines. Instead, thefocus is on creating open communication, dialogue, genuine inquiry.

In the prospective approach, the consultant is not interested in identify-ing or isolating the defensive routines because, based on her training insocial constructionist theories, she knows that paying attention to suchconstructs would only bring them to life with increased intensity. The morethe participants talk about the defensive routines, the more they recognizethem. The outcome may be a stage of learned helplessness where they dis-cover that no matter how hard they try, the roadblocks are there to stay, orthat they wouldn’t have much influence in doing anything about them.

The alternative approach in ASK is therefore to focus on the harmony orflow rather than defensive routines. By intentionally probing for solid datawhere knowledge sharing happened, the prospective ASK approach iso-lates the knowledge enablers rather than the disablers.

Table 3.1 outlines the main points of the retrospective and prospectiveapproaches to knowledge management. It will be obvious to the reader thatone is based on a deficit view of knowledge management and the other ona more affirmative view.


TWO APPROACHES TO KNOWLEDGEMANAGEMENT

In addition to his work on learned helplessness (mentioned above), MartinSeligman has another project: the study of what he calls ‘positive psychol-ogy’. According to him, psychology as a discipline is focused on deficits.Psychology journals have published 45,000 articles in the last 30 years ondepression, but only 400 on joy. Seligman himself had a celebrated careeras a result of his famous theory on ‘learned helplessness’. All that changedwhen a businessman on a plane trip asked him about studying optimisminstead of pessimism. That was a turning point for Seligman – his later bestseller (1991) was called Learned Optimism!

According to Seligman (1991), when psychology began developing as aprofession, it had three goals: to identify genius, to heal the sick, and to help


Table 3.1 Contrasting retrospective and prospective approaches toknowledge management

Retrospective Prospective

● Problem solving ● Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge● Identification of problem ● Valuing and appreciating ‘what is’● Highlight what is broken ● Affirm what is working● Identify knowledge management ● Identify knowledge enablers: What

problems: What makes people makes people share knowledge?hoard knowledge?

● Analyze causes ● Envision what is possible● Generate possible solutions ● Generate future-present scenarios● Action planning and treatment ● Innovating/realizing what will be● Fixing as intervention ● Affirmation as intervention● Looking at what is missing ● Looking at what is present● Knowledge management as a ● Knowledge management as an

problem to be solved opportunity to be embraced● Degenerative diagnostic focus ● Generative prognostic focus● Reactive, knee-jerk response ● Proactive, reflective response● Focus on what’s urgent ● Focus on what’s important● Leverage learned helplessness ● Leverage learned optimism● Passive, cognitive re-affirming of ● Active, intentional cognitive

status quo and current reality reframing of current reality● Modernistic ● Postmodern● Reductionistic ● Social constructionist● Defensive routines ● Open communication/dialogue● Managing from the past ● Managing for the future

people live better, happier lives. Over the last century, however, it has focusedalmost entirely on pathology and deficits, following the science of medicine,itself structured around disease, as its model. Psychology, Seligman says,has been negative ‘essentially for 100 years’. Theories have generally focusedon damage, as have techniques for intervention. ‘Social science has believednegative things were authentic and human strengths were coping mech-anisms’, Seligman says. The former American Psychological Associationpresident is determined to change that by focusing on the three centralaspects of people’s lives: love, work, and play. ‘Rather than spending $10million on, say, phobias and fears, study courage’, he argues. Along withMihaly Csikszentmihalyi, well known for studies on the psychology ofoptimal experience, or ‘flow’ (1990), Seligman has created a research teamof young and promising psychologists to work on these aspects.

APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY AND KNOWLEDGEMANAGEMENT

In the late 1980s a group of organizational development and psychologyprofessionals at Case Western Reserve University developed a new modelfor looking at organizational analysis, focusing on the positive aspects ofthe organization rather than the negative (Cooperrider and Srivastva,1987). This innovative action research model was developed with theidea that it would take the best ideas of the organizations and attempt toreinforce and build upon them in a positive way while working within thecurrent culture of the organization.

Appreciative Inquiry attempts to determine the organization’s corevalues (or life giving forces). AI seeks the best of ‘what is’ in order toprovide an impetus for imagining ‘what might be’ (Cooperrider andSrivastva, 1987). The basic rationale of Appreciative Inquiry is to beginwith a grounded observation of the best of what is, articulate what mightbe, ensure the consent of those in the system to what should be, and col-lectively experiment with what can be.

The concept of AI is important in offering an approach that seeks anddiscovers what a group does well and what enables a particular group towork at its best. It has been suggested that this affirmative approachexpands those competencies to a new level of excellence. It has been empha-sized that, contrary to traditional gap-analysis consulting, which starts ata deficit point and works to zero, Appreciative Inquiry purposely beginswith the positive and moves to the extraordinary.

In their 1987 publication ‘Appreciative Inquiry in Organizational Life’,Cooperrider and Srivastva reason that organizations are not ‘problems to


be solved’ but are centers of infinite human capacity – ultimately unpre-dictable, unknowable, or a ‘mystery alive’. They prove that human systemsgrow in the direction of what they focus on; therefore, let us all search forthe true, the good, the better, and the possible in human systems. The articlerepresented the beginning of the transition from thinking of AI as just atheory-building approach to seeing its potential as a full blown interven-tion framework (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987).

Most tools of organizational analysis are rooted in a logical positivistparadigm that treats organizational reality as something fundamentallypre-existing. On the other hand, according to Cooperrider and Srivastva(1987), Appreciative Inquiry is based on a socio-rationalist paradigm whichtreats organizational reality as a social construction and a product ofhuman imagination. Reality is seen as a linguistic achievement made poss-ible by our engagement in a social discourse.

Appreciative Inquiry is both a method of action research and a theoryof how organizational realities evolve. Taking the socio-rationalist point ofview associated with the sociology of knowledge school, Cooperrider andSrivastva (1987) argue that there is nothing inherently deterministic aboutany particular social form, no historically valid principles to be uncovered,even though mainstream social science tends to study organizations as ifthey are tangible forms waiting to be molded. While logical positivismassumes that social phenomena are sufficiently enduring, stable, and replic-able to allow for lawful principles, socio-rationalism contends that socialorder is fundamentally unstable and organic. ‘Social phenomena areguided by cognitive heuristics, limited only by human imagination: thesocial order is a subject matter capable of infinite variation through thelinkage of ideas and action’ (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987, p. 139).Thus, the creation of new and evocative theories of groups and organiz-ations is a powerful way to aid in their change and development.

Appreciative Inquiry ‘refers to both a search for knowledge and a theoryof intentional collective action which are designed to help evolve the nor-mative vision and will of a group, organization, or society as a whole’(Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987, p. 159). In a later writing on theaffirmative basis of organizing, Cooperrider (1990) proposes that allgroups have images of themselves that underlay self-organizing processesand that social systems have a natural tendency to evolve toward the mostpositive images held by their members. Conscious evolution of positiveimagery, therefore, is a viable option for evolving the group as a whole.

According to Cooperrider (1990), the greatest obstacle to the well beingof an ailing group is the dis-affirmative projection that currently guides it.When organizations find that attempts to fix problems create more prob-lems, or the same problems never go away (Senge, 1990), it is a clear signal


of the inadequacy of the organization’s current images or projections ofwho it is. In that context, Appreciative Inquiry is an attempt to co-create ashared consensus of a new future by exploring the core competencies thatare resident in an organization.

Gabriel Marcel (1963) introduced into philosophy a distinction betweenproblem and mystery. Mystery produces a diffused experience where thedistinction between subject and object disappears. ‘A mystery is somethingin which I am myself involved, and it can therefore only be thought of as asphere where the distinction between what is in me and what is before meloses its meaning and its initial validity’ (Marcel, 1963). On the contrary, aproblem is something to be fixed. There is very little to appreciate in aproblem other than getting rid of it or solving it.

This distinction between mystery, problems, and ‘positive throughput’ isthe foundation of Appreciative Inquiry. Once everyday experiences of lifeare drawn in terms of efficiency, logic, precision, and problem solving,organizational experiences become a microcosm of that very mindset.Thus, we have two contrasting and unconscious images of organizations:organizations as problems to be solved or fixed, or as mysteries to beappreciated (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987).

In this context, Appreciative Inquiry as a methodology seeks to locate andheighten the ‘life-giving-forces’ (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987) or corevalues of organizations. An affirmation of the organization calls for an in-depth understanding of its core values. The focus on core values becomespersuasive when we see organizations as ‘systems of shared meaning andbeliefs where the critical activity is the continued construction and mainten-ance of the meaning and belief systems which assure compliance, commit-ment, and positive affect on the part of the participants’ (Pfeffer, 1982, p. 82).

Pfeffer’s definition amplifies the life giving nature of values, beliefs, andideology around which people organize themselves for collective action. Anaffirmation of the uniqueness of organizational values is most likely to helpa researcher or consultant realize what makes such organizing possible andunderstand the possibilities of newer and more effective forms of organiz-ing. Appreciative Inquiry seeks the best of ‘what is’ in order to provide animpetus for imagining ‘what might be’. According to Karl Weick (1982),intense affirmation might also show faults and inadequacies more readilythan intense criticisms. He argues that if we have only weak images of organ-izations to work with we are likely to end up with weak theories of theirorganizing. Another writer in this area, Peter Elbow (1973), reminds us thatwe could also make an intentional choice to play the ‘believing game’ asopposed to the ‘doubting game’. In the doubting game, the consultant orresearcher has a suspicious eye whereas in the believing game the efforts areto understand the organizational dynamics from the participants’ point of


view. In this context, explanations and interpretations are affirmations thatassert what organizations are more than what they are not. As Weick (1982,p. 445) says, ‘We first have to affirm that it is there, in order, second, to dis-cover that it is there’.

Appreciative Inquiry, in essence, is an attempt to generate a collectiveimage of a future by exploring the best of what is and has been. The basicrationale of Appreciative Inquiry is to begin with a grounded observationof the best of what is, articulate what might be, ensure the consent of thosein the system to what should be, and collectively experiment with what canbe (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987). Appreciative Inquiry argues thatorganizational research efforts should be appreciative, applicable, provoca-tive, and collaborative. Appreciation means that the research processshould not be based on the problem solving mode, but instead should buildon the uniqueness and specific qualities of the organization under consid-eration. The ‘applicable’ calls for the research to be relevant, useful, andpotentially capable of generating new knowledge. The ‘provocative’ refersto a type of analysis that becomes challenging and generative (Gergen,1994b). A generative approach points toward realistic potentials that arelatent in the system. It becomes challenging when enactment of thosepotentials represents a moderately high risk requiring the development ofunused or untried possibilities (Cooperrider and Srivastva, 1987).

To conclude, Appreciative Inquiry is an ideally suited methodology ifone is interested in studying how to reframe organizational realities. Eversince its introduction in 1986–1987, Appreciative Inquiry has been used ina wide variety of organization development situations. One of its mostcomprehensive uses was with a nonprofit global organization in a studythat was conducted by this author and documented in his doctoral disser-tation (Thatchenkery, 1994).

APPRECIATIVE INTELLIGENCE

After reading and studying over a hundred stories about leaders in theInvestor’s Business Daily column, ‘Leaders and Success’, Tojo Thatchenkeryobserved certain patterns in leaders’ behavior. Building on his doctoral workon the methodology and technique of Appreciative Inquiry with the team ofSuresh Srivastva and David Cooperrider in the late 1980s, and later as a busi-ness consultant and Professor of Organizational Learning, Thatchenkerybegan to see that the ability to appreciate – to see hidden value in people andsituations – and to construct a more positive future seemed more related toa leader’s success than did traditional IQ or subject matter expertise.Appreciative intelligence, a term coined by Thatchenkery, is the missing


link between leadership, intelligence, and success. Because it was never con-ceptualized or articulated before by traditional intelligence researchers inthe field of psychology, leadership research placed undue importance on thecapacity of leaders to get things done, primarily based on traits that helpedleaders influence others by sheer charisma, analytical intelligence, or pos-itional power. One of Thatchenkery’s findings is that leaders who possess ahigh level of appreciative intelligence have higher incidence of innovation,entrepreneurship, more productive employees, and greater ability to adaptto changes – particularly to lumps and bumps – in a volatile economy andenvironment. Furthermore, by developing appreciative intelligence inleaders, the traditional workplace can be made into a more productive andhumane environment. Top leaders show a high degree of four characteris-tics of appreciative intelligence (Thatchenkery and Metzker, 2006):

1. Ability to reframe reality to bring out the inherent generative potentialin a situation, in much the same way that the farmers of Enterprise,Alabama, saw the devastation caused by the cotton-eating boll weevilinsect as an opportunity to diversify their agriculture.

2. Capacity to appreciate people – to see and expose the hidden value inothers, as did Estee Lauder who saw a shoeless woman who entered anupscale store as a potential good customer, and ended up selling twoof each product to her and more to her relatives the next day.

3. Irrepressible resilience – the ability to bounce back from a difficult situ-ation, as did Dell, Inc., with Michael Dell leading the company fromits year 2000 drop in performance, market capitalization, and share-holder base back to a $90 billion capitalization, improved perform-ance, and return to stable long-term shareholder base today.

4. Ability to build an infrastructure/environment/culture/system thatspreads the leader’s appreciative intelligence to others and helps appre-ciation perpetuate, as did Tupperware’s marketing genius BrownieWise who made Tupperware a household name as she inspired thou-sands of company representatives to successful careers.

While some individuals possess a high degree of appreciative intelligencenaturally, others can learn, develop, and enhance their skills for greatereffectiveness by identifying their own areas of appreciative intelligence andexpanding them. By working from the conscious practice of reframing andappreciating, leaders can move to a position of unconscious competencein reframing, appreciating, and creating a self-perpetuating appreciativeculture.


4. How to ASK

Green Capital Bank was a well-known financial institution that integratedan approach to knowledge management called Appreciative Sharing ofKnowledge in an attempt to create a culture of true knowledge sharing thatwould positively impact the bottom line. The question that most organiz-ations have is how to help and foster these quick knowledge exchanges.How can they define the benefits? The integral components of a knowledgemanagement program include:

● Generating new knowledge both internally and by accessing valuableknowledge from outside sources.

● Representing knowledge in documents, databases, and software.● Facilitating knowledge growth through culture and incentives.● Transferring existing knowledge into other parts of the organization.● Measuring the value of knowledge assets and impact of knowledge

management.● The creation of a new and advanced awareness of the benefits of

retaining knowledge within the organization as changes occur andpeople leave.

The ASK process, as outlined in this chapter, helps pave the way for thesecomponents. This chapter focuses on how to implement an ASK process,step by step. The chapter highlights various antecedent factors on how theASK process was initiated at the Green Capital Bank. There are severalelements of appreciation that should be kept in mind in creating an ASKprocess. The first is a corporate culture that promotes knowledge sharingand the technology that enables it. Managers can promote the value ofknowledge sharing by openly praising and rewarding employees who shareknowledge rather than hoarding it. One way to enforce knowledge sharingis to use it as an evaluation point in performance appraisals. The second isthe elimination of organizational barriers to knowledge sharing. Severaloutdated business processes, organizational structures, and inefficient man-agement systems can create territorial barriers that reduce the willingnessto share knowledge. And third is the desire on the part of the leader toembrace a ‘positive approach’ to planning and management rather thanmerely a problem solving approach.

49

However, as evidenced from previous chapters, the key ingredient forAppreciative Sharing of Knowledge is the climate. Does the organizationsupport sharing? Do people feel they have to hoard their knowledge inorder to survive? What has been the history of knowledge managementprojects in the organization? Responses to these questions play a keyrole in deciding when and how you would introduce ASK in an organiz-ation. Figure 4.1 depicts the process that we will take you through in thischapter.

As in any organizational change technique, we begin ASK by focusingon the current state or ‘what is’. Steps 1, 2, and 3 will help the practitioneror change agent to discover the appreciative temperature of their organ-ization with a series of questions asked in a facilitated session with inter-views. The focus will be on capturing what has worked so far in theorganization and to extract the core processes supporting knowledgesharing. During these steps a set of key themes or ‘knowledge enablers’(KEs) will emerge throughout several of the stories that the participantsshare. Steps 4, 5, and 6 validate the knowledge enablers through a series ofinterviews and subsequent organizational analysis. We will also build upon


Figure 4.1 Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge steps

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them to create a set of ‘future-present scenarios’ that ‘might be’. Step 7takes that list further by expanding and prioritizing them into more man-ageable and actionable options. The resulting step 8 creates an action planto make ‘what will be’ real. Table 4.1 depicts and summarizes the steps.

DISCOVERING WHAT IS

Step 1: Negotiating Top Management Commitment and Support

The genesis of knowledge management usually begins with one person whomight have a need to shrink the gap between how knowledge is shared and

How to ASK 51

Table 4.1 ASK actions

Step Action

Step 1 Negotiating top management commitment and supportStep 2 Presenting the appreciative knowledge sharing paradigmStep 3 Identification of knowledge enablersStep 4 Expansion of knowledge enablers using appreciative interviews

designed and conducted by the ASK teamStep 5 Thematic analysis of the data to undertake a knowledge

infrastructure analysisStep 6 Constructing future-present scenariosStep 7 Consensual validation of the future-present scenariosStep 8 Creating and mandating an implementation team

Step Action

Step 1 Negotiating top management commitment and support

Step 2 Presenting the appreciative knowledge sharing paradigm

Step 3 Identification of knowledge enablers

Step 4 Expansion of knowledge enablers using appreciativeinterviews designed and conducted by the ASK team

Step 5 Thematic analysis of the data to undertake a knowledgeinfrastructure analysis

Step 6 Constructing future-present scenarios

Step 7 Consensual validation of the future-present scenarios

Step 8 Creating and mandating an implementation team

how knowledge needs to be shared. He or she realizes that the organizationcan improve its bottom line and realize a significant competitive advantagewhen people share what they know. Depending on who she or he is, andwhat he or she does with that realization, a knowledge management projectmay or may not succeed.

Like all change efforts or knowledge management projects, the influence,passion, and dedication of the sponsor correlate to the success or failure ofthe effort. Step 1 involves endorsement and support from top management.Ideally, the chief executive or someone at senior level is the champion/sponsor for it. In many real world contexts, this may not happen right atthe beginning. In such situations, all that is needed is tacit support to getthe project going. In most cases, this will lead to a more explicit supportand commitment of resources. Thanks to the appreciative format that willbe used in an ASK initiative, managers tend to see a value in the projectmuch sooner than traditional knowledge management approaches thatinvolve larger investments.

To formalize the initiation of the project, the champion can send out awritten communication explaining the significance of the initiative, theapproximate timeline, and the expectations involvement of that he orshe has of the staff. The memo may be drafted by staff but must be sentout by the executive sponsor to show leadership endorsement of theinitiative.

Step 2: Presenting the Appreciative Knowledge Sharing Paradigm

Once the sponsor has initiated the ASK initiative, it is time to involvevarious stakeholders and the knowledge workers. Grounding the employ-ees in the context of the appreciative approach is crucial. The subtletiesmust be well understood to ensure the project’s success.

Appreciation is not the power of positive thinking. It is not a ‘touchy-feely’ tool. The appreciative approach asks the participants to take a hardlook at the reality around them, but appreciatively. This does not meanignoring or neglecting what is on people’s minds. An example we have often


Step 1: process summary

People ● Champion of ASK initiative (leader within organization)● ASK team members

Outcome ● Leadership endorsement ● Written communication endorsement from sponsor to

organization (via memorandum or email)Method ● Meetings between ASK initiative team members and sponsor

used is of a crying child. Asking the child to shut up and start smiling is notappreciative. To be truly appreciative here an adult needs to empathize withthe child, acknowledge the child’s feelings, and respect his/her state of mindas genuine and a source of understanding.

We find that starting an ASK initiative with a good input of theory ofappreciation and knowledge creation is useful. There is an underestimationof corporate America’s willingness to listen to theory. Invoking KurtLewin’s notion that ‘there is nothing more practical than a good theory’,we believe that explaining the logic and philosophy of ASK would help increating the right mindset and motivation to engage in the project. This isbest accomplished by making a thorough presentation of ASK in about30 minutes to a representative sample of stakeholders in the project, prefer-ably all of the participants. In this carefully prepared presentation, varioussalient features of ASK, such as the role of language in creating reality, thedeficit versus appreciative discourses, the history of appreciation, and com-munities of practice, must be communicated briefly and effectively.

How to ASK 53

Step Action










People ● ASK initiative sponsor● First round of participants of ASK (~30 people)● ASK team members

Outcome ● Employees understand what ASK is Method ● Meeting (part 1 of 2) run by ASK team members and ASK

initiative sponsor to enable the discussion of the first round ofparticipants

Step 3: Identification of Knowledge Enablers

Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge projects normally start with a demon-stration of the power and methodology of ASK. The task is typicallyaccomplished by interviews in pairs among those who attended the pres-entation in step 2. Step 3 step subtly accomplishes three tasks at once.First, members will later get an opportunity to hear the content of theinterviews that are, by its very definition and process, appreciative know-ledge sharing stories. Second, the interviews help in identifying what arecalled ‘knowledge enablers’. Third, the process works as an ice-breakeractivity to get the ASK task started. If it is not possible to do the inter-views in pairs, the ASK team may take responsibility to do the interviewsthemselves.

Storytelling is an effective knowledge management and organizationalchange tool. Sharing a story creates the space for the client to imagine whatmight be in their organization. By listening to a story one can ‘get in theminds of individuals who collectively make up the organization and [affect]how they think, worry, wonder, agonize, and dream about themselves andin the process create and recreate their organization’. The storyteller sharesstories of events that are already working well in the organization. Thiscreates a framework to generate more ideas of what else could easily workwell in the organization.

The following sample interview questions for Appreciative Sharing ofKnowledge help begin the process of understanding the best of what ishappening in the organization to plant the seeds for what needs to be.The interviewer starts by asking the interviewee (or his/her partner) a few


Step Action









questions in order to get a sense of how knowledge sharing has beenworking in the organization. The interviewee (or partner) is then asked toanswer his or her choice of the following questions:

Sample questions1. Think about a time when you shared something that you knew, which

enabled you and your company to achieve success. Describe one suchevent when you felt most alive, excited, valued, or appreciated.

Follow-up questions

a) What made it a significant positive experience? Or, What is it aboutthe experience that you continue to cherish?

b) What did you learn from that experience?c) How can you apply your learning to your daily activities?

2. Name an event where one of your colleagues did something exemplaryrecently (outstanding/highly successful) with respect to knowledgesharing. What did s/he do?

Follow-up questions

a) What did you admire in her/him? b) How has that (what s/he did) contributed to the success of the

organization? c) Can this learning be extended to others? How?

3. What are your images for the future of this organization with respect toknowledge sharing? What would you like to contribute to make thathappen?

The interviewer always prompts for a full description of incidents. He orshe should steer the interview to hear more about what happened ratherthan why it happened. Doing so will help identify the core elements of thestory. Each interview takes approximately 30–45 minutes. Once the inter-views are over, the facilitator will ask the participants to share the storiesthey heard from their partners. As they do this public sharing, it is import-ant not to ask any justifying questions to those sharing. Whatever is sharedis accepted. The one exception is clarifying questions, which can and shouldbe asked.

As these stories are shared, the ASK team members capture maindescriptors on a white board. While capturing, it is important not to spend

How to ASK 55

too much time in wordsmithing. The words that stand out from a story aregiven a name and listed on the whiteboard. These descriptors generate thedozens of first cut of themes. With the help of the audience, the facilitatorwill analyze them and narrow them down to four to five. In the ASK ini-tiative, these four or five key values/themes are called knowledge enablers.They are the building blocks of knowledge sharing within the organization.

