Knowledge Building

Administrative Leadership Administrative Leadership John TaiJohn Tai

Presentation: Nov.5Presentation: Nov.5Instructor: Dr. GranoInstructor: Dr. Grano

Knowledge building, knowledge sharing, knowledge creation.

Another Fad ?

Information & Knowledge

Information becomes knowledge only when it takes on a “social life”.

Knowledge lies less in its databases than in its people.

Information only becomes valuable in a social context that helps people understand information.

---- Brown & Duguid (2000)

Wrong Investments in organizations a. Focus on information rather than use. b. Place changed leaders into unchanged context. c. Invest heavily in technology and possibly training, but hardly at all in knowledge sharing and creation.

Examples from Business

Definition of knowledge creation

The capability of a company as a whole to create

new knowledge, disseminate it throughout the

organization, and embody it in products, services

and systems

Explicit knowledge and tacit knowledge Explicit knowledge is: words and numbers that can be communicated in the form of data and information

Tacit knowledge is:

a. skills, beliefs, and understanding that are below the level of awareness. b. highly personal and hard to formalize, making it difficult to communicate with others c. deeply rooted in individual’s action ,experience, ideals, and values.

(Nonaka and Takeuchi,1995)

Knowledge Sharing and knowledge-Creation Model (Nonaka and Takeuchi,1995)

Externalization(creating concepts)

Combination(building a model)

Socialization(sharing tacit knowledge)

Internalization(explicit to tacit)

Knowledge Sharing

Enabling Knowledge sharing a. facilitating relationships and conversations b. relying on a sense of emotional knowledge and care c. attaching to human emotions, aspirations, hopes, and intention

Enabling Knowledge sharing (cont’d)

d. relying on others to listen and react to

their ideas.

e. a culture of care is vital: mutual trust,

active empathy, access to help, leniency

in judgment, and courage.

Knowledge sharing and organizational

relationships:

a.“ A broad acceptance of the emotional lives

of others is crucial for establishing good

working relationships, and in turn, lead to

effective knowledge creation.” (Krogh,2000)

Knowledge sharing and organizational

relationships (Cont’d)

b.“ The exchange of knowledge happens

only in organizations that have a

noncompetitive or a collaborative

culture…..and then get people to share.”

(Dixon,2000)

Knowledge sharing and organizational relationships (Cont’d)

c. This means that the organization must frame the giving and receiving of knowledge as a responsibility and must reinforce such sharing through incentives and opportunities to engage in it. ( also see figure 5.1)

Knowledge

Responsibility

GivingReceiving

opportunity

Knowledge-Sharing Paradigm

Leaders’ roles in knowledge building:

a. realizing that accessing tacit knowledge is crucial and that such access cannot be mandated.

b. make it a priority and set about establishing and reinforcing habits of knowledge exchange among organizational members.

Leaders’ roles in knowledge building:

c. creating opportunities for learning by designing setting and events that prompt the necessary activities. d. cultivating the proper tone, fostering desirable norms, behaviors and rules of engagement.

e. leading the process of discussion, framing debate, posing questions, listening attentively, and providing feedback and closure. (Garvin, 2000)

Example of Shell Peer Assist Program enables a team that is

working on a project to call upon another team that has had experience in the same type of task.

Examples from Education

When it comes to knowledge sharing, the best companies are better than the best school systems.

Schools are in the business of teaching and learning, yet they are terrible at learning from each other . If they ever discover how to do this, their future is assured.

Knowledge sharing strategies

~ Intervisitation and peer Networks

a. peer visitations of the same school

b. peer visitations of the other school

c. principals visitations of the other school

d. principals’ conference

~Instructional Consulting Services

a. employing outside consultants or district

consultants working long term with instructional

improvement in a given content area

b. consulting with new teaching approaches of

individual teaches that other teachers might use

c. introducing to larger group of teachers the new

instructional improvement

~Assessment for Learning

Storefront a. concrete actions your leadership team has taken in your school b. artifacts that illustrate the assessment changes in your school c. success and outcomes of your work d. lessons learned

Activity: What is your experience of knowledge shari

ng in your work settings?