Exploring the Relationship Between Knowledge and Fiction (Part 3: Character Development)

This is the third post in the "Knowledge and Fiction" Series.

Part 3: Character Development Through the Lens of Knowledge

All stories have the following five elements: plot, setting, characters, point of view, and conflict. In this post, I will focus on characters and the process of character development.

Not everything in a character’s backstory makes it into a novel, but the more detailed the backstory, the easier it is to deliver believable characters whose actions, inner monologue, and interactions align with who they are. My background as a Knowledge Management professional influences how I think about backstories, by focusing on—no surprise—knowledge.

I’m not suggesting this is the only or the best way to approach character development. It’s simply how my brain has been wired after several decades of working in knowledge management. Here are a few aspects I consider:

Key Considerations for Character Development

• Learning History
  Everyone has a personal learning history. What is the character’s learning history? How and what have they learned from their experiences? This could include pivotal moments in their education, career, or personal life that shaped their knowledge base.

• Approach to Learning
  A character’s ongoing approach to learning is related to their learning history and could impact how they approach new ideas and their awareness of knowledge gaps. Are they open-minded and curious, or do they resist new ideas? What knowledge do they have access to, and how do they seek or acquire it? How do they consume information—are they avid readers, podcast enthusiasts, or experiential learners? What’s their attitude toward technologies that support learning and information access?

• Unique Skills and Sharing Knowledge
  What unique skills have they acquired, and how did they acquire them? Are they good at sharing knowledge? If so, with whom, and under what circumstances? Consider how their willingness or reluctance to share knowledge impacts their relationships.

• Knowledge Network
  What does their knowledge network look like? Who do they rely on for specific insights or advice? Explore the dynamics of trust, mentorship, and collaboration within their network if it has a potential impact on the plot. Are they well-connected or isolated?

• Tacit vs. Explicit Knowledge
  How do tacit knowledge (intuitive, experience-based) and explicit knowledge (codified, formalized) manifest in their actions? Consider how these types of knowledge influence their decision-making and problem-solving.

• Emotional Impact of Knowledge
  Knowledge is not neutral—it carries emotional weight. What a character knows or doesn’t know affects their emotions, choices, and relationships. Some knowledge is empowering, while other knowledge becomes a burden.

  One particularly complex emotional dynamic is the burden of knowing more than others:

  • Does the character feel isolated by what they know?
  • Are they responsible for sharing or withholding information that could change lives?
  • Does their knowledge put them in a moral dilemma or create an internal conflict?

  Emotional engagement with knowledge can reveal vulnerabilities, strengths, and motivations, shaping the character's arc.
  
  
  

  

  Just a "KM" slice of questions that might be relevant to character development.

  
  

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Three Connected Ideas for Future Posts

• Illustrating Character Development through a Knowledge Lens Using Fictional Characters
  This would be a close follow up to this post, taking each of the elements I have highlighted and exploring each of them with a different well-known character from fiction (books or movies). 

• The Role of Memory in Character Development and Plot
  A character’s knowledge is shaped by memory, which carries its own mysteries. Memory is not just about what a character has learned but how their memories shape their worldview and decision-making.

• Point of View and the Role of the Narrator
  How is knowledge shared with the reader through an engaging story? How can each key character’s knowledge shine through, unhindered by the voice of the main narrator?

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As I write these posts and develop my novel, it’s tempting to include details that would reveal elements of the plot. For now, I’m intentionally keeping these discussions generic, resisting the urge to give away too much.

What I can say is that because my novel takes place in 2065 and advancements in technology impact all of these elements—memory, learning, and knowledge-sharing—on both an individual and societal level.

Deliberate Learning

I came across a new term this week: Performance Adjacent Learning.  I'm not sure it's completely new and the idea behind it isn't completely new.  It appears that as the context for a particular discipline constantly evolves, with new technologies and associated changes, our vocabulary can become inadequate or insufficient.  My hypothesis is that this creates opportunities for the Subject Matter Experts who have a deep involvement in the topic to invent new terms to fill in the gaps in vocabulary.  Sometimes it sticks and sometimes it won't hold.  I can't tell if Performance Adjacent Learning is the next big thing as a term, but I can relate to the idea behind it.

In short (my interpretation), we need to pay more attention to learning that is happening "in the flow of work" as opposed to learning that happens outside of the work flow.  Learning that happens outside of the work flow can happen at work (corporate training for example) but it is typically separated from doing the work.  Even the learning that happens in the context of a Community of Practice, which is much more informal than traditional training, is not necessarily "in the flow of work" and while very useful overall, does not necessarily provide immediate support for the accomplishment of a work-related task.  CoPs could be an avenue for more Performance Adjacent Learning if they are structured for that.

This reminded me of a map I created a while ago about investing in your own learning (posted below).  When the topic of learning comes up, people's minds go into two primary directions:

• What professional development courses am I taking or should I be taking this year?
• What are the books / blogs and podcasts I should read or listen to to keep up with trends in my profession?

I suspect that most professional do not think in terms of learning in the flow of work and asking people to engage in self-reflection regarding their work experiences is not an option that will appeal to everyone. 

The map below was created in the context of a Toastmasters Speech during which I focused on the benefits of the 5-Hour Rule.  The 5-Hour Rule is a commitment to 5 hours of learning every week.  That has often been interpreted as 5 hours of reading, but I think that would not be optimal for everyone... and the average professional no longer reads full-length books.

The core message remains that we are all individually responsible for our own learning.  The 5-Hour Rule is not necessarily the right approach (at least not all the time) because it clearly separates the learning from doing.  However, to get the habit of learning started, it's a smart way to dedicate time to learning.  Once the habit of learning is established as a thinking habit more than a dedicated time, then it can be embedded into the workflow more easily.

