GCKIP Blog

By three methods we may learn wisdom:

• First, by reflection, which is noblest;
• Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and
• Third by experience, which is bitterest.

Confucius

Those of you who have seen the movie “The Ron Clark Story” already know about the remarkable efforts of a dedicated teacher in inner city New York who developed a learning atmosphere for his elementary students which contributed to them excelling in the classroom at the highest level in every subject. Subsequent to Ron Clark’s success in the New York schools, he visited every state to talk with students, teachers and school administrators about what he had learned and how his students performed.

What he found in his journeys were the same characteristics everywhere that he had identified to be success factors in his own classroom experiences. He found dedicated teachers and students and administrators everywhere who displayed some key attributes which, when tapped fully, created a learning experience that resulted in success and a learning environment that could not be denied regardless of the social setting or the prior experiences of the students and teachers.

When he wrote his second book “The Excellent Eleven,” he focused on eleven characteristics of high performing classroom, living and learning environments that contributed to student success. One of those characteristics was “Reflection.” Ron used reflection to instill emotion in the students’ experiences with their present day studies. At the end of every major section of work, he had the students write down their impressions of what they had just experienced and how it affected them. What types of things were going on their lives at the same time, what emotions they felt as they mastered each subject, what relationships they experienced. Many of the students remarked that, after reading their own reflections a significant time later than the actual events, they were amazed at the “images “ the reflections created in their minds and the tendency to revisit those images as they experienced new, more challenging situations and environments.

“Reflection” is something we don’t usually allow ourselves to experience because we are too busy getting on to the next task at hand, too busy hurrying to the next assignment that we don’t pay attention fully to what we have created in the last assignment, too busy grappling with the next hurdle because it is there rather than analyzing why we felt a certain way about our work just completed.

Yet reflection is the very essence of what many of Ron Clark’s students stated as being the most significant experiences they remember and the most often called upon thoughts when they faced really formidable challenges in future years.

If you are a project manager or a project team member, make time to “reflect” in a written form at regular intervals what you feel about your experiences on projects, what observations you experienced when facing new hurdles, what paths of accomplishment you have just taken to reach a successful plateau, what thoughts you would share with another person who might be faced with a similar challenge.

The words of Confucius on Wisdom will resonate in your mind over and over as you attempt new and more challenging tasks. “Reflection” will help you to tackle all things that seem formidable. Sharing those reflections with others will help cement relationships that are so valuable to the maintenance of the community of project managers and team members going forward.

Thanks for your indulgence,

Mel Bost

ConocoPhillips

April 2007

The knowledge management interest group in Tulsa, Oklahoma started in 2003 with the objective of creating a platform for the knowledge and information professionals to exchange ideas and share experiences. Recently the group has been registered officially as a non profit professional society under the name Green Country Knowledge and Information Professionals or in short GC-KIP. GC-KIP is an evolving umbrella group of diverse knowledge and information management (KIP) professionals who share a common goal of advancing the intelligent sharing of personal and organizational knowledge. Professionals represented in GC-KIP include knowledge managers, content managers, IT specialists, information analysts, librarians, archivists, records managers, document managers, Web developers, and information architects. All these people have one common task which is dealing with various aspects of information and knowledge management. With the information influx and the scarcity of knowledge, organizations are turning to these professionals to help them protect and enhance their intellectual asset. With the inevitable loss of knowledge due to outsourcing, restructuring, aging workforce and globalization, knowledge management is being promoted as an important and essential factor in organizational survival and adaptability.

To remain competitive, organizations need to examine their knowledge management practices and have the capacity to develop, organize, retain and utilize their human and knowledge resources. Customers now more than ever want better products and services. As we become part of the global village, many of the products and services which organizations offer have to be transformed to meet these challenges. Technology opened the door for small business to compete globally on an equal footing with larger organizations. This forced larger companies to restructure and consider outsourcing the majority of their activities in order to reduce costs. This was apparent in many sectors in Oklahoma’s economy, such as the oil and gas, telecommunications and manufacturing activities. Technological advances and globalization have opened the doors for increased competition. Knowledge management needs to be seen as a critical and strategic resource. Organizations need to pay special attention to their knowledge resources that are no longer protected by geographical barriers or filing cabinets. Some of the knowledge management practices such as learning organization, communities of practice, knowledge sharing, and knowledge organization provide organizations with the means by which they can protect their intellectual capital and minimize the knowledge loss. Managing intellectual capital effectively not only minimizes knowledge loss but also dramatically improves the human performance output. Realizing the importance of knowledge management, much university around the country and overseas including University of Oklahoma, started graduate programs in knowledge management to educate a new generation of knowledge professionals capable of working at different levels in their organizations. Knowledge management, being inter-disciplinary in nature, draws upon the theories and practices of a number of fields including information technology, business and management, communication and cognitive science, and library and information science. Graduates from the Master of Science in Knowledge Management program will be equipped with a set of core competencies in the key areas of organizational learning and communication, intellectual capital, knowledge management technologies and tools, knowledge management measurements, knowledge organization, and information management.

The increase in job postings at the executive level for positions such as knowledge managers, chief information and knowledge management, chief knowledge officers and so on is an indication of the growing interest in this area. It is also the types of executive jobs and opportunities that graduates from the KM programs can look for when they are considering a career change or professional development. As outsourcing and restructuring activities continue, organizations are bound to turn to knowledge management in recognition that the talent and the innovative capabilities of their employees is their best resource.