To give you an example of a knowledge enabler, listed below is one setthat we obtained. We show more examples in the subsequent chapters thatinclude case studies.

1. Collegiality.2. Teamwork.3. Valuing autonomy.4. Opportunity for personal growth.5. Participation.

CREATING WHAT MIGHT BE

Step 4: Expansion of Knowledge Enablers Using Appreciative InterviewsDesigned and Conducted by the ASK Team

Once the knowledge enablers are identified, your task is to explorethe knowledge infrastructure factors that facilitate the existence andcontinuance of the knowledge enablers. Using the above example, explorethose factors in the organization that sustain and nourish collegiality,teamwork, valuing autonomy, participation, and opportunity for per-sonal growth. You find this out using the appreciative interview. Ideally,these one-on-one interviewees should be people who were not part ofstep 3.



People ● ASK initiative sponsor● First round of participants of ASK (~30 people)● ASK team members

Outcome ● Employees have conducted their first round of ASK interviews● Employees have begun identifying knowledge enablers

Method ● Meeting (part 2 of 2) facilitated by ASK team members ● Break out teams of two, each employee interviews a colleague

using ASK interview questions● Each employee reports to the larger group and key themes are

captured on the white board by ASK team members

The sample appreciative interview format is outlined below:

1. Introduction

a) Explain the purpose of the interview. Assure confidentiality ofresponses.

How to ASK 57

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b) Establish rapport. Make sure the interviewee feels comfortable andeasy with the interview. Emphasize the fact that there are no right orwrong answers.

2. Priming/context setting questions

a) Tell me something about what attracted you to this organization.How did you start out? What were your initial excitements andimpressions?

3. Exploring knowledge enablers. Example: Collegiality

a) Several people in your organization have identified colle-giality as a knowledge enabler. Can you tell me something moreabout it?

b) Can you describe two incidents where you found collegiality at itsbest? Or, When have you experienced a significant level of colle-giality in this organization?

c) What are the factors or conditions that facilitate the existence ofcollegiality here?

4. The same process is used for the remaining knowledge enablers. Example:teamwork:

a) Several people in your organization have identified teamwork as aknowledge enabler. Can you tell me something more about it?

b) Can you describe two incidents where you found teamwork at itsbest? Or, When have you experienced a significant level of teamworkin this organization?

c) What are the factors or conditions that facilitate the existence ofteamwork here?

Follow the same pattern with the rest of the knowledge enablers. It is criti-cal to explore at least the following two aspects with respect to each knowl-edge enabler.

1. Description of occasions/events where the interviewee experienced theknowledge enabler in its most alive manifestation.

2. Factors/conditions (personal, organizational, and/or environmental)that heighten/facilitate/promote these knowledge enablers.


Step 5: Thematic Analysis of the Data Using Knowledge InfrastructureFactors

Once the KE factors have been identified and further explored, the remain-ing task is to enhance the operation of those factors within the system.Some would say this is the hardest part of the process.

In chapter 3 we discussed the Pygmalion (also called Galatea orRosenthal) effect. In the knowledge sharing context, the knowledgeenablers are like Galatea, highly desirable and so attractive that peopledesire to bring them to life or to see more of them in practice in theirwork settings. Further, once the knowledge enablers have been correctlyidentified, building on them is possible by helping individuals imagine theideal future as if it has already happened. The next step is to analyze theinterview data to get a sense of the knowledge infrastructure factors(KIFs). Knowledge infrastructure is the backbone of any knowledgeenabler. Without this infrastructure, knowledge enabler cannot sustainthemselves for long.

How to ASK 59


People ● Second round of participants of ASK (~30 people)● ASK team members

Outcome ● ASK team members have validated and explored knowledgeenablers

Method ● ASK team members interview 30 employees individually

Step Action









KIFs may be thought of metaphorically as the pillars that supportan architectural structure (Thatchenkery, 2005) (Figure 4.2). If removedor damaged the building may collapse. Yet, when looking at an architecturalmarvel, we do not necessarily think of the pillars, or may not even be awareof their existence: the pillars don’t command attention nor are they veryvisible in a casual external appearance, yet they are critical for the very exis-tence of the building. The knowledge infrastructure factors work in similarways. Without them, the knowledge enablers cannot exist. Unlike knowl-edge enablers, they are the same for every organization. Based on a reviewof knowledge management research literature, the following knowledgeinfrastructure factors have been identified (Thatchenkery, 2005). They aredecision making, organizational practices and routines, incentives forknowledge sharing, leadership, and communication.


Figure 4.2 Knowledge enablers and knowledge infrastructure factors

Decisionmaking

Knowledgeenablers

(e.g., collegiality,participation)

Organ-izational

routines &practices

Leadership

Incentivesfor knowledge

sharing

Communi-cation

Decision making As a knowledge infrastructure factor, decision making refers to the relativelypermanent and institutionally legitimized way decisions are made in anorganization. Over a period of time, based on historicity and norms, organ-izations tend to develop a pattern of decision making which is transmittedfrom old timers to newcomers through socialization processes. Examples areparticipatory, consensus based, or autocratic decision making styles.

Organizations will have certain decision making styles irrespective ofwhatever knowledge enablers they may have. For example, faculty in a par-ticular university may identify freedom of expression as a knowledgeenabler (Thatchenkery, 2005). They find freedom of expression as core toknowledge sharing. In a nonprofit development-oriented organization,empowering others may be a knowledge enabler. In both organizations,decision making is a knowledge infrastructure factor. If decisions are madeautocratically, it will certainly affect freedom of expression among facultymembers or the empowering of others in the nonprofit organization.

A significant body of research exists to suggest that participatory orconsensus-based decision making styles tend to foster collaborative behav-ior in organizations. It is safe to assume that collaborative behaviors aremore likely to lead to knowledge sharing than competitive practices. In thelatter, individuals may have a vested interest in protecting or hoarding theirknowledge.

Organizational practices and routinesOrganizational practices refer to routines, procedures, and established waysof doing things that have become normal like a habit (Thatchenkery, 2005).They tend to be repeated with certain periodicity such that organizationalparticipants would come to anticipate the occurrence of those routines orprocedures at the prescribed time and place. All organizations have routinesand practices. A Monday morning meeting every week, having a custom-ary welcome party for a new employee, letting every employee, irrespectiveof rank, meet with the President if the employee desires, and so on, areexamples of organizational practices.

In several highly functioning knowledge sharing organizations, anotherorganizational practice called communities of practice (CoPs) has been inexistence as well, where people share their knowledge informally andvoluntarily. A CoP, as used in knowledge sharing, is spontaneously and vol-untarily organized by those interested in enhancing their knowledge andnetworking, potentially around a certain subject or profession. Typically,individuals will gather around for 40 minutes and share their wealth ofknowledge and at the same time learn new practices and procedures fromthose who share.

How to ASK 61

Recent organizational research suggests that organizational routines canhave either facilitative or inhibitive influences on organizational innovation(Thatchenkery, 2005). For example, a practice of having to send every newidea for approval to a chain of hierarchy is most likely to inhibit innovation.On the other hand, a different practice where a group that comes up with anew idea is also given responsibility to bring it to production stage may bemore effective in encouraging creative solutions. When an engineer inHewlett-Packard refers to the ‘HP way’ he or she is actually referring to itsinstitutionalized practice and routines. HP insiders know what to do whena new idea emerges in their unit. It will be a predictable series of actionsand follow-ups, even though they may be unaware that they are reacting ina routine-like manner. Certain organizational practices like the CoPs men-tioned above have been shown to be highly facilitative for knowledgesharing in a large number of researches. Other evidence points to the longterm advantages of productive organizational routines. Once established,they are relatively easy to maintain, thereby freeing up valuable organiz-ational energy for more proactive strategies and actions.

It is important to recognize that habits, routines, and norms can be a lia-bility or asset. Once solidified with time, habits and routines, whether pro-ductive or non-productive, tend to become comfortable. In that context, theASK process gives a unique opportunity for stakeholders to examinewhether the routines are facilitating or inhibiting knowledge enabling. Ifthey are inhibiting, the future-present scenarios (FPS) that will be intro-duced later in the book will be a pragmatic way to address the situation(Thatchenkery, 2005). Incentives, leadership, and communication arethe remaining knowledge infrastructure factors. Together with decisionmaking and organizational practices and routines, they constitute thesupport structure that not only maintains the knowledge enablers but alsoenhances them when used as key elements of the FPS construction process(which will be explained later in this chapter).

Incentives for knowledge sharing The organizational practices and routines eventually shape the type ofincentives for knowledge sharing. It has frequently been observed thatsome practices and routines act as incentives for knowledge sharing whileothers do the opposite. Incentives as a knowledge infrastructure factor arebenefits, material and psychological rewards that the organization has insti-tutionalized to encourage knowledge sharing. A key question is: Whatincentives are in place to recognize individuals who share knowledge? Allorganizations have some form of incentive that may or may not encourageknowledge sharing.

The impact of incentives on organizational performance has been thor-


oughly researched and documented. Available evidence suggests that bothmaterial and psychological incentives play a key role in employee moraleand satisfaction. In some cases, financial incentives cease to have an impactand more intangible ones like status, challenge, autonomy, and recognitionbecome more important. As a KIF, most incentives are likely to be psy-chological rather than material or financial.

LeadershipIt should not be a surprise that leadership is a KIF. Leadership is a criticalpillar for all organizations. Some leadership styles support knowledgeenablers better than others. Identifying those that are significant to thegroup or organization, as noted earlier, is of critical importance. As onewould imagine, leadership is one of the most researched concepts in man-agement. Voluminous amounts of empirical data and anecdotal evidenceare readily available to demonstrate the role of leadership in creating excel-lence in organizations. In the case of ASK, the support provided by lead-ership appears to contribute to the legitimacy and acceptance of theprocess. Such an observation is of course consistent with traditional changemanagement literature where it has been shown again and again that topmanagement support is critical for change efforts to succeed.

Organizational practices and leadership impact each other. Certain prac-tices, such as the presence of distributed, self-autonomous groups, arelikely to encourage the emergence of participative leadership styles. Or,the participative leadership style may encourage the creation of self-autonomous groups. While it is not necessary or even possible to determinewhat comes first, recognition of the mutual causality or interdependencebetween the two is useful in creating action steps for the future.

CommunicationLike leadership, communication is a KIF. The quality and style of com-munication that support knowledge sharing are the focus here. Also justlike leadership, communication as a concept has been solidly researchedand shown to directly influence the quality of organizational outcomes.

Some communication styles enhance knowledge sharing while otherscurtail it. Research strongly supports what is ‘common knowledge’ to manyorganizational development practitioners: an open communication stylewhere employees are able to talk to each other without regard to hierarch-ical status tends to create a more knowledge sharing climate. Organizationswith set rules about channels of communication and strict protocolsregarding who can talk to whom tend to generate a climate where peopleare more likely not to take the time or risk of sharing.

As in the case of leadership, organizational practices and routines impact

How to ASK 63

communication styles as well. For example, the larger the number of self-autonomous groups in an organization, the larger the probability of hori-zontal channels of communication flourishing.

Interdependency of KIFs and KEsIt is important to recognize that the above KIFs are intermingled and inter-dependent (Thatchenkery, 2005). From a constructionist perspective, alllabeling (naming) is socially constituted, serving the purpose of aiding thesense making process. This interdependence suggests that one KIF cannotexist without the support and existence of the other; each promotes theexistence of the other; making sense cannot happen without the existence ofthe other. Yet, as in many identifying processes, treating them as if they are‘independent’ makes the data easier to analyze and understand. Further, thepossibility of designing proposition statements (which will be explainedlater) is easier through recognizing that interactivity between the actionable,independent KIF and KE is vital to productive knowledge sharing.

Building a KE–KIF matrixOrganize the interview responses obtained in step 2 in a large matrix. Onone axis of the matrix is listed the knowledge enablers and on the other theinfrastructure factors. The cells in the matrix will contain examples of theKE and KIF they represent (Table 4.2).

Step 6: Constructing Future-Present Scenario Statements

The term ‘future-present’ may seem like a paradox. A future-present sce-nario statement is a concrete description with rich details of a futuredesired state happening in the present reality. The future has come to thepresent; this has also been called ‘anticipatory reality statements’. A future-present scenario statement bridges the best of ‘what is’ with one’s ownimage or anticipation of ‘what might be’.

Sports psychology has used the practice of imagining a concrete, some-times immediately realizable, future scenario for a long time. Many runners



People ● ASK team membersOutcome ● Thematic analysis of knowledge enablers Method ● ASK team members transcribe interview notes and analyze

themes as a group● ASK team members organize data across knowledge

infrastructure factors

imagine themselves reaching the finish line. Sometimes called ‘visualiz-ation’ exercises, the logic of such practices is now fully supported byresearch evidence in cognitive psychology (Oschner and Lieberman, 2001).

Using future-present scenarios during the ASK process helps stakehold-ers in an organization think of the future as if it is already present andthey therefore may get a better sense of what it feels to live that future.Constructing these scenarios is challenging because it stretches the realmof the status quo and helps suggest real possibilities that represent poten-tials for knowledge sharing in the organization. A future-present scenarioreleases energy to make visions a reality (Thatchenkery, 2005).

The key is in the richness of the details. The more details about a future-present scenario one can create, the more concrete the statements become

How to ASK 65

Table 4.2 Knowledge enablers

Empowerment Teamwork Respect BuildingRelationships

Knowledge InfrastructureDecision Examples Examples Examples ExamplesMaking of decision of decision of decision of decision

making styles making styles making styles making stylesthat enhance that enhance that enhance that enhanceempowerment teamwork respect building

relationships

Leadership Examples of Examples of Examples of Examples ofleadership leadership leadership leadership stylesstyles that styles that styles that that enhanceenhance enhance enhance buildingempowerment teamwork respect relationships

Communities Examples of Examples of Examples of Examples ofof Practice & CoPs & OPs CoPs & OPs CoPs & OPs CoPs & OPsOrganizational that facilitate that facilitate that facilitate that facilitatePractices empowerment teamwork respect building

relationships

Incentives Examples of Examples of Examples of Examples ofincentive incentive incentive incentivesystems that systems that systems that systems thatfacilitate facilitate facilitate respect facilitateempowerment teamwork building

relationships

Communication Examples of Examples of Examples of Examples ofcommunication communication communication communicationthat facilitates that facilitates that facilitates that facilitatesempowerment teamwork respect building

relationships

after the writing process. The future-present scenario statements willconsist mostly of what is possible as opposed to what is not. There will beno deficit terms in an FPS. Cognitive psychologists have shown that deficitconstructs tend to create a deficit or fragmented reality. In creating an FPS,the stakeholder’s mind becomes populated by details of a new reality. Oftenwithout being consciously aware, the person then engages in behaviors thatare likely to produce more or less the same reality that existed in theirthoughts.

In the case of ASK, a future-present scenario helps suggest real possi-bilities for knowledge sharing in the organization and helps heighten atten-tion to such possibilities, making it more likely that such potential willbecome reality.

At the same time, it is important to remember that the future-presentscenarios must be data supported. That is, the matrix of KIFs and KEs isthe launching pad for the future-present scenario. Someone cannot justmake up a future-present scenario because he or she likes it, wishes it tohappen, or thinks that is what the organization needs.

One of the features that distinguishes ASK is that the methodologyforces the future to be embedded in the meaningful aspects of the present.One way to structure this process is to use the CIG model (commitment,inspiration, and groundedness). Three elements interact in creating afuture-present scenario statement in the model (see Figure 4.3).

The CIG model is based on the synthesis of several theories of manag-ing change (e.g., Lewin, 1951/1997; McGregor, 1960; Herzberg et al., 1959;Rogers, 1980/1995; and Argyris, 1993). They argue that certain elementsneed to be in place so that individuals, groups, or organizations can change.


Step Action









For example, psychotherapists have long observed that individuals changewhen their desire change (inspiration) is synergistically combined with con-crete ‘baby steps’ (groundedness), and a plan to stay on course (commit-ment). If the change is too dramatic, or the expectations unrealistic, thecommitment to sustain the change will eventually vanish.

The same can be said of groups and organizations. Change agents mustlearn the art of creating enough energy and desire for change and ground-ing the desired new behaviors, practices, or structures into somethingspecific, measurable, and concrete. Above all, they need to think in the longterm, that is, How long can these changes be sustained? Is there enoughcommitment on the part of the stakeholders to go through with the changeprocess?

Commitment, inspiration, and groundedness are thus elements that mustbe present in a healthy future-present scenario (Thatchenkery, 2005).Without commitment, the new possibility will not materialize. It will be easyfor participants in such a scenario building activity to come up withprovocative or daring possibilities, but as a consultant you may want to ask:Do the data so far show evidence for a long term commitment for makingthis scenario possible?

How to ASK 67

Figure 4.3 Interacting elements of future-present scenarios

Commitment

Inspiration Groundedness

FPS

Future-present scenarios

The second element in the model, inspiration, is the driver that providesthe energy for people to carry out the new possibility. And finally, thefuture-present scenario must be realistic and plausible (groundedness). If itis too far-fetched, looking too radical or beyond the capabilities of theorganization, not many will have the energy to make it happen. This is afine line and calls for certain judgment, both on the part of the participantsand the consultant. Overall, a future-present scenario constructed using thethree elements of commitment, inspiration, and groundedness is morelikely to become a reality.

Future-present scenario statements contain three elements: inspiration,commitment, and groundedness. To realize future-present scenarios in aknowledge sharing corporation, we need to link the future-present sce-narios with the knowledge enablers and knowledge infrastructure factorsas seen in the matrix below (Table 4.3). The future-present scenarios are thekey to making existing parts of the knowledge sharing culture grow andthrive in the organization of tomorrow.

To come up with ideas for the future-present scenarios, consider thefollowing:

1. Locate significant examples of each KE, the best of ‘what is’ from yourstep 2 matrix.

2. Analyze/interpret how and what kinds of KIF positively increase orsupport each KE.

3. Extrapolate from the ‘best of what is’ to envision what is possible. Beimaginative and inspiring. Let the resulting creativity envision a col-lectively desirable future for the organization.

4. Construct a future-present scenario statement of what is possible andstate it in affirmative language as if the scenario were already true andhappening fully in the present.

Developing future-present scenariosTo write the future-present scenarios, certain criteria, as noted below, areinvolved:

● Write it as if it is already happening. Use the present tense.● Be specific. State the activity, skill, or practice you propose to create

the new reality.● Examine how you feel about living in the new vision and reality.● Keep the inspiration–commitment–groundedness model in mind.

After the future-present scenario statement has been written, considerwhether it accommodates the following:


1. Is the statement really challenging or merely a restatement of some-thing already in practice?

2. Is it specific, concrete, and tangible, as opposed to something verygeneral and abstract?

3. Does it inspire you, the participant? 4. Does it stay grounded and connected to the knowledge enabler and the

knowledge infrastructure factor under consideration?

It is important to remember that different organizations will createdifferent possibilities based on their own style, culture, preferences, and

How to ASK 69

Table 4.3 Matrix for constructing future-present scenario statements

Empowerment Teamwork Respect BuildingRelationships

Decision Propositions Propositions Propositions PropositionsMaking related to related to related to related to

decision making decision making decision making decision makingstyles that styles that styles that styles thatenhance enhance enhance enhanceempowerment teamwork respect building

relationships

Leadership Propositions Propositions Propositions Propositionsrelated to related to related to related toleadership styles leadership styles leadership styles leadership stylesthat enhance that enhance that enhance that enhanceempowerment teamwork respect building

relationships

Communities Propositions Propositions Propositions Propositionsof Practice & related to CoP related to CoP related to CoP related to CoPOrganizational that enhance that enhance that enhance that enhancePractices empowerment teamwork respect building

relationships

Incentives Propositions Propositions Propositions Propositionsrelated to related to related to related toincentive incentive incentive incentivesystems systems systems systemsthat enhance that enhance that enhance that enhanceempowerment teamwork respect building

relationships

Communication Propositions Propositions Propositions Propositionsrelated to related to related to related tocommunication communication communication communicationthat enhance that enhance that enhance that enhanceempowerment teamwork respect building

relationships

so on. Even the amount of detail or how specific the statements are willvary across different organizations: as long as the organization meets thecriteria – inspired, committed, and grounded and the possibilities stretchthe current reality, accept whatever future-present scenarios are created.Additionally, accept as many as the group feels it is important to add. Thegreater the participation in this step (as with every other), the greaterthe success of your ASK initiative and future knowledge sharing within theorganization. Examples of these provocative propositions can be found inthe subsequent case study chapters.

PRIORITIZING WHAT COULD BE



People ● ASK team members and/or employees of the organization Outcome ● ASK team members and/or employees of the organization

have created future-present scenario statementsMethod ● ASK team members and/or employees of the organization pull

from interview data to create future-present scenario statements

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Step 7: Consensual Validation of Future-Present Scenario Statements

Once the propositions have been written, check them again against the cri-teria listed in the previous section. Ask different groups to visit others andcomment on each others’ statements a reach a revised set of propositions.Once this has been done, ask everyone in the group/audience to valencethem using the following three questions:

How much of an ideal is it?

5 4 3 2 1

VERY MUCH NOT MUCH

How much of it may already be present?

5 4 3 2 1

A LOT NOT MUCH

Realistically, how soon do you want this to happen?

Immediately Short Term Long Term(within six months) (within two years)

Once the valencing has been done, tabulate the scores. Look for propo-sitions with the maximum discrepancy between the ideal and the presentand needing immediate implementation. At the end, you should have all thepropositions prioritized through a set of criteria that are important to theorganization.

How to ASK 71

Step Action









DECLARING WHAT WILL BE

Step 8: Creating and Mandating an Implementation Team

This is the most important step in ASK. Several organizations have doneexcellent work from step 1 through 7 but have hesitated at step 8. We arebeginning to realize that part of the reason for this is that in those cases thefuture-present statements were not written keeping in mind the criteria



People ● ASK initiative sponsor● All ASK participants● ASK team members

Outcome ● The organization has upgraded and validated thefuture-present scenarios

● The organization has ranked the future-present scenariosMethod ● ASK team members present future-present scenarios,

receive upgrades and validations● The organization ranks the propositions based on three criteria

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listed earlier. It is relatively easy to come up with exciting possibilities, butimplementing them is where the hard work really begins. To avoid this trap,you must make sure that the propositions in the high priority list are thosefor which a true desire for implementation exists. You may work with theclient in setting up the implementation team and do periodic follow-ups onhow the process is working. This team would be in charge of prioritizingand implementing the highest priority possibility propositions and makingthem a reality. A contract that includes an implementation phase would beideal in this context.

In the following chapters we will explore several cases of how thismethod has been applied in organizations and the results that have beenachieved.

How to ASK 73

Step Action










People ● ASK initiative sponsor● All ASK participants● ASK team members

Outcome ● The highest ranked future-present scenarios have an action planand owner for each task

Method ● Implementation owners design and present an action plan forsuccessful implementation

5. Private sector case studies

Many private industries keep their competitive edge by maintaining aculture of innovation by trying to be the first to come up with new ideas andproducts. In such contexts, organizational silos and incentives traditionallyprohibit knowledge sharing. We believe that the appreciative approach helpsremove these barriers and pave the way for cross-organizational fertilizationand a cycle of innovation. In this chapter we include two case studies – anenvironmental information technology company (ITC, a fictitious name)and a well known top ranked bank (Green Capital Bank (GCB), also afictitious name). In the ITC study, we provide a sample of the setting andthemes produced. In the GCB case, we provide a step-by-step example ofhow to conduct an ASK initiative.