The same is true for other habits.  Let's take exercise.  To commit to exercise and stick to that commitment, it may be worthwhile to establish a specific goal of a certain amount of time every week spent exercising.  Let's say 3 times a week for 30 minutes of running.  That's the equivalent of the 5-Hour Rule.  It's a set goal that's easily measurable and trackable.  Once you've established a certain level of fitness and comfort with physical activity, it is easy to switch from taking the car everywhere to biking or walking, for example.  Physical activity becomes embedded in the flow of life as opposed to the scheduled trip to the gym.

Click to open in new tab.

This idea of embedding rather than separating activities is also something I have tried to work on within Knowledge Management by arguing that Knowledge Management needs to be embedded in the flow of work so that it is not limited to 1) a lessons learned exercise at the end of a project or activity; 2) the responsibility of the KM office or lone Knowledge Manager.

Distributed Learning - Individual and Collective

I have been participating in a MOOC on a French MOOC platform called FUN.  I've done MOOCs on that platform in the past and it helps me practice my French in useful educational contexts.  This current MOOC is called "Leaders of Learning: Les pilotes du changement."  It's a collaboration between Harvard X and a French institution and the main lectures and materials are clearly from Harvard, in English, while the course has been adapted to include instructions, quizzes, writing prompts and discussions in French. It's an interesting blend.  Usually I don't like mixing the two languages because I find it more taxing on brain cells to be constantly switching but I've been using my French language skills more in the past few months and I've noticed that I no longer notice the switch.  It just happens unconsciously.

That was a digression.  I really want to talk about the meat of the course, which is a "Modes of Learning" framework developed by Professor Elmore from Harvard University. 

The framework presents four quadrants.  The top two are about individual learning and the bottom two are about collective learning.  The two quadrants on the left are about hierarchical learning and the two quadrants on the right are about distributed learning.  The two distributed learning quadrants are the modes of learning I am most interested in because they correspond better to adult learning situations. 

Individual distributed learning is typical of the modern adult learner who is very self-directed, motivated to learn and relatively knowledgeable about how to identify what they want to learn, define how they are going to learn it just go learn.  This does not mean that they necessarily learn alone.  It is "distributed" learning because the self-directed learner will find individuals with similar interests to connect and learn with as well as mentors and subject-matter experts to tap into.  In an organizational context, there is a need for L&D departments to pay more attention to this distributed learning and Performance Adjacent Learning (just learned this term, had to use it) and focus less on formal, individual hierarchical learning which happens in the context of traditional training programs taught by Subject Matter Experts.

Collective distributed learning is found in the context of Communities of Practice where there is a common goal and a sense of community.  Learning is not just in the service of the individual but rather in the service of the community as a whole.  This type of learning is also very important within organizations to help address issues related to organizational memory and knowledge sharing in the context of Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning initiatives. 

There is a short piece of dialogue I regularly see posted on LinkedIn.  It goes like this:

- What if we train our employees and they leave?
To which someone answers.
- What if we don't train them and they stay?

I would change the wording to something closer to learning rather than training. 

- What if we encourage our employees to learn and they leave?
- What if we discourage learning and they stay?

The smarter approach is to encourage employees to learn both individually in a distributed learning mode that would address personal incentives and motivations for learning AND encourage them to participate in collective distributed learning so that even if they leave, they have been sharing their knowledge on an ongoing basis with their peers.  I would love to find an example of an organization that has successfully combined an L&D-driven approach to individual distributed learning with a KM-driven approach to collective distributed learning.

My UMUC Knowledge Management students are dealing with the issue of organizational memory this week, thinking about ways to prevent knowledge from getting out the door when employees retire or go work for the competition.  While the first reaction is always to say that we need to "capture" their knowledge before the employees leave, I always try to push for a broader, more long-term approach that encourages knowledge sharing approaches that ensure that when someone is getting ready to leave, they have already shared what they know through Communities of Practice, mentoring, apprenticeships, shadowing, storytelling and knowledge sharing workshops for example. 

Bridging the Gap Between Individual Learning and Team Learning (in practice)

At the core of what I do is the concept of LEARNING. I work both with individuals in the context of formal and more informal classes, and I work with teams.

In the classes I teach, it doesn't matter how much I've taught the students.  What really matters is how much the students have learned.  It's the difference between measuring activities (my teaching) and keeping an eye on results (what they've learned) or even impacts (what are they doing with what they've learned).

There is nothing more rewarding than a student who tells me at some point in the course that they've done something different as a result of what they've learned in the course.  It makes all the grading headaches vanish. Perhaps they've had a conversation with a colleague or they suggested a new way to do things at work. Sometimes it's a simple impact in their personal / family life. They've realized that Knowledge Management principles can be applied to many aspects of their life.

Too often, our modes of teaching are geared towards making students "study" rather than "learn."  After years of studying in traditional educational environments, they are not prepared to learn in the workplace.  Professional development in a workplace environment is still primarily a matter of attending a conference or signing up for a class to get one more certification or some kind of electronic badge in recognition for participation in some form of training.

As a result, many professionals fail to fully leverage the power of learning to enhance their careers and their lives in general.  They fail to do so as individuals and they find it difficult to do so in a group or team context.

Traditional studying and classroom-based learning do not emphasize learning from our mistakes -- or even from our successes.  When the goal is to pass the test, students learn to pass the test, not to master the content that was on the test.  The equivalent in the workplace, in the absence of regular testing of acquired competencies, is the traditional annual performance review.  The goal, in this context, becomes making sure to impress one's supervisor with how well we've done in the past year to ensure that we do not get penalized with a lower raise than our peers (or no raise at all).  Where is the incentive there to reflect on what we did not do so well, what we struggled with?  Where is the incentive to learn and grow?

