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Governance Competence and Perspectives
The effectiveness of the Monitoring task is both enhanced and
limited by the Governance Competence and Perspectives proficiency,
which provides the ability to assess the performance of the primary
tasks and gives guidance and corrective adjustments if needed. The
knowledge behind Governance Competence and Perspectives consists
of understanding enterprise strategies and intents and what the
person may do to assist in their implementation
as long as it is in her
own interest. The knowledge also consists of understanding what the
person would like to do and see happen to promote his own career
and job security — including ethical and professional principles and
allegiances. The knowledge also includes perceptions of cultural
driving forces, peer and management pressures, and similar factors
that influence behavior. These knowledge areas are possessed in the
form of mental models, mental spaces, and other types of mental
constructs.
The person’s attitudes and ways of
behaving are also important
aspects of personal Governance Competence and Perspectives. The
person’s curiosity, aggressiveness, willingness to persevere, analytical
tendencies, ability to envision future implications and scenarios,
all directly affect the executive influences that Monitoring exerts
through guidance and corrective adjustments to the other tasks.
Whereas Figure 5-2 makes implicit reference to the kinds of knowl-
edge needed for situation-handling, it does not include the meta-
monitoring functions that oversee and gauge the performance of all
four tasks, including Monitoring itself.
Meta-monitoring includes
functions that may intervene in or change the situation-handling
process structure or principles. In the same manner as for the other
tasks, the Monitoring task relies on model knowledge in the form of
Governance Approach Models as described in the next section.
The Expert and the Novice: When Situations Are
Not as First Believed
Sensemaking must always be open to the possibility that the situ-
ation might not be what it seems. The expert is often the expert
because he can recognize that a situation needs to be handled differ-
ently than the routine approach apparent at first. He quickly senses
the necessity to consider other alternatives instead of correcting a
wrong approach later when a mistake has become apparent.
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People-Focused Knowledge Management
Recognition of deviations from the expected is particularly impor-
tant in evolving situations. Situations
that change over time are
initially difficult to understand. In those cases, when they are
misunderstood and handled accordingly, it eventually becomes
apparent that the first approach does not work. A new approach is
needed.
The recognition that the situation is different is determined by
Sensemaking. The acknowledgment that “it does not work” is rec-
ognized and accepted by Monitoring. And this is where expertise
becomes important. The expert is quick to perceive the reality of the
situation, to recognize and accept the new circumstances, and to
remedy the condition by changing direction
before the initial mis-
conception has become too costly.
The danger for the novice is to come to the situation with a narrow
and preconceived outlook and a favored approach. The novice will
sense and interpret the situation to fit his a priori perspective and will
deal with the situation as if his understanding were correct. Later,
when things go wrong, the novice in his Sensemaking will be slow
to recognize his misconception, and his Monitoring function will be
hesitant to accept that his understanding and approach are wrong,
do not work, and that a new direction needs to be pursued.
We argue that expert behavior is as important for enterprises as it
is for people and that the enterprises that
succeed are the enterprises
with good Sensemaking and Monitoring expertise.
Story-Based Models Provide
Situation-Handling Knowledge
People use qualitative pattern recognition and metaphoric reason-
ing to locate and apply the mental reference models and other mental
spaces and constructs that are most similar to the situation at hand.
For well-known situations, the mental models are likely to be tacit
templates that describe routine and concrete tasks. These may be
operationalized tacitly by direct execution. Less known situations
will not correspond directly to past ones. Hence, related mental
models and constructs — if any exist — may describe general pat-
terns or templates and be possessed at higher abstraction levels as
concepts, scripts, schemata, or metaknowledge.
In these cases, which
are typical, the new situations are handled — decisions are made
by conceptual blending to adapt the reference models that most
closely resemble the new conditions.
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The new constructs can then be operationalized. Adaptation and
operationalization are often tacit when a person works alone. Only
for more vexing and high-importance situations may the process
become explicit and conscious, particularly when engaging in
teamwork and collaboration. For a person with narrow and mostly
concrete and detailed knowledge, innovative adaptation is difficult.
People with broad knowledge and understanding of general princi-
ples typically innovate better. The conceptual blending involved in
adaptation and operationalization often
is a creative process that
leads to novel and innovative solutions. This, we argue, is an impor-
tant form of innovation and creativity.
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