Change Your Behavior, Change Your Mind
February 24, 2009
By David Gurteen
If you change your behavior, you change your mind. This is an idea I have believed in for some years and have tried to practice it, so its great to see Michele Martin blog about this having been inspired by A.J. Jacobs. This is the essence:
If you change your behavior, you change your mind. This is one of those deceptively simple, profoundly important realizations. It’s the “fake it till you make it” school of thought that says if you want to become something different, you have to start by behaving differently.
We tend to think the opposite, that our beliefs must change first and then our behavior will come along later.
Much of professional development is about trying to change people’s attitudes by “training” them that they should think differently. This is often unsuccessful because in many cases, we need to first change our behavior before we can change our beliefs.
I’m not going to truly believe in the power of exercise until I actually begin doing it. I have to start with acting differently and it’s the process of engaging in new behaviors that helps me start to develop new attitudes.
Credit: Change Your Behavior
But, interestingly, Michele goes on to talk about trust - a question that is often asked by KMers “How do we build a culture of trust in our organization?”. My answer has always been just start engaging with people and trusting them. Michele says pretty much the same: Act trusting and trustworthy and trust in yourself and others will follow.
Dave Snowden also has some interesting thoughts on trust
(see his posting on Confusing symptoms with cause)
where he sees it as an emergent property of people working together and not something you can create as such or tell people to do.
These two views may seem opposed but I am not so sure that they are. Yes, trust is an emergent property of people working together but then so is distrust. Entering into a working relationship where by default you trust people (even if you are not too sure of them) is much more likely to lead to a truly trusting relationship than entering in to it with an attitude of lets wait and see.
Dave Snowden’s 7 Principles of Knowledge Management
February 23, 2009
By David Gurteen
Dave Snowden has recently expanded his 3 Rules of Knowledge Management to 7 Principles of Knowledge Management
- Knowledge can only be volunteered, it cannot be conscripted.
- We only know what we know when we need to know it.
- In the context of real need few people will withhold their knowledge.
- Everything is fragmented.
- Tolerated failure imprints learning better than success.
- The way we know things is not the way we report we know things.
- We always know more than we can say, and we always say more than we can write down.
He has explained each one of them in more detail in his original posting on rendering knowledge.
Great stuff! But the key one for me is:
Everything is fragmented. We evolved to handle unstructured fragmented fine granularity information objects, not highly structured documents. People will spend hours on the internet, or in casual conversation without any incentive or pressure. However creating and using structured documents requires considerably more effort and time. Our brains evolved to handle fragmented patterns not information.
Credit: Dave Snowden.
The real world is complex, fragmented and inherently messy and that is not necessarily a bad thing! As Dave says, we have evolved to handle that. Documents? A document is where knowledge goes to die. I think Bill French said this originally in the from email is where knowledge goes to die.
Six Reasons You Should Consider Reading Poetry
February 23, 2009
By David Gurteen
One of the reasons I love Twitter is that I trip across little gems like this one on poetry tweeted by Mary Abraham.
I have little artistic or literary inclination and my knowledge of poetry is limited though there are still one or two poems that I was forced to learn at school that I can still recite almost word for word such as: The Burial of Sir John Moore after Corunna by Charles Wolf and Adlestrop by Edward Thomas.
The joys of a Grammar School education! My old boys Grammar School in Worcester has recently merged with the Alice Ottley, a private girls school, to create the RGS Worcester & The Alice Ottley School Family. And to think in my day they did everything possible to keep us away from the girls but on the other hand my first serious girlfriend at 17 was from the Alice Ottley. LOL.
But I thought I’d share with a poem that has been my favorite for over 40 years.
With Annie gone,
whose eyes to compare
with the morning sun?
Not that I did compare,
But I do compare
Now that she’s gone.
Credit: Leonard Cohen
Couldn’t get much shorter but sums up so much in life.
Conversation Kindling
February 23, 2009
By David Gurteen
You are probably aware of my love of conversation and my belief in its importance in our lives. So you will understand why I find this blog Conversation Kindling by Jim Ericson so amazing. Here is what is says about it.
The purpose of this blog is to share stories, metaphors, quotes, songs, humor, etc. in hopes they’ll be used to spark authentic and rewarding conversations about working and living fruitfully. There are at least three things you can gain by getting involved in these conversations.