How can we get past these learning challenges at the individual level and ensure some enhanced learning within a team?

Here are some simple, practical ideas:

• Stop treating individual learning and team learning as so separate and distinct that they are handled by different departments (HR, KM/Business units). 
  See "From Individual to Team Learning."
• Help individuals reflect on their individual lessons and bring those individual lessons to the group in a safe environment.  Writing a lesson learned sounds like a simple exercise on the surface but writing a useful lesson requires more work.
• Help the group think of group learning not just in terms of the aggregation of the lessons of individuals within the group, but learning that applies to the entire group.  There is always an "I" and a "WE" in groups. Neither should be ignored.
• Discuss the issue of lesson ownership at the individual level and at the group level.
  See "The Ownership of Lessons."

Related Posts on this Site:

• Collaborating and Learning Across Organizations in the Context of Joint Projects
• Two Key Elements of Personal Knowledge Management: Reflection and Experimentation
• We Still Need Lessons Learned: Part 1: We Need to Look at Lessons Learned Differently
• We Still Need Lessons Learned: Part 2: The Value of a Lessons Learned Activity is in the Transformation of Tacit Knowledge into Explicit Knowledge.
• We Still Need Lessons Learned: Part 3: The value of lessons learned activities is not in the individual lessons themselves sitting in a database but in the aggregation of lessons. 
• Making New Mistakes - Lessons Learned at NASA
• Mapping Lessons Learned to Improve Contextual Learning
• Insights, Tips, Lessons and More
• Anatomy of a Aha! Moment. 

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NEW COURSE:  KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT IN PROJECT ENVIRONMENTS
Ask about my newest course offered through George Mason University's Executive and Professional Education Program (and through corporate training programs): Knowledge Management in Project Environments.  The course touches on a lot of issues related to team learning.

Evidence of Learning

As I have taken on more teaching assignments this fall, I find myself asking new questions.  How do I know that the students are learning?  Am I transmitting something?  Am I transmitting something of value?

Since I am talking about traditional post-secondary education rather than continuous professional development, the obvious method for determining whether the students are learning comes in the form of assessments (papers, quizzes, participation in class discussions, etc...).

Since I am relatively new to this, I recognize that my insights are those of a newbie.

In a class of 25 students, it is easy to see with the initial assignments that they come into the class with a wide range of existing capabilities and prior knowledge.  I didn't teach much of anything to the student who writes the perfect answer in the first week of class.  However, I can "see" the learning when they start the class struggling with the concepts being presented, but by week 4 of an 8 week class they are getting more comfortable and by week 8 their final paper demonstrates a significant change in the way they are thinking about the topic. 

In a class of 25 students, at least a third is there to check the box and graduate as soon as possible. They will do the minimum possible and since that has probably been their strategy for a while, they are cruising without learning much of anything. This manifests itself with answers to discussion prompts that repeat something from the assigned readings and does not make any effort to connect to their own experience. Do I give up on that third of the class?  No.  I make them work for it. I try to ask them simple questions that would help them connect the concepts being discussed to their daily realities. I've also learned that it's dangerous to make quick judgments and assumptions about any student's particular approach to learning, their motivation for being in the class, etc...  The reality is that I know very little about them, especially in online classes. 

I have really enjoyed teaching (grading not so much!) and I am most proud of the students who have told me I made them think very hard.  So, that's it.  If I made them think, they built up their thinking muscles and they learned. In online classes, I have to follow strict rubrics for grading.  Those are useful at the beginning, to establish clear standards for the students to follow, but these rubrics are also hampering real conversations and learning from each other.  I'm happy when I see some independent thinking, regardless of whether the readings are cited properly or not.

The students are learning and I'm learning.  What else could I possibly want?

We Still Need Lessons Learned (Part 2 of 3)

Part 2: The value of a lessons learned activity is in the transformation of tacit knowledge into explicit knowledge,

The value of such lessons learned activities is increased when it is the result of a group reflection process (as opposed to an accumulation of lessons gathered from individuals. The numbers in the visual (in the previous post about the benefits of Pausing to Learn) are made up, meant to convey a sense of comparative magnitude of the benefits of documenting lessons.  A great deal of learning happens in the process of writing lessons down, even if no one else is reading them. It is now out of people's heads and transformed into explicit knowledge.

I have described this in APQC presentation (Rogers & Fillip, 2017). Learning happens in the initial conversation that helps to articulate the context and the lessons themselves.  Learning happens through knowledge synthesis as the conversation is documented (whether it's a narrative, a conversation map or a video interview).  Learning happens in the review and validation process and finally learning happens when others read or are exposed to the lesson.  In other words, learning happens in conversations, but these are not random conversations.  These are intentional learning conversations.

Even if no one ever reads those lessons, at least no one will be able to say that the employees retired or left and walked out the door with all their (tacit) knowledge. And yes, I know that most of it is still in their head and can't be captured, yet a good amount of learning or knowledge transfer can happen through conversations.

The real problem is that we often don't have very good mechanisms for utilizing that explicit knowledge and we draw the wrong conclusions, which is the equivalent of failing to learn from a failure... or learning the wrong lesson from a failure. An example would be to draw the conclusion that people aren't using the lessons learned system because they haven't been trained to use it.  Seriously?  Well... let's not assume anything but that wouldn't be my best guess as to why no one is using the database.  

There could be better utilization of lessons learned through other project processes such as reviews and risk management (Fillip, 2015).  In fact, many repeated "lessons" are the result of institutional challenges that cannot be addressed at the project level and could be tackled through organizational risk management. Expecting all the benefits of lessons learned processes to come from individuals going to the database to look for lessons is just wrong headed. It's standard build-it-and-they-will-come wrong-headedness. 

