All Life Is Problem Solving

(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri)

In his new book, Chasing the Rabbit, Steven Spear distinguishes highly adaptive organizations from others, terms them “rabbit organizations,” and, alternatively, “high-velocity organizations,” and develops a framework for identifying them. According to Spear, such organizations have four capabilities:

1) “Specifying Design to Capture Existing Knowledge and Building In Tests to Reveal Problems” (p. 22) (This refers to designing activities and processes. High-velocity organizations use their best current knowledge to precisely specify activities and processes to be performed and expected outcomes. Precise expectations about outcomes are benchmarks against which real performance may be tested and errors in expectations revealing knowledge gaps can be seen easily);

2) “Swarming and Solving Problems to Build New Knowledge” (p. 24) through using “the scientific method . . . in a disciplined fashion” (p. 25) (“In the rabbit organizations, problems are swarmed at the time and place where they occur and by the people who are affected.” (p. 24));

3) “Sharing New Knowledge throughout the Organization” (p. 25) (“They do this by sharing not only the solutions that are discovered, but the processes by which they were discovered – what was learned and how it was learned. (pp. 25-26));

4) “Leading by Developing Capabilities 1, 2, and 3” (p. 26) (“High-velocity managers are not in place to command, control, berate, intimidate, or evaluate through a contrived set of metrics, but to ensure that their organizations become more self-diagnosing and self-improving, skilled at detecting problems, solving them, and multiplying the effect by making the solutions available throughout the organization.” (p. 26))

Much of Spear’s book is devoted to describing cases of rabbit organizations and relating these cases to this capability framework. The cases included: Toyota, Alcoa, the US Navy Nuclear Power Propulsion Program, Pratt and Whitney, Avenue A (now aQuantive), Asin, Taiheiyo, NHK, (the last three Toyota suppliers), and a number of hospital cases including Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a division of Partners Health Care, and Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) of Seattle Washington. Toyota is the case that is described and analyzed in most detail, but a fair amount of attention is given to the others and Spear does a fine job of making the argument that these four capabilities are characteristic of high-velocity organizations.

In the Alcoa, Navy Reactors, and Toyota cases, Spear does a very explicit mapping job of mapping the case details to his capability framework. However, in the course of doing his mapping for each case, he states each of the capabilities a bit differently emphasizing different aspects of each. For example, in the case of Alcoa Capability (see pp. 93-102) 1) becomes: “Seeing Problems as They Occur.” Capability 2) is stated as “Swarming and Solving Problems As They Are Seen.” Capability 3) was: “Spreading New Knowledge. “And Capability 4) was stated the same way. In the case of the US Navy Nuclear Power Propulsion Program (see pp. 119-140), Capability 1) is: “Capturing the Best Collective Knowledge and Making Problems Visible.” Capability 2) is: “Building Knowledge by Swarming and Solving Problems.” Capability 3) is: “Spreading Lessons Learned to the Whole Organization; and Capability 4) is, again, much the same. For Toyota, each Capability is given a separate chapter. Capability 1) is expressed (p. 155) as: “System Design and Operation;” Capability 2) (p. 193) is: “Problem Solving and Improvement;” Capability 3) (p. 225) is: “Knowledge Sharing;” and Capability 4) (p. 263) is: “Developing High-velocity Skills In Others.”

The changes in wording from his general description of the capabilities to his characterization of each case reflect differences in the specifics of implementation at the rabbit organizations. Differences appear to be even greater in cases such as Avenue A and Pratt and Whitney which are not so well-described. Are these differences significant to behavior? I think they are, but they may have more to do with the specific character of the kinds of business activities being performed by the different companies, then with any differences in the degree to which they fundamentally change the identifying profile of “the rabbit organization.”

Later on in the book, Spear expresses the four capabilities as rules (pp. 302-303). He does this to illustrate how self-organization, and self regulation in complex organizations in the specific case of Asin, a Toyota supplier implementing a recovery from a serious fire, can be facilitated by viewing, mandating, and implementing, as Asin did, the capabilities as rules around which people can self-organize. His rules are:

1) “Design: Specify Work Systems in terms of what output is being pursued, who will perform what steps in what sequence along a pathway to generate that outcome, how exchanges of materials and information (including the informational triggers to start work) will be made across the connections between steps, and what methods will be used at each step. Design systems with tests built in to immediately identify any gaps between what was predicted and what happens.

2) “Improve: Swarm problems the moment they are seen so that they can be contained, investigated, and resolved quickly. Involve those affected by the problems in resolving it, using the discipline of the scientific method to ensure that solving problems also builds additional useful knowledge on ways to increase the chance for success in the future.

3) “Share knowledge: Share throughout the organization whatever is learned locally. Share the discovery process as well as the particular solution, so new insights can be put to wider use and have broader benefits.

4) “Develop problem-solving capabilities: Develop these core capabilities in those for whom you are responsible as a leader.”

Let’s compare Spear’s treatment of the four capabilities and corresponding rules for rabbit organizations with how the Problem Solving Pattern (PSP) was defined in Part One of this series, and how the Open PSP was characterized in Part Two. In Part One we said:

The PSP is the pattern of human interaction that 1) seeks, recognizes and formulates problems, 2) solves those problems by making new knowledge, 3) communicates that knowledge beyond the local context generating it to people who may need it, and 4) enhances how well these first three processes are performed.

1), 2) and 3) in the PSP don’t refer to capabilities or rules but to problem-solving related processes. They are, we think, the reference processes for Spear’s capabilities and rules, and what these capabilities and rules are about is performing the PSP well, and, as a result being successful in adapting to error. That is: seeking, recognizing, and formulating problems will be performed well if an organization has Spear’s Capability 1) “Specifying Design to Capture Existing Knowledge and Building In Tests to Reveal Problems;” solving those problems by making new knowledge will be performed well if an organization has Capability 2) “Swarming and Solving Problems to Build New Knowledge” (p. 24) through using “the scientific method . . . in a disciplined fashion;” communicating that knowledge beyond the local context generating it to people who may need it, will be performed well if an organization has Capability 3) “Sharing New Knowledge throughout the Organization;” and finally, enhancing how well these processes are performed, will be performed well if an organization has Capability 4) “Leading by Developing Capabilities 1, 2, and 3.”

