People-focused knowledge management

Part of this knowledge involved methodological metaknowledge to
guide collaborative problem solving and the search for a workable
solution.
Have We Misunderstood How People Think, 
Make Decisions, and Act?
We need to understand that people prefer to think, make decisions,
and act in ways that are natural and convenient for them. They like
to feel that any decision can be made and implemented in an easy,
manageable, and acceptable manner and that it will be the “best way”
to promote and secure their own success and the success of both the
enterprise and customer. We also need to understand why people
choose to not “do the right thing” — why they choose to pursue
something that is less effective — or even the wrong thing. There are
many reasons for such undesirable behavior. For example, people who
do the wrong thing may find that doing what is right is too difficult
and it is not natural. They may perceive that it is not “the way we do
things here” or that it is counter to culture, practices, and peer accep-
tance. They may lack the motivation to exert themselves or may find
that the psychological cost is too high. They may think that their per-
sonal goals are better served by following a different path, or they
may not see any merit in doing the right thing. Or they may not
possess the requisite knowledge to do the right thing.
As we pursue our objective of identifying how we might support
successful personal and enterprise behavior, we need to identify coun-
terproductive misconceptions and how they can be addressed. During
the last several decades, most of us may indeed have misunderstood
how people utilize and deal with knowledge to prepare themselves
and to deliver competent work. We have misconceptions as to how
people learn and build knowledge, and remember, reason, and apply
knowledge to decide and carry out actions. In addition, we often do
not have a clear understanding of how knowledge relates to perfor-
mance and how different working conditions affect the knowledge-
related effectiveness of work. We also may not realize the depth of
knowledge required to deliver complex work. Some of these mis-
conceptions clearly have resulted from our efforts to explain the func-
tions of the human mind in terms of simple information processing
ch03.qxd 5/3/04 2:35 PM Page 65

---

66
People-Focused Knowledge Management
or mind-as-machine models — only from the machinery of the brain
perspectives. In reality, our brains — our minds — are much more
complex and perform many functions of which we have little under-
standing. As Lakoff points out, categorization and creation of
metaphors are part of these complex operations (Lakoff 1987). 
Fauconnier and Turner (2002) brought in many later findings that
substantiate the limitations of the machinery metaphor.
As a result, our narrow perspective of how the human mind needs
to be treated has led to problems. Many of our traditional practices
and methods used to prepare and support workers with education
and systems are less effective than they should be. Our work envi-
ronments may also be found wanting by providing conditions that
hamper the effective use of the available knowledge and intellectual
capital (IC) assets. Major developments that cause us to revise our
understandings include the following.