ITC

A group of experienced students with change management backgroundsformed into a consulting team and studied ITC’s corporate environment forknowledge sharing. The recently appointed Chief Knowledge Officer(CKO) wanted to use the initiative to set the foundation for a knowledgemanagement program that she hoped to create. Another objective was tofind out ‘who knows what’ and to learn if ITC’s infrastructure could sustaincontinued growth and support new clients.

During the time of the study, ITC was a 10-year-old employee-owned,environmental and consulting firm serving 15 federal agencies and severalstate, local, and international governments, as well as 10 private industryclients and associations. ITC was headquartered in Arlington, Virginiawith other offices in Washington DC, Research Triangle Park, NC, andremote locations across the United States. It had sales of nearly $30 millionannually.

With approximately 300 employees, ITC was preparing to grow to 500employees. Accessing and sharing the knowledge of each and everyemployee was crucial to its success and further growth. Sharing infor-mation, keeping it current, and becoming aware of what other members ofthe organization were thinking about and doing were necessary to improvethe bottom line of the company. ITC was working to increase knowledge

74

sharing – both internally, to ensure that its infrastructure would sustain andencourage growth, and externally, to continually support and increase itsnumber of clients – in order to continue the success of the previous tenyears.

ITC had a corporate environment set up for knowledge sharing. Theorganizational structure was relatively flat and had few layers. ITC wasmade up of three business centers and under the centers were six clusters.Those clusters had several practice areas, which were led by Practice AreaLeaders (PALs). The practice areas were organized by core competenciesand driven by client needs. They were very fluid and organized by matrix.WAMs (Work Assignment Managers) helped lead the practice areas belowthe level of PAL. Employee roles were diverse and flexible within thematrix, such that a PAL or Assistant WAM for one practice area could con-currently hold the role of worker in another practice area. Additionally,roles continually changed as projects and client needs changed over time.

ITC’s basic work unit was the team. Teams were normally formedaround one contract or one aspect of a contract. Most employees were onmore than one team.

Most companies’ core competencies are based on the technical knowl-edge and experience that they possess. While ITC had these competencies,its true core competencies – what separated it from its competitors –appeared to be some of the more intangible elements of the firm. Theseincluded enthusiastic employees, dedication to the customer, and the abilityto work in a collaborative, team environment. Furthermore, ITC’s strongculture worked to ensure that these competencies remained effective and acentral part of its work.

Going for the Gold

Our first introduction to this organization was its fall ‘open house’. Thetheme was ‘Go for the Gold’, with reference to the Summer Olympics whichwere taking place at the time. This was a great experience for us because itgave us some context for the ITC culture. An organization’s work environ-ment says a lot about its culture. Organizations with open spaces andshared displays tend to be very collaborative. Organizations with picturesof family events such as new babies tend to embrace events in their employ-ees’ lives. In ITC’s case the open work environment and Olympic mem-orabilia around the office paved the way for fun and collaboration. We sawknowledge booths scattered around ITC’s work area, spaces that werespecifically designed with low cubicles for open communication.

The atmosphere was extremely informal, with food and beveragesfloating around. We felt comfortable at the open house because friends and

Private sector case studies 75

family were such integral components of the event. We could see that ITCplaces great value on the community of which it is a part. As the open housewound to a close, everyone gathered for an awards ceremony, where manyindividuals and teams received recognition for their contributions to ITC’ssuccess.

Quintessential Stories

Our team discussed the frequency of certain stories in our interviews. Thefollowing narratives, which we began to refer to as ‘quintessential stories’,appeared in various interviews across the team:

● Gary (fictional name) created a developer’s portal for the internet team. Hehad been an analyst and he started analyzing pages, grouped and linkedwhite papers on new technologies, and built a portal. He started tellingpeople in the company and they’d look at it. And they’d send him stuff toadd to it. It has a database you can use to search proposals; it has tools forcutting graphics, web sites are categorized, and it has statistics. What startedout as a personal interest became a valuable knowledge managementcompany tool.

This story was frequently shared, making it a quasi-‘legend’, and showedemployees that individual initiatives were recognized and valued by thecompany.

● My colleague and I were meeting in an ITC conference room, and we couldhear through the wall a conversation that a client was having with an ITCPractice Area Leader. This unintentional eavesdropping became intentional.So, we pulled the PAL out of the room and took the PAL to another con-ference room. We told the PAL that we heard what the PAL and the clientwere talking about, and shared our knowledge that was relevant to theclient’s issues. This informal sharing of knowledge resulted in a productiveoutcome for ITC as well as the client. Our decisions, based on that informalknowledge sharing, were validated by positive feedback from the client.

This story enforces the informal, organic interactions that help the organ-ization thrive.

● Corporate gatherings are both formal and informal. One year they made thecorporate gathering like a game show. They asked questions like, ‘What arethe reasons you could be disbarred as a government contractor?’ The winnergot a gift certificate for the Best Buy electronics stores. The annual meetingthis year was off site – in the AMC movie theater. We saw a movie afterward –families were invited. It was also a formal meeting – treasurer’s report andstock report and the president gave the state-of-the company presentation.


This helps build the notion that fun is built into work.

● When the ‘Green Team’ cleaned up a section of highway for the Adopt-a-Highway program, the president provided money to buy plants for the areaunder the highway sign that let people know ITC adopted this section. Whatwas neat about this project was that it was about giving back to the commu-nity, some people used part of their eight hours of paid volunteer time forit, and we got to know each other better – those relationships provide a foun-dation for working with people. Through our informal conversation, we alsolearned what each other does.

This story helped capture the sense of community that pervaded theorganization.

The founders of the company mindfully created a norm that emphasizesinformal meetings, focusing on some group activity and often involvingeating and discussion. We noticed this at our very first visit when weobserved the annual ‘Open House’, which was really a ‘knowledge fair’.The visible focus was on having fun, but the real purpose was to shareknowledge among the employees about what their colleagues were doingfor other customers and thus keep everyone informed about the firm’sprogress and health.

Another knowledge sharing norm that we saw in abundance from theshared stories (in round 1 and 2 interviews) was face-to-face meetings andinformal meetings. This included eating lunch together (as planned ‘brownbag lunches’ for educational purposes and as unplanned get-togetherswhen WAMs ate lunch with practice area workers and ended up talkingabout work issues) and after-work discussions at local restaurants and bars.It was these norms that led to a social structure that involved a significantdegree of trust within teams. The founders of ITC purposefully createdproximity and a sense of interconnectedness and closeness that led to afeeling of belonging and trust.

The result was increased trust, which enabled increased knowledgesharing. We developed a number of our possibility propositions aroundways to improve trust or take it to a new level as a way of encouragingincreased knowledge sharing. One interview participant remarked that thePresident was Italian and she liked the metaphor of an Italian dinner table,with a lengthy meal, good food, wine, and extensive conversation as a wayto foster inclusion and trust.

Transferring Best Practices

During the course of our Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge consultingengagement at ITC it became apparent that the employees possessed a large


inventory of ‘best practices’. These ranged from how to approach potentialclients, to how to secure a competitive advantage in follow-on contracts.ITC had a strong culture of knowledge sharing and a solid technologicalinfrastructure that could be brought to bear. But merely knowing that afirm has potential knowledge to share will not be enough to ensure that itgets shared or used by others. As a possibility proposition, we suggested aprocess of making the transfer of these best practices more pervasive asstories shared in their meetings and on their intranet and a more formalpart of their processes.

Team Learning, Team Building

Teams – such as the volunteer Green Team that cleans up highway trash andencourages recycling in the office building, and the Internet Team which is acommunity of practice which helps participants to learn about software suchas Dreamweaver and xml in order to build better web sites for clients – are amajor part of ITC. Teams and team spirit are a significant source of its vital-ity and a key enabler for knowledge sharing throughout the company.

Applying these ideas to ITC, a web developer described a story in whicha manager and a Software Team learned to work together. ‘There was a newmanager who had been doing independent consulting. As she got used toworking with people she became very fair. The whole team became focusedand was willing to go the extra mile.’ Similarly, the Internet Team had amanager who had some new ideas and a vision for the team. Together, theteam built a new and innovative, award-winning web site for a client.

Team building activities can be focused on an individual level, on thegroup’s operation and behavior, or on the group’s relationship to the largerorganization. Stretching the company’s teamwork and current brown baglunches, we suggested that there be a periodic ‘brown bag’ lunch focusingon facilitation and other team building activities.

Team effectiveness and knowledge sharing can also be improved whenthe concepts of ‘team learning’ are applied. Team learning is a way to main-tain a focus on a team’s collective potential. The idea is to focus on theeffectiveness of the entire team rather than to reward individual perform-ance. This was precisely what ITC did. While there was individual recog-nition, the focus was clearly on the team. For example, ‘Funny Money’ tospend on a team lunch or bowling outing was awarded to teams whoshowed great effort or outcomes. We believe that team learning techniquescould help ITC become even more effective.

Team learning, probably more challenging than team building, is based onconversations from which we draw insight and build shared understandingand, ultimately, shared vision. With developing knowledge and alignment in


mind, we expanded ITC’s current vision statement in a possibility propo-sition: ‘ITC values the sharing of strategic corporate knowledge with all cor-porate leaders. All leaders in the organization know the direction thecompany is headed and the roadmap for getting there. ITC holds annualoffsite retreats that include all PALS and WAMS.’

Using Metaphor to Explore Teamwork, Databases and EntrepreneurialSpirit

Organizational metaphors provide windows into how an organizationthinks and how its members look at what happens to the organization. Welooked at the language of the stories from round 1 and the interviews ofround 2 and applied the insights to develop possibility propositions.

During round 1 when the group shared stories, they talked about ‘links’and ‘chains’, ‘dependencies and interdependencies’ in their system. Theytalked about seeds, growth, and food. Since ITC is an environmental con-sulting firm, the language and thought about ecosystems were a naturalpossibility for a metaphor. The knowledge enablers of teamwork – coop-eration for shared survival and growth – and entrepreneurial spirit – theforce behind growth – could be seen as vital forces in an ITC ecosystem.

Using metaphors helps increase innovation and analytical thinking in theorganizational environment. It also helps serve as a communications toolthat helps employees reflect and engage with each other, therefore increas-ing team effectiveness.

ITC Group showed each of these characteristics in their discussionsduring interviews. Correspondingly:

1. Databases showed up as another knowledge enabler, and opportunitiesfor internet technologies and consulting seemed to abound.

2. Gary talked about developing an internet portal, and the InternetTeam told stories about sharing links to web sites which inspired thesites they built for customers.

3. ITC’s organizational structure was a matrix; one employee was a PALfor one project and a worker on another contract.

4. Asking a question over the walls of the cubicles to receive an answerfrom anyone who had an answer was an acceptable and standardorganizational practice.

5. Commitment, as shown by volunteering for activities such as GreenTeam environmental care outings and recruiting parties, and putting inextra unpaid hours of work to develop a database that would help theentire organization match resources for proposals, appeared in nearlyevery employee we interviewed.


Using the insights from the ecosystem metaphor to develop possibilitypropositions, we looked at the way an ecosystem would transfer theequivalent of knowledge. The way one butterfly might spread pollen tomultiple plants or a bird might carry seeds to different areas of ground, aknowledge concierge would span the various parts of the organization.Another possibility proposition addressed the expectation that eachemployee would find out an answer by asking just one person. In the waythat in an ecosystem some humans might not directly eat a bug, butinstead might eat the chicken that ate the bug, we developed the possibil-ity proposition, the Three Degrees of ITC: At ITC, we understand that aswe grow we may not be able to know what every single person does. But,we believe that like the six degrees from Kevin Bacon, we have the threedegrees of ITC. When we need to know who does what, we send anemail and ask that if they can’t answer the question they forward it tosomeone who might know the answer. We try to reach a person withinthree emails.

Enlightened Leadership

One clear implication of our analysis is that ITC has enlightened leader-ship. This is a factor that each member of our team commented upon. Thefour founders, who are also the majority owners, have maintained a visionfor ITC that stresses a corporate commitment to customer exhilaration,collaboration, and community. One of the cultural assumptions made bythe owners of ITC is that people who work for the firm don’t know every-thing they need to know. Consequently, knowledge sharing at the ITCGroup focuses on learning who knows what and on how to connect withthem. The organizational implication of this focus is that social connect-edness, social relationships, and social learning must be paramount. Thiscultural assumption forms the foundation for ITC’s successful commitmentto collaboration. The ITC ownership contends that this is one of thestronger points of their company.

The Employees Like ITC

Another implication of our analysis is that the vast majority of ITCemployees hold a positive perception of the company. Our data are richwith examples from employees who feel strongly that ITC is moving in theright direction. Our analysis of the data showed that virtually all inter-viewed employees felt a strong link to ITC commitment to environmentaland social organizational causes. Further evidence of this implication wasseen on an evening when ITC hosted the Arlington County E-Government


Symposium. This after-hours event, hosted by the ITC ownership, wasattended not only by Arlington County executives but also by about 20 ITCemployees. We saw this as evidence of employees’ commitment to ITC’ssocial and organizational causes.

Fun is an Organizational Objective

It was clear from our interviews that fun is a driving force in ITC’s corpor-ate culture. This implication became apparent and understood through theASK interviews. During our interviews with the founders and majorityowners, they indicated that when they decided to establish the firm, fun wasa core value. They wanted to start a company where they and all employ-ees could have some fun. The cultural underpinning for fun as a core valueat ITC is the fundamental social striving for intensity and depth in humanrelationships. The ITC founders see these social relationships as the keyto community building within the firm. Knowledge sharing at ITC isapproached in a fun, informal way that combines employees’ interests inwork, their care for their community and environment, and what they loveto do. The ITC Group benefits from a high level of social interaction thatcrosses a variety of internal business units at a variety of dimensional levels.In these and many other ways, the Appreciative Sharing of Knowledgemodel for gathering affirmation through interviews gave us a glimpse intothe ITC corporate soul.

ITC has the Right Culture for Knowledge Management

It was clear from the outset that ITC has all of the hallmarks that wouldenable a successful knowledge management initiative. The new ChiefKnowledge Officer’s job will be made somewhat simpler by this fact. Thefirm’s people are all professional and motivated by superordinate goals.They openly display commitment to a culture of knowledge sharing ratherthan knowledge hoarding. They are committed to a team philosophy. Wefeel that we made a significant contribution to the CKO’s understanding ofwhat enables knowledge to flow throughout the organization and predis-posed her to a humanist version of knowledge management rather than atechnical one.

The Methodology

We used the interview technique to gather data to support the knowledgesharing efforts at ITC. During round 1, employees interviewed each otherusing the following questions (one or the other):


Think about a time when you shared something that you knew, which enabledyou and ITC to achieve success. What happened? Tell us the story.

Think about a time when you learned something from someone else thatenabled you and ITC to achieve success. What happened? Tell us the story.

Likewise we used the interview technique to collect data during round 2one-to-one interviews.

Seeds of appreciative knowledge sharing usually exist in small chunks inorganizations. Often times, people need to hear the stories about how theyare happening to give them ideas of how to take the initiative within theirunit. The interview technique, along with the sharing of stories afterwards,sets up an opportunity for people to create ‘what might be’ together.

Each pair went around the room and shared the stories that their partnerexpressed as evidence of knowledge sharing. As the individuals shared thestories, we collected key words that emerged from the stories. After weheard all of the stories, a thematic analysis was done leading to theidentification of five knowledge enablers. They were: 1) informal interac-tions, 2) formal interactions, 3) team philosophy, 4) database sharing, and5) internal entrepreneurship.

These five KEs were explored and validated in a second round of indi-vidual interviews with 26 ITC employees. To validate the KEs we used thefollowing questions:

● Several people in ITC have identified informal interactions as aknowledge sharing enabler. Can you tell me something more aboutthis?

● Can you describe two incidents where you found informal inter-actions, at their best? Or, When have you experienced a significantlevel of knowledge sharing through informal interactions?

● What are the factors or conditions that make informal interactionspossible here?

Similar questions were asked for the remaining four knowledge enablers.We analyzed and coded the interview responses, leading to the creation of amatrix that balanced our five knowledge enablers (informal interactions,formal interactions, team philosophy, internal entrepreneurship, and data-base sharing) against eight organizational factors (organizational structure,problem solving, leadership, communication, incentives, organizationalpractices, community involvement, and organizational culture). The matrixprovided examples of how the organizational factors at ITC enhanced theknowledge enablers. We saw these as examples of ‘what is’ at ITC.


We further analyzed the common themes and organized the data to comeup with effective possibility propositions.1 Based on the stories that weheard repeatedly, we brainstormed for ways we could stretch what wasalready happening at ITC to what could be happening. We discussed andfinalized our possibility propositions (which we referred to as possibleaction items to synchronize with their language preference) and met withITC employees for the final round of validating the action items. Theexperience was a powerful one because of the extremely high positiveenergy that was surrounding the effort. The participants were very excitedto share their knowledge and were grateful for the opportunity to reflect onwhat they valued at ITC. In addition, our team collected ideas about ‘whatmight be’ from the round 2 interviews and built a second matrix thatreflected ‘Examples of What Might Be’.

Following the ASK model our team conducted a comprehensive analy-sis of the ITC using data from the second matrix titled, ‘Examples of WhatMight Be’. Our analysis led us to develop a thorough list of 21 possibilitypropositions, or, to use their language, possible action items. We presentedthese possibility propositions to ITC as our recommendations of ‘WhatCould Be’ at the ITC Group.

The Possibility Propositions

In summary, we based the development of these propositions on the ‘whatis’ that ITC employees reported to us during the two rounds of interviewsand on the subsequent analysis and generation of ‘what might be’ at ITC.We overlaid our analysis on the model of continuance, transition, andnovelty. We designed possibility propositions for ITC that would help con-tinue that which was good, to transition to something that might be better,and to stretch provocatively into new, uncharted corporate directions.

Below is that list of our provocative possibility propositions that reflectthe best of ‘What Could Be’ at ITC. These 21 specific recommendationswere derived from our data analysis and were selected because they werepragmatic and fit within the existing culture and processes at ITC. Theyform the core of our recommendations to the company.

● Banners. Knowledge sharing is how we get things done at ITC. Thisincludes an active transfer of knowledge to others and being recep-tive to new knowledge. We are also aware that knowledge sharing canoccur anytime and anywhere. We decorate our office space in waysthat convey ideas about what we do. We have large, brightly coloredbanners that say things like ‘Have you shared some knowledgetoday?’ and ‘Have you learned something new today?’


● Performance appraisals. At ITC, we acknowledge and reward em-ployees who share knowledge throughout the organization. Weaccomplish this through our performance appraisals, which requirethat an individual demonstrate a commitment to knowledge sharingwithin the team and/or between teams in the past year.

● Community involvement. At ITC, we leverage our communityinvolvement activities to learn more about both our colleagues andour clients. The networking we do during these projects helps us:

● understand our community’s needs;● give our employees an opportunity to meet each other and

share information;● expose our newer employees to new business development

opportunities and techniques; and● nurture our relationships with clients and discover new ways

of meeting their needs.● Noteworthy people. We currently recognize important Americans by

naming conference rooms in their honor. This creates an awarenessof his or her individual accomplishments. Periodically, we recognizeindividuals within ITC for their contributions to our success. We pre-serve the knowledge of their work and the stories of their accom-plishments by dedicating spaces in their honor.

● Who knows what? At ITC, we have various ways to help informationflow ‘across the cubicle’. In order to help people learn who knowswhat, we have an enticing, interactive tool for retrieving informationabout employees’ capabilities, backgrounds, and experiences. Weattract users to this tool by featuring two people’s photos and storieson the initial intranet screen each day. On an ongoing basis, we coachour people so that they can see how this tool can make their jobseasier. We also award ‘funny money’ to every tenth person retrievinginformation from the tool and to the teams who best staff their pro-jects by using the tool.

● Databases. ITC corporate databases are accessible, secure, and easyto use. Easily accessible and searchable databases facilitate thesharing of knowledge, improve effectiveness, and enhance productiv-ity. Stories about the potential application of ITC database systemsare continually told at team meetings by the WAMs. Individuals thathave had a success using a database to find important information aregiven a spot award. Teams that make extensive use of the ITC data-bases are similarly rewarded.

● Knowledge concierge. At ITC, we value knowing whom to go toin order to find specific types of knowledge. Our KnowledgeConcierges are cross-functional representatives of communities of


practice (software user groups, Creative Café, Green Team, InternetTeam or other) who direct a person to another person, a database, asource, or someone else who can help. We facilitate the work of theKnowledge Concierge by encouraging them to charge to an indirectaccount.

● Mentoring. At ITC, mentoring relationships are critical to our longterm success. Each of us gives and receives mentoring. We believe in‘Each One, Teach One’. We give each new employee a mentor, whohelps share best practices and basic knowledge about us and aboutour clients. We reward effective mentoring in our performanceappraisals. We evaluate how well we each develop each other intoeffective contributors to our knowledge base.

● Best practices. ITC captures internal and external best practices andactively shares them throughout the company. We at ITC completelyunderstand our value proposition of ‘customer intimacy’, havedefined what ‘best practices’ means to us, and understand our coreprocesses. We transfer our best practices through verbal discussions,ITC newsletter articles, and through IT enabled means. By sharingwhat we do best, we become more productive and effective, thusdelighting our clients.

● Retreats. At ITC, we share strategic corporate knowledge with allcorporate leaders. Top management reinforces knowledge sharing bypromoting it at company-wide meetings and in every possible com-munication. ITC holds annual offsite retreats that include all PALsand WAMs.

● Walking the talk. PALs and WAMs support the practice of knowl-edge sharing through teams by modeling the behaviors of top man-agement. All employees know the direction the company is headedand the roadmap for getting there. PALs and WAMs walk the talk byholding fun, informal monthly meetings and by actively practicingthe example set by the senior managers.

● Show and tell (and ask). We leverage every small group meeting toshare something that we know. Team leaders put Show and Tell (andAsk) on the agenda. We take the first five minutes of every team orsmall-group meeting to share one thing that someone has recentlylearned and to ask one question that has come up about our work.

● Continuing education. ITC has a bulletin board in the kitchen where wepost brochures from local universities offering degrees, certificate pro-grams, and continuing education opportunities in information tech-nology, organizational learning, environmental studies, and businessmanagement. The tuition reimbursement policy hangs at the top of thebulletin board. Next to it hangs the procedure for the reimbursement


of books for the professional development of our employees. ITCreimburses the full cost of tuition and books to our employees whoparticipate in approved educational programs. In addition, employeesmay petition for reimbursement for other programs.

● Three degrees of connection. At ITC, we understand that as we grow,we may not be able to know what every single person does. But webelieve that like the ‘six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon’, wehave the ‘three degrees of connection’ within ITC. When we need toknow who does what, we send an email and ask that if the recipientcan’t answer the question, then they forward the question to someonewho might know the answer. We try to reach the knower within threeemails. The knower emails the answer back to all previous recipientsof the request so that everyone can learn both the answer and theknower’s area of expertise. (Note: we tie this into our communities ofpractice and our Knowledge Concierges.)

● Seminar goodies. Here at ITC, we leverage what we learn from outsideour organization. Whenever one of us attends a seminar or confer-ence, we take responsibility for sharing the highlights of what weexperienced with our colleagues during the week after we return tothe office. This sharing happens in informal gatherings, brown baglunches, or formal presentations. At a minimum, our colleagues bringback to us at least one ‘freebie’, such as a conference pencil or a pieceof hotel stationery. They might bring back a specialty from the geo-graphic area, such as jambalaya mix from New Orleans or soft pret-zels from Philadelphia. They use this item to spark a discussion insome way related to the event they attended. We also post this infor-mation on our intranet and use it as an online discussion topic, focus-ing on how to use new knowledge in the support of our customers.