If you’re reading carefully, you may have noted that the greatest lack of correspondence between the PSP and the capabilities of rabbit organizations is found in Capability 1), where the stage of design is not found in seeking, recognizing and formulating problems. This discrepancy flows from Spear’s decision to incorporate Design into Capability 1) along with seeing problems. In fact, however, I think the capability for rigorous process design, including designing in precise expectations and tests is part of Capability 2) rather than Capability 1) and that Spear’s capabilities incorporate a redundant overlap that is better handled through a conceptual feedback loop from Capabilities 2) to 1).

Will an organization perform the PSP well, if it follows the four rules? We think it will, but the real question is what is the relationship between the capabilities and rules? Which comes first the capabilities or the rules? Can an organization do a good job of following the rules without having the capabilities? Can the capabilities be achieved only by following the rules. We think it’s likely there’s a mutually reinforcing relationship between capabilities and rules in organizations; but also that this reinforcing relationship is strongest when both the capabilities are there and the rules are followed, as they are in organizations that are already rabbit organizations. But at the beginning of a transformation to a high-velocity state, when neither rules nor capabilities are institutionalized, the rules are more like policies advanced by management rather than rules that people follow, and it takes management-supported programs and projects exercising rule 4 to enhance the first three capabilities and begin to institutionalize the four rules. In future blogs we will consider in some detail how performing the four processes can be enhanced to create the four capabilities and institutionalize the four rules in organizations. Before we end this blog, however, let’s consider the relationship between rabbit organizations and the Open PSP.

In brief, that relationship is that Open PSPs are the typical form of PSPs found in rabbit organizations. In rabbit organizations employees have both the authority, and the duty to seek, recognize and formulate problems. They also have not only the opportunity, but also the obligation, to “swarm” and solve problems using “the scientific method,” thus exemplifying the Open PSP characteristic of distributed problem-solving. Further, the characteristics of spreading new knowledge to those who need it and transparency are shared by rabbit organizations and the Open PSP.

In both, structural barriers to self-organization are at a minimum, and enabling human and Information Technology structures for self-organization and participation in seeking, recognizing, and formulating problems, and making and communicating new solutions are diverse, widespread, and up-to-date. Also, internal transparency in knowledge processing and trust in related interactions is high in both the Open PSP and rabbit organizations. Finally, the Company that perhaps best exemplifies both the Open PSP and the rabbit organization is Toyota with its commitments to genchi genbutsu, jidoka, kaizen, yokoten, jishuken, encouragement of informal groups outside the formal organizational structure, and distribution/decentralization of management activities (PSP/Capability 4)) intended to enhance all of these processes.

(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri)

Here are four types of PSPs that may be found or approximated in organizations. The four are not a mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive classification of PSPs, but a categorization of types that one can use to begin to understand and explore the world of PSPs, or if you like, their phase space.

The Closed Problem Solving Pattern is one in which authority to recognize, formulate, and solve problems, and then communicate solutions is restricted by high level management to a small elite, while the mass of employees contributes only to operational business processing. A closed PSP can be very effective provided that the small elite’s problem solving competence is great and that their range of new ideas has enough variety to cope with the challenges the organization meets within its environment. The American automobile manufacturers of the 1950s and 1960s are examples of organizations using closed PSPs.

They were successful for a time. But over a period of decades their efforts at adaptation became less and less successful relative to European and Asian competition. One of the most important factors in this decline was the relatively narrow scope of the options and ideas they were willing to consider to cope with new competition. For those who have lived through this now nearly 50 year period, it has often seemed as though the American “Big Three” was wearing blinders and, in addition to its incapacity to innovate, was even incapable of mere accurate and timely copying of the successes of rising world competition.

The Mobilized Problem Solving Pattern is one in which many employees are enlisted in problem solving and solution dissemination, but, also, in which these efforts are closely managed and directed by a small elite, so that only certain methods and processes of problem solving are implemented. These organizations can be very successful provided, again, that their problem solving competence is great and that their range of new ideas has enough variety to cope with the challenges the organization meets within its environment. They can be more effective than organizations fitting the Closed PSP since, given their methods and processes, they get more people involved in problem solving, generating more variety in solutions.

However, their inability to go beyond a small elite in generating new problem solving methods and processes means that there are important constraints on their ability to adapt. An example of such an organization is General Electric with its centrally directed imposition of Six Sigma-based approaches to problem solving. We are still in a period where GE is quite successful, but it remains to be seen whether they can learn as effectively as their competition and their environment demands.

The Frozen Problem Solving Pattern is one in which hierarchical stove-piped structures have formed to deal with problem solving. Within the stove pipes, the pattern is one of the closed or mobilized PSP, but communication across stove pipes is prevented by organizational structures, or culture, or lack of trust, with the result that organizational problems that are broader in scope than the stove pipes (cross-stove pipe problems), cannot be solved. This is the least effective of organizational PSPs. It is perhaps typified by CitiGroup under its financial supermarket model, and may account for its recent fall from grace.

The Open Problem Solving Pattern is characterized by widely distributed authority to seek, recognize and formulate problems, arrive at new solutions and disseminate those solutions to others. Structural barriers to self-organization are at a minimum, and enabling human and Information Technology structures for self-organization and participation in seeking, recognizing, and formulating problems, and making and communicating new solutions are diverse, widespread, and up-to-date. Also, internal transparency in knowledge processing and trust in related interactions is high.

Among these four patterns, all can work from time to time in certain situations. That’s why all four types are found in organizations and have a certain measure of stability. However, the Open PSP is the one that is most likely to be associated with the highest quality of adaptation. We think that’s true because such PSPs enlist the abilities and ideas of the widest range of participants in all aspects of learning and innovation.

The Company that best exemplifies the Open PSP may be Toyota, a company that has institutionalized problem seeking, recognition, and formulation, new idea generation, careful comparison and testing of new ideas through “genchi genbutsu” (“go and see” — the process of fully experiencing and grasping an operational situation), jidoka” (“self-regulation” — the ability to detect problems in business processes and stop those processes pending solution), “kaizen” (continuous improvement through problem solving using using “the scientific method”); integration of those ideas wherever they are needed through “yokoten” (“across everywhere,” the activity of widely sharing an integrating solutions through the organization ), “jishuken” (“self study” — knowledge sharing in the context of collaborative problem solving), and encouragement of informal groups outside the formal organizational structure, and distribution/decentralization of PSP management activities intended to enhance all of these processes.