Reference

• Fillip, B. (2015). "Infusing Lessons Learned Throughout the Project Lifecycle," The Critical Path (pp. 14-15 & 17.
• Rogers, E. & Fillip, B. (2016). "Mapping Lessons Learned to Improve Contextual Learning at NASA." APQC Knowledge Management Webinar. 

Collaborating and Learning Across Organizations in the Context of Joint Projects

Learning in the context of collaborative efforts and/or complex organizational structures can be a challenge. Most of the literature, including what has been written by KM practitioners, focuses on the organization as the main unit of analysis. On the other hand, the Learning and Development (L&D) practitioners are primarily focused on individuals and sometimes teams. There is also a significant amount of work written about learning across teams, which addresses transferring knowledge from one team or one project to another. In fact, the theme of knowledge transfer comes up regularly. The focus below will be different.

Increasingly, individuals within organizations find themselves working in teams, projects or work groups that are made up of staff who belong not just to different divisions within the organization but to different organizations altogether. As collaborations, partnerships and contracting arrangements evolve to meet the needs of a constantly changing environment, individuals must learn to work effectively within these teams, which includes learning to learn collaboratively. This type of joint learning or co-learning is relevant in the two fields I am most familiar with, international development and aerospace. In both fields, the Government entities (USAID & NASA) do not deliver their mandate on their own. They work with and through myriads of partnerships, contractual arrangements as well as formal and informal collaboration agreements each of which comes with a specific set of constraints and opportunities. For each of these ways of working together, co-learning opportunities need to be identified and their potential value assessed upfront. Co-learning isn’t for everyone and every situation.

Co-learning across multiple organizations can be challenging. It’s one thing to conduct a lessons learned conversation within a team whose members all belong to the same organization. It’s another to conduct the same lessons learned conversation when members of the team belong to different organizations. The likelihood that walls (defensive mechanisms) will come up is increased.

For example:

• The organizational cultures may be different. While one organization may be accustomed to open and honest conversations about what isn’t working, others may shy away from such transparency. 
• Organizational processes may be different. One organization may have a very rigorous and structured process for documenting lessons while another doesn’t have a process at all. This may lead to many unspoken and unwritten assumptions. 

As with all aspects of collaboration (not just the joint learning aspect discussed here), one of the drivers of success is a thorough discussion of all assumptions about not just what will be done, but how it will be done. For example, if two organizations are going to implement a project together with specific roles and responsibilities clearly assigned and a component of that project is to discuss and document lessons to make regular adjustments in the project’s path forward, it will be important to address all relevant assumptions upfront and clarify as much as possible, including the following:

• Clarify the overall goals and objectives of the joint learning activities. There should be a clear understanding of why the learning activities are being undertaken jointly as opposed to each organization involved in a collaboration conducting its own independent lessons learned. This can happen even within the same organization and is typically a sign of dysfunction. There are many circumstances where an internal lessons learned session is also needed, which might focus on questions such as “What did we (as organization x) learn from our collaboration with organization Y? Joint lessons learned sessions should never be used to try to place blame on any member of the collaboration or to tell other members of the collaboration what they should have done differently. If a serious problem occurred (a partner isn’t performing as expected for example), there are avenues to address these problems other than a lessons learned session. The joint learning session helps identify what every party involved could have done different from the start, not who is to blame for failures.
• Clarify who will lead the joint learning effort. Perhaps not just which of the two organizations, but which staff position. This may be important in providing clues regarding how the activity is perceived by both organizations and whether there is a disconnect that needs to be addressed. Does the position/person have the right level of seniority, appropriate level of expertise, etc.? If it is important for all parties to be represented fairly and equally in the discussion, it may be a good idea to get the support of a third party facilitator to ensure neutrality in the conduct of the session.
• Clarify the schedule of learning activities. Avoid using ambiguous wording. Phrasing such as “Lessons learned will be documented on a regular basis” can be interpreted in many different ways and could lead to disconnects between the collaborating partners.
• Stipulate the methods to be used: A wide-open lessons learned conversation with 20-30 participants is very different from a series of one-on-one interviews, yet both could conceivably be used to elicit and document project lessons. In fact, a broad discussion of methods and their use in the specific context of the project would be valuable. Don’t assume that the way you’ve been doing it on other projects is necessarily the right approach in this context.
• Be clear about outputs and utilization: Discuss how lessons identified will be utilized to make adjustments to the path forward in terms of work plans and specific activities. For example, my preferred format for documenting lessons learned discussions is an insight map. However, I would never assume that it’s always the best format or that it works for everyone. Beyond concerns about formats which can be trivial, it’s important to talk upfront about whether the session is meant to identify specific recommendations and actions or not. In some cases, the parties to the discussion have a wide open conversation, go back to their respective offices and independently decide on specific actions they will take to address issues raised during the lessons learned meeting and perhaps report on actions taken at a later date. In other cases, a second joint meeting may be held to focus on specific recommendations and actions. In these different variations of the process, it’s also important to discuss the issue of decision making and validation. Who will have the final say in terms of the final version of the lessons and/or recommendations? What kind of follow up or accountability process is in place to ensure that lessons are indeed embedded into future activities (within the ongoing project, not just in a potential future collaboration)?
• Be ready for disconnects: Since it is not possible to anticipate every inaccurate assumption or disconnect that might derail the collaboration, there should be a clear mechanism for quickly addressing disconnects when they arise. 

And a final point, don’t assume that prior collaboration experience between two organizations means you can skip all these steps about clarifying assumptions. For all you know, one of the two organizations may have held an internal lessons learned process at the end of the last collaboration and decided that it didn’t work well for them and they would recommend a completely different approach. Or, you might just be dealing with very different team, different leadership, making it a completely different collaborative environment. It never hurts to check that you are all on the same page.