● Baseball card trading. At ITC, we have business cards for internal usethat are like baseball cards. They have our pictures on them andcontain statistics such as what teams we’re on, what software weknow, our learning style or our Myers-Briggs type, or what positionswe’ve played (jobs we’ve held at ITC). They also have a little bit ofpersonal information such as where we were born, how many kids wehave, and our favorite hobby. The cards are exchanged at team meet-ings, brown bag lunches, monthly corporate-wide events, communityof practice/user group meetings, or Monday morning breakfasts. Ifwe end up with more than one card from a particular employee, wecan trade with someone else. The person who collects the most cards(not including duplicates) wins tickets for four to an Orioles game.

● Knowledge poster. Along with our candy bowl to new employees, wegive them a blank poster for autographs. When employees visit the


newcomer, the visitors sign their autographs and add a few wordsabout what they do, like to do, area where they work, or area ofexpertise. The new employee is left with a reminder of who visitedand a source of people to turn to and what areas a person mightknow about.

● Coffee talk. At ITC we value brainstorming, informal interactions,and mindful ‘listening around’ as ways to share knowledge. We havetransformed our kitchen into an in-house café à la Barnes and Nobleand Starbucks. We use the space to grab coffee and talk about ourprojects and about what’s going on in our work. We have installedcomfortable couches and tables near our shelf of books to encouragea relaxed, informal atmosphere for sharing.

● Team facilitation. ITC dedicates two brown bag lunches every year onhow to facilitate, build, and sustain successful teams. Each attendeeof the lunches receives a Payday candy bar and a coupon for lunch atWhitlow’s to remind us that effective team discussions result ingreater business and financial rewards, both to ourselves and ourclients.

● Lightning bolts. ITC has a ‘Spark’ award for sharing an idea or pieceof knowledge. Any employee can award a lightning bolt to a colleaguewho has either shared a sparking idea, or who has employed someoneelse’s idea to spark a new idea of their own. Each lightning bolt con-tains a description of the sparking or sparked idea, the signature ofthe awarding colleague, the name of the recipient, and the date theidea was sparked. The accumulated lightning bolts hang on the recip-ient’s outside cubicle wall so that others can see who shares lots ofideas and what the ideas were. The recipient also gets specific feedbackabout who has benefited from the sharing of their knowledge.

● Knowledge vision. At ITC, our knowledge management strategy sup-ports both our corporate strategy and our competitive advantage ofcustomer intimacy. This vision guides our efforts in applying IT toknowledge management. We have an easy-to-use, browser-basedcorporate intranet. Easily accessible, secure, and searchable infor-mation facilitates and improves knowledge sharing and increases theeffectiveness of our people.

As mentioned above, we presented the possibility propositions to ITCstaff as the best of ‘What Could Be’ at ITC. We designed our sessionmindful of the need to overcome the general tendency to resist change byasking the ITC employees to thoughtfully consider these ‘What Could Be’items and transform them into ‘What Should Be’ action. The groupinvolvement in the review and reworking of the possibility propositions


were designed to help overcome any resistance to change. We had en-visioned a vote on the 21 items above by a ‘valencing’ or prioritizing activ-ity to reduce the total number of ‘action items’ to five manageable issues.

Two things became clear during this stage. First, much of what we pro-posed was warmly welcomed. The problem of overcoming resistance wasnot as severe as we had anticipated. Having senior management ownershipis critical to the success of an ASK program. Even though we would havepreferred a final decision, we left the organization with a sponsor and aplan. The CKO took it upon herself to put these proposals in place.

Second, the ITC Group needed more time to consider these possibilitypropositions. Hence, we adjourned the evening with the understanding thatthe CKO would keep the above ballot of possibility propositions taped toITC’s walls in order to give staff more time for a comprehensive review ofour recommendations. The CKO indicated that she herself would performthe valencing of these provocative possibility propositions at some time inthe future.

These 21 possibility propositions constituted the recommendations tothe ITC staff. The entire process was productive because we uncovered along list of knowledge enablers that can serve to guide the CKO in herdesign of the future knowledge management program at ITC. She now hasa much clearer picture of what really works and, more importantly, theculture of knowledge sharing within ITC.

Creating these propositions generated a significant amount of energywithin the organization. The challenges at ITC were different from the onesyou will see at GCB below. While you’ll see similarities in the approaches,you’ll see very different outcomes. The common denominator was theenergy generated to create lasting knowledge sharing. In the case study ofGreen Capital Bank2 below, we guide you step by step on how to create andsustain that energy.

GREEN CAPITAL BANK

GCB is one of America’s largest diversified financial services organizations,providing regional banking, corporate banking, real estate finance, asset-based lending, asset management, global fund services, and mortgagebanking. In the late 1990s, after a series of mergers and acquisitions atGreen Capital Bank, knowledge sharing was ebbing. When departingemployees lost their jobs due to the identification of redundant positions,they took vast amounts of important knowledge with them. Moving intoa protectionist mode, many of those remaining hoarded knowledge for turfprotection and competitive advantage over their co-workers.


In order to facilitate the knowledge sharing that would see the bankthrough the many changes in industry policy, processes, and technology,the bank’s organizational learning department began to study the latestthinking on knowledge management as a way to incorporate knowledgesharing in GCB. This department was responsible for the training and pro-fessional development of all company employees. Their goal was to keepmanagement and employees across business units up to date with currentbest practices, processes, technology, laws, and policies in the bankingindustry. They hired one of the authors to help the department build aculture of effective knowledge management in order to demonstrate knowl-edge sharing behaviors and climate to the rest of the bank.

The ASK methodology was started at GCB out of sheer necessity. Theamount of changes happening (and still happening) in the banking indus-try were significant, creating all kinds of new knowledge (procedures, rules,technology, etc.) and the need to better acquire and share the existence ofnew processes and employee knowledge.

The Challenge

Keeping employees at the cutting edge of knowledge in the banking field isa big challenge. In the late 1990s, bank technology and operations hadbecome extremely sophisticated with the institution of centralized loancenters and ‘bank by phone’ services, as well as the proliferation of 24 hourautomatic teller machines and the advent of internet banking and invest-ing. At the same time, employees were still expected to provide top-notch,individualized, face-to-face customer service for clients with a more tra-ditional or conservative approach.

Sharing knowledge was vital to maintain GCB’s competitive edge andsustained financial growth. New knowledge sharing challenges arose as aresult of the various mergers GCB had undertaken. As ‘redundant’employees left the organization, vast amounts of information and knowl-edge – company history, client relationships, and wisdom gained by experi-ence – left with them. Some remaining employees began to: (1) hoardknowledge to establish a competitive advantage over employees withsimilar positions and responsibilities, (2) hold on to knowledge as a meansof protecting their turf, (3) create a perception that there was so much extrawork after the mergers that there was little time left to share knowledge. Inthe words of one employee, ‘We see [knowledge sharing] as critical, buttime-consuming. Sharing is highly valuable, but a low priority.’

GCB’s organizational learning department recognized these challengesto meeting their goal of corporate-wide knowledge sharing. They also re-alized that they could not force people to change; knowledge sharing could


not be mandated. The corporate culture and climate that did not provideincentives to share knowledge had to change instead. The real questionbecame: How does one create a new knowledge sharing culture as quicklyand painlessly as possible?

GCB chose to use the ASK process with the intention that it wouldaddress this knowledge management challenge.

A Hesitation

The idea of an appreciative or prospective approach – starting withproficiencies, rather than deficiencies – was not immediately embraced bythe department. In fact, a handful of GCB employees viewed the conceptwith great skepticism. Their apprehension was not unexpected; much ofour society operates counter to the prospective concept. Typically, qualityexperts check for insufficient quality, mechanics look for problems with ourautomobiles, and consultants strive to identify companies’ shortcomings.Social sciences and psychology have also ended up with the view thathuman beings are typically lacking something. Over the last century psy-chology has focused almost entirely on pathology and deficits. Followingthe science of medicine, it has been structured around disease as its model.

It is natural to have many skeptics question the ASK methodology. Insuch a situation, which is more common than one might think, it is betterto start with a pilot and hopefully create a shift in the mindset ofthose who might have been initially doubtful. In the GCB event, theambassadors were asked to consider the benefits of having as manypeople participate in the event as possible. This was suggested as anopportunity to uncover organization-wide examples of current practicesat all levels at GCB.

While the core team understood inherently what it meant to ‘appreciate’,they needed to gain a deeper understanding of how the process of appre-ciation works in order to apply it to the project within the bank. Anexample was needed for the consultant to address their apprehension andto explain the benefits of an ‘appreciative mindset’. The consultant notedthe difference between how two people may look at similar paintings – oneat an art museum and the other at a flea market. Assuming neither personis an art critic, the person at the art museum is likely to have a better appre-ciation of the painting than the person viewing a similar painting at theflea market. Because she is in the art museum, she has an appreciativemindset – intentionally looking for beauty in the details, looking hard tosee what might have made the experts see the painting as worthy of beingplaced in the museum. As she looks intently, she sees aspects of the paint-ing that someone with a casual mindset at a flea market might miss. An


interpretation that the painting is ‘beautiful’ or ‘exquisite’, because of theappreciative context, is more likely.

Applying this principle to the knowledge sharing process, it wasexplained that the group could use an Appreciative Inquiry method withGCB employees to find and expand the pockets of knowledge sharing thatwere already occurring. By focusing on the present successes in knowledgesharing (rather than failures) – the way the art museum visitor focused onthe painting’s beauty – already supported and existing knowledge sharingdetails could be uncovered in the culture. With the awareness of whatenabled employees to share what they knew, coupled with the energy gen-erated from the realization of what was already being done well, employeescould become aware of possibilities for the future and could set their ownaction items to build a new culture that emphasizes the existence of knowl-edge sharing programs.

GCB decided to use the Appreciative Inquiry approach to knowledgemanagement in the organizational learning department, betting that themomentum and lessons learned would spread to the rest of the organiz-ation. The approach would not put people on the spot – no fingers wouldbe pointed and no blame would obscure the process: it would allow every-one to share whatever they knew, regardless of perceived significance.GCB felt that the best way to capitalize on tacit and distributed knowledgewould be to encourage people to share it in whatever way they werecomfortable, rather than in ways that were mandated by upper levels ofhierarchy.


The decision to use ASK was unanimous. There was considerable energyand anticipation for getting started. At the same time, GCB staff recog-nized that ASK entailed reframing the way they looked at knowledge man-agement. They also realized that it was crucial to hear the voices ofeveryone as part of the process. (People could not be forced to share knowl-edge just because of a management decision to do so.) Therefore everyonein GCB’s organizational learning department was invited to take part in apilot ASK process.

Experience suggests that the answers lie in getting a strong buy-in fromtop management and in involving as many internal staff as possible to planand run the ASK process.

While a bottom-up approach to ASK is also possible, it is more effectiveand efficient to start with a top-down approach of strong managementsupport. In many cases, the outcome of an ASK initiative may dependon some strategic decisions from management. It is also important to


communicate clearly the expectations from various partners, including theclient and the consultant. It should be done in a manner that would recog-nize the emergent properties of the ASK process. That is, it should com-municate the possibility that there may very well be an escalation ofcommitment from various stakeholders leading to renewed enthusiasmabout being part of the ASK process.

AT GCB, there were four key points to initiating the ASK.

1. Support the group in examining, understanding, and making thedecision to initiate a positive approach to information sharingthrough ASK. This is best done by exploring with the client at leastthree important approaches to knowledge management and changeand then leaving the decision to the client. It is quite appropriatefor the consultant to reveal his or her predisposition for ASK but itmust be made clear that s/he will go by the consensus that mayemerge.

2. Construct and hold a ‘pilot event’. When a consultant is invited into anorganization, much of the work of setting the stage is potentially inprogress. Active participation in a pilot allows the group to fully par-ticipate, ultimately learning as they go. The pilot allows the consultantand the group to identify active occurrences of and to inquire andshare examples of knowledge sharing and what made these activitiesof sharing possible.

3. Create an ongoing process of integrating what the participants learnedin the event. This allows the participants to adopt emerging designs orprocesses that might be more suitable than what was planned in advance.


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4. Sustain the momentum. Taking the information gathered from thepilot event to the decision making group is essential to securing topmanagement support for a full ASK process in the key parts or thewhole organization.

The pilot (the process of ‘learning as you go’) created a positive experi-ence to build on for the future organization-wide ASK process. In mostcases, the success of the pilot generates self-confidence in the staff and theconsultant in pursuing a process that many in an organization might char-acterize as too soft or touchy-feely.

During the pilot the group realized that there would be a need for ad-ditional ‘hands’ during the organization-wide event. GCB debatedwhether to hire additional outside consultants to facilitate or train inter-nal people to work with the large number of employees who accepted theinvitation to participate in the ASK event. The bank chose to use its ownemployees because it believed that would help in capacity building withinthe bank and may lead to better acceptance of the method in the long run.GCB, like many other organizations, had seen consultants coming in,doing their interventions, and then leaving without having transferredmuch of their knowledge. Above all, using their own staff would savemoney.

To impart the ASK training, the consultant organized a daylong work-shop for 16 GCB staff who were chosen by the bank. The day’s content andprocess were designed such that it would be a condensed version of whatwould be run at the forthcoming organization-wide two-day event. Thegoal of the one-day workshop was to train the 16 chosen employees asfacilitators for the two-day event.

The trained facilitators for the project became known as the knowledgeambassadors. The ambassadors would help conduct the two-day meetingand have an ongoing role in keeping the process alive and growing overtime. The knowledge ambassadors introduced the concept of AppreciativeSharing of Knowledge to the rest of the employees using more or less thesame materials that had been used to introduce the concept to the facili-tators on earlier occasions.

Step 2: Presenting the Appreciative Knowledge Sharing Paradigm

How an event is opened is foundational to what will be accomplished. Why?To a large extent, the opening sets the stage for expectations, especially for anew tool such as ASK which at that time did not have a track record of accom-plishments to reassure skeptical participants. In such cases, good contextsetting about how the process was chosen by the bank and a strong statement


of support from leadership that they would ‘go all the way’with the process areimportant. After such a speech from GCB’s management at the senior vice-president level advocating for the process and encouraging full participation,the department began the main purpose of the event – ASK. As the beginningof step 2, each employee ‘interviewed’another person to hear his or her storiesabout knowledge sharing currently happening at GCB.

Steps 3 and 4: Identification and Expansion of Knowledge EnablersThrough Appreciative Interviews


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The ASK process begins with an Appreciative Inquiry to discover examples ofthe identified topic: knowledge sharing. The process utilizes an appreciativeinterviewing technique where all participants divide into pairs and interviewtheir partners to hear stories about knowledge sharing currently happening.Next, the larger group shares the highlights of the stories from the pairs.

Interview questionsInterview questions are selected carefully by paying attention to the contextof the project. If the client is interested in a specific aspect of knowledgemanagement, the question below will have to be customized to reflect that.Otherwise, the generic question about knowledge sharing that we used atGCB bank is given below. The focus of the interviews is intentionally onevents and incidents where knowledge sharing occurred.

1. Think about a few recent positive experiences you have had in this organ-ization with respect to knowledge sharing. Describe one such event whenyou felt most alive, excited, valued, or appreciated.

Follow-up questions

a) What made it a significant positive experience? Or, what is it aboutthe experience that you continue to cherish?

b) What did you learn from that experience?

2. Name an event where one of your colleagues recently did something exem-plary (outstanding/highly successful) with respect to knowledge sharing.What did s/he do?

Follow-up questions

a) What did you admire in her/him?b) How has that (what s/he did) contributed to the success of the

organization?

It is important to always get a full description of incidents. Each inter-viewer is asked to steer the interview to hearing more about what happenedrather than why it happened. The suggestion is to allow at least 15 minutesper interview or a total of 30 minutes for this interview process.

GCB took the step of identifying knowledge sharing behaviors that werealready occurring at their two-day ASK event, held at a bright and wel-coming conference center. For many participants, as the first day began,hope was running high. Others, however, were quietly skeptical, believingthat the event would become yet another top-down mandated initiative.


A few employees greeted the event with a fair amount of cynicism – expect-ing that change would last only as long as the event itself. Participants ofthe conference were seated ten to a table with members of their own busi-ness unit and one or two trained knowledge ambassadors. Intervieweeswere encouraged to tell the story with full details and the interviewers werereminded to ask ‘what’ questions rather than ‘why’. It was pointed out that‘what’ questions typically generate data and understanding while ‘why’questions tend to elicit an emotional response and generate interpretationas opposed to data. ‘What’ questions tend to make respondents more com-fortable while ‘why’ questions create apprehension and hesitation. No ques-tions about justification of actions were allowed so that storytellers couldshare openly without fear of criticism or need for justification.

The interviewers were encouraged to practice active listening, a way ofcommunicating to provide a ‘mirror’, allowing the respondents to hearwhat they said, thus providing an opportunity to clarify or be furtherunderstood. Active listening includes showing explicit, unconditionalrespect for what the interviewees are sharing and not questioning the valid-ity of their responses. It is natural for both the interviewee and the inter-viewer to engage in some problem solving without even realizing it. Hence,the intentional or mindful focus on what worked as opposed to what didnot. In this case, with the help of the knowledge ambassadors, interview-ers actively created a non-judgmental climate for conversation during theinterviews. For example, one staff member talked about the nature of thecustomer complaints received in the call centers and how she designed aprocess to handle them on the spot. The interviewer did not ask why com-plaints were occurring in the first place, why there was a need for training,or why the call center staff were not previously trained in handling difficultcallers. Instead, the focus was on finding what she did by engaging in aseries of ‘what happened next’ questions and by repeating her answers toreceive confirmation that she had been heard correctly and understood.Each ‘what happened next’, or ‘what did you do,’ or ‘tell me more aboutit’, question led to the unfolding of a layer of information about specificknowledge sharing practices. Some participants began slowly, observingother pairs in action. Others wiggled in their seats, uncomfortable with theword ‘story’, which initially sounded not business-like or not bottom lineoriented. Yet, within a few minutes, the roar of conversation could beheard in the ballroom. The observers could see and hear the excitementmounting.

A key question at this point is: What makes it possible to share knowl-edge – what ‘enables’ people to be open to participating in this process? Asthe term ‘knowledge enablers’ literally indicates, the goal is to identify thekind of processes, values, beliefs, and competencies that encourage,


prompt, facilitate, or cause stakeholders in an organization to share theknowledge they possess. Some may not believe that their knowledge is ofvalue. It is through this process that people feel more connected with othersand their organizations.

The next step in Appreciative Knowledge Sharing is to purposely iden-tify the known and unknown knowledge enablers (see below). The import-ance of this process cannot be emphasized enough: the KEs are thebuilding blocks of desired and productive knowledge sharing behaviors.KEs will vary from organization to organization, though some aspects likerespect or valuing others appear to be a universal enabler to help peopleshare knowledge.

In the ASK process, the focus is to identify what is unique to the organ-ization around knowledge sharing. An example might be: What are the valuesor competencies that currently exist in the organization that, if removed, willfundamentally change the flow or character of knowledge sharing? Or, whatare the non-negotiable aspects that if left unattended or ignored for a periodof time will lead to a gradual decline in knowledge sharing?

For example, let us say respect emerged as a knowledge enabler in theabove mentioned large investment banking firm. In this moderately hier-archical organization, members took great care in valuing everyone’s input.It did not matter whether you were the mailroom clerk, a junior analyst, orthe Vice President. The analyst was respected for her research reports eventhough she did not have the lengthy experience of senior analysts. Becauseshe felt respected, she was eager and highly committed to contribute to thesuccess of the organization by sharing what she knew. However, if she feltunwanted or insecure, her motivation to share would be limited.

Once the interviews were over, the participants were asked to share thestories they heard from their partners. As these stories were shared, the keythemes were captured on a whiteboard. When you carry out this process, donot spend too much time in wordsmithing – give a name to whatever themestands out from a story and add it to the whiteboard list. It is crucial not toask any justifying questions of those sharing. Accept whatever is shared andthank them for doing so. This is a very important aspect of the process.

Locating the themesMake a first cut or merging of the themes to generate only a dozen of themby grouping similarly named or interrelated themes. For instance, honesty,trust, and trustworthiness might be categorized under Trust. With the helpof the participants, look at the listed themes again and narrow the list downto four to six. In an ASK initiative, these themes are called knowledgeenablers. As mentioned earlier, they are the building blocks of knowledgesharing, enabling the knowledge sharing process.


It is important to note that every group or organization will have its ownunique combination of knowledge enablers that reflect its own values.Because the group itself has identified them and come to consensus aboutthem, it is not possible to have any ‘wrong’ answers.

After GCB interview pairs shared their stories with each other, the largergroup at the table shared the highlights of the stories from the pairs withthe facilitation of the knowledge ambassadors. The stories were filled withreal-life examples of moments of knowledge sharing within GCB:

● A customer service director at the loan center recounted how she hadreceived communication techniques to help frustrated customers.

● A program supervisor in the training department shared how infor-mation from the branch business unit helped him set up moreeffective educational programs.

● A new recruit in the investment division told how a fellow employeewent the extra mile and spent hours after work to show her the insand outs of their investment analysis software.

As participants shared their success stories, initial reluctance to talk orto share in depth was replaced by enthusiasm. A palpable sense of energyovertook each table, and even those who admitted to initial skepticismtoward yet another company initiative became highly involved.

As each story was repeated, the knowledge ambassador for each groupcaptured the themes of each story on a flip chart page. General themes suchas honesty, empowerment, recognition, respect, teamwork, valuing others,and building relationships appeared. The themes identified the ‘knowledgeenablers’ or what conditions, policies, or behaviors were present whenknowledge was shared. Participants listened intently and began noticingadditional themes and trends in the responses. GCB began to discover,define, and then come to consensus about the knowledge enablers that theywanted to cultivate in their organization.

Narrowing the listWith nearly one hundred people at ten tables, there were flip charts every-where with long lists of themes. It was, therefore, necessary to condense thelong list of themes into four or five in an inclusive way as much as possible.Without a small list, it would be difficult to stay focused on a strategy andassign responsibility later in the process for various implementation issues.Consequently, the groups at the tables analyzed their lists to determinewhich were most important to the group.

The knowledge ambassadors led the process to make a first cut of thethemes by grouping similarly named or interrelated themes. For instance,


as noted earlier, honesty, trust, and trustworthiness were categorized underTrust. Participants actively narrowed the list to the following four themes:empowerment, respect, teamwork, and building relationships.

Knowledge Enabler 1: Empowerment

Empowerment is evident when individuals in an organization graduallyacquire the autonomy, freedom, and authority to make decisions that areappropriate within the domain of their influence. In GCB, the overwhelm-ing evidence showed that when employees felt empowered they shared whatthey knew and listened to others more readily.

For example, a story was told about an employee who designed a distanceeducation training module on her own and shared what she had donedirectly with her colleagues across bank divisions. Her supervisor was happyto see his staff take such initiative and felt that as more of his staff acted toinitiate changes, more knowledge sharing would happen in his division.

Knowledge Enabler 2: Respect

Respect is present when individuals are affirmed and granted a certaindegree of recognition based on their accomplishments or contribution tothe organization. Respect is about noticing what an individual has done asobjectively as possible without the filters of stereotypes based on race,gender, and other forms of difference. In respect, there is an active andmindful process of valuing without stereotypical judging.

In GCB, respect emerged as an energizing force from the stories shared.A woman from a minority ethnic group who had once felt disrespectedand undervalued began to share more knowledge with her manager andentire team after her manager took the time to sit down and talk with herand learn what she had done. As the conversation progressed, themanager began to understand and appreciate the contributions she hadmade to the group that had gone unnoticed in the past. Through hisacknowledgement of the value the individual had added to the group, themanager showed respect, which in turn made the employee feel that shebelonged to the group. From this position of acceptance, the employeewas motivated to share more deliberately the tacit knowledge she hadpicked up over the years.

