When I was first asked by the Knowledge Lab at the Defense Inteligence Agency (DIA) to develop and deliver a workshop on Cross-Cultural Knowledge Management, I was told of the importance of making the workshop experiential. Rather than utilizing stand-up training in which participants are lectured to about sharing knowledge across cultures, they wanted something that would provide unique experiences to people that would advance their learning and improve their future actions. The ultimate workshop did just that. It provided a variety of experiences to people that helped in a deep way to improve their skills in the realm of what I call sharing and absorbing knowledge across cultures.
The experiences in the workshop were developed to respond to issues identified in our data gathering in DIA as well as in a number of other US intelligence agencies. This post will refer to specific issues identified in the diagnosis, the experience that people gained at the workshop and how those experiences have enhanced knowledge sharing and absorption capabilities among participants.
Experience Transferring Knowledge Across Cultures
The challenge of sharing knowledge across agency, department, and organization silos is one issue that was identified in the data gathering. The knowledge that is shared also needs to be absorbed and utilized by others. This challenge was highlighted in the "9/11 Report" and exists across government and in the private sector as well. What makes this sharing of knowledge a challenge is that each of these organizational entities has a different culture resulting from differences in mission, traditions, norms and mental models. Culture influences whether knowledge is absorbed and the meaning it has when it is.
In a very practical way, the workshop responded to this issue by including participants from a variety of different agencies, organization levels and disciplines - both military and civilian. These participants were afforded the opportunity to identify and then work on challenges held in common. One learning that came out of this is that participants saw that there were perspectives held in common that they could build on. They also learned that obstacles to learning from one another melted away as they got to know each other and began working together. Many people commented on the value this cross-agency interaction had for them as they addressed issues like the generation gap that exists across all intelligence organizations as the cold war employees give way to the post 9/11 employees. A number of issues with regard to the organizational generation gap were identified in the initial data gathering. The actual differences in generations among the participants in the workshop enabled rich knowledge to be shared and experienced as each person spoke about their own experiences and perspectives. The results of their work together helped to advance the state of knowledge with regard to generation gaps in their organizations.
Factoring In The Cultural Context Of Others
This experience of working together was supported by earlier work accomplished in the workshop. Participants at the workshop learned to be curious about and inquire into the different cultural contexts of each person in the workshop. They did this through a tool introduced called Context Mapping. This provided participants with practice and the experience of understanding the various factors that influence each person and essentially create each person's personal culture or mental map. This experience which is an important part of the workshop enabled people to approach each other during the working session with more honest curiosity and understanding of where each was coming from. This is also something that people thought was a positive aspect of the workshop. One participant said, "I want to connect and build bridges with others that are different than myself. This has been just what I needed."
Absorbing Unfamiliar Knowledge
Another important experience in the workshop deliberately exposes people to knowledge that they will experience as "strange, unfamiliar" knowledge and juxtaposes that experience with the experience of encountering familiar knowledge. People learn to observe their habitual reactions to strange knowledge and gain some understanding of what that is about. With this as a basis, people begin to deconstruct their experiences and rebuild their absorptive capacity. They learn not to automatically shut off or push away knowledge that is unfamiliar or different. Reactions from people after the workshop indicate that this part of the workshop transforms the way they encounter and deal with knowledge that initially appears unfamiliar or strange to them. This can be applied to their efforts in collaborating across boundaries as well as in fulfilling the overall mission of their agency. This is a great example of the power of experiential learning. As one participant put it, "I learned about how to absorb new knowledge without simply brushing it off. I will listen more carefully to new ideas."
More Thoughtful Problem Analysis
The workshop also responded to another issue raised in the data gathering survey. This was that the pressures of work often push people into habitual answers rather than providing them the time and license to look for new, more innovative answers. Again, this same kind of pressure exists in other government agencies and in the private sector. Our response was to provide people with a model which we called "The Working Model of Experience" which demonstrates how they could take the time to gather fresh data in order to arrive at a fresh analysis of the data and still be efficient in their overall timely response. Participants gained hands-on experience in practicing this model and then in applying it in the working sessions that followed. Comments from participants indicated that they appreciated this new option for problem solving.
Understanding And Reducing Barriers To Knowledge
The workshop also had a focus on the personal and organizational resistances that can get in the way of people noticing new knowledge, taking it in, and making use of it or on the opposite side of being able to share knowledge in ways that others can hear it. In the workshop, we asked people to look at their personal resistances as well as their organizational resistances, to understand these, to experiment with other ways of being and to set out plans for follow-up in the future. One participant said, "I learned about my own biases and assumptions." Another said, "I learned to absorb knowledge of others, and also not to keep my knowledge all to myself. It is important to incorporate everyone's knowledge."
My Reflections
As I look at the workshop, what this workshop reinforced for me is that if the objective is to have a strong and deep impact on people with regard to their attitudes and behaviors and resulting processes for sharing knowledge, nothing can be more powerful than experiential learning that is applied to real-time knowledge challenges.
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