Learning More and/or Better

The following string of thoughts comes out of recent readings and meetings.  As always, more questions to ask than answers to provide.

We can think about learning in two dimensions, quantitative and qualitative.  Learning MORE is quantitative.  Learning BETTER is qualitative. 

I am inclined to think (or hypothesize) that learning MORE is a very incremental process whereas learning BETTER is potentially an exponential process.  I don't really want to use the word "exponential" here and I certainly don't want to use the word "transformational".  What I mean is that learning BETTER, addressing the qualitative dimension of learning is potentially more impactful than learning MORE. 

It's the difference between the idea of continuous learning, which is simply about learning more over time, and the idea of learning HOW to learn, which is about becoming a better learner.

This manifests itself currently for me in terms of something as simple as reading.  The number of books I will read this year is somewhat irrelevant.  I am much more interested in developing, nurturing my capacity to engage in deep reading and deeper learning.  There is some tension there because I could benefit from reading more broadly, which might translate into more books.  The compromise might be scanning more books from a broad spectrum of disciplines but reading deeply a smaller subset of those books.

Reading now:  Humility Is the New Smart: Rethinking Human Excellence in the Smart Machine Age, by Edward D. Hess and Katherine Ludwig.

Stop talking about Success or Failure and Start Learning

The word puzzle above represents my notes from yesterday's Society for International Development (SID) event on "Navigating the Results Paradox: Trade-offs Between Results and Learning." The only way I see a trade-off is if you perceive that a limited amount of time and resources forces you to decide whether to focus on M&E or on Learning.  This is a false dichotomy.  Doing M&E for the sake of demonstrating results (proof of success really, because no one is interested in proving failure) is missing the point.  The emphasis on labeling a project either a success or a failure is wrong if the point is to learn and improve.  All projects are on a continuum of success and failure.   Each successful project encountered things that didn't work as well as expected (small failures) that we can learn from. The compulsion to label things successes or failures and investments in "evidence" to do just that is misplaced.  If the compulsion was to learn, we would care much less about labeling individual projects and much more about what we learned from each individual product that allows us to improve the next one.  If you have to call everything a success, then call it successful because you learned from it (regardless of whether it achieved its intended objectives).  Stop talking about success or failure and start learning. Learn from results. 

That's what I wanted to say yesterday at the event but comments were not allowed, only questions. Next time I'll just phrase my comment as a question, something like this: "Don't you think that...[stating my opinion]?"  Here we go, that's technically a question.   I think the organizers of such events are afraid of long ranting/venting monologues by people in the audience.  I get that and I've been there but if you don't allow real participation from the audience, the format is quite rigid and you fail to leverage expertise of the people in the room. 

Learning Plan for September 2017

September is just around the corner.  From a biking perspective, I can anticipate a few long bike rides in the cooler mornings.  From a learning perspective, it will be all about systems thinking, complex systems and visualization, combined with my ongoing interest in building bridges between individual learning, team learning and organizational learning.  This interest is based on the observation that individual learning is typically the purview of the Learning and Development (L&D) department within HR, while organizational learning may be in a completely different part of the organization, including under IT if it is perceived as part of a IT-based approach to knowledge management.  My gut tells me that part of the reason for the gap is that L&D tends to focus on formal learning approaches (aka training) while organizational learning is typically more experience-based.

Here's an initial half-baked insight/hypothesis:  The bridges to be built involve 1) reinforcing the informal, experience-based aspect of individual learning; and 2) strengthening corporate training based on experience-based organizational learning.

The question I will try to address is:  How can I apply systems thinking and related methodologies or tools to address complex systems to come up with a more integrated (systemic) approach to learning within organizations. 

A couple of secondary questions (which might confuse everything and send me down big rabbit holes):

• How can learning itself benefit from systems thinking?
• Can insight mapping support a systems thinking approach?

Here are my starting points:

• Visible Thinking: Unlocking Causal Mapping for Practical Business Results (a book I recently discussed in a blog post)
• SPACES MERL: Systems and Complexity White Paper (USAID 2016) ... which is where I learned about...
• Systemigrams (visual representation of complex systems) and another book.....
• Systems Thinking: Coping with 21st Century Problems (2008)
• My own insight mapping practice as well as....
• Previously posted insights about systems thinking and....
• A need to clarify the difference between design thinking and systems thinking (I think I confuse them)
• I also signed up for Degreed and I'd like to test how much I can get out of that learning platform for a rather narrow learning exercise as this one. 

Anticipated Outputs:

• Extensive notes added to my Organizational Learning wiki (internal)
• At least three blog posts and at least one integrative map (public website)
• Draft presentation package for future use/adaptation, etc...
• and if this all adds up to something of sufficient value, a post on LinkedIn.

How is this as a "learning plan" for September?

• It's bounded in time and scope, though the scope could escape me as I dig deeper and a month might not be enough.
• It has some intrinsic value for me in terms of learning.  Motivation to learn about this will NOT be a problem at all. I will need to schedule it as a core task to make sure sufficient time is allocated.
• It spells out possible outputs which will force me to wrap up my own thinking and write things down in useful formats, contributing to other objectives, such as populating the blog with fresh insights and developing materials for presentations, possible lecturing/teaching or other forms of training/capacity building.

I shall see at the end of September if I achieved all that and where my expectations were off track.

This is my YOL (Year of Learning) after all.  I might as well make the most of it and plan for it.  I think it's called Walking the Talk. :)

Going to College... Becoming a Learner

My youngest daughter is going off to college at the end of this week.  She has a reasonably good idea of what she wants to study, she picked a school with a strong yet not overly narrow focus.  It's more specific than "liberal arts" yet not a narrow path towards a single profession either.