Knowledge Enabler 3: Teamwork

Teamwork is the process of working together in a group that has cometogether voluntarily or by design. It is the process that enables the poolingtogether of various intangible resources of individual members such that


collective knowledge is always more than what would have been generatedby the mere summation of individual knowledge.

In the organizational learning department of GCB it looked like teamworkwas a time-tested concept. The stories shared exhibited a level of genuinenessthat didn’t look like a manufactured or forced version of teamwork. Forexample, a team member involved in a project with her teammates reportedthat there was a great deal of communication in her team, which includedusing weekly teleconferences. Everyone’s ideas were welcomed. They pro-vided pre-meeting information and the team actively kept open lines of com-munication. Eventually, the project turned out to be a massive, cross-marketproject. These efforts resulted in an accessible team where any member of theteam could call anyone anytime and would get a friendly, welcoming response.

Knowledge Enabler 4: Building Relationships

Building relationships is an element of what has recently been called ‘socialcapital formation’. Social capital can be defined as the features of socialorganization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coor-dination and cooperation for mutual benefit. Social capital is ‘the set ofelements of the social structure that affects relations among people and areinputs for the production and/or utility function’ (Schiff, 1992, p. 160). Itmay be considered as the goodwill that is engendered by the fabric of socialrelations. A growing body of new research in management suggests thatsocial capital is a differentiating variable at individual and group level forcareer growth and organizational effectiveness. Knowledge sharing storiesin the bank clearly pointed toward building relationships. In the story ofthe new recruit who learned about the investment analysis software, boththe experienced employee and the newcomer developed a friendship thatled to further knowledge sharing between the two women.

Identifying Common KEs

The knowledge ambassadors from each table then shared their list so every-one in the room could hear the summary of themes. While each table hadits own special combination of knowledge enablers, there were commonal-ities across tables. The four knowledge enablers common to the largergroup were empowerment, respect, teamwork, and building relationships.

Within the appreciative knowledge management perspective, the know-ledge enablers were extremely important for knowledge sharing to happenin GCB’s organizational learning department. And yet the entire process,from asking the first interview question to finding the four common themesof the entire room, took only two hours. Not only did the group determinewhat makes sharing knowledge possible and probable, they had modeled


the actual act of knowledge sharing through the process of utilizing theAppreciative Inquiry process.

As is often the case, at the end of this segment participants indicated sur-prise at the amount of successful knowledge sharing that had been hap-pening unnoticed, and felt an enthusiastic connection at the commonthemes discovered at their table.

During the remainder of the two-day event, the focus was for the atten-dees to understand the interconnection of these factors, what facilitatedtheir existence, and how participants could make them more routine inorder to enhance knowledge sharing.

Step 5: Thematic Analysis of the Data Using Knowledge InfrastructureFactors

At the GCB event, there was a definite attempt to put the information intoa manageable framework that would connect the knowledge enablers withKIFs. The objective was to find ways to enhance the knowledge enablersidentified so that knowledge sharing would become a continuous, sustain-able, long term activity.

The consultant and facilitators organized the knowledge enablers, KIFs,and previously collected success stories in a large table. Across the top ofthe table, they listed the knowledge enablers and along the side they listedthe infrastructure factors. The knowledge ambassadors plastered stickynotes with examples (from the interview stories) into the cells of the matrix.Once each group of participants had added its notes, a subset of the tablelooked like Table 5.1. Many stories overlapped different knowledge


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Table 5.1 Knowledge sharing matrix with specific examples (not all KIFsand KEs are shown)

KnowledgeKnowledge Enablers

Infrastructure Empowerment Respect BuildingFactors Relationships

Leadership I felt respected and– Vision valued after my– Strategic focus manager took the time– Accountabilities to sit down and talk

with me and listened tome with great respect.

Decision Making I volunteered I learned communi- A program– Priorities for several event cation techniques from supervisor in the– Goals responsibilities the loan center to help training depart-

and shared my call center’s frus- ment shared howmore with trated customers. I was information fromother facili- able to accept more the branchtators when I information from them business unitfelt like we were because they showed helped him set upempowered to great respect for my more effectiveshape the position and because in educationaloutcome of the end, they let me programs.the event. make the decision on

how to handlecustomers.

Organizational I learned communi- Just after I wasPractices cation techniques from hired, one of my– Teams the loan center to help co-workers spent– Cross-LOB teams my call center’s frus- hours after work– Planning process trated customers. I was to show me the– Hiring able to accept more ins and outs of– Promotion information from them their investment– Performance because they showed analysis software.– What is valued great respect for my I volunteered for

position. several eventresponsibilitiesand shared morewith otherfacilitators whenI felt like we wereempowered toshape the outcomeof the event.

enablers and knowledge infrastructure factors. Such unanimity suggestedthat there were indeed an underlying set of knowledge enablers in that orga-nization and that the process thus far was producing valid results.

From this matrix, GCB employees made sense of the stories they hadheard, making it possible to identify trends and patterns of current knowl-edge sharing. They began to see the evidence of potential possibilitiesto expand what they already do well in knowledge sharing. It was anaffirmation that significant potential existed in the organization to moveforward, making the best use of what they already do well. They recognizedthe importance of knowledge sharing for the continued growth of theorganization in the highly competitive environment in which GCB existed.The clear trend as evidenced in the matrix gave them the confidence andcourage to think strategically about what more might be possible, in con-crete terms, to accelerate knowledge sharing in ways that would contributeto GCB’s competitive advantage – and long term existence.

Step 6: Constructing Future-Present Scenario Statements

With the active involvement of its employees and based on concrete evi-dence, the ASK process so far has identified for GCB the knowledgeenablers and the organizational infrastructural factors that supported them.A logical question that emerges at this point is ‘How will the organizationsustain these knowledge enablers?’ Given that entropy is a natural occur-rence in all systems, GCB must find ways to prevent the knowledge enablersfrom becoming entropic. Not only that, they must find ways to enhance theenablers since – again based on systems theory – they cannot stay the same.


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The enablers would either decline or grow. The ASK process deals with thisneed to prevent entropy and enhance knowledge enablers by creating avision for what might be possible based on what is already present (asopposed to what is absent). It is called future-present scenario statements.

Once GCB’s knowledge enablers were identified and understood in theframework of the bank’s infrastructure, building on them was possible byhelping individuals imagine the ideal future as if it had already happened.ASK participants constructed the future-present scenario statements foreach knowledge enabler and knowledge infrastructure.

The process, as applied at GCB, included hour long gatherings everyMonday where the group listened to one another and heard whateveranyone had to say. This occurred no matter how busy the participants were.At these meetings, information was shared about the projects in progress,making space for the input and concerns of those with information orseeking answers to questions. Also, discussions were held regarding whatwas to be – or could be – achieved during the coming week(s) and, again,inputs were sought from others in accomplishing them. Specific responsi-bilities were given to everyone regarding what was to be accomplished.Friday afternoons become regular meeting times to take stock of what hadbeen accomplished and what was to be learned from these experiences.These were called ‘weekly reflections’.

As they finished creating the FPS after long hours of work, the consul-tant asked the group if they wanted to continue working. The answer wasa definite, positive ‘yes’ thanks to the high energy and momentum that builtup throughout the day. Although they were nearing the end of the first dayof the event, participants were still enlivened. Conversation between tableshad opened up and employees from all business units chatted with eachother about productive ways they could work beneficially together after theevent was over. These were a lively exchange of ‘why nots’ and ‘can we’questions that opened up new and innovative ways of achieving together.Next, using the same matrix they had used for earlier analysis, participantscreated their own future-present scenarios for each of the knowledgeenablers and infrastructure components (see Table 5.2). While some of thepropositions in the matrix didn’t seem extraordinary to some participants,knowledge ambassadors reminded everyone that the statements showedwhat was possible and desired, but not already occurring.

Ending the dayThe GCB employees began to see more than common interests and needs:they saw ways to build a common future of excellence. The day ended witha feeling of pride over the work that had been accomplished and a curiosityabout what would happen the next day.



Table 5.2 Examples of possibility propositions

KnowledgeInfrastructure

Knowledge Enablers

Factors Empowerment Respect Building Relationships

Leadership Every employee Leaders show Leaders build relation-– Vision in the business respect by accepting ships by sharing– Strategic focus unit is free to be and acting on team information through– Accountabilities a leader by being members’ ideas. meetings and eating

a revolving Leaders show lunch with newchairperson for respect by listening employees.our Friday fully and then The trainers work onafternoon asking questions assigning cross-meetings. rather than functional projects

contradicting ideas. that increase cross-functional knowledge.

Trainers are We, as leaders,acknowledged by participate in boththeir leaders at June informal and formaland December knowledge sharingprogram events for through ‘watercontributions with cooler’ meetings andregard to knowledge learning communities;sharing. thus teamwork.

Decision Making Risk taking is Leaders trust the We include key– Priorities encouraged and ideas, experience, stakeholders in– Goals supported by our knowledge, and knowledge

unit managers. opinions of staff sharing activities.

Trainers are members and are

empowered to considered in the

implement decision making

changes to process.

program deliveryand share resultswith peers.

Communication We consistently To communicate Business presentations– How people provide data for what different lines are shared with all

know what the knowledge of business are TPS service partners.others are sharing reposi- doing, we hold a We facilitate variousworking on tory during and yearly knowledge Regional Community

– How knowledge after the project, fair. To show the Bank programs tois gained in such that it can respect for each educate our servicecommunication be used by all. others’ work, each partners.

line of business is

To respond to these feelings, a debriefing was done at the end of the day.GCB employees expressed both excitement and exhaustion. They werepleased with what they had accomplished by the evening but also felt theneed to take a break for the evening. Afterwards, the consultant providedhis own interpretation of the day by stating that he had noticed a remark-able seriousness and commitment on the part of the staff to create concreteoutcomes from the series of activities they were engaged with. He also com-mented on the absence of blaming others or ‘pointing fingers’ of any sort.The consultant shared his sense of satisfaction in seeing a large number ofpeople working with a clear focus and purpose.

Meanwhile, an internal community of practice group in the bank hadplanned an after-dinner cultural-entertainment event. The dinner wasorganized in a large hall and several skits followed immediately after it.Most of them were around the theme of ASK as CoP and made direct ref-erences to the activities of the day. The skits had several role-plays that madefunny references to and made examples of various knowledge enablers andFPS. This allowed the employees to look at the whole approach as some-thing fun and meaningful. Secondly, the skits that went into the nightallowed a continuity to be maintained towards the following day.

Step 7: Consensual Validation of Future-Present Scenario Statements

The decision to add a second day to an ASK initiation project should bemade carefully. In this case, the large number of GCB employees partici-pating made it necessary to have extra time for processing the emergingdata. Secondly, a pace that allows for a two-day event tends not to rushimportant decisions. A single day to process the vast amount of data gen-erated would have been clearly insufficient. Further, having an overnightreflection time was certainly facilitative for the concluding but importantactivities that were to follow the next day. In the case of GCB, the overnight


Table 5.2 (continued)

KnowledgeInfrastructure

Knowledge Enablers

Factors Empowerment Respect Building Relationships

invited to have a We meet with sectorbooth. All managers and coachesparticipants visit on a bi-weekly basis toeach booth to find educate them on theout about others’ in-branch experience.projects.

reflection time brought forward the resolve of the group to complete theimportant steps they had started the previous day. A certain kind of clarityabout what knowledge sharing in GCB is and should be was evident in theparticipants. There was a new level of confidence and assertiveness in manymembers. The tentativeness that had been present in a few during the begin-ning of the previous day had all but disappeared as they took charge andparticipated with enthusiasm. Even then, there were a few stragglers grab-bing a last-minute cup of coffee as the knowledge ambassadors greeted par-ticipants at their tables.

After a quick review of the previous day’s process, the groups went backto work attentively. With the help of the knowledge ambassadors, theychecked the completed FPS from the previous day against the criteria ofcommitment, groundedness, and inspiration. Then the groups visited othertables, commenting on each others’ statements the accomplishments thathad been made already. Eventually, based on learning from others, a revisedset of FPS or propositions were written.

Writing future-present scenario statements was an exciting activity forthe GCB employees. Having an opportunity to participate in creating aninnovative knowledge sharing process as a continuing reality was appeal-ing to them because it allowed them to express the sense of belonging theyhad felt for the organization and the process itself. It was very much likeaffirming McGregor’s classic theory Y that, given an opportunity, employ-ees will work without supervision and will autonomously contribute to thegood of the organization.

Thanks to the commitment and enthusiasm of GCB participants, a largenumber of future-present scenarios were generated. However, it wouldn’t


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be realistic to act on all of them, hence the need to prioritize them using aset of criteria. The criteria allowed the scenarios to be categorized into asequence of various action steps. They were the importance or idealness ofthe future-present scenario, how much of it may actually be present inthe organization, and how soon GCB employees wanted it realized in theorganization.

Once the FPS had been written, they were checked again against the cri-teria listed in the previous section. The various groups were asked to lookat other FPS and comment on each others’ statements so that eventually arevised set of scenarios could be written. Once this was done, everyone inthe group/audience was asked to prioritize, rank, or rate them using the fol-lowing three questions:

How much of an ideal is it? (How important is it?)

5 4 3 2 1

VERY MUCH NOT MUCH


5 4 3 2 1

A LOT NOT MUCH

Realistically, how soon do you want this to happen?

Immediately Short Term Long Term(within six months) (within two years)

A final rewriting and revision of the statements incorporated the com-ments and sentiments received from other groups. As mentioned above, thenext step was the groups at their tables rating the importance of each FPS.To do this, the group listed the final statements on their own flip chart pagesat the front of the ballroom. The top half of each flip chart contained anFPS written in large letters. The bottom half of each flip chart listed thethree questions for voting or rating (that is, how much of an ideal it is? Howmuch of it is present now? And how soon would you like this to happen?).Each flip chart was pasted on to a wall.

The facilitators managed to do a quick review of what was posted onthe walls to make sure all knowledge enablers were represented and thatthere was at least one FPS for each knowledge infrastructure factor. Next,the knowledge ambassadors handed each member at their table a set ofblue, green, and red round, bright colored stickers. Each color representeda question in the prioritizing flip chart. Blue represented the ideal, greenthe current or present, and red denoted how soon the FPS were to be re-alized. Participants were instructed to express their preferences for each


FPS by sticking the colored dots next to their preferences. For example,for FPS ‘X’, employee ‘A’ might stick a blue dot over the ‘5’ rating (mostideal) whereas employee ‘B’ might stick a blue dot over the ‘3’ rating.Similarly, employee ‘A’ might place a green dot over the ‘1’ rating (notpresent) while employee ‘B’ may give a ‘2’ for the same FPS. By doing this,each bank employee was in effect ‘voting’ for the FPS they could mostfully support.

Once the ‘sticking’ was done, the number of dots on each statement wastabulated. For each FPS, the difference between the ideal and actual wasderived. The consultant and the group then looked for the FPS with themaximum discrepancy between the ideal and the present and needing imme-diate implementation. For example, let us assume 100 people participatedin the ‘voting’ process and that FPS #7 received 65 ratings of 5 for ‘ideal’and the following for the ‘current’ or ‘present’: 50 for 1, 15 for 2, and 8 for5. It is clear in this case that a large number of people felt FPS #7 was highlydesirable but not present currently, as evidenced by the large number of low1 ratings it received. When such calculations are performed for each FPS,they can be transferred to a Microsoft Excel table and all sorts of calcu-lations performed depending on the quantitative inclinations or interests ofthe group.

What is really important is determining where the energy of the organ-ization is, as evidenced by FPSs receiving a proportionally high number of‘ideal’ 5 ratings and ‘current’ 1 ratings and a sizable ‘immediate’ for the thirdquestion of implementation. At the end, all the FPS were prioritizedthrough a set of criteria that were important to the organizational learningdepartment and to the bank. The criterion was primarily around the timeline. FPS with a large difference between the ideal and the current and highimmediate implementation ratings were put into the category for immedi-ate follow-up and actions. The FPS that received short term rating for thethird item was put in a new category for closer examination with a largeraudience. Finally, the long term FPS were perceived as strategically import-ant and were designated for further follow-up with all stakeholders, includ-ing customers and other players in the environment.

Step 8: Creating and Mandating an Implementation Team

GCB recognized that this step of forming an implementation team wouldbecome the crossroads at which the project would become a success or nochange would take place. So participants and the consultant took greatcare to verify that the propositions on the high priority list were those forwhich a true desire for implementation existed. Fortunately, the organiz-ational learning department staff were not content with creating possibility


propositions as an end. Being equally concerned about the bottom line,they generated action items from the possibility propositions that werespecific to each business unit. Further, they set several knowledge sharinginitiatives and goals for the year in areas such as employee development,distance learning, leadership development, and project management.

Participants volunteered to become the advocates or sponsors for actionitems and to take responsibility for the realization of the desired outcomes.They became sponsors if they had the power and responsibility for initi-ation and implementation of a given FPS. They became advocates whenthey did not have the formal power to make decisions but had the informalpower to influence using their social capital and goodwill.

Later on it became evident that the knowledge ambassadors feltsignificant investment in the process and as a result felt a sense of respon-sibility not to lose the momentum generated and to make things happen ina timely manner. As a result, they divided up the FPS among themselvesbased on the advocacy/sponsorship dimension and their personal interestin them, took the lead in setting up meetings with senior managers, andsought their input, support, or permission for initiating or executing FPSas the case may be.

GCB’s ASK event ‘ended’ on a high note. Overall, the focus to reframeorganizational reality in affirmative terms was so strong that one of thegroups in the organizational learning department decided collectively thatwhen they heard one another speak negatively about a situation they wouldchallenge that person by asking them ‘If the situation you are talking aboutwas just the way it should be, what would that look like? Now, how can wemake that happen?’


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Participants lingered after the session was over, talking about their actionitems and the work they had agreed to champion. More than a few partici-pants commented, ‘This project was different. It was the best bank programI’ve ever attended.’ Participants could now see the possibilities at GCB.They were enthusiastic and energized with a desire to continue working inthe organizational learning department, and they felt they had a stake inthe organization.

With their action items in hand, they went to work!

Lessons learned

As with any project or program, through experiences and intelligent ques-tions from the diverse participants everyone learned fascinating and valu-able lessons. Highlighted below are the unexpected challenges and the waythe management, staff, and the consultant resolved them and the lessonslearned.

Future-present scenarios as road mapsThe various future-present scenario statements turned out to be a signifi-cant motivator for GCB to embrace knowledge sharing. They were like aroad map because they provided direction to move forward to a specificlocation. They were also based on the tacit knowledge of the organizationalmembers. Further, because of the participatory process used, the FPSbrought out issues that needed to be addressed.

The power of reframingThe power of reframing in creating new knowledge sharing practicesbecame very evident as a result of this project. The ASK process did notwant to focus on deficits but at the same time did not deny the experiencesof people as they were expressed. Instead of asking why the staff did notshare knowledge, the question was ‘What were the times you felt you sharedknowledge with someone in your organization . . .?’ The process of refram-ing continued throughout the ASK process. Eventually, some memberswere able to develop a natural habit of reframing in order to facilitateknowledge sharing.

Appreciation as a facilitator for innovationWhen stakeholders are appreciated and respected for what they bring to theorganizational arena and when their participation is genuinely sought andsecured, innovative and powerful future-present scenarios can be gener-ated. As many researchers have shown recently, appreciation helps peopledeal with the ‘resistance to change’ issue present in most change efforts.


Since there is no blaming of others or fixing of responsibilities for the‘wrongs done,’ participants are more willing to give ASK a chance to work.

The importance of getting to the coreBy the end of the one-day workshop before the ASK event, it had becomeevident that the knowledge ambassador facilitators had difficulty getting tothe core of the stories. Finding out the true knowledge enablers was crucialto the success of ASK, hence they needed a way to go further than thesurface reasons.

Eliciting deep conversation takes both time and skill. With only a limitedamount of time available during the interviews, the knowledge ambas-sadors had to make the best use of their time and elicit meaningfulresponses from the interviewees.

To help the knowledge ambassadors conduct good interviews and elicitdeep conversation in a group setting, they were trained in small-group facil-itation methods. This included techniques for asking questions withoutintimidating; getting into greater depth of conversation successively, onestep at a time, without rushing, despite the lack of time; being mindful toaffirm interviewees or group members for what they shared; not judging thequality of responses unnecessarily; and ending the process by making surethat the interviewees or group members shared what they wanted to shareand nothing was held back. Following this strategy helped in getting to thecore of the knowledge sharing goal.

An important role of the knowledge ambassadorsThe ASK process assigns a key role for the knowledge ambassadors. They,instead of the consultant, drive the process after the intervention. After all,they are GCB employees who have a much better sense of the organizationthan the consultant and will naturally have a significant stake in the successand long term survival of their organization. And finally, they may haveflexibility and possess the subject knowledge of their specific operationalareas, thereby enabling them to coach fellow employees or colleagues forfollow-up work on the FPS.

Later at the ASK event, the consultant and the knowledge ambassadorsfound that they needed to keep participants grounded in reality and specificaction mode, rather than the abstract and the general. Part of the successof the ASK initiative depended upon the ability of the participants to visu-alize their future-present scenarios. The more real the future-present sce-narios seemed, the more the participants felt they had a stake in realizingthem, in much the same way that someone works toward realizing a dreamshe wants ‘so badly she can taste it’. As many of the future-present scenar-ios tended to become abstract, the knowledge ambassadors continuously


reminded the participants of the need to be concrete and to think in termsof the sensory. To aid the process, they were trained to ask variations of twokey facilitative questions: ‘When you mentally put yourself in that situ-ation, what does it look like? What do you hear?’ or, ‘If the situation wereto change in a way you would like, what would that look like?’

Grounding future-present scenariosAs mentioned in the previous chapter, it is important to help the partici-pants visualize a concrete reality based on a full realization of the future-present scenarios. If a given FPS came true, would the stakeholders reallywant to engage in that mode? For example, if the FPS that there be regularweekly Friday late-afternoon meetings came true, would the membersreally like that after a while? Perhaps some will not want to give up theirFriday afternoon. What was important was the need to have a forum tocommunicate openly with a certain regularity. Hence, Mondays would havebeen just as good as Fridays. In other words, special attention should bepaid to each element of the FPS. In this example, they are the need to haveface-to-face meetings, the day of the meeting (Monday or Friday), the timeof the meeting (low energy time versus high energy time), the compositionof participants (Who will attend? Will the boss be there?), the focus ofmeetings (content of discussion), and the periodicity (How often? Daily,weekly, or monthly?).

An important lesson to keep in mind is that an FPS may sound exciting,appealing, or radical, yet it may not be based on an accurate identificationof knowledge enablers or a realistic assessment of their interaction withknowledge infrastructure factors. In other words, one must distinguishbetween social desirability and social feasibility. The former is a strongmotivator and may subtly encourage participants to pick action items thatlook good or may win the approval of top management. The latter, socialfeasibility, is more realistic and often less attractive and hence may notgather much momentum in large settings such as those described in theGCB example.

It is important to steer participants to FPS that are higher on social feas-ibility than social desirability, partly by making use of the ‘constructingthe FPS’ checklist and the commitment, inspiration, and groundednessmodel described in the previous chapter. An equally sound indicator for thegenuineness or authenticity of an FPS is the subjective intuition that theparticipants, the knowledge ambassadors, or the key client contacts mayhave about it. This is an area where consultants typically have limitedknowledge because they have not been part of the organizational systemlong enough. However, consultants may make up for this by intentionallyencouraging or coaching the knowledge ambassadors and participants to


trust their intuition and by periodically reaffirming that doing so may notnecessarily negate the more rigorous process undertaken earlier to writethe FPS.

