Dr. Nancy Dixon's article appears on the leadership.gc.ca site; she wrote a book called Common Knowledge. [via Rebecca's Pocket]
Her 4 main points:
- start with the seekers of knowledge, not with the providers
- knowledge can only reside in the mind
- to acquire new knowledge, the seeker has to connect it to existing knowledge
- people are delighted to share what they know
Dixon's fourth proposition is that people are delighted to share what they know. She has a caveat though. People are delighted "if what they know is appreciated...."I've done a really interesting experiment," she adds. She has asked people to spend a couple of hours writing down an aspect of what they've learned on the job. The answer is very often, "I just don't have time."
"If I go to them and say, 'I want to interview you about what you've done; it will take a couple of hours,' they say, 'Sure,' because now they're going to be telling it to a human being and they're going to be able to see my understanding.
"Why would they take two hours to talk to me when they won't take two hours to write it up? It has to do with the human connection and with their knowledge being valued."
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