A new book, discussing Toyota in detail is Steven Spear’s Chasing the Rabbit. Spear not only discusses Toyota in his book, but also Alcoa, the US Navy Nuclear Power Propulsion Program, Pratt and Whitney, Avenue A (now aQuantive), Asin, Taiheiyo, NHK, (the last three Toyota suppliers), and a number of hospital cases including Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), a division of Partners Health Care, and Virginia Mason Medical Center (VMMC) of Seattle Washington. While it’s not clear that problem solving in all the cases discussed fits the Open PSP, there’s enough detail in Spear’s analysis to suggest that Alcoa, the US Navy Nuclear Power Propulsion Program, Asin, VMMC, and significant components of MGH have institutionalized an Open PSP pattern.

Spear discusses these and some anti-pattern cases in the context of a broader conceptual framework focused on the idea of the capabilities of “Rabbit Organizations.” In our next blog, we’ll discuss how Spear characterizes rabbit organizations, and we’ll relate his framework to our own views on PSPs and Open PSPs.

Robert Reich offered an interesting piece on the key turning point in the Administration’s economic program in the Washington Post today. I think that he’s right that Obama’s position on structuralism vs. cyclism and his ability to educate the public on structuralism and gain political support for it is critical for America’s future. Take a look!

(Co-Authored with Steven A. Cavaleri)

In organizations, there is a continuing tension and trade-off of effort and resources between routine and adaptive behavior. Some few organizations, like Toyota, have been able to break through the trade-off between these divergent needs, to perform well at both, and to achieve sustainable effectiveness. But ineffective companies are in the wrong markets, with the wrong products, built using the wrong processes, and the wrong technologies. They become progressively less adaptive and less innovative over time. Combining programs designed to enhance both routine and adaptive performance can be overwhelming. Unless an organization has significant slack resources and staffing, or, as we shall see in future posts in this series, understands Problem Solving Pattern (PSP) Management, operating as a bi-modal integrated system usually fails.

Adaptation depends on an entirely different set of processes than routine behavior, including action learning, knowledge creation, knowledge sharing, innovation, adaptation, “exception handling,” etc. These are, typically, intensely social processes that require human interaction, and learning more deeply than usual from experience. Consultants cannot do this for employees, and technology is a poor substitute for replacing such social processes, though it can sometimes facilitate them to a greater or lesser degree. But these social processes can be facilitated by management. We see an example of this at Toyota, where the primary role of management is seen as mentoring and supporting those they manage in processes of problem solving.

What is needed for better adaptation is high quality PSPs. The PSP exists in parallel with the Operational Pattern (OP) and employees move between the two linked types of patterns as needed to do their jobs. The OP is the pattern of human interaction that produces routine action based on existing knowledge. It’s about production, logistics, marketing, repetitive sales and marketing activities, accounting, human resources, purchasing, and all the other day-to-day activities that are the target of efficiency initiatives, and that produce effectiveness only when existing knowledge underlying those activities is close enough to the truth that decisions and actions based on that knowledge work as expected.

The PSP is the pattern of human interaction that 1) seeks, recognizes and formulates problems, 2) solves those problems by making new knowledge, 3) communicates that knowledge beyond the local context generating it to people who may need it, and 4) enhances how well these first three processes are performed. The PSP includes both these processes, and also the structures performing them. These structures: individuals, teams, projects, friendship groups, organizational sub-divisions, committees of “experts,” communities of practice, communities of inquiry, and the organization itself, are, in some cases, but not in others, the same ones that perform the processes of the OP.

When the difficulty of problems rises above a minimum threshold, and cannot routinely be solved by ordinary means in the OP, sometimes solutions must be developed in the PSP, or imported from other parts of the PSP. The PSP gives life to companies because it provides learning, innovation, and greater adaptability.

A PSP that can be made to work well gives new life to tired organizations lacking in vitality after their core revitalizing capacities have been drained by intense competition, downsizing, or underinvestment in core capacities. There are many types of PSPs of varying degrees of adaptive capacity and performance, and strategies for enhancing a PSP can be approached incrementally, and with a level of investment which is far less than other investments in one or another aspect of organizational development. My next Blog in this series will discuss four types of PSPs.

To Be Continued

Why was bipartisanship possible and successful in earlier times, while it’s unlikely to succeed now? In earlier periods of bipartisanship, margins in the Senate were smaller than they are now, and the legislative and executive branches were often divided between the parties. During the period before the Republican electoral takeover of the South; bipartisanship was encouraged by the immediate post-war strength of that tradition in Foreign Policy, and also by the split in the Democratic Party between mainstream Democrats and the Dixiecrats. Today the “blue dog” Democrats are not nearly as conservative as the Dixiecrats were, and the Democratic Party is much more unified than it used to be.

Moreover, today, the ideological split between the Parties is much greater than it was during the days when relatively centrist and “Eisenhower Republicans” controlled the Republican Party. In those times, economic issues between the two parties could much more easily be compromised, because the New Deal consensus on the efficacy of Government was still intact and Republicans were neither attempting to rid America of the New Deal, nor to represent Christian Evangelical values. That changed when the Republicans became “Conservative” and attempted to turn back the clock of economic policy to the 1920s, and the clock of religious policy back to the 1890s. At first, the Democrats resisted, but as the belief in the efficacy of the market and the ineffectiveness of Government grew, and as the evangelical movement grew stronger, the Democratic Party began to move toward a policy of heavy reliance on the market, if not quite toward market fundamentalism. This did not end ideological conflict, because the Republicans continued to emphasize the gap between the two parties on social, regional, and urban-rural issues, which by their very nature are less open to compromise than are economic differences in the context of paradigmatic consensus on economics.

Now, we come to the present. The consensus on the dominant economic paradigm is once again gone. The Republicans still believe in the old time religion, while the country has seen it fail once again, and now sees a revival of the old New Deal consensus on an active role for Government, including an emphasis on market and business regulation. In Foreign Policy, the Republican reliance on unilateralism and military action has experienced a visible and costly failure, and there is broad support for a policy that relies on a mix of very active Diplomacy and military readiness and that involves less risk. For the time being, social and value issues are eclipsed, but their importance will return again, once the economic crisis is over.

