Knowledge Building Administrative Leadership John Tai Presentation: Nov.5 Instructor: 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 sharing in your work settings?