108. Learning Histories

Knowledge management activities begin with identifying what core tacit and explicit knowledge should be at hand, including its sources. Knowledge creation is the process of making tacit knowledge explicit. Knowledge storage sees that routines are applied to retain essential knowledge. Knowledge sharing involves the dissemination to others of what has been generated in usable forms. Knowledge utilization entails integrating what knowledge has been identified, created, stored, and shared so that it can be assimilated and generalized to new situations.

Knowledge per se is not of much consequence; its value resides in application. Hence, knowledge is better understood as the potential for effective action.

Pace self- and independent evaluation, there are still few tools, methods, and approaches with which to capture institutional experience and broadcast with effect to clearly identified users what practicable lessons well up from that. (All attempts to enhance organizational performance must ultimately prove their own value: why should one create knowledge that does not respond to needs nor gets absorbed by those parts of a system that invite it most? Two problems continue to limit self- and independent evaluation: (i) the “lessons learned”—that should more accurately be termed “lessons to be learned”—are not often well formulated; and (ii) processes to promote ownership and uptake of lessons are rarely fully fledged.) Conversely, where appreciative inquiry informs generative approaches to organizational development, write-ups of good practices that were shown to be effective in one part of the organization and might be in another habitually count out the false starts and failures one could learn from as well as the hidden logic and toil that made the breakthroughs possible. The case study method—synonymous with education for management since the early twentieth century—ignores the rich context of organizational challenge: in the real world, for example, problems are not clean, clear, or discrete; information is seldom of the quality or quantity required; and both stakeholder consultation and decision rights constrain progress toward resolution of complex issues. In a different genre, data from in-house and external surveys will not mean much if the latter are not well designed and would still need to be acted upon if it does. And what of strategic reviews by high-level panels assembled to promote new thinking, possibly even jump-start reform? As it happens, the eminent persons who comprise them are pragmatic: by and large, their reports are tailored to please those who hired them—not critique arrangements with evidence from the frontline—and only rarely better the workings of an organization.

In organizations where knowledge is dominant, daily operations should be designed to raise its productivity.

Much knowledge can be codified in formal, systematic language and shared in discussion or writing. But much also cannot be easily abstracted and conveyed explicitly and requires communicative forms that synthesize rather than explicate—stories are such a form, with undoubted use to share multi-dimensional information and emotion in various domains if they are well designed and well told. A useful way to characterize explicit and tacit knowledge is to consider each type, respectively, as the core and the context.

For sure, not all narratives are good stories: as a minimum, one must be clear about why they are being told, keep them simple and accessible, use more than one medium if possible, monitor and evaluate how the accounts are received, and continuously hone storytelling (and story-listening) skills.

Action research is a reflective, constructively self-critical process of progressive problem solving aimed to enhance the performance of individuals, groups, and organizations in their working environment.

Kleiner and Roth (1997) are the co-developers of this new form of corporate oral history. The Critical Incident technique is another, related tool for identifying, describing, and enhancing learning processes that focuses on specific events or circumstances.

In the age of the internet, the possibility also exists to include multimedia products.

They are the persons who initiated, implemented, or participated in the event or circumstance; they include champions, skeptics, people who benefitted or were affected, and close observers.

Many results that cannot be measured must still be managed. An interview protocol based on notable results might ask: Which results from this project or program do you think are significant? What else can you tell us about them?

The not-so-good represents the gap between aspiration and reality: where a learning history acts as a mirror to an organization is where it brings most value.

Each person is identified only by title but quoted directly. As actors review the learning history and find that their points of view are represented fairly, they come to appreciate the perspectives of others (and may even recognize their own blinders).

Principal actors may need to be interviewed several times: they understand things more clearly on the second (or third) time.

The research team had best combine (concerned and knowledgeable) insiders and (trained) outsiders: almost inevitably, an organization’s personnel finds it difficult to reflect objectively on events or circumstances because it has ongoing relationships and is swayed by corporate culture; outsiders, on the other hand, can feel pressured to take on routine note-taking work, which drains the time available for critical thinking.

The development of a learning history often follows six stages: planning, reflective interviews, distillation, writing, validation, and dissemination.