Looking at this overall situation, we can now see the global reasons why bipartisanship won’t work. First, we still have a serious split between the Parties and the constituencies they represent on values and social issues. This split is on the back burner now, but the possibility of using it for electoral gain means that there’s always a good possibility of the kind of nasty exchanges around social ideology that can undermine bipartisanship. Second, for the time being the split in Foreign Policy seems to be receding, and this area is probably the most promising one for bipartisanship in the short-term, given the loss of credibility suffered by the “neocons.”

But, third, the most important barrier to bipartisanship is the divide over the paradigm of fundamental economic policy that has opened over the last year in response to events. How can bipartisanship in economic policy succeed when one party is still committed to the market, to tax cuts for higher income people, and to as little regulation as possible; while the other party is convinced that such policies are to blame for the economic downturn we are experiencing now, and that we must turn to regulation, and to much greater Government intervention to stabilize and then maintain the stability of the market economy?

If the Democrats are successful in implementing their ideas for recovery, it will once again legitimize the role of Government in the economic system and in providing at least a modicum of social justice. That is a kind of “death” for most of today’s Republicans, since they would have to admit to themselves, and perhaps to others, that their political activity over the years has been based on a long-term error of belief which has harmed both their constituents and their country. For most of them bipartisan collaboration in support of the mixed economy paradigm isn’t possible without reconstructing their ideological commitments and political appeals and accepting this little “death.” So very few of them will do it, unless they think that bipartisanship and acceptance of the mixed economy paradigm will save their jobs, AND they still want those jobs. But, as I’ve argued earlier very few of them will be able to avoid defeat by becoming bipartisan.

So, what has to happen before bipartisanship in American Politics can become a significant factor? Paradoxically, I think that the partisan war has first to be won decisively by one side or the other. Right now, the Democrats have the best chance of winning that war by showing that the mixed economy paradigm is the right one to follow and that market fundamentalism is bankrupt. If that occurs, then for Republicans to be successful again, they will have to become a party that accepts that paradigm, and that more or less agrees with the Democrats on the proper foundations of the Economy. When that happens, Republican candidates will be able to compete on Foreign Policy issues, on social and values issues, and on the details of how the mixed economy should be managed. And Republican office holders will be able to practice bipartisanship on economic issues and Foreign Policy issues once again.

If I’m right about all this, then it means that President Obama’s attempt at bipartisanship is the wrong way around. You can’t have bipartisanship now because Republicans committed to market fundamentalism cannot avoid defeat by being bipartisan in a context where the economic paradigm is transitioning back to a mixed economy, and they are identified with the old market fundamentalist paradigm. But, bipartisanship will be practical, once this transition is complete and clearly successful, so that a new generation of Republicans can commit to a mixed economy model, become acceptable to a public that has also accepted that model, and successfully compete with Democrats on the details. The recipe, regrettably, as Roosevelt also discovered in 1934-35, has to be to win the partisan war first, and to practice bipartisanship later, when there is greater agreement on the basic economic paradigm.

Meanwhile civility, attempts to court Republican support in meetings, shows of respect, and Washington cocktail parties are all to the good. Build personal relationships across party lines. Prepare the way for bipartisanship based on the sharing of the mixed economy paradigm. But until this political generation of fundamentalist Republicans passes on and is replaced by a new one filled with more pragmatic Republicans, there will be very little bipartisanship, notwithstanding the fondest hopes and sincere promises of the President.

From time-to-time, I’ll be departing from the Knowledge Management subject matter of this blog to make a political comment. Sometimes, KM will be intertwined with a political post. But sometimes it will be all political opinion without any KM content.

President Obama’s pursuit of bipartisanship is doomed to failure because it won’t stop Republicans from losing elections. They know it, but he doesn’t.

Consider, will bipartisan compromise on foreign policy issues protect them against Democratic challenges in elections? Most Republicans are now in Red States whose voters are less friendly to Obama’s re-orientation in foreign policy than voters in Blue or toss-up states. If Obama is successful in foreign policy and the United States is clearly more secure, then the credit will go to him and the Republicans will be disadvantaged whether or not they have supported him. The disadvantage will be less if they have supported him then if they haven’t. But any Democrat running against such an incumbent will still be able to better wrap themselves in Obama’s mantle than the bipartisan Republican. On the other hand, if Obama is unsuccessful in Foreign Policy, then the bipartisan Republican is terribly vulnerable in Red State primaries where an opponent will certainly be giving him “we told you so,” until its coming out of his proverbial ears. The only position that decreases the Republican’s chances of losing is partisanship — opposition to Obama coupled with a clear Obama failure in Foreign Policy. If there’s failure, that position adds to the Republican’s chances of winning, while his/her risk of losing in case Obama is successful is less in Red States than it would be in competitive or Blue States.

Moving to domestic policy, right now only recovery really matters. Social issues are eclipsed. The world hasn’t come to an end because an Afro-American is now President. It won’t come to an end because Obama gets rid of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” However, folks will be sour if they lose their jobs, or can’t borrow money, or find that their real estate or stock holdings lose a significant percentage off their already substantially depressed values. “It’s the Recovery stupid.”

If the Red State Republican practices bipartisanship with Obama, and there’s a Recovery, Obama and the Democrats get the advantage. The bipartisan Republican has less disadvantage than the partisan Republican would have in this scenario, but that Republican might well have to face a primary challenge from an economic conservative, and even if a primary challenge is unsuccessful, the Republican then has to face a Democrat with an Obama wind at his back. If he/she runs too far to the left, the conservative base stays home. If he/she runs to the right, after supporting Obama, the Obama Democrat will point out that the bipartisan Republican can’t be as effective a supporter of Obama as the Democrat can be. In short, for Red State Republicans bipartisanship is a no-win alternative. Better to stick to the old time religion, hope Obama fails, and then ride the resulting wave of anger, or if Obama succeeds, lie about the extent of his success and hope that the desire of one’s constituents to continue to believe in the old-time religion will blind them to the truth and they will still reject the Democrat.

In short, Red State Republicans will have no interest in being bipartisan unless perceived patriotism overcomes self-interest. Here we’re talking about 1 or 2 out of every hundred legislators. What about Blue or Competitive State Republicans? Is the situation any different for them?

