The Power of Poetry

As already mentioned in a previous post (in fact, my very first post on this blog), I love simple statements that are both rich and straightforward in ways that encapsulate a lot of meaning, meaning that is so true, and so vast, and general, that it is impossible to get one’s head around it in words alone. Such wholistic perspectives fascinate me which I think are crucial in understanding this world.

A wonderful chill-out piece, very ”leger” but still going deep down the surface of things, is ”Every Soul upon the Earth” by Space Brothers. It is a great example to illustrate what I mean. You can listen to the song on You Tube: http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=4Ude8PPV-jU

And here are just some of the lyrics: …

Every truth that’s ever spoken … Every voice that’s ever heard … You all share the same emotions …
Every soul upon the Earth …

Every man from your beginning … Every woman, every bird … You all share a common reason …
Every soul upon the Earth …

We can only love you … We can only love

Everybody says there’s danger … Everybody feels the hurt … You all share a common future …
Every soul upon the Earth …

Travel home to your self … Find your place in the world …

Every heart that’s ever broken … Every dream that’s ever cursed … You all share the same emotions … Every soul upon the Earth …

We can only love you … We can only love …

Travel home to yourself … Find your place in the world …

The song comes across a lot better than just the lyrics, and so I would encourage you to just listen to it. It is nice, no?

In terms of one travelling to their place in the world, things may not only seem too meaningful and so it is important to see beyond the words in order to know our journey. The good news is that there is a meaning. The not so good news is that it is sometimes difficult to see it. In order to see it, you need to have some emotional knowledge and poetry (and any other art that you like, or sport, even) can help you get that. Try it. It works.

And so, if the meaning is not there, it is important to search for it. And simple statements, and poems, of this kind, can provide some good guidance when one is looking into oneself. If it happens a lot to you, do not worry, just connect with your emotions instead of looking too much.

Another example of the power of poetry , or poetry in action, is the work of Drew Dellinger, a poet I found out about during my CSR Certificate studies. Check out some of his work under the links below – nice, no??

http://www.drewdellinger.org/llmw/hymn.php

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=XW63UUthwSg 

Drew’s work I find saturated to the utmost with politics, concerns about the environment and sustainability, personal responsibility, collective responsibility, love, emotion, time and non-existence of time, urgency and buddhism. I find it a great example of how poetry can be that door, or just window, which enables one to look into themselves and understand things better. It works for me because I like it.

To conclude, at the very bottom of it, poetry is very emotional; yet unless there is emotion, there is no understanding, either.  And so, if you are feeling lost, just read through a poem that makes you feel. That would bring key emotions into the picture which would enable you to understand what is going on, for you, in that picture.

As a friend once told me: rational thinking does not help you make sense of things; emotional thinking does.

How to Talk about Knowledge Management

I recently read an excellent paper by Mark Schenk, Shawn Callahan and Andrew Rixon. You can access it here.

What is good about this paper is that it is just sweet and punchy. It goes straight at the heart of what is knowledge, and knowledge management. It does this by, paradoxically, not explaining knowledge and knowledge management, and not trying to. It simply draws the picture many organisations face with regards to what referrents (such as data, databases, and the like, as well as culture, whatever people understand by this) they can use in order to enable the sharing of knowledge and catalyse its management by the organisation.

The paper pinpoints the fact that knowledge, and knowledge management, are hard to pin down and, in such a way, can not really be managed. It also pinpoints the fact that data and tools are a lot less important to knowledge and learning in organisations, in sharp contrast to organisational culture.

The thing is that, unless the organisational culture is right for knowledge, sharing and learning, nothing else will be right in order for an organisation to be a knowledge-based, and a learning, organisation. And, because of the characteristics of knowledge, it is not possible to enable a culture of sharing, and learning, and hence knowledge management, unless you recognise that knowledge is fluid, that the major part of knowledge processes is about tacit knowledge, and that you can not really capture, and codify it …

This brings me to the thought I read somewhere, by somebody (I am very sorry to not remember where and who) concerning the need to refer to knowledge leadership instead of knowledge management. I would agree with this completely, simply because, in order to be a good knowledge manager, one does need to posses a lot of the ’’soft skills”  usually attribited to good leaders and not necessarily good managers. As we know, management and leadership are far from one and the same (Kotter) from the point of view of skill, knowledge and intuition, despite that, in good organisations, these complement each other in a reinforcing interplay.

Here is how the authors of the paper explain this:

Increased understanding of organisational culture, using approaches such as narrative techniques (see our website at www.anecdote.com.au for details), social network analysis, open space technology and other participative approaches which help the organisation to become self-aware, is important in creating an environment that enables more value to be extracted from knowledge and information resources.

 

Some favourite quotes:

”Knowledge is that relatively intangible resource within every individual. The very intangibility of knowledge works against its effective use in many organisations because it does not lend itself to the process-focused and reductionist approaches of industrialage companies.”

“You can’t do knowledge management until you accept that you can’t manage knowledge”.

”Efficiency encourages codification; effectiveness encourages lower levels of codification and greater flexibility. The more you attempt to codify and capture knowledge as information, the more you reduce flexibility, the more you fossilise it.”

 

“trust is the bandwidth of knowledge sharing”

Performance Measurement as a Critical Leverage Point for Improving International Development Impact

I just read a very interesting post on IO effectiveness and efficiency on the blog of Fraser Hore.

Here is the post with my comments:

http://fraserhore.blogspot.com/2008/08/individuals-and-organizations-need-good.html