Working with Knowledge:

Guiding Principles for Association Leaders

"There is no expedient to which a man will not go to avoid the real labor of thinking."

- Thomas Edison

Knowledge is a challenging subject around which many association leaders are struggling to develop a crisp, clear understanding so that they can effectively leverage its power and transform their organizations for the better.  Despite the difficulties it presents, however, there is good reason to undertake the struggle.  In today’s world, the flow of knowledge is great and growing stronger quite literally by the minute.  Knowledge adapts easily to specific situations and, when applied in different ways, adopts unique properties that make it the most extraordinary raw material of organizational change and innovation imaginable.  Still, most associations have not yet really cracked the code on how to best capitalize on the vast knowledge rivers and reservoirs at their disposal.  

In my on-going dialogue with association CEOs and senior executives who demonstrate an interest in the knowledge issue, the chief dilemma appears to be linked to the sentiment conveyed in the Thomas Edison quotation above.  In the turbulent operating environment of the early 21st Century association, it is completely understandable that leaders primarily emphasize that which can be accomplished over the investment of precious personal resources into deep reflection on both the theory and practice of knowledge work.  Still, the fact that it is understandable does not also make it acceptable.  Notwithstanding the rigors of post-modern association leadership, it is incumbent upon CEOs, volunteers and senior executives to anticipate the future and initiate steps by which the association can create that future for itself and its stakeholders.  Increasingly, it will be the answers those leaders provide to questions about how best to work with knowledge that will dictate the long-term strategic success of their associations.

To assist and provide a starting point for an on-going inquiry process, this article offers up six guiding principles for working with knowledge.  While these principles are by no means comprehensive, I do believe they offer a useful philosophical perspective on the nature of knowledge, and help to meet the defining need of the practitioner to apply knowledge to an organization’s day-to-day work.  As with all knowledge, they represent at least some form of a draft that is awaiting further refinement by those leaders interested in pursuing the dialogue in the weeks and months ahead.

Six guiding principles for working with knowledge

• Knowledge is a living thing - Conventional wisdom tells us that knowledge is the stuff of which articles and books are made.  But even the best versions of such artifacts can only be, at best, inanimate, explicit representations of the knowledge used to develop them.  Yet the dynamic, tacit knowledge that is the genesis of their creation lives on in the mind and being of the author, and is constantly growing and changing in new and unique ways.  The explicit knowledge contained in the book or article, however, is reinvigorated when that book or article is consumed by another living being who, in turn, integrates it with his or her existing understanding of the discipline in question.  For that consumer, the explicit knowledge lifted from the page has combined itself with the tacit knowledge he or she uses to, in turn, create and share new knowledge with others.

Of course we know that knowledge exists in its most vibrant form when it is created and shared directly between and among people in safe and lenient spaces of mutual learning and discovery.  In such spaces, knowledge is typically developed either one-on-one, perhaps between colleagues working on the same project, or among the members of a team, network or community.  Knowledge is also shared by groups with other groups, making it further accessible to a greater number of individuals, each of whom connects this new knowledge with their current ways of thinking and acting, thus forming the basis for still more knowledge creation and sharing by more individuals.

Implications for working with knowledge:  Recognizing that knowledge is a living thing allows you to focus your attention on cultivating, creating and sharing knowledge through people rather than the data mining, warehousing and database aspects of “knowledge management” through technology.  When selecting technologies, however, do select tools such as virtual communities, blogs and wikis, that support robust conversations so that knowledge can be easily shared, and remain fresh and accessible.

• Knowledge exists only in context - Melissie Rumizen, a leading practitioner in this field, defines knowledge quite simply as “information in context to produce an actionable understanding.”  The key word in this definition is context.  What sets knowledge apart from the rest of everyday, run-of-the-mill information by which each of us feels overwhelmed is context.  But what is context?  Well, it is a little hard to define in words, because context itself is a kind of tacit knowledge that is understood mostly by being situated within it.  I think of context as the combination of facts, circumstances or conditions that surround a given situation or event.  Let me illustrate what I mean.

I’m a pretty big hockey fan, so I’ve been paying attention to the recent Todd Bertuzzi situation.  As someone who does follow the sport, I’m a little irritated with the American news media for focusing their shock and indignation on what Bertuzzi did (which I grant you was incredibly stupid, wrong and something for which he should be punished) without establishing the broader context in which the incident occurred, i.e., that Steve Moore had previously given Vancouver’s Markus Naslund a concussion without himself being punished for a hit that many people felt should have drawn a penalty and perhaps disciplinary action from the NHL.  Obviously, there are many other elements of the context in this particular situation, but I don’t want to further distract from my primary focus by going into them here.  The main point is that you can see how this incident might look a bit different when you consider it in a larger context.  Broadly speaking, it is context that provides the necessary ingredient to information that transforms it from something ubiquitous and usual to something specifically relevant and valuable in determining the right course of action for moving forward.