Certainly, but there are so few of them now. Not enough in the House to have an influence on outcomes and not enough even to have an influence on the atmosphere of partisanship. The few can be bipartisan; and that is probably their best chance of survival. But if Obama is successful, the Obama wind will be blowing so strongly in their states and districts, that they need to be getting a lot of favors for their constituents in return for their support if they plan to survive that wind. However, everyone is looking at “pork” and “earmarks” these days, and Red State Republicans will certainly be pointing out any pork being traded for the voting support of these Republicans. So, the question will come down to: Will the incumbents get credit from their constituents for being “bipartisan?”

Somehow, I doubt that, since they are too few to really change the overall partisan atmosphere; and therefore, the fact that they have been bipartisan may manifest itself as a bit abstract for them to receive enough credit from their constituents to overcome a Democratic and progressive wave. What about the Senate? Does this analysis hold there?

I think the Senate is the place where bipartisanship is most likely to benefit some Republicans. There are about 9 (Collins, Snowe, Gregg, Voinivich, McCain, Lugar, Specter, Ensign, and Murkowski) whose constituencies, or likely competition in Party primaries, may persuade them that more bipartisanship is in their interest. That’s enough to dilute partisanship in the Senate; but the problem is that the Democrats don’t need five of them to break a filibuster on a critical issue, but only one. So, the question is, why should the Democrats give up very much in their proposals by giving away very much to these Republicans? Senate Democrats have no reason to do that except a desire for bipartisanship itself, and why would their constituents give them greater credit for that than they would get by more fully delivering on their economic promises?

In short, bipartisanship won’t work right now because it’s not in the interest of Republicans and they can’t be “guilt-tripped” into it. Assuming that this argument is right, why was bipartisanship possible and successful in earlier times, while it’s unlikely to succeed now? I’ll look at a bit of history for some answers in my next post.

Interesting discussion going on at the actkm group. A few days ago, Cory Banks proposed collaboration on a KM Body of Knowledge (BOK). Last night (eastern US time), and yesterday, the discussion intensified about what was involved in creating such a BOK, and, of course about what a Body of Knowledge is. For the ongoing discussion, I recommend that you access the actkm.org list serv and follow it. Here I’ll just state my view about what a Body of Knowledge is and then point out why the so-called Bodies of Knowledge one finds in the IT world are really, from my point of view, just Bodies of Information, or, if you prefer, Bodies of Content, but not Bodies of Knowledge.

I’ll begin with linguistic content, and with the idea that, in general, some, but, not all, of it is knowledge, and that since such content asserts something, it is non-random which makes it all information as well as content. Now, let’s assume we have a Body of Content, or what is the same thing, a body of linguistic information, then how should we distinguish bodies of linguistic information from bodies of linguistic knowledge, when both of these are comprised of content that makes assertions about the world?

Now one could take the position that there is no difference between information content and knowledge content, because there really is no linguistic knowledge, and that knowledge is really mental in character and refers to beliefs. I can understand this position well enough, but reject it because it rejects the idea of objective knowledge since mental knowledge cannot be shared or tested intersubjectively. Apart from this however, such a position suggests that the idea of a “Body of Knowledge” is an impossibility. Since this discussion is predicated on the assumption that there are bodies of knowledge, the idea that knowledge is only mental in character is another subject for another day. For today we are assuming that Bodies of Knowledge are possible and are discussing the question of how they differ from Bodies of Information.

Next, one could also take the position that Bodies of Knowledge are different from Bodies of Information in that the contributors to Bodies of Knowledge believe they are contributing true information to the body, whereas the contributors to Bodies of Information aren’t concerned with the truth or falsity of information. This position however, rests the identification of a Body of Knowledge on the intent of the contributors of content to a repository. Of course, such an intent will be very difficult to measure or divine in practical applications. So, if we accept this position, we are basically saying that while there may be a difference between bodies of knowledge and information, there is no measurable difference that has practical implications.

Next, we could look for differences in the bodies based on their differing content, and say that linguistic knowledge content is richer than mere information content in some important way. This is the position I take. Specifically, I think that bodies of linguistic knowledge are comprised of knowledge claims supplemented by other necessary information, whereas bodies of linguistic information don’t have such additional information. “Knowledge Claims” are statements we make about the world, or about what’s valuable, or what’s right, or what’s valid or invalid. They can be expressed in single statements or in networks of statements, But, what is the nature of the additional information that together with knowledge claims defines linguistic knowledge?

I think this additional information is comprised of “meta-claims.” “Meta-claims” are claims about claims. They’re important because the “track record” of performance of our claims, and of their survival in the face of criticisms, tests, and evaluations, and of their relevance to the problems they are supposed to solve, is made up of meta-claims. Knowledge claims assert what we think is true, or right, or efficacious, or valid. But such an assertion doesn’t make them “knowledge.” It only makes them “information.” Objective knowledge also requires the track record of performance and survival in the face of evaluation perspectives and/or criteria and competing alternative claims. So, in my view, Bodies of Knowledge are comprised of both knowledge claims and meta-claims about the performance of these claims. Bodies of Information, or Content need not include meta-claims about performance, and that is the difference between them and Bodies of Knowledge.

Very often, the phrase “Body of Knowledge” is applied to knowledge claims “established” in various fields of science and engineering. These “bodies” however, are not codified in any single knowledge base, and both the knowledge claims and meta-claims involved are distributed across many information/content sources. Nevertheless, scientific bodies of knowledge certainly fit the idea of objective knowledge I’ve just offered since both knowledge claims and meta-claims are part of scientific bodies of knowledge, and without the presence of the meta-claims we would not have scientific bodies of knowledge.

Moving to “Bodies of Knowledge” found in the IT world, I don’t view these as “real” BOKs, because they don’t provide the rich meta-claim context necessary for a knowledge base. They may provide the assertion of a best practice or a lesson learned, or a popular and useful technique, but they don’t provide the story of the knowledge claims that are part of a BOK. That story needs to include the problems giving rise to new knowledge, development of alternative solutions if that occurred, the process of evaluating solutions including any “safe-fail” experiments that may have been performed to test new knowledge, and the record of the new knowledge in practice. That is, it must include all the knowledge claims and meta-claims necessary to see the knowledge claims in their full evaluative context, so that humans using the BOK can evaluate its claims anew.

