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The Power of Knowledge Communities

By J. Howard Baker and Greg A. Baker

 

Melissa is a young mother with two small children. Periodically she flies with her children from her home in the Los Angeles area to Dallas to visit her parents. Prior to September 11th she had always dreaded the flight. People on the plane often showed their displeasure at having to fly with a mother traveling with two small children. Rarely would anyone offer to help Melissa with the children.

 

All that changed after September 11th. Recently, Melissa made another flight with her two children. She was amazed at how different the flight was this time. People seemed so much more helpful, courteous, and friendly. There was definitely a very different attitude present among the passengers and crew on her most recent flight.

 

Why the sudden change in passenger attitude? Why are people behaving better in airport lines? Why do we hear fewer complaints? Could it be that, at least for the moment, people seem to value each other more? (Grier 2001)

 

Some have said that the world changed forever on September 11th. Actually the world changes every day, but most of us don’t notice much of the changes. Our minds rarely attend to slow, incremental change. We usually only attend to rapid change, and then only if it impacts our personal world.

 

The real change has not been so much in the world as in our own minds!

 

On September 11th we were suddenly reminded of our mortality. A paradigm shift took place and that changed the way we see the world—our worldview. Abruptly we were yanked from our self-absorbed world and came face-to-face with what really matters most. As we watched rescuers digging through the smoldering wreckage at the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center and at the Pentagon, we were drawn into the action vicariously and began to renew a sense of community!

 

Community is a sense of connectedness based on subordination of self-interest to the common good. This new connectedness has expanded and manifested itself in many ways, such as through family, church, and neighborhood. People are, at least for the moment, waking up to how important brotherhood, fellowship, and patriotism really are to them. Church attendance has increased. People are finally getting to know their neighbors. There is a new sense of nationalism.

 

Is it possible that the tragedy of September 11th might change the way we treat each other in the workplace? Might we see an increased commitment to shared purposes that reach beyond pure self-interest? Our organizations are nothing more than intangible entities that exist only in the mind. “The truth is that a commercial company, or for that matter, any organization, is nothing but an idea. All institutions are no more than a mental construct to which people are drawn in pursuit of common purpose; a conceptual embodiment of a very old, very powerful idea called community.” (Hock 1999, 119)

 

The national culture of the United States has ranked right at the top as far as individualism is concerned, followed by Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada. (Skyrme 1999, 168) On September 11 we suddenly saw the preeminence of self-interest—the interest of the individual over that of the group—evaporate. All of a sudden our individualism was challenged. We saw in the rescue workers a higher form of behavior that put our self-absorbed behavior to shame! We rediscovered the sense of “us.” For a moment at least, many of us elevated our thinking from strict individualism to a greater sense of socialization and community.

 

The dictionary says that individualism is the “belief in the primary importance of the individual and in the virtues of self-reliance and personal independence…the doctrine that the interest of the individual should take precedence over the interests of the group.”

 

Certainly, personal independence is an important achievement in each of our lives. For instance, we value financial independence, intellectual independence, and self-reliance. However, we live in an interdependent reality. Personal independence in such a reality is not always the most effective paradigm of social interaction. This fact is never more obvious than in times of crisis.

 

Stephen Covey says that “interdependence is the paradigm of we—we can do it; we can cooperate; we can combine our talents and abilities and create something greater together.” (Covey 1989, 49) There are times when it is appropriate to work from a paradigm of independence. However, in an interdependent reality, such as an organization, the paradigm of interdependence is usually far more appropriate.

 

The problem is that a great many of our organizations still have organizational cultures that encourage raw individualism, competition and information hiding among its members. Deal and Kennedy (1999, 17) have this to say about the majority of corporate cultures:

 

“Everywhere we look corporate cultures are in disarray. Employees are frightened about their future job prospects. Loyalty to companies has flown out the window. Cynicism about management is rampant. Self interest rules the roost.”