Closing of the event, but not the processThe ASK initiative does not have a well defined ending by design becauseknowledge sharing never ends. The ASK initiative is more like the begin-ning of a new process, though the event has ended. It is important to keepthis lesson in mind because it is common practice for management or par-ticipants to believe that they have become a knowledge sharing entitybecause the project has been completed. It is equally important to instituteor gain commitment for follow-up work for implementing the future-present scenarios.

The GCB employees felt differently about ASK in comparison to otheractivities they had done in the past. Some talked about an event of the pre-vious year where everyone came together, but reported that they did nothave the same power or enthusiasm that they had for the ASK process.They felt that the ASK process allowed them to use ‘real’ data from ‘reallife’ work experiences with plenty of specificity. Secondly, they liked the factthat there were no blaming or fixing responsibilities for what went wrongbecause the ASK process was focused on what went right.

Several of the attendees highlighted the different climate of this session.The ‘free floating’ climate of affirmation of one another is somethingunique to ASK and was especially unique to their experience.

Finally, they reported that they had learned and felt that everyone hadsomething to contribute to the knowledge sharing process. No matterwhether they were a vice-president or data processing staff, they were lis-tened to.

CREATING KNOWLEDGE SHARING CULTURES INPRIVATE SECTOR ORGANIZATIONS

Creating this sustainable knowledge sharing culture in your organizationis easy, as long as you take the right framework and dedicate time andcommitment to the knowledge sharing culture. Both ITC and GCBhad the desire to create an environment where their employees and com-panies could thrive. Both were able to create sustained results by using theAppreciative Sharing of Knowledge process. In the next chapter, weshall explore two government organizations that experienced similarresults.


NOTES

1. The term ‘possibility proposition’ was used instead of ‘future-present scenarios’ in somecase studies. The two terms are used interchangeably in this book.

2 This case study is borrowed from Thatchenkery’s previous work, Appreciative Sharing ofKnowledge: Leveraging Knowledge Management for Strategic Change, Chagrin Falls,Ohio: Taos Publishing, 2005. Reproduced with the permission of the publisher.


6. Government sector case studies

The Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge approach is equally as applicablein the government sector as it is in the private. In this chapter we includetwo case studies – the Maritime Administration (MARAD) and theAnother Federal Agency (AFA), a fictitious name to protect its identity. InMARAD, the Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge approach was muchneeded, since one third of the employees were eligible for retirement. Usingthe ASK approach helped MARAD access and preserve the tacit knowl-edge that would otherwise have been lost. In the AFA study, we will see anexample of how a process group within the organization found value in theappreciative method.

MARITIME ADMINISTRATION

MARAD was a good candidate for an Appreciative Sharing ofKnowledge analysis because the organization was about to enter into asignificant knowledge management challenge with the potential of losinga major segment of the collective tacit knowledge of its employees.At the time of the study, over 35 percent of the employee populationwas eligible to retire and thus the potential loss of knowledge wassignificant. The leadership of the organization recognized the importanceof retaining the tacit knowledge of employees and welcomed the oppor-tunity to participate in an ASK initiative. The study was conducted by DanEisen, Ursula Koerner, Julia Lissely, Anita Murphy, and Ray Pagliarini,who were all George Mason University (GMU) students in the Organ-izational Learning graduate program at that time. The GMU teamengaged in this ASK initiative with the active support of the managementof MARAD.

MARAD was interested in knowledge management not only for captur-ing the tacit knowledge as people retired, but also for creating a proactiveway to manage information and knowledge for the future. As an agency ofthe U.S. Department of Transportation, MARAD promotes the develop-ment and maintenance of an adequate, well-balanced United Statesmerchant marine sufficient to carry the nation’s domestic waterborne com-merce and a substantial portion of its waterborne foreign commerce, and

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the capability of serving as a naval and military auxiliary in time of war ornational emergency.

MARAD understands that the quality of its leaders and managers iscritical to its success as an organization. MARAD has a multifacetedrole in transportation. Its core mission is to ensure the continuance ofa healthy and viable maritime industry in the United States. Thishas significant benefits for the US economy and is also essential for itsnational security. A significant element of MARAD’s mission is theability to work in and around the maritime and transportation system;advocating, encouraging, supporting, and at times assisting elements ofthe industry. MARAD’s key programs are externally focused on addingvalue to maritime and transportation stakeholders and creating a seam-less transportation system for the movement of goods. This requires thata large proportion of MARAD employees have significant expertise andcredibility in the maritime industry. It is very difficult to gain this exper-tise and credibility solely through course work or on-the-job training. Itoften requires time spent working in the maritime industry. Therefore, inMARAD’s human capital planning efforts (including its recruiting plans)a key strategy is to have personnel entering MARAD from the maritimeand transportation industries at many levels, bringing fresh expertise tothe organization. At the same time, MARAD anticipates that it willhave attrition at many levels (much of it leaving to gain experience in thetransportation industry). Therefore, MARAD sees a healthy in and outflow of personnel in its workforce as essential to adding value to the trans-portation system. It sees the process more as a brain circulation than abrain drain.

MARAD, which turned 56 years old in 2006, comprises a headquartersoffice, five regional offices, three National Defense Reserve Fleets, and theUnited States Merchant Marine Academy, all geographically dispersed. Atone point in history, MARAD comprised over 2000 employees with officesestablished in strategic countries around the world. At the time of writingMARAD has less than 900 employees nationwide. As a federal agencyMARAD is no stranger to declining scope and responsibilities as well as adeclining workforce. These declining experiences are in part the foundationof MARAD’s present culture. In fact, over a significant period of time, theleadership team and employees have survived the reduction of MARADwithout having a structured knowledge management program. Therefore,it was refreshing to notice that the executive leadership team had recog-nized the critical impact of instituting a knowledge management program.

Government sector case studies 117

THE STEP BY STEP PROCESS


The leadership at MARAD was open to completing an ASK initiative.After presenting them with a proposal, the George Mason University teamengaged in a discussion of knowledge sharing, attrition, and relationshipmanagement. The leadership expressed their commitment to the success ofthe project and gave the team full support in accessing the relevant infor-mation they needed.

Step 2: Presenting the Appreciative Knowledge Sharing Model

A representative sample of the MARAD staff attended the storytellingsessions. Seventeen employees represented various positions in the organ-ization from administrative staff to managers. The participants were seatedfour to a table to allow easy conversation. The GMU team gave a shortpresentation to the participants as an overview of the ASK initiative, theagenda for the session, the process for sharing stories, and next steps. TheGMU team members ‘role played’ a storytelling scenario and asked theparticipants what were some of the themes or core values they heard in thestory. After allowing for questions, the participants formed pairs andbegan sharing stories. Each member of the team was available to answerquestions and to ensure that the participants were engaged in the activity.

When the storytelling concluded, the participants were asked to sharetheir stories. The participants identified themes from the stories and wrote


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them on sticky notes. The Mariner team members collected the sticky notesand posted them on flip charts throughout the room. Each facilitatorhelped a group post their themes.

Step 3: Identify Knowledge Enablers

The GMU team facilitated the identification of the knowledge enablers byasking the group to look at each KE. The themes were combined, clarified,and categorized by consensus of the group. The original list contained 85different themes and the categorizing process helped to narrow down the


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themes and eliminate duplicates. The GMU team helped the group toidentify overarching themes to shorten the list to a workable number. Theknowledge enablers identified for this group were:

● Trust.● Respect.● Partnering.● Compassion.

Knowledge Enabler 1: Trust

How does MARAD encourage employees to share what they know? TheGMU team reviewed their knowledge enablers, such as the power of therelationship between knowledge seeker, knowledge source, and the type ofknowledge being exchanged. Their interview with the employees and thepossibility proposition rankings identified how trust affected knowledgesharing and how individuals assessed the trustworthiness of others whenseeking knowledge. The ASK interviews suggested that the ‘magic ingredi-ent’ that linked strong ties among and between employees and managementand encouraged knowledge sharing was the knowledge enabler of trust.

The study pointed to various types of trust that were instrumental inthe knowledge sharing process. It was evident from the interviews thatemployees built their trust based on three factors: employee longevity in theorganization, long term relationships, and a family-centric culture. Thelongevity of employment of the interviewees ranged from 6 months to35 years. When asked why people stayed at MARAD many responded bypointing to the family-like organizational climate. The knowledge enablerof trust created the basis for knowledge sharing in this organization. Theywere emphatic in pointing out that knowledge sharing could not happen inMARAD without trust. It was found that the positive relationships amongemployees resulted in a high level of group cohesion.

The knowledge enabler trust carried great weight in the possibilityproposition statements that were created later in the ASK initiative.Leadership and trust were ranked second by the MARAD employees as animmediate necessity for the organization. Employees felt that the leaders ofMARAD should establish clear performance standards, assign specifictasks, and provide employees with increasing responsibilities.

Knowledge Enabler 2: Respect

What might be the role of respect in knowledge sharing? Data from inter-views, focus groups, and possibility proposition statements from MARADdiscerned how respect affected knowledge sharing and how individuals


assessed the respect of others when seeking knowledge. The data showedthat respect had a major impact on knowledge transfers involving highlytacit knowledge. The possibility proposition results by time-bound cate-gories reflected the importance that MARAD had placed on the knowledgeenabler, respect. Respect triggered the process of tacit knowledge sharingin MARAD. Employees observed how information was given, received,and used to benefit both the receiver and giver.

What are the factors that a knowledge seeker uses to define respect? In thisculture with staff longevity, the presence of an ongoing credible relationshipamong individuals had an impact on respect and knowledge sharing. Itwas MARAD’s belief that this level of respect initiated a systematic reactionto knowledge sharing. Through the prioritized proposition statements, the‘immediate future’ part of them showed that MARAD employees saw deci-sion making and respect as a necessity. They reflected that valuingdifferences throughout the organization would contribute to accomplishingMARAD’s mission. In the short term perspective of a six month time frame,organizational practices and respect were seen as number four in the rank-ings. The employees stated that teambuilding within an organization camefrom the job being well accomplished. For the two year time frame,MARAD management decided to meet with employees one-on-one as fre-quently as needed but at least once a quarter to discuss overall achievementsand areas of concern. This was shown through the proposition statement ofleadership and respect seen as number four in the rankings.

In MARAD, there was a shared understanding of the sustained tacitknowledge sharing they had created and respect that they created a code ofbehavior through which the exchange of tacit knowledge could happen ona daily basis. Clearly, in MARAD respect was a knowledge enabler thatpeople owned and shared.

Knowledge Enabler 3: Partnering

The importance of partnering at MARAD was significant in both explicitand tacit knowledge exchanges. The possibility proposition statementsrevealed that the employees who got the most useful knowledge did sothrough trusted partnerships. Organizational components with strongpartnerships often had similar kinds of knowledge; they were aware of thesame people, ideas, and concepts. However, different partnerships had con-nections to different social network types of knowledge and ideas. The keyto effective knowledge sharing at MARAD was based on both strong anddifferent partnerships linked by partnership bond.

Knowledge sharing was partly accomplished through short and longterm teams/groups across multilevel organizational components. It was


common for employees to work together on projects and assignmentsacross departments. Partnering was very useful in achieving the goal ofimproving the final product. This knowledge sharing at various organiz-ational levels developed ongoing partnerships between groups whereimportant knowledge was shared. Frequent partnering helped to accom-plish a social construction of knowledge. MARAD through partnering wasfunctioning as an open system.

During the interviews, employees related that building networks forsharing information was often based on employee longevity. Partneringalso helped the interviewees learn the dynamics of the different types ofpeople they work with, along with an understanding of each others’strengths and weaknesses. In MARAD employees built life-long partner-ship throughout the organization.

MARAD’s organizational components partnered together to preservethe integrity of the mission of MARAD. MARAD has become the partnerof choice in the maritime community by partnering with various otheragencies. Its senior leadership took pride in identifying the talents andstrengths of its employees to build effective teams and worked together toachieve agency goals and objectives. Partnering was also essential to com-plete and implement the responsibilities of the agency. The GMU teamfound that MARAD’s commitment to success was marked by their out-standing support of their stakeholders. To do this, they maintained a bestpractices database that was available to all employees.

Partnering was a very large part of the prioritized proposition statementfor the sixth month time frame and was shown in five of the seven state-ments. This was seen in the example of decision making and partnering.Employees felt that MARAD’s partnership with the industry, internationalorganizations, and other agencies had made it the partner of choice in themaritime community. Over the next two years communication and part-nering were still seen as a priority. The employees hoped that the databasewould help all employees by benefiting from the experiences and knowledgeof other MARAD employees.

The data analysis clearly suggested that partnering in MARAD fosteredknowledge sharing through various internal and external partnerships. Thelongevity of MARAD employees had built a wealth of institutional knowl-edge that could be exchanged through partnering and sharing tacit knowl-edge both internally and externally.

Knowledge Enabler 4: Compassion

The knowledge enabler of compassion stems from the feeling of familythroughout MARAD’s employees. MARAD’s family-centric culture created


an enabling context that encouraged cooperation, sharing, loyalty, and com-passion among employees. It was natural to wonder how this knowledgeenablercalledcompassioncould facilitate theknowledgesharingatMARAD.MARAD employees believed that compassion was the behavioral dimensionbehind knowledge sharing, allowing people to reach out to one another. Forexample, an interviewee said:

Compassion is shown when an individual is stuck on a task and other employ-ees share their knowledge to help complete the project. There is an importanceof treating people as people and not just a source of information. When there ismisunderstanding employees engage in conversations to resolve the difficulties.The family-centric culture here enables employees to communicate effectivelyduring difficult conversations.

In MARAD, compassion was an indispensable part of developing openand productive working environments. As one interviewee succinctly stated,‘the atmosphere here undoubtedly creates a climate of compassion’. It wasthus not surprising that compassion was ranked very highly in relation toorganizational practices, ranking as a priority. The data also revealed thatcompassion was very important for leadership, who were very mindful ofthe need to create an organizational climate that allowed employees to feelthat they belonged to the organization and that the powers that be wouldtake care of them in times of crisis or unusual circumstances.

Organizational practices and compassion were prioritized at the top ofthe list of the possibility proposition statements. The employees wanted tosee the Maritime Administration provide employee friendly programs toshow that MARAD cared about its employees and that they were animportant part of the organization. Over the next two years employeeswanted MARAD to establish an environment that encouraged knowledgesharing based on trust and respect for new and innovative ideas. Theemployees ranked this second among the possibility proposition statementsand wanted to make sure that the environment would promote teaming andhelp individuals to make a contribution to the team efforts or assignments.

Some examples of compassion were statements such as ‘MARAD pro-vides employee friendly programs’, ‘our leaders model empathy and sym-pathy’, ‘We practice team work through knowing our employees, sharingconcerns and accepting differences’, and ‘MARAD builds camaraderiebetween team members by creating formal teams with a flexible structure’.

Steps 4 and 5: Analyze the Expanded Data from Appreciative Interviewsusing Knowledge Infrastructure Factors

Twenty-five MARAD employees were individually interviewed by GMUteam members. They asked the participants questions to validate the four


knowledge enablers and to give them an opportunity to share their storiesand ideas. The 25 employees interviewed were not a part of the storytellingsession. It was the GMU team’s intent to try to reach as many employeesas possible.

After the interviews were completed, the GMU team collected the dataand compiled them into various analytical formats. They engaged those whohelped in the process and arranged for a working session with MARADemployees to jointly analyze the data. The final group consisted of thosewho participated in the storytelling exercise and those who were interviewed.

Step 6: Constructing Future-present Scenarios/Possibility Propositions

The GMU team defined the knowledge enablers and showcased stories fea-turing each KE. They explained the process for the session, and instructedthe group on writing possibility proposition statements. The group beganby considering each core value in relation to the KIFs. Divided into smallergroups, each group was assigned one organizational factor for each corevalue to work through the KIFs and create a possibility proposition. Eachgroup wrote their proposition statements on a sticky note in order to facili-tate the process of grouping the data. Once the possibility propositions hadbeen written, each small group passed their draft statements to anothertable for their feedback.

When the groups completed giving feedback regarding the possibilitypropositions, the groups were allowed time to make changes to their state-ments. The GMU team then asked a representative from each table to readeach of their proposition statements to the rest of the group. They were also


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given time for questions and further explanation of the statements. Noquestions emerged and the group validated each of the statements as theywere read.

Step 7: Consensually Validate and Rank Possibility Propositions

The possibility proposition statements were posted on charts throughoutthe room. The participants walked around the room and validated eachproposition statement. Each chart also contained a ranking system. On ascale of 1 to 5, the participants were asked to rank each statement on


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Step 4 Expansion of knowledge enablers using appreciative inter-views designed and conducted by the ASK team





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whether it was ideal, how much was already in place, and how soon did theywant this to happen. The participants were given dots to indicate theirchoice and ranking. When the session concluded, the GMU team collectedthe data and ranking.

Step 8: Form an Implementation Team

The GMU team used the collected data to create suggestions and recom-mendations for MARAD. After the session, the team returned to lead-ership with a summary of the project and recommendations forimplementation (Table 6.l). The recommendations were received favorablyand were in the process of being implemented at the time of writing.

Implications

The knowledge enablers at MARAD represented the most significantstrengths and opportunities to help create an efficient knowledge manage-ment system at MARAD. The employees as well as the senior managementunderstood that there was a real and immediate need for change. There wasa strong desire among many of the newer employees (i.e., employees with0–5 years of MARAD experience) to contribute to the discussionssurrounding major change initiatives and reforms contemplated byMARAD’s leadership. It was recognized that these officers, after all, wouldbe the ones who would have to live with the implications of the initiativesand reforms the longest.

Their desire to be part of the solution can be seen in the fact that


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Table 6.1 Possibility propositions

(a) Implementation time frame: immediate

Organizational The Maritime Administration provides employee friendlyPractices – programs that say we care about you as an important part of ourCompassion organization. These human resource programs consist of

telecommuting, drug and alcohol counseling, job sharing, leavedonation, and family leave programs and medical/mental healthsupport.

Leadership – In our organization, leaders establish trust throughTrust demonstrated concern for and interest in employees’ professional

development. Leaders establish clear performance standards andassign specific tasks, providing employees with increasingresponsibility as they demonstrate success and ability with basictasks. In addition to midyear and annual performanceevaluations, leaders provide task specific feedback, providingadvice when sought and rewarding success through praise,recognition, and increased responsibility. Employees feel valued,appreciated, and believe their supervisors have their best interestat heart.

Leadership – Leaders are accepting of people as unique and worthy of respectCompassion and demonstrate these qualities through open communication,

coaching, motivating, empathy, and sympathy to ensureemployee empowerment and success.

Decision The organization respects the qualifications and competence ofMaking – its diverse staff. Valuing these differences contributes toRespect accomplishing MARAD’s mission.

Leadership – Leaders of MARAD work together to achieve agency goals andPartnering objectives. Organizations partner together in order to protect the

integrity and mission of the agency. Leaders form workgroups todevelop innovative solutions to improve work processes, increasecustomer satisfaction, and develop ways to increase employeedevelopment and improve organizational communication.Information is compiled from each organization to includeorganizational highlights. This information is disseminated to allemployees through quarterly broadcast messages as well asquarterly newsletters. Workgroups meet quarterly to reviewoverall effectiveness.

Leadership – Leaders earn respect by consistently treating people fairly. ThisRespect does not mean that all employees are treated the same. Leaders

meet with employees one-on-one as frequently as needed butat least once a quarter to discuss overall achievements and areasof concern. Both leaders and employees share concerns openly.Titles are left at the door. Cultural differences are honored.



(b) Implementation time frame: six months

Decision MARAD’s partnership with industry, international organizations,Making – and other agencies has made us the partner of choice in thePartnering maritime community. MARAD’s commitment to success is

marked by our outstanding support of our stakeholders throughthe newly formed National Maritime Counsel.

Organizational MARAD supervisory and leadership personnel identify the talentsPractices – and strengths of employees to establish ways of developing highPartnering performance teams. MARAD employees network and share

information with one another by partnering on work projects andassignments. We will be aware of one another’s strengths andweaknesses and work toward establishing high performing teams.

Communication MARAD maintains a ‘best practices’ database that is available– Partnering to all employees. This database helps all employees, who benefit

from the experiences and knowledge of other MARAD employees.

Organizational Teambuilding within an organization comes from the job beingPractices – well done. Respect is earned among the members by the entireRespect team working together. Organizational respect allows for the

efficient and timely responses to finished work that challengesthe team and individuals on the team.

Incentives – To complete or implement the responsibilities of the agency,Partnering partnering is essential. This is accomplished by setting up various

short and longer term teams/groups on various issues at the office,agency, and stakeholder levels. Criteria have been established tofacilitate partnering at each level with the goal of improving thefinal product or decision. This teaming on various issues developspartnerships between individuals and groups where significantknowledge is shared. Only through frequent and sincere partneringexperiences can we accomplish a social construction of knowledge.

Incentives – Trust is the basis for knowledge sharing in our organization. WeTrust give credit to individuals and especially to the group through

broad recognition to validate their contribution. Credit is basedon the contribution to reaching agency goals and objectives. Therecognition of outputs for individuals and groups creates trustamong individuals and between groups and leads to higher effortsand better results.

Communication MARAD has a transparent hiring process. All MARAD vacancy– Respect announcements require a ‘free flow’ answer to a knowledge, skills

and abilities (KSA) for demonstrating their ability to communicatewith other staff and respect the opinions of others.

several of the leadership team supported each ASK initiative to engageemployees at all levels in an Appreciative Inquiry about what was workingwell at MARAD. Other key factors of their interest in helping can befound in the possibility proposition statements. The propositions pro-vided a road map for the creation of tacit knowledge which was criticalfor the organization.



(c) Implementation time frame: two years

Communication – MARAD fosters a shared responsibility for failure andTrust finding subsequent solutions by formalizing accountability

for the manager and staff.

Incentives – We have established an environment that encouragesCompassion knowledge sharing based on trust and respect for new and

innovative ideas. The environment promotes teaming andhelps individuals to make a contribution to the team efforts orassignments. This includes being genuine and sincere to eachteam member with empathy, sympathy, and empowerment.

Decision Making MARAD employees and customers trust decisions made by– Trust management, which are now listed on the MARAD intranet

in a timely manner. Management decisions consider the viewsand ideas of all employees. In turn, management takesownership of decisions while empowering employees toexecute. If the outcomes turned out to be ineffective,management quickly corrects course.

Leadership – Leaders earn respect by consistently treating people fairly.Respect This does not mean that all employees are treated the same.

Leaders meet with employees one-on-one as frequently asneeded but at least once a quarter to discuss overallachievements and areas of concern. Both leaders andemployees share concerns openly. Titles are left at the door.Cultural differences are honored.

Incentives – People are respected for speaking up and sharing. MultilevelRespect teaming has been established to promote the respect of

diverse ideas and concepts given the issue, activity, ordecision. We show consideration and appreciation for allshared information and acknowledge that the final product isa joint effort. The opportunities to achieve success are muchgreater if information is flowing freely.

Communication – MARAD maintains a ‘best practices’ database that isPartnering available to all employees. This database helps all employees

benefit from the experiences and knowledge of otherMARAD employees.

Recommendations

The GMU team’s recommendations focused on three levels of the organ-ization: the individual, the group, and the organization as a whole.