As my daughter prepares to go off to college, she received in the mail today a little book for one of her classes.  It's a reading requirement for a one-credit class that is associated with her housing arrangement.  She will be part of a living community on campus, spending a lot of time with fellow students studying related topics and engaging with faculty in and out of classrooms.

I must admit that my eyes lit up when I saw the title of this little book: Becoming a Learner: Realizing the Opportunity of Education, by Matthew L. Sanders.  [As a side note, I get excited just reading the reading list portion of syllabi].  This little blue book should be mandatory reading for anyone going to college. Unfortunately, I'm afraid it's full of bits of wisdom one only realizes are true 20 or 30 years later, when our professional and personal lives have taken us far away from where we probably thought we were going.

"The primary purpose of college isn't learning a specific set of professional skills; the primary purpose of college is to become a learner." (p. 2)

Yes, but this requires a more detailed explanation of what we mean by becoming a learner.  In high school, we have students  Students succeed if they become proficient at studying.  If you take the highly rated MOOC called "Learning How to Learn,"  I would argue that you are primarily learning how to study, which still does not prepare you for lifelong learning.  College students who continue in that mode of studying may be successful in the short term, but if they do not evolve into learners, their success will be short-lived because they will not know how to continuously learn and grow throughout their professional and personal lives.

"Your ability to learn how to learn will be what takes you through the countless industry developments you will deal with in your work and in society.  By recognizing this, you can focus on your development as a learner, which will be more lasting and applicable in all your future endeavors." (p. 14). 

A student is taught by teachers.  Learners take responsibility for their own learning, decide what to learn and how to learn it. Faculty are there to guide the learning process in specific disciplines more than to teach.

This is really great reading as an introduction to college learning, and I hope it's fully embedded in the classroom practices.  If the faculty and entire curriculum design doesn't embrace this approach, it will be difficult for individual students (sorry, learners) to embrace if fully.  It will require constant reinforcement.

Two secondary insights:
The idea of putting on a broader set of lenses reminds me of a little mental reflex I've developed over the years.  When I feel pretty sure that I know exactly where I am going to be in my life in 5-10 years, I smile (internally) and I tell myself that's not where I'll be, but that's perfectly fine, because opportunities will emerge that I couldn't have imagined and if I'm able to keep an open mind and ditch the plan, I'll be able to capture those opportunities.  Have a plan, then ditch the plan!

The learning process is more important than the specific lesson.  That's very similar to what I said last week during the NASA Virtual PM Challenge on Lessons Learned.  I was asked what key lessons all project managers should know about.  Beyond general good project management practices, the key is to keep learning, not to know about any specific set of lessons hidden in a database.

iLearning: How to Create an Innovative Learning Strategy (Book 28 of 30)

Title: iLearning: How to Create an Innovative Learning Strategy
Author: Mark Salisbury

iLearning stands for innovative learning, not to be confused with eLearning.  Perhaps the "i" dates the book.  It was published in 2009.  If my memory serves me right, there was a time (after the iPod I suspect) when everything cool had to start with an "i".

This is perhaps the most thorough attempt at merging the HR and L&D tradition with Knowledge Management and Organizational Learning, a clear attempt to innovate.  At the same time, it heavily relies on or is built around a very process oriented approach that leaves little freedom to the learner.  It is directed at HR and training professionals.

What I would want to see is HR/Training departments that allow and promote more independent and flexible learning approaches for individual employees, helping employees to develop Individual Learning Plans that fit within a broader Personal Knowledge Management strategy.    The capacity of individuals to think in terms of their own personal knowledge base and how to develop and nurture that knowledge base would serve as the springboard for improved knowledge flows within teams and at the organizational level.  I'm convinced it's that gap, that missing element of KM and Organizational Learning strategies, that would make the most difference if it were to be tackled more effectively.

TO DO:

• Articulate the differences (if any) and connections between Personal Learning Environments, Individual Learning Plans and Personal Knowledge Management.
• Develop an approach for integrating a knowledge dimension (seeking, articulating and sharing) in individual performance evaluations. 

Knowing Knowledge (Book 21 of 30)

Title:  Knowing Knowledge
Author: George Siemens

I haven't read things this abstract since finishing my Ph.D. (20 years ago exactly).  I'm not sure why I find this book so challenging.  Perhaps my neurons have gone soft and I can't handle challenging texts. Perhaps I just don't connect with what the author is trying to say.

This book is about knowledge and learning and NOT about knowledge management, but it can influence how we think about knowledge management.  I'm just going to pick at a few quotes, which I'm sure aren't going to do justice to the book.

"I am used to writing in hypertext.  Concepts relate to other concepts -- but not in a linear manner" (p. vii)."

That much I understand perfectly.  That's why I like using concept maps and insight maps.  They allow me to explore how concepts and ideas are related, they allow me to map the complexity of inter-relationships and connections between things.

When you combine mapping and hypertext, you get something very interesting.  I've used that to document lessons learned and insights from projects and it allows for a much deeper understanding of how things are connected within a project but also across projects.  If I can combine mapping, hypertext and a wiki, then I'm in paradise and the neurons go in hyper-mode.

"Learning is the process of creating networks.  Nodes are external entities which we can use to form a network.  Or nodes may be people, organizations, libraries, websites, journals, database, or any other source of information.  The act of learning is one of creating an external network of nodes -- where we connect and form information and knowledge sources.  The learning that happens in our heads is an internal network (neural).  Learning networks can then be perceived as structures that we create in order to stay current and continually acquire, experience, create, and connect new knowledge (external). And learning networks can be perceived as structures that exist within our minds (internal) in connecting and creating patterns of understanding" (p. 29).