In some fields of business, you’ll find these kinds of stories told and stored for future reference: specifically in the Quality Management field, many organizations, Toyota provides a good example, cultivate meticulous reporting including description of problems, root cause analysis, development of solutions, experiments to test solutions, implementation, and analysis of gaps between expectations and actual results. Knowledge Bases of such reports are Bodies of Knowledge in the sense I’ve defined the term. But when people normally talk about BOKs they’re not talking about the full context of knowledge claims, but only about what has worked in the past and is considered “best” or “learned.” This sort of BOK is really a “Body of Content” or “information, because its users must begin its evaluation from scratch with no capability to access the track record of the claims in the so-called BOK.

In a noted blog posted on September 28, 2008, Venkatesh Rao made a number of claims about the relationship between the KM and social media movements. I’ll end this examination of the relationships between KM and the 2.0 cluster by using aspects of my previous analysis to examine his primary claims about the existence of a culture war between KM and social media. Here are some quotes from his post.

“You’d think Knowledge Management (KM), that venerable IT-based social engineering discipline which came up with evocative phrases like “community of practice,” “expertise locater,” and “knowledge capture,” would be in the vanguard of the 2.0 revolution. You’d be wrong. Inside organizations and at industry fora today, every other conversation around social media (SM) and Enterprise 2.0 seems to turn into a thinly-veiled skirmish within an industry-wide KM-SM shadow war. . .

“Here’s what’s going on: KM and SM look very similar on the surface, but are actually radically different at multiple levels, both cultural and technical, and are locked in an undeclared cultural war for the soul of Enterprise 2.0. And the most hilarious part is that most of the combatants don’t even realize they are in a war. They think they are loosely-aligned and working towards the same ends, with some minor differences of emphasis. So let me tell you about this war and how it is shaping up. . . .”

Rao goes on to present some anecdotes illustrating three past conflicts between people who identify their work as KM work, and himself, and also, after assuming the truth of his conjecture that there is a culture war between KM and SM, explains in detail that this war is due to generational conflicts between the boomer and millennial generations. I won’t comment on his explanation of “the culture war” as generational, since there’s no need to do that unless a culture war between KM and SM can be shown to exist.

Rao expends little effort in explaining what he means by either “KM” or “social media,” and certainly doesn’t relate his view of KM to any literature, but simply assumes that his readers will understand what he means by both terms, and also that his view of KM is in accord with that of KM practitioners. This is problematic, because if readers want to evaluate his conjecture that there is a cultural war he has given them very little to go on to evaluate it. And, as we shall see, what he has provided is not encouraging.

Specifically, Rao characterizes KM as a “venerable IT-based social engineering discipline,” — a very vague characterization indeed. And as Michael Novak, a fairly well-known KM practitioner, said in an apt comment on Rao’s blog: “Just like the Holy Roman Empire was not holy, not Roman, and not an empire, KM is not venerable, not IT-based, and not about “social engineering” (whatever that is).”

So, if Rao does view “the thing” that is at war with social media as a “venerable IT-based social engineering discipline,” Novak’s comment suggests that Rao is not referring to either the KM that Novak practices, or to the KM that I’ve been practicing, and talking and writing about for the past ten years, including in this article. I do think that if a “venerable IT-based social engineering discipline” exists, that one would expect a serious cultural conflict with social media, and even that it may be locked in an undeclared cultural war for the soul of Enterprise 2.0. However, I think that if there is such a discipline its name is Information Engineering, or perhaps Information Technology itself, but not Knowledge Management.

Rao responded to Novak’s comment with this:

“The very urge to frame debates according to canonical definitions is a KM way (a couple of the response posts also picked this rebuttal model) :). I stand by my anecdotal observation that in practice KM is IT-based and about ’social engineering’ in practice, whatever the attempts to define KM may have attempted. ‘Venerable’ was my attempt at humor about the rate at which things become ‘classic’ in IT. You don’t get to define what KM is based on your sense of what it ought to be.”

The first sentence of this reply mentioning the role of canonical definitions in KM may or may not be true, but it’s truth is not really relevant here, is it? The issue is whether we need to know what “KM” is, according to Rao, in order to evaluate his claim about “the culture war.” Clearly, we do, and his assertion that it is an IT-based, social engineering discipline (forget about the “venerable”) provides no confidence that his assertion of the existence of a culture war is true, because the idea that KM is an IT-based social engineering discipline sounds really far-fetched at the end of 2008, at least to those practicing KM.

Rao claims that “in practice KM is IT-based and about ’social engineering’. . . “ I think that this is factually untrue. Our disagreement might be settled by empirical testing of this conjecture, but only after he tells us exactly what he means by the vague terms “IT-based” and “social engineering.” Many who practice KM will, perhaps, agree that KM initiatives frequently introduce IT tools or prescribe their use to enhance knowledge processing, knowledge processes, knowledge harvesting, etc. This is certainly true with respect to 2.0 tools, but, not many KM practitioners will agree that KM as a set of processes is about introducing IT tools of any generation. Put simply, that is IE or IT, not KM.

Once again, what KM is about is implementing efforts at enhancing one or more aspects of knowledge processing. Such efforts will frequently make use of IT tools, but they need not; and even when they do, the larger context is always one of a combined social and technological intervention.

Rao says: “You don’t get to define what KM is based on your sense of what it ought to be.” Well, that may be true, but in an emerging discipline where there is such great disagreement over its core concerns, and where KM may be many, many things, much of which will be not be viewed as KM when the discipline does come to greater agreement on basics, you also don’t get to define what KM is based on your sense of what it ought to be in order to advance the narrative that there is a culture war between “KM” and “social media” for “the soul of Enterprise 2.0.”

Rao’s very phraseology suggests that his view of KM is at variance with the view held by KM practitioners. After all, what is Enterprise 2.0? According to McAfee it is, again, “. . . the use of emergent social software platforms within companies, or between companies and their partners or customers.” But why should KM care about “the soul” of that? Why should KM practitioners fight with anyone about that? What is any X.0 version of the Enterprise to us? We are agnostic about such IT things. We use them when they fit, and use other tools and procedures when they don’t.

Our interest is in improving the adaptive capability of the complex adaptive systems we call organizations, and also in our own personal adaptive capability. It is in growing high quality knowledge, and also in making sure that the information and knowledge previously generated in our collectives is available to people who need it to do their jobs and to solve problems as they see those jobs and those problems. It is in building organizations that learn better, and that meet challenges better, and that distribute knowledge processing and knowledge better. But it is not in winning the soul of an Enterprise 2.0 that in two years will be displaced by Enterprise 3.0, and then by Enterprise 4.0, and then by whatever meme can be devised to name the new software generation that replaces it.

