I was reading this article on change agents in the Harvard Business blogs and one of the things that the author wrote about caught my attention [ probably because I saw a KM connection]. He asks "Have you figured out how your organization's history can help to shape its future?"and then goes on to quote Psychologist Jerome Bruner's view on creativity : "figuring out how to use what you already know in order to go beyond what you already think." This to me also seems to become one of the fundamental objectives of knowledge management if it changes to "figuring out how to use what we already know as a organization in order to go beyond what we already think".
Having said that, I also this this poses a paradox :Shouldn't KM also help organizations challenge long held assumptions and beliefs? Many times what we know and believe conditions us so much that we fail to act otherwise ..we don't see things "as they are".
KM practitioners need to consciously look at organizational history to explore the roots of beliefs/assumptions and unwritten rules that negatively influence an organization. Organizational history could be a useful element in evolving a KM intervention.
when we start using something monotonously, we usually fail to discover(rediscover) its full potential. Again having a look at it and understanding what it can do more for us, will help to go beyond
Posted by: hariharan | June 25, 2009 at 02:07 PM
It was good that I decided to look into my old computer and check out my bookmarks. I quite like the way you write and what you write about. Will start exploring your site often.
Posted by: suresh bhagavatula | September 13, 2009 at 04:59 AM