Implications for working with knowledge - In general, it makes most sense for leaders to “manage” the context in which knowledge work occurs, rather than trying to manage the knowledge itself.  This means providing proper support to on-going learning without trying to impose what that learning should be.  Also, thinking about context is quite useful in assessing the value of so-called “best practices.”  It is important to keep in mind that the many tools, techniques and approaches used with great success in one organization may not work out as well in another organization because of different contextual factors.  So, when working with best practices, try to appreciate the specifics of the context in which that practice was developed and implemented before seeking to implement it.

• Knowledge flourishes in connections and relationships - Since we already understand that knowledge is a living thing, it isn’t a far stretch to recognize that it is also something that genuinely thrives in the connections and relationships that exist between people.  Indeed, the most valuable knowledge for any organization isn’t really what individual people know and can easily share, i.e., explicit knowledge, because that material may be accessible through other channels.  Instead, it is the knowledge that is created through continuous interaction between and among colleagues that is most valuable, because it typically contains elements of deeply-held “tacit knowledge” that are difficult to express but which can be drawn out through different forms of collaboration, such as dialogue, metaphor and storytelling.

Of course, there is a qualitative difference between a “connection” and a “relationship,” which is a critical factor when considering the issues of knowledge creation and sharing.  As a member of the association community, I am connected to many formal and informal networks of association executives, consultants and others.  But not all of those connections are also trusted working relationships grounded in a desire for collaboration and willingness to reciprocate.  As such, I most likely will not feel as comfortable creating and sharing knowledge with a distant connection as I do with someone I know well.  On the other hand, if my distant connection is also someone that my trusted colleague knows well, I may feel enough comfort in the situation to collaborate with both of those people.

Implications for working with knowledge - Make the building of connections and relationships a priority in your knowledge efforts by providing encouragement and support to your staff.  Focus your attention on creating the conditions in which strong working relationships between and among your staff will emerge, and challenge your people to network extensively with people outside of the association and outside of the community altogether.  Remember, however, that the presence of trust is absolutely essential to the work of creating and sharing knowledge.  Leaders must act continuously to ensure high levels of trust exist within the culture of their organizations.

• Knowledge is the basis for action - Above I shared a rather simple definition of knowledge that bears repeating:  knowledge is information in context to produce an actionable understanding.  If there is one other distinguishing characteristic of knowledge, besides the fact that it is situated in a context, it is that it provides the basis for taking action.  The fundamental difference between workers in the 1950s and the workers of today is that the latter are routinely asked, if not expected, to exercise independent judgment in completing their work.  Think about it.  How often are you told what to do to get the job done?  How often are you telling others what they need to do?  Knowledge work, which is what everybody who works in an association is doing today, operates in the world of ideas, and it is the ability to choose intelligently from among those ideas that makes the broader discussion of creating and sharing knowledge so critical to organizational success.

Of course, not all knowledge is the basis for action.  It is important for knowledge workers to recognize that there is knowledge that is, for lack of a better term, bad and knowledge that is good.  More precisely, it is a question of whether the knowledge being creating, shared and leveraged is valid or not.  The question of whether knowledge is valid, however, isn’t one that can be settled easily by relying upon the word of experts, simply because there is too much knowledge to validate in that way and because, even if you could, such experts often disagree.  Instead, I believe that validity can only truly be established when the people who have the knowledge take some form of action themselves to test its validity.  Naturally, there is an inherent risk in such an approach, as there is in every aspect of organizational decision-making in complex business environments.  Nevertheless, as a matter of principle, it seems clear that knowledge as a living thing must be grounded in an emergent process of continuous learning that leads to better choices.

Implications for working with knowledge -  Challenge your people to establish the validity of knowledge as a basis for action through their own learning rather than depending on specific internal or external expertise.  At the same time, challenge them (and yourself) to look at what they know (and what they think they know) through the lens of on-going, real world decision-making and take steps to support their efforts to create and share new knowledge with other organizational stakeholders.

• Knowledge must be attended to by those who use it - Given that knowledge is a living thing and the basis for action, it follows intuitively that it is best stewarded (rather than managed) by the people who are using it everyday.  The closer the knowledge is to actual work, the better off the organization will be both strategically and operationally.  This perspective, however, actually runs counter to the prevailing impulse in many associations today, which contends that the organization’s knowledge should be centralized in a kind of “giant brain” that can be accessed by any member, staff person or stakeholder when necessary.  While this idea sounds good in concept, experience tells us that it really doesn’t work that well for several reasons.  First, the centralization approach assumes that knowledge is primarily about using technology and not about people.  Second, it assumes that people will willingly deposit their knowledge into a database, frequently on the basis of a range of extrinsic motivators, such as incentives or performance management.  Finally, it takes for granted that people will be able to access everything they know (both explicit and tacit) that might be of value to others.  These are all faulty assumptions, and have been repeatedly confirmed as such by the millions of dollars wasted over the last decade on the many corporate sector knowledge strategies based on them.