Individual levelTo sustain the knowledge enablers currently existing in MARAD, inter-viewees stressed the importance of a larger Upward Mobility Program tostrengthen and develop the emerging workforce and capture the tacitknowledge of the retiring workforce. While there was some concernover the transition of MARAD, most interviewees accepted change as anatural part of a transition to a changing workforce. The TransportationLeadership Program (TLP) was the major upward mobility avenue avail-able to MARAD employees. Employees saw it as a core leadership devel-opment program but it tapped a small portion of leadership at MARAD.There were a few cases of ongoing leader development with supervisorsthat had informally developed in the upper levels of the organization. TheGMU team recommended a combination of Upward Mobility Programswithin the existing structure of MARAD. Examples included shadowingprograms, six month residence internships, personal interviews with seniorleaderships, leader network cadres, leaders’ knowledge sharing database,intermodal teams with different influence from public and private sectors,and opportunities to partner outside the organization and across depart-mental divisions.

Group levelWith the potential to lose a major segment of the collective tacit knowledgeas a result of retirement, interviewees voiced their thoughts, concerns,and ideas particularly regarding internal transformation for MARAD.Interviewees identified several internal transformation projects to supportsenior leadership, such as commissioning an advisory group of MARADemployees to think ‘boldly and creatively’ about the organization’s futureand to help senior leadership, design a program to enable MARAD to meetthe challenges ahead. They also put together a strong briefing program forinternal and external stakeholders.

Organizational levelFor its transformation to be successful MARAD needed buy-in at all levels,including bottom-up input and top-down ownership. The workforce andmid-level managers needed to understand why MARAD needed to changesome of its day-to-day business practices through the knowledge enablersof trust, compassion, respect, and partnering. The recommendation in this


context was that they focus on issues that continue to instill the knowledgeenablers. MARAD must consider stronger networks, better partnerships,and increasing focus on sharing knowledge inside and outside MARAD,removing the barriers to progress and efficiency, and open the flow of ideas,people, and information between the components. To assist in these rec-ommendations, MARAD may consider appointing a cross-departmentfacilitator to help with both coordinating efforts and monitoring progress,and perhaps even a formal review panel including both insiders and out-siders for launching this recommendation.

The following implementation guidelines were provided based on the pri-oritization of the possibility propositions across an immediate, six month,and two year time frame. For the immediate time frame, it was recom-mended that MARAD expand its Upward Mobility Programs, organizepartnerships to improve work processes, increase customer satisfaction,increase employee development, and improve organizational communi-cation. For the six month time frame, the recommendations includedestablishing criteria to facilitate partnering networks, establish internaltransformation advisory groups made up of a cross section of MARADemployees, and create community of practice groups to discuss issues ofimportance for the organization. For the two year time frame, the priori-tized recommendations included establishing a knowledge managementintranet database to increase knowledge sharing, and initiating multilevelpartnering with local government and other maritime associates. As aresult of these recommendations based on ASK, members pledged thatthey would strive to create an environment that encourages knowledgesharing based on the knowledge enablers of trust, respect, compassion, andpartnering for new and innovative ideas.

Enabling the creation of tacit knowledge sharing at MARAD was aboutcreating the space to foster tacit knowledge. The four key knowledgeenablers at MARAD – trust, respect, partnering, and compassion – werethe ingredients to instill a knowledge vision, manage conversations, mobil-ize knowledge activists, and create the right context for knowledge sharing.

The ASK initiative has its own proposals to overcome the resistance tochange that would be a natural outcome of any change project. While itwould be very difficult to manage ‘resistance to change’ due to the fact thatresistance is a way of expressing feelings of vulnerability, the AI/ASK modelhelped MARAD staff express their concerns through conversations aroundwhat was important and meaningful for organizational change. Using theASK method in MARAD, we were able to specifically focus on what peoplewere doing well. The phrase ‘overcoming resistance’ imposes an adversarialrelationship while resistance to change is more naturally occurring and aninternal emotional process where the key to deal with it is to understand it.


Conclusion

MARAD served as an excellent client in which to implement an ASK in-itiative. Its 35 percent retirement eligibility rate and the lack of a structuredknowledge management program may have been the initial factors thatattracted the organization to engage an ASK process. But once started, theunconditional support of the leadership and the extraordinary commit-ment of its staff allowed the ASK initiative to grow into a major changepossibility for the organization. The leadership was not only concernedabout the loss of tacit knowledge within the agency as large numbers of keyemployees retire but also about the potential loss of relationships with themaritime industry. In that context, engaging with the ASK initiative was asmart decision.

Working with the client, the GMU team was able to discover four knowl-edge enablers: trust, respect, partnering, and compassion. MARAD’slongevity among employees allowed long term relationships to evolve andthus build trust. MARAD’s family-centric environment enhanced know-ledge sharing, which was earned through respect. Partnering was critical toachieving the agency’s mission and goals. Finally, MARAD’s open andproductive work environment was based on this notion of compassion andits important role in the agency.

As mentioned earlier, the GMU team’s recommendations to MARADencompassed four types: individual, group, organizational, and timebound. Individual recommendations included such items as a knowledgesharing database and creating opportunities to partner outside MARAD.Group recommendations centered around creating employee advisorygroups to encourage employees to think boldly and creatively aboutMARAD’s future. Organizational recommendations focused on issuesthat continued to instill the knowledge enablers such as developingstronger networks, better partnerships, and increasing focus on sharingknowledge internally and externally. The time-bound recommendations,created by the employees participating in the focus groups, were subdividedinto three segments by way of implementation time span: immediate, sixmonths, and two years. In the immediate category, recommendationsincluded expanding Upward Mobility Programs to enhance knowledgesharing while the six month time frame called for establishing and facili-tating networks. The two year time span recommendations were for estab-lishing a knowledge management intranet database to increase knowledgesharing.


THE AFA

The AFA is the fictitious name of a US Federal Agency where the ASK in-itiative was undertaken by another GMU team. The Process Engineeringorganization within the AFA is responsible for providing policy guidanceand direction to the various lines of business and staff offices of the AFAon the best applicable information technology processes, practices, andtools. This organization’s mission is to provide agency policy and directionin the areas of IT Strategic Planning, IT Investment Analysis, ProcessEngineering, Information Management, and Information Security. Thismission was meant to be achieved by working with key constituents tounderstand the information technology needs of the agency and byteaming with other organizations to carry out the mission.

The Process Engineering division of the AFA decided to conduct anASK initiative in order to enhance process sharing across the agency. Thisgroup was an advisory body only, and had no authority to mandate aparticular process or a process improvement technique. As a result, eachline of business and each staff office had developed and followed its ownprocesses. There was no continuity of thought or constancy of purpose inthe processes used by the different lines of business. The sponsor stated thatthe underlying issue might be a lack of trust, resulting in a lack of com-munication between this organization and the various lines of business.

The objective of using the ASK model was to find and expand theknowledge sharing practices that were already taking place and to helpdevelop an overarching knowledge sharing culture within the AFA. Sincethe model was designed to bring people together, representatives from thedifferent groups were requested to get involved in the process. By helpingthe participants to focus on their positive knowledge sharing experiences,the GMU team wanted to create a space that would give them the desireand ability to trust and communicate with each other in a new way. It washoped that the new experience would lay the groundwork for creating aknowledge sharing culture and help achieve their goal of adoptingcommon processes. It was felt by both the GMU team and the AFA thatthe Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge initiative would promote interac-tion and communication between management and team members, teammembers themselves, and between different lines of business within theagency.

The Process Engineering Division

The mission of the Process Engineering Division was to assist theAFA’s various programs to improve its management and the engineering


processes used to plan, procure, test, evaluate, and sustain both missioncritical and non-mission critical software intensive systems. The role of theProcess Engineering department was to identify, enhance, and promote theadoption throughout the agency of the best applicable information tech-nology processes, practices, and tools. In cooperation with other AFA linesof business, Process Engineering developed plans that maximized theeffective use of IT in meeting the agency’s business needs. It focused onactivities that cut across various lines of business with special emphasis onthose activities that had the most impact on the agency’s ability to meet itsbusiness goals. The immediate goal of Process Engineering was to enablethe agency to adopt the best applicable technology for improved safety,efficiency, security, and quality. Process Engineering had identified two keyactivities that cut across all lines of business and directly addressed thefour major goals. They were Process Improvement and Safety andCertification. The first was based on the industry standard CapabilityMaturity Model (CMM), which integrated the CMMs for Software,Systems Engineering, and Software Acquisition. The purpose of thesecond, the integrated safety and information security initiative, was toexplore the technical, programmatic, and economic efficiencies to beachieved by integrating safety and information security within a unifiedsystem lifecycle.

From the beginning, the AFA project sponsor was very committed aboutbringing staff together from all parts of the organization who wereimpacted by the process improvement group. He personally took on theresponsibility of providing the GMU team with participants for all of thephases. Making use of the exceptional support, the team was able to collectdata using techniques such as storytelling, interviews, and observation. Theteam discussed a variety of questions and approaches, keeping in mind theknowledge sharing aspect as well as the business of the client, processimprovement. The following questions were examples:

Think of a time when you had a positive experience sharing information abouta business process.

1. What made it a positive experience?2. What did you learn from that experience?3. What motivated you to share the information?

The questions were intended to elicit stories from the participants aboutpositive knowledge sharing experiences such as the occasions whensharing knowledge provided them with a sense of accomplishment and afeeling of providing value to another person and to the organization. The


following are some quotes that highlight the salient features of the storiesshared:

As a telecommuter, I use technology to actively participate in online discussiongroups (chat rooms, discussion boards) in order to get ideas for current work inprogress.

The way we are organized helps us to see the bigger picture, understand how wecompare with other industries, and how we can do business better.

I came to work and told my colleagues about a safety exercise on terrorism thatI witnessed in my neighborhood. I shared it with my colleagues because I see mywork community as an extension of my home community.

At the AFA ‘knowledge is power’ does not hold true. I share knowledge becauseI don’t feel threatened by doing so.

As the stories were shared, the GMU team captured key themes on flipcharts, taking care to verify the words and statements with the personwhose experience was being shared. The audience received the stories withappreciation and respect. After all stories were shared, the process of iden-tifying and clarifying the knowledge enablers began. There was a high levelof interest, discussion, and dialogue among the participants throughoutthe process and they eventually came up with the following list of sevenknowledge enablers:

● Ethical behavior – Doing the right thing.● Time empowerment – Ability to control one’s time and make time for

knowledge sharing.● Relevance – Help, usefulness, significance, understood value of one’s

work.● What is in it for us? Understanding the broad benefits of one’s work.● Sense of community – Caring, sharing, trust and support.● Effective communication – Asking and listening.● Resources – Time, talent, sponsorship, and engagement of people.

The GMU team subsequently reduced the knowledge enablers to five,eliminating ‘What is in it for us?’ and ‘Effective communication’ since theyoverlap with two knowledge infrastructure factors, incentives and com-munication, respectively. To expand and validate the knowledge enablers,the GMU team formulated the interview questions and an interview pro-tocol for the next phase. The purpose of the interviews was to validate theknowledge enablers that were identified in the storytelling session and to


collect organizational stories about each of the knowledge enablers. TheGMU team asked the following information about each KE (the KEresources is used here as an example):

1. Several people in your organization have identified (resources) as aknowledge enabler. Can you tell me something more about it?

2. Can you describe a time where you had the necessary (resources) toshare information?

3. What are the organizational factors that allowed you to (access theseresources)?

Several of the interviewees decided to share stories that were less thanpositive and were undeterred by attempts to shift to an appreciative mode.This represented only a few people and most interviewees, with a littleencouragement from the interviewers, were able to recall and tell positivestories and experiences. The sharing of negative experiences was alsoappreciated because they existed and came from a motivation to make theteller’s work life better. In the final facilitated session, possibility scenariosor possibility propositions were created. Invitees included members fromthe initial session and all of those interviewed. The participants weredivided into groups and each worked with their own knowledge enabler tocreate possibility propositions.

For the next step, the GMU team used a valencing or prioritizing tech-nique to rank the propositions based on questions from the model that weredescribed earlier in the methodology section of this book.

1. How important is this for the organization to achieve?2. How much of this may already be present in the organization?3. Realistically, how soon do you want this to happen?

After tabulating the scores, the team came up with 2 immediate, 10 shortterm, and 16 long term propositions. The sponsor took responsibility forassigning owners to the propositions of the immediate and short term timespans. The following are some examples of possibility propositions fromthe immediate term time category:

We communicate what we value in our formulation of goals and objectives.

Leaders foster a sense of community through their personal involvement withtheir group, and by including and valuing everyone as a part of the team with arole to play.


For the short term category, examples included statements such as:

We strive to identify key stakeholders in decisions, and proactively involve themin the decision making process.

We value cross-organizational dialogue that supports cooperation and coordin-ation to achieve documented corporate goals and objectives.

We publish results in performance reports and lessons learned.

The interview data suggested that the AFA has a strong meeting culture,one where a great deal of time is spent in and running between meetings.Interviewees shared the sentiment that if there were fewer meetings toattend, there would be more time for people to get their day to day workaccomplished. Furthermore, this would provide them with additional timeand energy to participate in the knowledge sharing process.

It was also found that staff were concerned with how they used otherpeoples’ time. For instance, a major inhibitor of knowledge sharing wasthat if people did not know whether or not a certain piece of informationwas relevant to another person’s work then they would not just share auto-matically. Individuals were deciding to share or not to share based oninsufficient knowledge and understanding of other peoples’ roles andresponsibilities within the organization. Staff would share only when theyhad something that they knew was relevant to another person.

The interview data also suggested that the onus was on the leadership todemonstrate the behavior that employees wanted to see in the organization.If the leadership wanted their staff to share knowledge regularly, they tooneeded to share knowledge regularly. The staff appeared to take cues fromleadership and emulate their behavior.

As mentioned earlier, some interviewees found it difficult to stay focusedon remaining positive and telling stories that positively reflected knowledgesharing within the organization. The interviewers affirmed such feelingsand did not challenge them. Instead the questions were reframed to some-thing like this: ‘If your situation were to change in a direction you wouldlike it to, what would that look like? If your experiences were to becomepositive for you, what would they be?’

During the process of valencing the possibility propositions, the teamuncovered interesting correlations in both the immediate and short termpossibility propositions. These were related to the knowledge infrastructurefactor of leadership. For example, here is a quote: ‘Leaders foster a senseof community through their personal involvement with their group, andby including and valuing everyone as a part of the team with a role to play.’In essence, using the appreciative method, the team was able to identify the


existing organizational factors and individual motivators to knowledgesharing and help the client come up with action plans to implement thedesired changes. The following are some such recommendations or actionplans:

1. Identify an action lead and implementation team for each immediateand short term possibility proposition that was generated in the ASKinitiative.

2. Use regularly scheduled meetings as a means for updating the status ofthe developed action plans. This is to prevent adding meeting time toalready busy schedules.

3. After 3–6 months, reevaluate the long term propositions to determinewhich are still organizationally relevant. Evaluate, through a valencingor other prioritization process, which propositions to work on next.

4. Review the newly bolstered long term propositions that now includeorganizationally relevant action items, ideas, and suggestions that werecollected during the interview process.

5. Develop a strategy to gain executive support for implementing a knowl-edge sharing culture within the AFA. This support would consist of:

● Ongoing communications from the top that talk about theimportance of the process to the future of the AFA.

● Actions by senior leaders that demonstrate the desired behaviors(‘walk the walk’).

● Starting with areas that the process group touches, involvepeople in the ASK process and move to involve other areas (startsmall and grow big).

● Model the behaviors learned during the project (‘walk the walk’).● Share what you are doing with the greater organization, through

various communication venues.● Celebrate success so that people are curious and interested and

want to be a part of what you’re doing.

Overall, AFA employees cherished the opportunity to share knowledgeand it was up to the leaders to sustain the momentum built through theASK initiative. The ASK process helped empower the employees to takeaction for the betterment of themselves, the process organization, and theAFA.


7. Public service case study

Employees of public service organizations may have more socially sensitivemotivations than those from for-profit, private sectors. Whether suchdifferences would lead to different knowledge sharing challenges or not wassomething we were not aware of when a GMU team began their ASKinitiative with one such organization. The international Public ServiceOrganization (PSO) showcased in this case study had its own knowledgesharing challenge because its employees were geographically dispersed andthere was a significant amount of turnover every few years. To the GMUteam, both of these features appeared to underscore the need for a formalknowledge sharing program. Since not many people stayed at PSO for overfive years communication was not free flowing and people were notbumping into each other at the water cooler. As a result, only a limitedamount of organizational history had become institutionalized. The PSOtherefore welcomed the opportunity to conduct a knowledge sharinginitiative.

In order to maintain the anonymity of the organization described in thischapter, we are not able to write much about the history or mission of theorganization since doing so might reveal its identity. We can however sharethat this was an internationally known public service organization, about7500 in strength, with a cherished history and attracting highly committedindividuals who were interested in making a positive difference in society.The focus of the ASK initiative was to examine one particular divisionwithin the headquarter organization of the PSO whose primary job was toprovide support for the field.

DISCOVERING WHAT IS

Data collection at the PSO began with a two hour group session. ThirteenCenter staff participated in the session, representing all divisions andincluding administrative assistants, professional staff, and management.The GMU team set the stage by providing an introduction to AppreciativeSharing of Knowledge methodology. They explained the process for sur-facing stories of successful knowledge sharing and paired off the partici-pants to interview each other. During the interview process they were asked

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to share stories about moments at work when they felt most alive andvalued for the knowledge they were able to share, or times when colleaguesshared valuable knowledge with the interviewee. Twenty minutes wereallowed for the interviews, after which all participants shared the stories oftheir partner with the group. As a story was recounted, the group was askedto identify enabling themes that might have encouraged knowledge sharingin that instance. A total of 30 different themes were uncovered, many ofwhich were repeated in other stories. After all of the stories had beenshared, the group consolidated the list into six potential knowledgeenablers:

1. Collaboration/sharing culture.2. Empowerment.3. Belief in the PSO mission.4. Building relationships/community.5. Responsiveness.6. Reflection/Reflective.

There was a healthy debate between the two terms ‘collaboration’ and‘sharing culture’. Some felt the PSO Center was a collaborative culture and


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so could not separate the two terms. In addition, ‘building relationships’and ‘community’ were thought to be synonymous by some participants.The GMU team decided to keep both terms for the time being and felt thatduring Phase II of the interview process they could explore these termsfurther. More details on these enablers are highlighted later in the chapter.

CREATING WHAT MIGHT BE

A week after the pilot event, one of the project sponsors at the Center senta broadcast message to Center staff thanking those who participated in thegroup session and alerting everyone that the project team might be con-tacting them for individual 30–45 minute interviews. The purpose of thesefollow-up interviews was to validate the knowledge enablers uncoveredduring the group session. All interviews were very informative and theCenter staff were enthusiastic about sharing their stories. Center staffseemed very appreciative of their colleagues throughout the organization.

During the individual interviews the GMU team collected stories fromCenter staff that would validate the knowledge enablers uncovered duringthe group session. They also collected information regarding the influence

Public service case study 141

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of seven possible organizational infrastructure factors on the knowl-edge sharing experiences at the Center. Two of the prospective knowledgeenablers were combinations of terms, and the team wanted to verify eitherthe combined terms or the single most appropriate term.

As a result of the individual interviews, and subsequent data, four of thesix original knowledge enablers were validated along with five of the pro-posed knowledge infrastructure factors. The team was also able to confirmthat two knowledge enablers with multiple terms could be reduced to oneterm that most resonated with the employees who were interviewed.

After analyzing the interview data it was concluded that collaboration,empowerment, belief in the PSO mission, and building relationships were thefour most critical knowledge enablers at the PSO Center. All three divisionsgave high marks to collaboration and empowerment. The interview data fortwo of the divisions showed responsiveness with a higher reference level thanbelief in the PSO mission. However, after analyzing the positive storiesfurther it was concluded that the response noted in the stories was due tobelief in the mission. The fourth knowledge enabler, building relationships,was discussed in conjunction with collaboration. Participants collaboratedbecause they had built up relationships with other staff members.

In relation to the infrastructure factors, all divisions noted that leader-ship facilitated the critical knowledge enablers. All divisions connectedleadership to the knowledge enablers of collaboration, empowerment, andbelief in the mission.

While the data from the stories did not contain any specific incentives,the general incentives were primarily satisfaction from a job well done andbelief in the mission or assisting everyone in doing a better job. A few weekslater, the project team conducted a second group session with the PSOCenter staff to complete the data gathering process (steps 5 and 6 of theASK model). For this two hour session, every Center employee who hadparticipated in either the initial group session or one of the individual inter-views was invited to attend. The purpose of the final session was to presentthe project team’s findings so far and to engage the group in the creation offuture-present scenarios or possibility propositions based on the storiesthat were shared by the staff. The group generated scenarios during a 30minute period by working in groups of two or three people, each groupfocused on one of the knowledge enablers. The group developed 16 sce-narios in the time they were allotted. During another approximately 15minute period, everyone read and commented on the original set of sce-narios that were arranged in a gallery along one wall of the conferenceroom that was used. Comments were intended to be appreciative – that is,written to help strengthen the scenario. The small groups then reconvenedto refine their scenarios.


PRIORITIZING WHAT COULD BE

After the possibility propositions had been created, they were rated againsttwo questions:

How much of an ideal is it?

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A LOT NOT MUCH

Based on these rankings, the top six are shaded in Table 7.1. PSO chose tofocus on these particular propositions as part of their action plan.

‘Being in PSO and working towards the mission collaborating with like-minded people is a celebration in itself, it is not just a job for us, it is ourpassion and adventure. We believe that by working here we contribute ourlittle part in making our mission a reality’, stated a member of staff, echoinga theme in a majority of the interviews. Themes such as collaboration,


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Table 7.1 Possibility propositions

Strength Future-Present Scenarios (Possibility Propositions)

Empowerment – The Center has a more equal role ‘a seat at the table’Organizational Structure in decision making within the agency.

Collaboration – Current staff benefit from a tradition of ‘openCommunication houses’ held semi-annually at headquarters and

virtually on the internet. Former staff areencouraged to attend the open houses.

Collaboration – Staff benefit from a tradition of keeping in touch.Organizational Structure

Belief in PSO – Implement live meeting software to enhanceTechnology knowledge sharing and collaboration with field and

headquarters in next quarter, pilots already done intwo locations.

Building Relationships – The continued use of cross-functional teams (regionOrganizational Structure CIO, etc.) promotes relationship building and

knowledge sharing across organizationalboundaries for more effective use of resources.

Empowerment – Building wide work environment that empowersCommunication communication across stovepipes, i.e. office working

groups, informal socializing, Wednesday a.m.doughnut with the regions.

Empowerment – Portable office that is accessible anywhere.Technology

Collaboration – Staff are encouraged to work together in self-Leadership selected and self-driven groups and are valued for

their cooperative and productive work by activelyengaged leaders.

Belief in PSO Mission – Provide an effective means of information/Communication knowledge and policy dissemination at headquarters

and to the field. Strengthen development by oneweekly email update to managers. Complete manualby Oct. 1st (procedures/guidance). Standardizecataloguing by providing Dewey decimal systemclassification guide.

Building Relationships – Center staff try to record knowledge and proceduresOrganizational Practices and pass them on through technologicallyand Routines appropriate standard operating procedures.

Building Relationships – Center staff talk to each other about their passionsCommunication and skills and so they know where to go for

assistance (brown bags, minutes, unit meetings,

empowerment, belief in the PSO mission, and building relationships, firstarticulated in the pilot session and later echoed throughout the interviews,confirmed the observation that Center employees lived by these values.Identifying the knowledge enablers and validating them through individualinterviews at the Center was therefore a highly positive affirmative act forthe GMU team. All of these knowledge enablers were so inter-connectedthat one would not be able to exist without the other. In the section thatfollows we found it appropriate to discuss each of these knowledge enablersin detail and to describe excerpts from the numerous interesting stories thatthe GMU team heard throughout the study.