I have a more simplistic view of how it works:  We learn by connecting new information with prior knowledge, and in the process, we create new knowledge.  It's new to us.  It's not necessarily new to anyone else.  When we create knowledge that's new to everyone, we can call it an innovation.

"The connections that enable us to learn more are more important than our current state of knowing" (p.30). "  

 Yes.  I get that.  Learning to learn is more important than any specific knowledge we may have acquired or can ever acquire.

"Knowledge is a river, not a reservoir."  

Yes.  I've used that analogy in a recent presentation to emphasize the need to facilitate knowledge flows and pay less attention to repositories of knowledge assets (such as lessons learned databases).

TO DO

• There's a section on adaptive knowledge and adaptive learning that deserves another careful read, perhaps to see how it compares to USAID's CLA (Collaborating, Learning and Adapting) approach.  There may also be some connections to the agile movement.

Learning to Fly (Book 19 of 30)

Title: Learning to Fly:  Practical Knowledge Management from Leading and Learning Organizations
Authors: Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell

Before 2016 and the publication of The Knowledge Manager's Handbook, (see previous post, Book 17 of 30)) I would have said Learning to Fly is the book to give as a practical how-to handbook on Knowledge Management.  My copy is an "updated edition with free CD-ROM", which tells you something about its age. Published initially in 2001, I see it as the first comprehensive how-to handbook.

Between Nick Milton, Patrick Lambe and Chris Collison, you probably have the three best known KM consultants combining many, many years of hands-on experience.  Although, perhaps they are better known in a general sense precisely because they've written books and are very active on social media.  I think of them as generalists.  There are others in the field who have either less global name recognition or who work in narrower niches within KM. Now that I think of it, two women come to mind and they've also written books (Nancy Dixon and Katrina Pugh).  It's also quite possible that my perception is heavily biased by who I follow or don't follow on social media.

One of the stronger concepts or terms I've relied on that probably came from this book is "learning before, during and after."  I haven't necessarily used that phrase but I like the emphasis on learning (rather than managing knowledge), and since I've worked mostly in project-based environment, the before, during and after framework worked well.  We learn from prior projects to plan our new project well, we learn during the project to make course corrections as necessary, we reflect after we're done to not repeat mistakes and to allow others not to repeat our mistakes.  This is oversimplified but it really helps projects get a sense that you don't just collect lessons learned at the end of the project before moving on to the next task.

Over the years, I've learned that a group reflection conversation (AAR or whatever else you want to call it) takes on different characteristics depending on where the group or team is in terms of the project life cycle.  Newly formed teams have different conversations from teams that have worked together for years.

TO DO:

• If I'm going to be a successful consultant, I should write a book.... (Not so fast... do I actually have anything unique and valuable to say?). Not right now.  It's brewing.  It needs to percolate. It needs active percolation.  My semi-sabbatical year should help.  No pressure.
• Write down some insights about how the timing of a group reflection activity along the project life cycle affects the nature of the conversation and perhaps should affect the facilitation.
• Do a review of who I follow on various social media as KM experts and who I consider a KM expert but don't follow.  Adjust as needed.

Informal Learning (Book 9 of 30)

Title:  Informal Learning:  Rediscovering the Natural Pathways That Inspire INNOVATION and PERFORMANCE
Author: Jay Cross

There is a gang of somewhat revolutionary L&D (learning and development) professionals in the UK -- I think they're in the UK -- who are working to introduce new ways of thinking about learning in organizations.   They have worked together as the Internet Time Alliance.   Given that traditional corporate training and professional development doesn't seem to be having the impacts it should have, especially given the financial resources typically poured into it, rethinking the entire approach makes sense.  In fact, everything Jay Cross has ever written makes a great deal of sense to me.  I'm also a fan of other members of the gang (Jane Hart, Harold Jarche, Charles Jennings, Clark Quinn), their blogs, courses and books.   Sadly, Jay Cross passed away in 2015.

I like the idea of a small group of practitioners working together at times and individually within an informal alliance.  It appears to have the flexibility that I would be looking for in working as a solo consultant, but with peers when it makes sense.  It's also different from developing one-off relationships with fellow solo consultants for the needs of a specific contract.

The book goes into all the different ways that we can think of individual learning within an organizational context.

What did I like about it?
I like all of it, really, but I'm a little nerdy, so I really liked the glossary.  For example, I was re-reading Chris Argyris on double-loop learning and trying to come up with a simple definition.  I was over-complicating it and here it was, a simple definition of double-loop learning in the glossary of this book.

More broadly, this book is an excellent way to approach thinking about individual learning in organizations and can help build a bridge between individual learning, team learning, and ultimately, the culture of learning that is needed for successful organizational learning.

TO DO

• Check what the Internet Time Alliance is doing these days...latest blogs, books, events.
• Prepare a module (set of slides/stories/images/quotes) on Informal Learning and Personal Knowledge Management.

Teaching Smart People How to Learn (Book 8 of 30)

Title:  Teaching Smart People How to Learn
Author: Chris Argyris

Technically, this isn't a book.  It's an article published in the Harvard Business Review but it's also published as a tiny pocket book (smaller than some smartphones).

Chris Argyris is best known for his double-loop learning concept and his work on organizational learning in general.  This article was initially published in 1991, which makes me think that a lot of the literature on organizational learning may predate the early knowledge management classics which came out in the late 1990's.

This is all about how people think, how people learn, how to get people to reflect on their experience so that they learn.  It's also about why we often fail to learn.