Instead of a centralized approach, associations would be well served to adopt a decentralized or distributed approach to creating, sharing and leveraging knowledge.  The key feature of such a strategy is the “community of practice” or “knowledge community.”  According to Etienne Wenger, the originator of the concept, a community of practice is “a group of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an on-going basis."  A community of practice is further defined by the existence of three basic elements:  1) a genuine sense of community among its members that is the basis for their collaboration, 2) a shared “domain” of knowledge with which all members of the community are concerned, 3) a set of shared practices, or ways of working, that all members of the community are seeking to collaboratively develop and improve over time through learning.  In an association context, knowledge communities (which is the more general term I tend to use) can comfortably involve a variety of stakeholders and interested parties both inside and outside the organization’s known boundaries.  And while an association should try to influence the growth and development of these communities by providing proper support, it must be careful never to try to exert control over them.  Instead, knowledge communities should be given as much flexibility as possible to identify their own learning pathways and both association and community leaders must work together to orchestrate the strategic relationship between them.

Implications for working with knowledge - Association leaders should resist, at all cost, the temptation to centralize their knowledge efforts through technology.  Although technology absolutely plays an essential role in knowledge work, it is generally does not best come in the form of giant repositories of information.  Instead, deploy more collaborative technologies (see the implications of the first principle) to support the emergence of knowledge communities, particularly since most of them will be geographically distributed.  As a leader, you should place your focus on how best to support the people using the knowledge, and less on the knowledge itself. 

• Knowledge creates innovation - This final principle reflects a belief about the basic strategic rationale of pursuing an organizational focus on knowledge.  For some leaders, the primary intent is to achieve greater efficiencies in the association’s operations.  The premise is simple:  if the organization can just capture what it knows, it won’t have to keep “reinventing the wheel” and it can be more efficient.  This will allow it to reduce costs and, perhaps, become more profitable.  It is easy to understand the appeal of this way of thinking and, in today’s limited resource environment, it certainly makes a good deal of sense for associations to explore it as an option.  Yet while I agree that this approach has some merit, I do not believe that cost efficiency is the primary reason why knowledge should or does matter to most organizations.  In my view, the chief consideration must always be creating value through innovation.

In my work, I define innovation as a systemic discipline for consistently acting on ideas to create new value.  Every element of this definition depends heavily on an organization’s ability to create, share and leverage knowledge.  The “systemic discipline” of innovation comes primarily from the understanding it holds of the future that its stakeholders can expect to confront in the years ahead, as well as the association’s self-knowledge of its core principles, practices and processes and its capacity to alter them to fully embrace innovation.  Obviously, ideas (either new or old) are knowledge forms that can be created and re-created in different ways to come up with opportunities for the organization to pursue.  Of course, each new idea to be pursued also creates a need for new knowledge within the organization.  Finally, the logic by which any enterprise—either for-profit or non-profit—creates or enables the creation of value is itself a knowledge issue, and one that no association can take lightly any longer.  Knowledge and innovation enjoy a symbiotic relationship:  without knowledge, innovation cannot occur.  Without innovation, knowledge is relegated in importance and impact.

Implications for working with knowledge - From the very outset of your knowledge work, make explicit the link with the goal of innovation.  Challenge your organization to fully embrace the relationship between knowledge and innovation and leverage it in everything you do.  Try to recognize opportunities when they emerge and carefully consider the new knowledge, if any, that the organization will need in order to capitalize on them.

Make these principles your own

From this article, I hope you will take away the most sincere advice that you must devote the time to reflecting on these principles in order to make them your own.  You do this first and foremost by not accepting them at face value.  Instead, probe them further and test the underlying thinking.  Remember that no one person can claim to have the entire picture of what your organization’s knowledge work should entail, although some may try.  You must educate yourself and others by learning as much as you can about the strategic issue of organizational knowledge and putting your new thinking into practice through a series of small safe tests.  If you try something and it doesn’t work, don’t give up.  Learn from it, I mean seriously learn from it.  When you do, you will find yourself already situated in a context of creating and sharing knowledge, and you will be well on your way to success.  Ah yes, Thomas Edison would be proud!

Jeff De Cagna is chief strategist and founder of Principled Innovation LLC, located in Arlington, Virginia, and author of The Association Innovation Blog.   He can be reached at jeff@principledinnovation.com.

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