So, if the social media movement is looking for a war with somebody for “the soul of Enterprise 2.0,” perhaps it should look to other IT movements such as the Semantic Web movement or the Intelligent Agent movement, or the SOA movement, or the Software as a Service movement (SAAS). As for KM, its cultural conflicts are with centralized command-and-control forms of management, Business Process Engineering, and other movements concerned with how collectives should organize their functioning, not with software movements producing tools it can use.

1. KM and Enterprise 2.0: As defined by McAfee, E2.0 synthesizes Web 2.0, social software, and social media. Social Software tools focused on Web 2.0 technology that can be useful inside the organizational firewall, emergence and self-organization, egalitarianism in software applications, these draw the primary features of all three components into E2.0. We’ve already seen that the binary relationships of the previous three categories to KM involve loose couplings, all of which are very dependent on context for producing enhanced knowledge processing, and that their relationship to KM is purely instrumental. I think the situation is no different with E2.0 as defined by McAfee. E2.0 tools can be useful to KM, given the proper contextual application, and should be an important element in KM’s toolkit. But this instrumental relationship is conditional on the context and the pattern of KM intervention including its E2.0 aspects.

Tom Davenport, in contrast, has taken the position that Enterprise 2.0 is “the new, new Knowledge Management.” To support this view, he quotes McAfee’s statement that “the ultimate value of E2.0 initiatives consists of greater responsiveness, better ‘knowledge capture and sharing,’ and more effective ‘collective intelligence,’” but this can easily be interpreted as a claim that using E2.0 software leads to enhanced knowledge processing in organizations, a basic rationale for KM. Even if this claim were true, in general, however, it doesn’t equate E2.0 with KM, but only states that KM interventions implementing E 2.0 tools will prove effective in leading to enhanced knowledge processing.

However, does the probability that E2.0 tools, alone, or combined with earlier generation tools (perhaps the more common situation) will enhance knowledge processing suggest, as Tom Davenport opines, that E2.0 is “The New, New Knowledge Management?” I think not, and I’ll say more about why not in my discussion of the relationship between KM and KM 2.0.

2. KM and KM 2.0: KM, as a field, is divided on the issues raised by my earlier questions. The positions associated with questions 1, 3, and 6, are associated with some very well-known KM practitioners and writers. The position associated with 2 is held by some very active KM 2.0 bloggers. Positions 4 and 5 are closely related, and based on what I’ve observed in blogs and list servs seem to be the dominant positions on KM 2.0 in the field. They have in common the idea that there is no radically different “new KM” identified by the term “KM 2.0,” but that “2.0” tools may be used by KM to accomplish its purposes. The difference between these positions is that 4 is completely agnostic about KM 2.0, while 5, though not mistaking KM 2.0 for “the New KM,” nevertheless seems ready to recognize as KM 2.0. a particular style of KM, characterized by the heavily preferred introduction into the enterprise of E2.0 tools.

I favor position 4, which is to say I’m happy to consider the use of 2.0 tools for any KM purpose, as I am pre-web, 1.0 tools, and existing or projected 3.0, 4.0, and X.0 tools. I think, further, that KM practitioners ought to be agnostic about all sorts of software tools, and I don’t think there’s any place for evangelism about them. Evangelism is about faith. But Knowledge Management is about enhancing knowledge processing. For KM, that’s all that counts.

In addition to these 6 positions, there is another which I’ve never seen anyone in KM defend as their belief. It is associated with the following question:

Is KM a management discipline with a centralized command-and-control social engineering orientation, such that the use of E2.0 tools with their emphasis on creating distributed collaboration, communication, content creation, self-organization and community is never appropriate for accomplishing KM objectives?

I’ve never observed anyone in KM answering “yes” to this or a similarly posed question, and there’s a good reason for that. I don’t know anyone in KM who says they believe that it’s about centralized command-and-control, or who is afraid of encouraging self-organization and distributed knowledge processing. If such people exist, I think they’re pretty quiet about their views and constitute, at most, a KM underground, in no way representative of the field.

The identification of members of the 2.0 cluster, and particularly E2.0, with a new generation of KM, is not the first time that some have claimed that advances in Information Technology define new ages or generations of KM. But, changes in KM that warrant using the term KM 2.0, need, I think to be much more fundamental than mere changes in the IT tools that are at the disposal of KM practitioners. Such changes ought to be about the way one conceptualizes KM as a type of activity. Paradigm changes such as these occur relatively infrequently, and therefore movements from “KM 1.0,” to “KM 2.0,” to “KM 3.0” and so on would also occur rarely, as befits a field that aspires to be a discipline rather than a fad.

It is appropriate and understandable for software tools to move from versions 1.0, to 2.0 to 3.0 and so on in a very few years. But KM is not a software tool; it is a management discipline. Thus, there cannot be a “new” version of it every few years, even though many instrumental aspects of it may change frequently, as is appropriate for a dynamic, quickly changing field. No one claims that there is a Psychology 2.0 when some new tests or analytical tools are devised. No one claims that there is a Political Science 2.0 when new election predicting technology is devised and applied. So why should people claim that there is a KM 2.0 when new software instruments appear whose use is not even very strongly coupled to knowledge processing?

The simple correlation of enhancements in social interaction, collaboration, and content production produced by 2.0 tools, with enhancements in the quality of knowledge processing is not something that can be guaranteed. It is not supported by scientific research. It is not supported by good social theory. And it is not suggested by the idea that KM is about enhancing knowledge processing. So even if 2.0 tools could guarantee complete success in enhancing collaboration, content production, information sharing, and social networking, this would not establish the inevitability of improvements in knowledge processing and the quality of knowledge resulting from using 2.0 tools.

Part of the reason for this is that using 2.0 tools would still carry with it no way of telling whether we are sharing information or knowledge, or whether we are sharing what will work for us, or just sharing our errors. So, the connection between 2.0 and better KM is, in my view, no closer than the connection between it and other older tools such as portals, content management software, search technology, and databases. All such tools can be useful in KM, as can 2.0 tools. Undoubtedly E3.0 will add still more tools that can help KM and also undoubtedly, there will be many more generations of software improvements after that. But no new generation of software tools IS KM, or a new form of KM. We cannot declare a new generation of KM every time we have software changes. This is just a category error, and we need to stop making it, or we in KM will end up as an entirely conceptually confused appendage of the software industry and its marketers.