 

In his book Die Broke, financial advisor Stephen Pollan gives this advice:

 

“The answer is quit today: mentally separate yourself from your employer and realize that you’re on your own. Abandon any remaining tinges of loyalty to your employer (who long ago abandoned any sense of obligation to you) and instead think of your job and yourself the same way free-agent athletes do.” (Pollan & Levine 1997, 11)

 

Even when management proclaims the virtues of teamwork and cooperation, the underlying culture continues to foster independence and individualism. Often such a culture is characterized by a combination of the following:

 

1.      Politics. Individuals with valuable knowledge may not share the knowledge in order to gain or maintain, control over others. Keeping others in the dark reduces their ability to contribute, therefore making them seem less valuable than the one hoarding the knowledge.

2.      Arrogance. Some managers feel that as long as they know what is going on, that is enough. For instance, a manager might not see any need to share what went on in a management meeting with his or her subordinates.

3.      Ignorance. Sometime people are not aware of what is going on in other parts of the organization and therefore can’t recognize how knowledge in their area can impact the work of others. Learning about other parts of the organization is not rewarded, and in some cases, is actually punished!

4.      Apathy. Seeking or volunteering knowledge is just too much trouble. The culture has established so many roadblocks to knowledge creation and sharing that people just give up.

 

All of these traits exhibit characteristics of self-interest over service, and are counterproductive to the building of community. Communities are held together by trust. We don’t trust ignorance or arrogance. We don’t trust those who play politics to gain advantage over others. We don’t trust people who are incompetent, lazy or apathetic!

 

Although an organization is an intangible concept, the people organized within it are very tangible and real. People are social creatures that interact in interdependent ways. Bureaucracy interferes with mutual supportiveness. It tends to destroy community, as it disempowers almost everyone and denies people dignity and self-respect. “Bureaucracy both creates and destroys a large amount of status. It features lofty roles at the top of the pyramid…on the other hand, it disempowers almost everyone else in the system…” (Pinchot & Pinchot 1993, 247) “Community is not about entitlement but about building strong relationships that help people achieve mutual responsibility—and maximize their own self-interests in balance with maximizing the interests of others.” (Pinchot & Pinchot 1993, 225)

 

If leaders are to create and maintain a heightened sense of community within their organizations, they must work on the underlying principles that create and sustain community! Regular communication with fellow workers builds a culture of trust. (Chiem 2001) Such communication often involves a great deal more listening than talking! Getting away from your desk and wandering around—actually visiting people in their offices, and making regular personal contact, facilitates this communication.

 

Leaders that are trying to build intelligent, learning and knowledge sharing communities do it by demonstrating care and concern for the welfare of others. A community spirit is sustained when leaders show people that they believe in their capabilities and potential. “Building community begins with something as simple as honoring the sacredness of each person.” (Freiberg and Freiburg 1996, 315) “High performance comes from integrating ‘soft’ factors such as building relationships and developing trust, alongside team processes and technology.” (Skyrme 1999, 174)

 

Within an organization there is individual knowledge, found in the minds of employees. (O’Dell & Grayson 1998, 4) “Unintelligent organizations harbor fragmented knowledge. They do not know what they know.” In such organizations the knowledge often exists to solve a problem but is not in the right place at the right time. (Skyrme 1999, 32) Knowledge management is the strategy, framework, and mindset that get the right knowledge to the right people at the right time. It promotes interdependence, collaboration, and synergy, which result in greater organizational effectiveness and improved individual and group performance.