Knowledge Enabler 1: Empowerment

‘We are all in it together’ was the most prevailing attitude of the manage-ment and employees of the PSO Center. It was the same dedication andsense of togetherness which were the driving forces behind the knowledgeenabler of empowerment. Due to the nature of their work and the missionthey exist for, empowerment was very prevalent in PSO. In some ways it can



Strength Future-Present Scenarios (Possibility Propositions)

cross-functional team meetings, info. briefs, roundtables, trip debriefs, training events).

Building Relationships – Center managers encourage staff to voice opinionsLeadership and talk freely on a regular basis about issues that

are important to all.

Belief in PSO – Center staff participate in regular brown bags andOrganizational happy hours organized with appropriate cross-Practices and Routines sections of the organization. Once a quarter meet

informally to share knowledge.

Empowerment – Division chiefs (DC) encourage and support all staff

Leadership to take leadership responsibility.

Empowerment – Self-organized team structure with latitude forOrganizational Practices individuals to determine work schedules, includingand Routines working outside the building and ‘standard work

hours’.

Belief in PSO – Increase cross-unit communication, collaborationOrganizational Structure via bi-monthly meetings and key shareholders. Print

out all weekly minutes (details) where all staff canview.

be considered the sequel to ‘belief in PSO’s mission’. Almost all of theemployees who were interviewed felt that the Center had an egalitarianstyle of leadership. This was not surprising since in an empowered organ-ization such as the PSO the staff should not be expected to be told what todo, but they should know what to do on their own. The managementtrusted the employees at the Center and believed that they would put theirbest effort into everything they do. One of the employees remarked,‘Management knows that people here are not here to waste their time butwould get things done no matter what it takes.’

‘Empowerment is evident when individuals in an organization gradu-ally acquire the autonomy, freedom and authority to make appropriatedecisions within the domain of their influence’ (Thatchenkery, 2005,p. 53). At the Center employees collaborated actively and formed workgroups across different departments to handle specific issues or projects.The associates were given freedom to utilize their time the best way theythought and did not have to go through a lengthy red tape process to getinvolved in work groups. To join in work groups they did not have to getpermission from their supervisors because supervisors trusted theiremployees to carry their projects through. ‘They do not micro manage,they trust us to do our work’, said another employee. Through a reviewprocess one employee was encouraged to write a handbook to share herknowledge. This became very popular within the PSO and proved to beof worldwide use. In another instance an employee took the initiative toput together catalogs of information resources available within the PSOon compact discs which will help volunteers know what resources areavailable within the Center when they go out to different geographicallocations. She later shared this with the training and recruiting staff, whoended up using the CD for their purposes. The management acknow-ledged that as more freedom and decision making capacities were givento their employees within the scope of their work, knowledge sharing hap-pened more effectively.

It was crucial for the Center management to value employee sugges-tions and manage accordingly, and they were well aware of this. Most ofthe employees at the Center had been volunteers in the field before andtherefore knew the realities faced by the field staff. As a result, they wereable to support the staff effectively and with empathy. As in any otherempowered organization, at the PSO Center too, employees felt respon-sible beyond their own job and wanted to make the whole organizationwork better. They had a sense of ownership and satisfaction in theiraccomplishments, which made them strive harder and share the knowl-edge that they had acquired in the process. Through empowerment theCenter management had been able to help release the untapped employee


creativity and motivation to solve business problems. ‘I am not pigeon-holed here and could utilize many of my skills to the fullest potential forhelping others, in contradiction to the earlier job I was in. There I wouldbe just asked to do my job and mind my own business and nothing more’,remarked an employee who used his skills in graphic designing to helpwith many projects at the Center even though his job was not directlyrelated to those projects. Center staff with a strong sense of being empow-ered constantly worked at providing better service for the volunteersaround the world. Empowerment also relied upon the efficient coachingof management, which helped employees take on more responsibility.Further, Center management took proactive steps to make sure thatemployees were kept up to date with information on what was happen-ing in the field. For example, the whole Center staff were involved in theAnnual Strategic Meetings and Annual Project Plan Reviews. This helpedemployees respond effectively and creatively toward the challenges thatwere brought by the field staff. Thus empowerment was not just anattractive alternative or an ideologically fancy concept for the Centermanagement, but a fundamental way the Center employees understoodand went about doing their daily work. It was indeed their mental model.

Knowledge Enabler 2: Collaboration

Stories from Center staff indicated collaboration as a strong knowledgeenabler which appeared to be a common practice in the way staff did theirwork. During the initial group meeting with employees from the Center,several participants shared stories in which collaboration was a knowledgeenabler in their work. One story mentioned exchanging ideas with col-leagues over lunch. Other stories mentioned Center staff from differentareas working together to support workshops and other training activitiesfor volunteers. One story referred to the practice of staff sitting in cubiclesclose together so there was easy access to colleagues. Proximity was often akey factor in collaboration, and most Center staff worked on the same floorin the headquarters.

Participants in the second phase of the project confirmed collaborationas a driving force in knowledge sharing in the Center – especially acrossstovepipes. Collaboration occurred both formally and informally, bothacross units within divisions and across divisions. In all three divisions, col-laboration was mentioned as a major enabler for knowledge sharing. Theindividual interviews revealed there was strong top management supportfor collaboration among Center staff. Collaboration was seen as a necessityfor overcoming the PSO’s five year rule which restricted the length ofservice for employees. One interviewee indicated that some staff stayed in


touch with predecessors ‘to get their viewpoints based on the experiencethey had here’.

Center staff also collaborated with PSO staff in other parts of head-quarters as well as in-country staff. In one case, the Director of DiversityRecruitment related his collaboration with a member of the Center staff todevelop a diversity starter kit. The knowledge the Center had regarding theexperience of diverse groups of volunteers in the field was used to help inrecruitment efforts. Because many of the Center staff interviewed were PSOvolunteers or worked in the field with volunteers before coming to HQ,there seemed to be an added appreciation for collaboration as well as forknowledge sharing in general.

During the final group session Center staff created 16 future-present sce-narios, three of which focused on collaboration. Those three scenariosdemonstrated their interest in formally recognizing and developing collab-oration among colleagues as well as maintaining relationships with formerstaff. Other organizations have successfully done this through communitiesof practice and the Center may choose to investigate that as a possibleimplementation.

As an organization, the Center had an interest in further developingcompetence in the area of collaboration. Because their role in supportingvolunteers in the field was at the center of the PSO’s mission, it would makesense to continue to develop this competence to take advantage of all theknowledge they collectively possessed, both in current and former staff.

Knowledge Enabler 3: Belief in the PSO Mission

During the first phase of our project, the GMU team identified a keyknowledge enabler as belief in the PSO mission. In subsequent interviewswith staff members, the uniqueness of this organization became morefocused. They shared the historical context that is crucial to understandingthe culture of the PSO.

Many of the Center staff interviewed shared stories that confirmed theirstrongly held belief that the PSO had a worthwhile purpose and role. Inaddition to an acknowledgement of the overall PSO mission, the staffacknowledged the specific missions of the Center, which were promotingthe use of core training fundamentals and standards, while at the same timesupporting the necessary flexibility that enabled country-specific needs andbest practices to be honored.

The staff felt that leadership at the PSO Center strongly believed in itsmission. This was why one of the Deputy Directors formed a project teamto look at why the PSO was in a country, why it stayed, and why it left. TheCenter wanted to insure that the PSO was adhering to its mission and that


it could respond quickly by having data at hand. Another staff membershared that there was a celebratory culture there, such as the annual PSOweek. There was high value placed on recognition of its mission, women’srights, ethnicity, gay rights, and so on. ‘I can proclaim that the mission ofthe Center is to provide support for those working in the field.’ Yet anotherstaff member told us that ‘I am very mindful of the necessities of field vol-unteers and know that for many who work in remote areas the Center istheir only source of information as access to other sources is very limited.I try to gather and disseminate information quickly.’

‘Through organized meetings and training events, I get to share myexperiences as a returned volunteer. I have the opportunity to provide valu-able information and can structure training programs that will make a greatcontribution to the quality of training for new volunteers. I feel as thoughI can also encourage those who may be interested in service with the PSOas well’, remarked one volunteer.

Another story shared was how a group left Philadelphia by bus for NewYork City for a flight out of the country to an overseas post. However, theflight was canceled due to the weather. The guest coordinator (first time vol-unteer) stayed in constant contact with the travel agency, PSO Center office,and country desk staff. All employees worked diligently to make alterna-tive arrangements and assist in this situation. Everyone at the Centerstrongly believed in the mission of getting these volunteers to their post.Finally, in another example, a project team performed extensive researchand developed a database on countries where the PSO was active. Thisdatabase will be used by leadership to make decisions on where the PSOvolunteers will be sent.

Each story confirmed to us that most staff members we interviewedbelieved that their jobs were vital to allow the Center and the PSO tostrongly support its volunteers and the countries in which they serve.

Knowledge Enabler 4: Building Relationships

‘Building relationships’ was identified as a knowledge enabler for the PSOCenter. For example, a database manager told a story about how she wasresponsible for designing, developing, and analyzing databases for Centerstaff so her job revolved around building relationships. She stated that therewas very good open communication and understanding. Another adminis-trative assistant focused on the importance of building relationships at theCenter. She said the Center worked to build a sense of community amongeducation program managers in the countries. The Center staff also actedas facilitators and guides (springboards providing motivation), helpingprogram managers go from concept to working plan.


One employee shared the following lengthy but descriptive narrativeabout building relationships:

The leadership of the Center promotes building relationships by inviting all PSOCenter employees to attend these meetings. Being exposed to individuals fromall departments and collaborating on the decisions helps to establish relation-ships. Informal relationships build trust that facilitates the solving of problems.The time allotted to these meetings lets employees spend a substantial block oftime with each other. Individuals get to know each other through the exchangeof ideas. The open atmosphere builds relationships because there is no grand-standing and everyone can speak freely. The cross-channel style of communi-cation builds relationships with members of other departments.

Building relationships was also central to the work of the group that pro-vided the training necessary for PSO volunteers. This group stayed incontact with other departments and built relationships so that they couldhelp each other in times of necessity. Knowledge sharing and trust wereactively promoted at the meetings.

The group responsible for data collection at the Center also held build-ing relationships in high regard. The Center routinely put teams together,which was supposed to help build relationships. The teams were cross-functional, which helped build relationships due to exposure of individualsto those from other departments. A Health and HIV/AIDS Specialistrecounted a story where two technology specialists from the Global Unitvolunteered to teach her how to use Blackboard collaborative software. Thespecialist was trained and was ready to conduct a virtual follow-up work-shop with participants in Africa using the new technology.

From the discussions with the Center employees and from the storiesthey shared it was quite clear that the Center had a culture of knowledgesharing and the employees strongly valued the necessity and importance ofknowledge sharing. This was an organization which already had much ofthe needed positive energy in place for successful Appreciative Sharingof Knowledge to happen. And it was also worth noting that the Center wasalready undertaking many initiatives to channel this energy in the rightdirection and to bring forth a culture which constantly encouraged andenhanced the Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge.

CONCLUSION

The PSO Center had strong natural inclinations toward knowledge sharingwhich was evident from the stories Center staff readily shared with theGMU team demonstrating collaboration and empowerment. The Center


was unique in its mission to provide direct support to PSO in-country staffand volunteers in the field. It was abundantly clear that the men and womenwho worked at the Center believed passionately in the PSO’s mission. As onestaff member said, ‘it’s not just a job’. Finally, the five year rule made knowl-edge sharing and retention all the more crucial. While the turnover in staffcreated opportunities for new staff to constantly bring in new ideas, therewere also opportunities to tap into the experience of former employees.


8. Summary, conclusion, andinvitations

The most important asset an organization possesses is its intellectualcapital located mostly in its employees and on a more limited basis in itsdatabases and systems. ‘The intellect of an organization includes (1) cog-nitive knowledge (or know what) (2) advanced skills (know how) (3) systemunderstanding and trained intuition (know why), and (4) self motivatedcreativity (care why)’ (Quinn et al., 2005, p. 78). Organizations that have agreater knowledge base are usually more successful in the market.Companies that have a larger share of intellectual property and know howto use it effectively get ahead in their core sectors. In addition, these com-panies are also able to recruit and retain better employees since theycommand a higher place in the market and are held in a higher regard.

Given the importance of intellect to an organization’s health and pros-perity, knowledge sharing is very important and desirable. Knowledge willgrow at exponential rates when it is properly shared within an organization.‘As one shares knowledge with other units, not only do those units gaininformation (linear growth), they share it with others and feed back ques-tions, amplifications, and modifications that add further value for the orig-inal sender, creating exponential total growth’ (Quinn et al., 2005, p. 79). Inorder to properly stimulate intellectual growth, organizations must comeup with a plan that defines which information should and should not beshared and how the organization plans to encourage knowledge sharing.

‘Best practices in R&D activities, process improvement projects, orredesigned operations do not readily spread within organizations. Transferof practices tends to be sticky because of multiple factors, including thenature of knowledge and the choices and attributes of its seekers andproviders’ (Mahoney and Williams, 2003, p. 679). The motivation to sharebest practices and knowledge within an organization may be low. Thismight be due to lack of monetary incentive to share, resistance to change,or a desire to protect one’s position within the organization.

There are also hurdles that need to be overcome related to the knowledgeitself. Knowledge is a cumulative process. Previous knowledge can be builtupon and impacts how well new information is assimilated. A person whohas no, or very little, prior knowledge of the subject being discussed will have

152

a much more difficult time learning and using any knowledge transferred tothem than a person who has had some previous exposure to and knowledgeof the subject (Javidian et al., 2005). However, obsolete previous knowledgecan also slow down the knowledge transfer process when the person is reluc-tant to adopt new knowledge in favor of the old. Lastly, the social relation-ship that exists between the knowledge sharer and the recipient also plays arole in knowledge transfer. Knowledge is more readily transferred betweenpeople who have prior knowledge of each other than it is between strangers.

In order for knowledge sharing to be successful, it is not enough for thepeople involved wanting to share knowledge, they have to be excited aboutthe process. For many people the ‘primary reason for sharing knowledge isnot that they expect to be repaid in the form of other knowledge, but a con-viction that their individual knowledge is worth knowing, and that sharingthis knowledge with others will be beneficial to their reputation’ (Hoofet al., 2004, p. 1). There is some psychological benefit to sharing knowledgeas the sharer may be held in higher esteem by the receiver of the knowledgeand may gain status as a result.

At a time when change is a must for organizations’ survival, AppreciativeSharing of Knowledge is a refreshing approach in the critical field of knowl-edge management. This book shares stories of appreciation and knowledgesharing, gives you tips and tools to jump-start a knowledge sharing culture,and leaves your organization with a culture that realizes its fullest potential.

Whether the organization be a corporation, nonprofit, government agency,or community of practice within a larger organization, all groups reapsignificant benefits from Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge. It is a non-threatening and accepting approach that makes people realize what they docan make a difference. The power of ASK is its simplicity. It can be used forseveral other topics or issues related to knowledge management. Forexample, implementing the future-present scenarios may require some formof reorganization of the organization. Or, it might call for creating a teambased structure or flattening of hierarchies. At this stage, ASK transcendsinto traditional organization development or change management workwhere the original Appreciative Inquiry approach might be applicable.

The simplicity of ASK should not mask the need to go through all thesteps as listed below (Table 8.1).

Rather than starting a knowledge management initiative that becomesone more change for employees to get used to, ASK normally createsan organic and self-perpetuating culture which is designed by members ofthe organization and therefore is more of a custom fit for a business(Thatchenkery, 2005, p. 108). Following the above steps can help an organ-ization reach an exceptional level of knowledge sharing and thereby createvalue for all stakeholders.

Summary, conclusion, and invitations 153

As you can see by the various applications of ASK in the private, public,and service organizations, ASK is not a ‘one size fits all’ approach. Rather,it is a framework that allows for customized solutions to knowledge man-agement challenges. There are a wide variety of ways to apply it so that itmakes sense in the organization in which you are working. Recognizing thatmost organizations have the internal capabilities and talents to respond totheir constantly emerging challenges, ASK is a methodology that helpsbring those successful elements latent in the organization to the forefront.

Appreciative Sharing of Knowledge usually exists in some form in manyorganizations, even though it is not known as such. One common exampleis the communities of practice discussed earlier in this book. Manyorganizations may comprise a network of interconnected communities ofpractice each dealing with specific aspects such as the uniqueness of a long-standing client, manufacturing safety, or technical inventions. Knowledgeis created, shared, organized, revised, and passed on within and amongthese communities. In a deep sense, it is by these communities that knowl-edge is ‘owned’ in practice. Knowledge exists not just at the core of anorganization but on its peripheries as well. Communities of practice trulybecome organizational assets when their core and their boundaries areactive in complementary ways. By recognizing that knowledge is dispersedthroughout the organization, particularly at the peripheries, CoP generatesan intentionally appreciative climate in organizations.

Our intention is for you to use this book to spark ideas and adapt themto fit your organization. We hope that you will have fun engaging withASK, and that it will provide long-standing results and culture shifts inyour organization.


Table 8.1 Overview of ASK steps

Step Action

Step 1 Negotiating top management commitment and supportStep 2 Presenting the appreciative knowledge sharing paradigmStep 3 Identification of knowledge enablersStep 4 Expansion of knowledge enablers using appreciative interviews

designed and conducted by the ASK teamStep 5 Thematic analysis of the data to undertake a knowledge infrastructure

analysisStep 6 Constructing future-present scenariosStep 7 Consensual validation of the future-present scenariosStep 8 Creating and mandating an implementation team

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After Action Review (AAR) US Army 6, 40

Age of Enlightenment 24Akkadians 14appreciation

elements of 36, 49and grand narratives 26hermeneutics circle of 35systems thinking 36what is 32, 33

appreciative inquirysocio-rationalist point of view 45sociology of knowledge 45

appreciative intelligence 47–8appreciative interviews 56, 57, 94, 123,

124, 154appreciative knowledge sharing

paradigm 8, 51–3, 93–4, 119, 154appreciative processes

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs 37–40appreciative system

general structure of 36–7Arabic scholars 22Argyris, C. 42, 65Aristotle 16–18, 22, 23

Greek ‘explosion’ 16Assyrians 14

Babylonians 14believing game 46Bell, D. 27Benedictine monasteries 22best practices 77–8, 85–9, 122, 128,

148, 152Bieler, L. 19–20Bitel, L. 21Buckman Laboratories 29

Capability Maturity Model 134Case Western Reserve University 29,

44Cashinahua Indians 25

Cheal, D. 27Checkland, P. 35–9Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) 9, 74,

81Chowdhry, D. xcoffee talk 87collaborative software

Blackboard 150Lotus Notes 2

commodification 24, 26Communities of Practice (CoP) 14, 29,

53, 61, 62, 65, 69, 86, 106, 148,153, 154

community involvement 82, 84Comte, A. 27Cooperrider, D. 6, 32, 44–7Csikszentmihalyi, M. 44

Denning, S. 30–31doubting game 46

Ehin, C. 4, 13Elbow, P. 46emancipation, meta-narrative of 25enlightened leadership 80

flow 42, 44Future-present scenarios

commitment 66–8consensual validation 8, 51, 71, 106,

107, 125, 154constructing 8, 64, 65, 66, 69, 103,

113, 124, 125, 154generating 2, 42, 43groundedness 66, 107, 113inspiration 66, 107, 113matrix for constructing 69

Galatea effect 5, 33, 34, 59Gergen, K.T. 6Graham, H. 21grand narratives 25, 26

161

Index

Gurukul Guru–pupil relationship 15Hinduism 14

Habermas, J. 26Herzberg, F. 66Hoof, B. 153Hughes, K. 20hunter-gatherers 4, 12–14

Irish monasteries early medieval 19–21

Javidian, M. 153

Kierein, N. 5Knowledge

combination 20, 29, 30, 90, 100, 130,142

externalization 29, 30internalization 29, 30socialization 29, 30tacit 27–30, 99, 111, 116, 121–2,

120–32knowledge ambassadors 93, 96, 98,

100, 101, 104, 107, 108, 110, 112,113

knowledge concierge 80, 84, 85, 86knowledge conversion process 29, 30knowledge enablers

belief in mission 140–42, 145, 148building relationships 65, 69, 98, 99,

100, 102, 105–6, 140–41,149–50

collaboration 140–43, 147, 148collegiality 56–60compassion 120, 122–3 effective communication 135 empowerment 98, 99, 100, 102, 105,

106, 140, 142, 145–7, 150informal interactions 82, 87internal entrepreneurship 82knowledge infrastructure analysis 8,

51, 59, 101, 124, 125, 154opportunity for personal growth

56participation 56, 60, 70partnering 120–22respect 42, 65, 69, 99, 100, 102, 105,

106, 120–21, 130–32

responsiveness 140–42team philosophy 82teamwork 56–8, 65, 69, 99, 100trust 97, 120, 132valuing autonomy 56

knowledge-hoarding, climate 3knowledge management

practices 14storytelling 29, 30, 54

knowledge poster 86Knowledge sharing

9/11 Commission Report 1American Revolution 24appreciative 8, 13, 15, 16, 21, 23,

51–4, 82, 93, 94, 97, 118, 119,154

Arabic Scholars 22enlightenment 22, 24historical Evolution 3historical perspective 4, 12prospective approach 5, 40–43,

90retrospective approach 6, 40–43two approaches to 2

knowledge vision 87, 131

learned helplessness 41–3learned optimism 41–3Lewin, K. 53, 66lightning bolts 87Locke, J. 23–4Lyotard, J.-F. 24–6

Mahoney, J.T. 152Marcel, G. 46Maritime Administration (MARAD)

9, 116–32Maslow, A. 38–40Mausner, B. 66McGrath, P. 19–21McGregor, D. 66, 107mentoring 15, 31, 85Mesopotamia 12, 14middle ages 19–21, 23modernity 24–7Moses 12Murphy, D. 5My Fair Lady 34

Nonaka, I. 29–30


O’Croinin, D. 20O’Fiaich, T. 20organizational change 1, 7, 30, 32, 50,

54, 131overcoming resistance 88, 131

performance appraisal 49, 84–5performativity 26Pfeffer, J. 46phoenicians 12Plato 12, 16, 17Plato’s dialogues 17–18Polanyi, M. 27possibility propositions 73, 77, 79, 80,

83, 87, 88, 105, 118, 124, 125, 127,131, 136, 137, 142, 143–5

postmodernism 24–5, 43power (author) 14process engineering 133–4progress, meta-narratives of 25protestant reformation 23–5Pygmailion 5, 33–5, 59

Quinn, J.B. 152

reality judgments 36reciprocity 14Reynolds, D. 5Rogers, C. 66Rosenthal, R. 5, 34, 35, 59 Rowe, G.J. 5Ryan, Rev. J. 20

Saint Thomas Aquinas 23Schiff, M. 100scholasticism 22, 23Schutz, A. 36self actualization 26, 38self-esteem 38, 40, 41self-fulfilling prophecy 5, 33, 35Seligman, M. 38, 41, 43, 44Senge, P. 45Socrates 12, 16, 17‘soft systems’ methodology 36springboard, the 30–31Srivastava, S. 6Sumerians 14Snyderman, B.B. 66

team facilitation 87Thatchenkery, T. x, 6, 28, 47, 48,

60–62, 64, 65, 67, 115, 146, 153Theory Y 107

University of Lancaster 35Upward Mobility Programs 130–32

value judgments 36Van Doren, C. 14–18, 23Veda 14Vickers, G. 35–7

Walker, A. 32Weick, K. 46, 47World Bank 31

Index 163

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