Applying my own earlier distinction between knowledge processing and KM here, and also my view of knowledge processing as including problem seeking, recognition, and formulation, knowledge production, and knowledge integration, one can see that there has been only one fundamental change in KM since its beginnings as an explicit field of study and management in the late 1980s. That change occurred when KM’s original emphasis on sharing, reusing, finding, and capturing knowledge as the activities knowledge managers were trying to enhance, was supplemented by the addition of problem seeking, recognition, and formulation, and knowledge production (creation, discovery, and making) activities, as targets for KM activity. That change occurred in the period 1995 – 2002 or so. It was a gradual change, but today, if pressed, I think the majority of KM practitioners would agree that this new area of concern, “the demand side” of knowledge processing, is, in addition to knowledge sharing, a primary target of Knowledge Management.

So, the change from KM 1.0 to KM 2.0 is not occurring now as a result of the introduction of a new generation of software tools, but has occurred both in the past, and some time ago, as a result of the realization, the fundamental conceptual change in KM’s scope, that it had more concerns than just knowledge sharing, knowledge capture, and knowledge re-use, and that, in fact, it was also, and in equal part, about learning within complex systems. This change, which brought KM much closer to organizational learning and innovation management, defines the Second Generation of KM, the real KM 2.0.

In analyzing relationships among the various memes and the movements and sub-movements associated with them, we have to be clear about which definitions we’re using. The reason for that is not that we like definitions or believe that they identify Aristotelian “essences.” Instead, it’s because we want others to be able to evaluate our conjectures about relationships among the memes, and how can they do that, if they don’t even know what we mean, when we offer those conjectures?

Also, my interest here is not in analyzing the n-ary relationships among the memes, but rather the binary relationships between KM and each of the others. Of course, my specifications of the relationships will be dependent on the definitions I offered earlier, and others may provide have different views of the relationships based on the meanings they use. However, some of the relationships may be valid for classes of meanings transcending the ones I’m working with. Where I think this applies I’ll make that clear.

1. KM and Web 2.0: The Web 2.0 business revolution has no direct and obvious relationship to Knowledge Management apart from the specifics of the tools produced. As for Web 2.0 tools, they enable social networking, connectivity, distributed content creation and aggregation, self-organization, and collaboration, to a greater extent than was possible in the past. They may, also, if introduced into a social system, enhance aspects of knowledge processing including problem recognition, creating new knowledge, and knowledge integration. But the amount and nature of any such enhancement is heavily dependent on the context of applying the tools in question. And in each KM case, it’s necessary to assess what the impact of a Web 2.0 tool introduction will be and how it relates to the larger context of what one is trying to accomplish. The operative notion here is that the relationship between KM and these tools is always contextual and must be analyzed. It should not be assumed that there is a necessary and beneficial relationship between Web 2.0 tools and KM. Finally, I don’t think my account of this relationship is restricted to my specific definition of KM. Anyone who views KM as a social activity or process that uses tools will probably share this view of the relationship in some part.

2. KM and Social Software: I think we find a similar relationship between KM and social software, which is not surprising since Web 2.0 tools are instances of the more general category of social software. Again, social software is about supporting group interaction, generating emerging network effects, and enhancing self-organization. Such software can be very useful in enhancing knowledge processing since Knowledge Management certainly wants to enhance self-organization around organizational problems, efforts at generating and evaluating solutions, and then integrating the new knowledge represented by the surviving solutions. Having said that however, it’s also clear that from the general proposition that social software can enhance self-organization, we cannot infer that its application in a specific knowledge processing context will produce collaborative problem solving or effective communication of new ideas. Whether it can do this or not will depend on context, and on culture, and on other factors not directly impacted by social software. It is often thought that social software can increase trust, which is certainly necessary in some degree for effective knowledge processing. But we must also recognize that mistrust can also be produced by such software. Both trust and mistrust can go viral when we’re using social software. Which happens depends on factors beyond the control of the software itself. Lastly, some believe that KM is about increasing connectivity, collaboration, and content aggregation. For them, my analysis of the relationship between social software and KM won’t apply. Rather, they’re much more likely to view implementing social software and KM as the same thing.

3. KM and Social Media: Again, the relationship of KM to “social media” is quite similar to that of the previous two categories. The democratization of content production in the context of more intense social interaction promised and, arguably, produced by social media tools, is something that Knowledge Management should want to seek and support under the definition of KM we’re using here. That is, both more intense social interaction and distributed and more participatory content production can lead to the growth of better quality information and knowledge. Since one of the most important goals of KM is to grow higher quality knowledge over time, KM ought to be friendly to the idea of social media we’re using here. But, once again, the real story here is context, and tight coupling of increased interaction and the democratization of content production with more effective knowledge processing and the growth of higher quality knowledge. Increases in networking and distributed content production don’t guarantee in improvements in our ability to seek, recognize, and formulate problems, or to evaluate new ideas. The most such increases do is to increase the production of new ideas. But without coupling to well-formulated problems and effective evaluation of competing solutions, democratization of content production can decrease the quality of knowledge processing by creating “information glut.” So, once again, we are led back to context, and the need for KM initiatives to use social media tools in ways that discriminate based on context and that are mindful of the need to apply such tools in such a way that improvements in the area of seeing the real problems and evaluating potential solutions keep pace with the growth of alternative solutions and information and knowledge sharing that is the promise of the social media movement.

Is this analysis sensitive to my definition of KM? Yes, I think it is to some degree. In my notion of KM, enhancing problem solving is quite central and complexity theory suggests that distributing problem solving which is supported, at least in part, by democratizing content production, is an important objective of KM. But people who define KM solely in terms of knowledge sharing will not necessarily agree that social media is related to KM in this way. And also, people who think that enhancing knowledge processing is about improving the problem solving capabilities of an elite group of managers may also disagree with the thrust of social media. However, currently a very large part of KM has accepted the view that KM is about supporting both knowledge making and knowledge sharing, and also that organizational systems are complex systems. For that part of KM, the idea of distributed knowledge making is pretty important and also perfectly consistent with one of the main thrusts of the social media movement. Tomorrow I’ll finish this discussion of relationships by covering KM and Enterprise 2.0 and KM 2.0. In addition I’ll raise a couple of other issues.