"...most people define learning too narrowly as mere "problem solving," so they focus on identifying and correcting errors in the external environment.  Solving problems is important.  But if learning is to persist, managers and employees must also look inward.  They need to reflect critically on their own behavior, identify the ways they often inadvertently contribute to the organization's problems, and then change how they act.  In particular, they must learn how the very way they go abut defining and solving problems can be a source of problems in its own right [hence the double loop learning]." (p. 2 of the 2008 tiny book version)

I have encountered this countless times over the past 9 years of facilitating Pause and Learn sessions (group reflection activities).  Single loop learning often results in blaming a problem on someone else, or a system, a policy.  In some cases, however, it takes only one person in the group to model self-reflection for the entire session to become more meaningful and to reach out for double-loop learning.  As the facilitator, I can't just tell the group, "okay, enough single loop learning, let's try to go for double loop now," but I can sow the seeds in the planning meeting and in setting the ground rules for the meeting as well as by using probing questions.  The key with probing questions is to trigger the double loop thinking and not trigger a defensive mechanism.

Why I like this book/article?

This doesn't age.  It's a timeless classic.  It will remain useful years from now, perhaps even more useful in time, as we get swept up in the advances of AI, cognitive computing and all types of new technological advancements that will challenge our role as humans.  As far as my lifetime is concerned, critical thinking and self-reflection will remain essential.  Perhaps robots can do single-loop learning.  But can they do double-loop learning? I don't think so.  This might be a good selling point:  Don't want your job to be taken over by robots?  You need double-loop learning.

TO DO

• Read about advances in AI, cognitive computing, etc... and build an argument for the continued value of human critical thinking skills and things like double-loop learning.
• Develop a presentation about double-loop learning and reflective practice for incorporation into training modules.

Stalling at the Top of the Learning Curve

I like the concept of the learning curve and in the context of a conversation about learning to learn, being aware of our individual learning curve around a particular topic can be valuable.

For example, I feel as if I have reached a point on the learning curve around this theme of "learning to learn" where the returns have become minimal.  I read these types of articles (previous posts) but I've come to the point where it's really a scanning process rather than deep reading.  I'm looking for something new, a new concept, a new idea, and 90% of the time, I'm a little disappointed because it's not new (to me).  It's almost become boring.

What should/could I do about it?

1. Look at it with different lenses
It would be arrogant to think that I know everything there is to know about "learning to learn".  Let's assume for a moment that I've been looking in the wrong places for additional knowledge.  I need a new direction, a new angle.  Perhaps I should revisit another recurring interest, neuroscience, and see if there are useful connections with "learning to learn" that I have yet to explore.

2. Look away for a while
This is just a symptom of being bored with too much of the same thing.  I just need a break from "learning to learn."  I should consciously avoid the topic for a while (perhaps a year) and then get back to it with fresh eyes.  For example, my recent interest in permaculture has created a nice break from standard knowledge management and related topics which I constantly read about.

Learning to Learn - what's new?

A recurring theme:  Learning to Learn.

• "Talking to Yourself (Out Loud) Can Help You Learn," by Ulrich Boser, May 05, 2017.
• "If You're Not Outside Your Comfort Zone, You Won't Learn Anything," by Andy Molinsky, July 29, 2016.
• "Learning to Learn," by Erika Anderson, March 2016.
• "You Can Learn and Get Work Done at the Same Time," by Liane Davey, January 11, 2016.
• "4 Ways to Become a Better Learner," by Monique Valcour, December 31, 2015. 

All in the Harvard Business Review.  I don't care how much AI and machine learning are going to transform our world, I'm ready to bet that learning to learn with our own little human brains is never going to be obsolete. In fact, critical thinking and rapid learning are going to be at a premium.

Too funny:  As I was ready to publish this little item, I came across the following:

• "In the AI Age, "Being Smart" Will Mean Something Completely Different," by Ed Hess, June 19, 2017, Harvard Business Review. 

What is it that we are not learning?

An interesting question was asked of me recently.  What is it that we are not learning?

I was giving a presentation about my work over the past 9 years helping projects document their insights and lessons from experience and facilitating knowledge flows across projects and across the functional areas of the organization (project managers, scientists, engineers).  One of the questions I was trying to answer was "Are we a learning organization?  Are we learning?"

My answer was "Yes, but perhaps we're not learning fast enough.  We're not adapting fast enough to keep up with rapid changes."  I was trying to emphasize the dynamic nature of knowledge and the fact that knowledge flows and the learning process itself are becoming more important than ever, whereas static knowledge assets are becoming obsolete more rapidly.

A member of the audience asked, "What is it that we are not learning?"

I can identify two situations where we are not learning:

• First, if we define learning as changing a behavior or a process as a result of a lesson and the lessons is really only LEARNED when some action is taken, Identifying the correct action is not always simple. Getting agreement on that action is not always simple.  Getting the right people to take action is not always simple. In short, the assumption that once a lessons is identified it can easily be translated into action is unrealistic in many cases.  

• Second, there are many unknown unknowns we are not paying attention to.  What is it that we are not seeing?  These things are not even on our radar.  One way to try to discover/uncover these is to involve experts in other fields who will see what we are doing through a completely different set of lenses, using a different frame of reference.

Mapping Your Speech

I've been a member of Toastmasters for a couple of years.  During that time, I've used a number of methods for preparing speeches, including notecards, fully developed and highly polished text, slide decks, and maps.  I find the map to be the most effective method for quickly developing an organized speech and a set of notes that will fit on one piece of paper.

Here is an example of a map I developed for my latest speech.

Click on the map to open as a larger image in a separate window.

Depending on the intent of the speech, the map can also become a handout for audience members.  A much simpler map around the same theme could also serve as outline for an hour long workshop, allowing audience participants to start thinking about developing their own learning plans.