 

An organization that is attempting to create a culture that values the creation, sharing, and use of knowledge needs to operate in a principled manner. There must be direct evidence of trust present. Employees must see that what is communicated from the top actually comes to pass. Employees must see upper management’s example of trustworthiness. Such evidence takes the form of reliability, the keeping of promises, and other actions that consistently build a reputation of trust. (von Krogh, Ichijo, & Nonaka 2000, 63) Trust tends to trickle down through an organization. However, if managers exploit the knowledge of others for selfish gain, then cynicism and distrust will trickle down throughout the organization. (Davenport & Prusak 1998, 34-35)

 

Since building trust takes time, rapidly emerging leaders often don’t have sufficient time to fully gain trust. In such situations they often acquire not-yet-deserved trust slightly in advance of demonstrated trustworthiness. (DeMarco 2001, 152-154) Effective leaders know how to gain such trust in advance and then quickly validate the trust bestowed on them. Leaders can gain and validate trust by giving trust to others, and by being very open in their communication.

 

“Knowledge must be articulated and shared with others in an organization if it is to have any impact at all.” (Krogh, Ichijo, & Nonaka, 176) Communication that is open and honest builds trust and creates a willingness to share knowledge. If leaders set an example of hiding important knowledge from those that need it, then trust is destroyed.

 

Knowledge sharing is important to team building. If we are to build and sustain teams that share knowledge, we must constantly encourage and reward knowledge sharing. Once a team establishes a culture that promotes knowledge sharing, that team can interact with a wider network of teams and other knowledge users to create a “knowledge community.”

 

The role of a knowledge community is to connect “islands of knowledge” together into a knowledge-sharing network. Such communities transcend specific disciplines and bring together different perspectives. They exchange, develop, and apply knowledge. Such communities are often more social than structural, and should not be over directed. (Skyrme 1999, 170) The more complex the community, the more self-organization is needed. (Pinchot & Pinchot 1993, 336) Knowledge communities that are attempted without considerable self-organization and self-governance will fail. (Hock 1999, 120-121)

 

Such knowledge sharing is probably what President George W. Bush had in mind when he recently appointed Tom Ridge as the director of Homeland Security. Prior to September 11th, the knowledge needed to thwart terrorist attacks was fragmented and often not shared between government agencies. Some sharing between government agencies was even prevented by our laws. The government was following old rules and had numerous blind spots.

 

 

Since his swearing in on October 8th, Tom Ridge has set out to transform old governmental hierarchies and bureaucracies into new networks of knowledge sharing that not only includes government officials but also every citizen! His new role may well be that of a Chief Knowledge Officer (CKO) for the federal government. His job is one that many consider nearly impossible. The position involves coordinating 46 agencies with only a small staff. (Becker & Sciolino 2001) Unless a spirit of trust and cooperation prevails, and a great deal of self-organizing takes place based on shared values and shared purpose, the work will fail.

 

The President knows that the power of knowledge communities must be brought to bear if homeland security is to be achieved. It will take the right knowledge in the right place at the right time to rob the terrorists of their goals. Tom Ridge understands that we must end our internal turf battles and build communities of knowledge sharing if we are to successfully defend the national turf!

 

To foster a sense of community and knowledge sharing at either the national or the corporate level, leaders must foster a culture of cooperation and trust. That is one of the important differences between a leader and a manager. A leader creates and changes culture, while a manager operates within a given culture. “The bottom line for leaders is that if they do not become conscious of the culture in which they are embedded, those cultures will manage them.” (Schein 1992, 15) “One of the most decisive functions of leadership is the creation, the management, and sometimes even the destruction of culture.” (Schein 1992, 5)

 

We have all recently become more acutely aware of our mutual dependency. Such an increased awareness has the potential to improve the way we treat each other within our organizations.

 

At this significant turning point in history, each of us has the opportunity to encourage greater interdependence and cooperation within the workplace. Each of us can work within our sphere of influence to help build a robust organizational culture of trust that is committed to a shared purpose that reaches beyond the bottom line.

 

Such community building will require “profound change.” W. Edwards Deming once said, “Nothing changes without personal transformation.” Profound change is change that combines personal transformation with changes in processes, strategies, and systems. (Senge 1999, 15) We can’t build the necessary knowledge communities by merely working on the externals of processes and systems. There must also be an “inside-out” change that begins with each of us. As leaders we can take an inside-out approach to change and promote a more selfless and serving spirit through our personal examples.

