The Corporate Librarian

David Gurteen had an interesting approach to this session – he ‘planted some ideas’ with a very brief presentation then asked us to get together and discuss what we thought, then come back together and we’d exchange thoughts. So far, it’s been the most engaging session.

He cited Alfie Kohn on the subject of rewards, which Kohn is down on, saying:

• Rewards punish (i.e., telling someone “You will get X for doing Y” is functionally equivalent to saying “Do X or you won’t get Y”)
• Rewards rupture relations (destroy cooperation in favor of competition, people won’t ask for help if they need it)
• Rewards ignore reasons (i.e., danger of people gaming the system, adherence to ill-considered metrics, promote single solution)
• Rewards deter risk-taking (Why take a chance on a different approach if it could mean not getting a reward?)
• Rewards undermine interest (don’t feel work is freely chosen and directed, ‘they’re bribing me to do something I don’t want to do’)

He then gave differing opinions on what works in place of rewards:

• Pay well and fairly (Kohn)
• “It’s your job, do it” (Buckman)
• Give access and freedom of decision (John Holt)
• Change understanding (Anthony de Mello)

Various things came out during the split into groups to discuss “How do we make people do things?” (specifically in a knowledge management context).

• The notion of emotional rewards (satisfaction of a job well done, feeling of accomplishment, pride in being an expert).
• Is the growing volume of information discouraging people from sharing? (David’s take was this was really saying it wasn’t a priority for them, and the question was how to raise the priority of it)
• Perhaps a change in atittude is required.
• Following up on this, a gentleman from Boeing said that Boeing had found the number 1 way to get experts to share their knowledge was if they were sure it would be applied correctly (trust issue).
• Peer recognition.
• If an organization is transparent, peoples’ contributions become obvious to the rest of the organization and they are recognized.

I met several cool people I’ll have to see about staying in touch with, including Eric Mack, Jay Cross and Stacie Jordan from my former employer (who’s speaking at a session on Thursday).

UPDATE: I’ve added some info to this entry from the original talk, since the slides were in the collected presentations we got. Additions are in bold.

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