Knowledge Tapper

On solving problems: We cannot find the solutions we need if we don't start to realize the answers that we need, the solutions that we need, are already among us. Somebody, somewhere in this agency, is already doing what the rest of us believe is impossible to do. Somebody, somewhere in this department, has figured out how to deal with this problem. We just need to find them. We need to know what we know and we need to find the people who have already resolved these seemingly unresolvable issues.

On knowledge management: I don't think intellectual things should be thought of as capital. I don't think knowledge can ever be managed. But the quest is really important. In the field of knowledge management, the belief has been that there's an awful lot of expertise resident in the organization. We know a lot, but we don't know who knows it, we don't know exactly what we know. How do we find out what we know and make it available to everybody else? Unfortunately, it's been thought of in this kind of mental model: That knowledge is a thing. You have it; I need it, so we're into a transaction. This is the language that's dominant in this field. The other language that's being used is: "Whatever you know, we have to extract it, we have to catalog it, we have to inventory it, we have to store it on a database"--we're actually using the word "warehousing." What you know will sit on this database and whenever colleagues need to know this, they'll just go on and search, find it, get out of the warehouse and become wiser and do better. You won't be surprised to know that's not working well.

On why warehousing doesn't work: We forgot that people learn and only share what they learn if they are in a relationship with another human being whom they care about. You and I learn all the time. Now what happens to all that knowledge? If you like the leader of the organization that you're working for, if you trust the organization, if you feel that the organization cares about you, then you share your knowledge. What's been missing in this pursuit of knowledge management is what's missing in most of our thinking in management and leadership: We're missing. All of the things that are missing are what make us human: emotion, passion, spiritual quest, family concerns, a desire to contribute.

On recognizing human needs: I believe that one of the reasons we have maintained the seduction that you and I are machines is because it promised us a world we could control. It promised us a world where employees would do what they were told.

In spite of all the hoopla and all the technology and the fancy advice and the bad metaphors about decanting and warehousing and storehousing, one of the things I would like to recall you to is that you already know everything you need to know about being an effective leader. If you know what motivates you, if you understand, if you've reflected at all on the conditions that you appreciate at work, the conditions and attributes you appreciate in leaders, if you've reflected on what motivates and pleases and excites you, you will know how to be an effective leader. This is truly not rocket science.