 

The real change since September 11th has not been so much in the world we live in as in our own minds! We have all recently experienced a trigger event of immense proportions. It has jerked us out of our comfortably familiar paradigms. Unfortunately, it often takes a major life crisis or trauma to prompt critical questioning of our ingrained assumptions that are the basis of our culture. (Brookfield 1991, 91-92)

 

We have recently learned a great deal about the world and ourselves. Such learning is essential for personal transformation and profound change. The journey begins as we value each other more. We must not only watch out for our own welfare, but also for the welfare of others. The strength of any organization lies in its sense of community. That is true for our nation and it is also true in the workplace. “The challenge in intelligent organization is to establish strong and effective community so that everyone contributes leadership.” (Pinchot & Pinchot 1993, 217)

 

Comments to J. Howard Baker: jhb001@juno.com

Comments to Greg A. Baker: gabaker@sbinfra.com

 

 

 

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Biographies:

 

Dr. J. Howard Baker is Assistant Professor of Computer Information Systems at the University of Louisiana at Monroe. Dr. Baker has been a Franklin Covey 7 Habits of Highly Effective People certified facilitator for eight years, and has served the University of Texas at Tyler as their facilitator for four years. During the summer he offers a graduate and undergraduate course at U. T. Tyler in personal and organizational leadership. He holds a B.S. in Management from Samford University, a Master of Accounting (MAcc) from the University of Southern California, and a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the University of Texas at Arlington.

 

Greg A. Baker is a Structural E.I.T. at S&B Infrastructure, Ltd. (www.sbinfra.com) in Houston, Texas where he designs bridges and other transportation related structures.  He is a member of the National Society of Professional Engineers.  He holds a B.S. in Civil Engineering from Texas A&M University, and a M.S. in Civil Engineering from University of Notre Dame.  He has co-authored publications published in the Journal of Engineering Mechanics and Earthquake Engineering and Structural Dynamics.

 

 

References:

 

Becker, Elizabeth and Sciolino, Elaine. A New Federal Office Opens. The New York Times. October 9, 2001.

 

Brookfield, Stephen. Developing Critical Thinkers: Challenging Adults to Explore Alternative Ways of Thinking and Acting. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1991.

 

Chiem, Phat X. Trust Matters. Knowledge Management. May 2001. Web: http://www.destinationcrm.com/km/dcrm_km_article.asp?id=826

 

Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People: Restoring the Character Ethic. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.

 

Davenport, Thomas H. and Laurence Prusak. Working Knowledge: How Organizations Manage What They Know. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998.

 

Deal, Terrence & Kennedy, Allan. The New Corporate Cultures. Cambridge: Perseus Publishing, 1999.

 

DeMarco, Tom. Slack. New York: Broadway Books, 2001.

 

Freiberg, Kevin and Jackie. NUTS! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success. Austin: Bard Press, Inc. 1996.

 

Grier, Peter. The New Normal. The Christian Science Monitor. October 11, 2001. Web: http://csmonitor.com/2001/1011/p1s2-ussc.htm

 

Hock, Dee. Birth of the Chaordic Age. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1999.

 

Nonaka, Ikujiro and Hirotaka Takeuchi. The Knowledge-Creating Company. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

 

O’Dell, Carla and C. Jackson Grayson. If Only We Knew What We Know: The Transfer of Internal Knowledge and Best Practice. New York: The Free Press, 1998.

 

Pinchot, Gifford, and Pinchot, Elizabeth. The End of Bureaucracy & the Rise of the Intelligent Organization. San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 1993.

 

Pollan, Stephen, and Levine, Mark. Die Broke. New York: HarperBusiness, 1998.

 

Schein, Edgar. Organizational Culture and Leadership. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1999.

 

Senge, Peter. The Dance of Change. New York: Currency Doubleday, 1999.

 

Skyrme, David. Knowledge Networking: Creating the Collaborative Enterprise. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann, 1999.