First, you’ll discover new and important things about yourself through the process of thinking out loud.
Second, you’ll deepen your relationships with others who participate by swapping thoughts, feelings, and stories with them.
Finally, you’ll learn that robust dialogue centered on stories and experiences is the best way to build new knowledge and generate innovative answers to the questions that both life and work ask.
At the end of most of the postings are some beautiful afterwords (quotes that relate to the post) and questions for conversation. And don’t miss the post on Schindlers List.
What is the one idea at work which is more powerful than any other?
February 16, 2009
By David Gurteen
One of the things I love about my website is that it as much for me as for anyone else. For example, I have over 750 quotations on my site that I have collected over the last 20 years. Not any old quotes, but ones that personally move and inspire me and I wish to share with others.
They are posted on my site, you can subscribe to a quote of the day by email, by RSS feed or through Twitter.
I also post a quote of the day on most pages of my website and this is the one I noticed for today:
In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues.
And it set me to thinking. What is that one idea at work today that is more powerful than any other? And wouldn’t that make a great topic for a Knowledge Cafe. I must do it!
But this is the joy for me. Francis Bacon has provoked me to think about this but he has been dead almost 400 years! Another man that hugely inspires me is Henry David Thoreau but that’s another story.
LinkedIn KM Groups
February 12, 2009
By David Gurteen
There are a growing number of LinkedIn Groups many of them dedicated to KM. There is no KM directory but here are most of the Groups (in no particular order) that I have found:
- Gurteen Knowledge Community
- KM Forum
- Network of Intellectual Capital Professionals
- actKM
- CKO (Chief Knowledge Officers) Forum
- For Knowledge Persons
- KM Australia and Asia
- KM Cluster
- KM Edge
- Knowledge Management
- Knowledge Management Experts
- Knowledge Management for Legal Professionals
- Knowledge Management Professional Society (KMPro)
- Knowledge Managers
- SLA Knowledge Management Division
- Knowledge Management Group of Philadelphia
- KM Practitioners Group
- KM Practitioners
- Knowledge Management Consultants
- CKM Certification Network
- Legal Km Professionals
- Midwest Knowledge Management Community
- KM Chicago
- KM Forum
- Delhi KM Community
- APAC Legal KM Professionals
- Kunnskapstinget
- SoCal KM Exchange
- NTUs Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information
- KMIT
- Twin Cities Knowledge Management Forum (TCKMF)
- SuperCoP KM Belgium
- KM and IT
- KM Cyberary
- MOBEE KNOWLEDGE CoP
- The Braintrust: Knowledge Management Group
ADVERTISEMENT: Certified Knowledge Manager Training
February 7, 2009
By David Gurteen
Certified Knowledge Manager Training
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Program Brochure: http://douglasconnect.com/files/KMTrainingBrochure.pdf
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Flickring your life!
February 7, 2009
By David Gurteen
This might just be of interest to some of you - especially the photographers amongst you. Quite simply, for last few years I have been photo-blogging my life on Flickr. Mainly my business life but their is personal stuff too though much of it is restricted to friends and family.
Even I am quite amazed at the places I have been and the things I have done. It is so easy to forget. I wonder what I will make of this collection in ten years time!
You might want to think about doing it yourself - its so easy to do with a digital camera.
6 Things to Do in 2009
February 7, 2009
By David Gurteen
The new year would not be complete without a list of things todo (TTDs). So here are a few from Chris Brogan.
- Find a new way to improve someone’s day (and determine if there’s value in it).
- Synthesize new ideas from outside your audience’s circle (and help us make meaning from them).
- Promote the great people out there (and and keep doing it).
- Learn from brilliant people (and share what you learn).
- Work on interesting projects that matter to you (and empower others to participate).
- Discover your passions (and share them openly).
You will also find 12 things not to do but personally I found them less interesting.
Google Friend Connect
February 7, 2009
By David Gurteen
I am experimenting with a new Google application called Google Friend Connect - a tool that website owners can use to give their site a more social feel.
Take a look, you will find two widgets on most pages of my website including my home page. The first is a members widget that allows you to join my site, sign in and out, see other members, and use other social features and the second is a wall widget that allows you to post comments, or links to videos on my site.
Its a little like MyBlogLog which I also use on my site but Friend Connect has no where near the same functionality but then it is early days.
