I’ve been struck by a wonderful creative energy in the past four or five days, literally bursting at the seams with possibilities and ideas. Of course, that challenge for me is to make these ideas concrete. Wonderfully, that has been happening. A planned trip to Australia is emerging as a kind of “walkabout” with a 6 day drive into the outback on my own; work on webinars on difficult interactions and coaching completed; and the outline of a book on peer coaching essentially written between Halifax and Vancouver on Saturday! It has been a great few days! And what has been most fascinating has been reading and re-reading Parker Palmer over the last few days, and thinking about how we know what we know, how we transfer knowledge and the impact on leadership.
Our culture largely assumes that knowledge is about objective facts and data. We all too often assume that leaders are then filled with that kind of knowledge; they are the “go to people” when we have questions, we seek their directives, we are easily impressed by people with data that has been neatly placed into a PowerPoint presentation. And at some level, we do need a certain level of expertise and knowledge in certain areas to have the “street cred” to be able to lead. What is most fascinating though as Parker Palmer reminds us, is that at a very deep level, knowledge and wisdom transfer are in fact all about relationships. I recall a history teacher in high school who was obviously very intelligent, could quote all the right facts and dates, but (from my perspective) was not able to relate to me and the other kids. I remember him lecturing us that the War of 1812 was actually fought between 1812 and 1814, rather than asking us to consider what it would look and feel like for the Americans when the Canadians and British burned Washington in that war. Or consider the very “knowledgable” colleague with whom I worked in a call centre years ago, who had a jar on her desk and would actually charge .25 per answer she had to give to new people. She was consistently surprised when she did not get the supervisory jobs she was applying for.
Both of these examples highlight the inextricable link between knowedge transfer and relationship.We live in a time when our organizations are dependent upon learning for their success. Arie de Geus of Royal Dutch Shell said, “Learning faster than your competitors is the only sustainable competitive advantage in an environment of rapid change and innovation.” And how do we learn most effectively? We learn together. We ask questions of each other, we challenge each other, we listen to each other, we attend to each other. Without relationship, I will just as soon disengage, and neither of us will learn.
And then, almost like icing on the cake, this afternoon I was reading a new publication by the Conference Board of Canada “It’s Not Just Your Children’s Facebook Anymore” By Kent Greenes, Diane Piktialis and Susan Stewart http://www.conferenceboard.ca/temp/1eeeab34-5b3d-493a-a733-a7830bfc687f/A-0351-11-EA.pdf where they note, using a metaphor of knowledge transfer as a shared meal: “as employees nosh on the knowledge that’s been prepared and disseminated through the tools of social media, they are connecting with each other… Social media both enables and necessitates personal interaction, bringing employees together…helping everyone get to the table faster, and giving them a customized and fortifying meal. When you enhance knowledge transfer with social media it’s a case of two plus two equaling five. Weak ties between employees …become as productive as stong ties, connections become collaborations and magic happens.” (Emphasis added)
As much as I appreciate the power of social media, I would add that some basic emotional intelligence around face to face relationships will create and maintain the same magic! The key here, face to face, or through social media is the vital power of the relationships.
May each of this week take the opportunity to work on a relationship, and thereby learn something new.