gurteen knowledge cafe, melbourne, oct 2008
TRANSCRIPT
Gurteen Knowledge
Gurteen Knowledge CaféGurteen Knowledge Café
Melbourne
October 2008
The birth of the The birth of the Gurteen Knowledge CafeGurteen Knowledge Cafe
London, September 2002
Gurteen Knowledge
Business is a ConversationBusiness is a Conversation
Business is a conversationBusiness is a conversation
Business is a conversation because the defining work of business is
conversation - literally.
And 'knowledge workers' are simply those people whose job consists of having interesting conversations.
David WeinbergerThe Cluetrain Manifesto
• Conversation is central to all that we do
• Its our job!
Conversation is a meeting of mindsConversation is a meeting of minds
Conversation is a meeting of minds with different memories and habits.
When minds meet, they don't just exchange facts: they transform them,
reshape them, draw different implications from them, engage in
new trains of thought.
Conversation doesn't just reshuffle the cards: it creates new cards.
Theodore ZeldinConversation
• Theodore in an Oxford Historian
• Conversation is creative
KM is about understandingKM is about understanding
For all our knowledge, we have no idea what we're talking about.
We don't understand what's going on in our business, our market, and our world.
KM shouldn’t be about helping us to know more. It should be about helping us
to understand.
So, how do we understand things? It's through stories that we understand how
the world works.
David Weinberger, The Cluetrain Manifesto
• Its about understanding & sense making
• Through conversation & storytelling
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ConversationConversation
“A mechanistic and unproductive exchange
between people seeking to defend their own views against
one another”
“A frank exchange of ideas or views on a specific issue in an
effort to attain mutual understanding”
Debateor
dialogue?
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DialogueDialogue
• When we engage each other in dialogue– we enter into a conversation with a view to learn from each
other– rather than impose our views on the other.
The kind of conversation I’m interested in is one in which you start with a willingness
to emerge a slightly different person.
Theodore Zeldin, Historian
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Principles of DialoguePrinciples of Dialogue
• Suspend assumptions, do not judge• Observe & listen to one another• Welcome differences & explore them• Allow taboo subjects to be raised safely• Listen to your inner voice• Slow the discussion• Search for the underlying meaning
Dialogue is based on the work of the physicist
David Bohm
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SummarySummary
• Business is a conversation
• Conversation is creative
• Understanding is more important than knowing more
• Dialogue is the key to quality conversations
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Conversation/QuestionsConversation/Questions
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Gurteen Knowledge Café Gurteen Knowledge Café ProcessProcess
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Conversation/QuestionsConversation/Questions
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Lets run a Knowledge CafeLets run a Knowledge Cafe
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Knowledge SharingKnowledge Sharing
• Sharing knowledge is not about giving people something, or getting something from them. That is only valid for information sharing.
• Sharing knowledge occurs when people are genuinely interested in helping one another develop new capacities for action; it is about creating learning processes.
Peter Senge
Gurteen Knowledge
Personal Reasons for SharingPersonal Reasons for Sharing
• To help other people & to help ourselves• Other people
– To get things done– To build relationships so they in turn help us
• Ourselves– To get things done– Learning to be gained– Knowledge is perishable– Someone else will make our knowledge productive first
Gurteen Knowledge
Barriers to Knowledge SharingBarriers to Knowledge Sharing
1. A silo mentality
2. Knowledge is power
3. Lack of knowledge sharing processes
4. No time allowed
5. No knowledge sharing by executives
6. Managers do not walk the talk
7. Poor IT systems
8. Lack of encouragement
9. Bureaucracy
10. Resistance to change by managersKarl-Eric Sveiby
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The Challenge of Knowledge SharingThe Challenge of Knowledge Sharing
What prevents us from sharing our knowledge more effectively and how might
we overcome these barriers?
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www.gurteen.com
David GurteenGurteen KnowledgeTel: +44 1252 812 878Email: [email protected]
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LicenceLicence
• You may use these slides under the following Creative Commons Licence
• Attribution-Share Alike 2.0
• http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/uk/