Two years ago I participated in a meeting to develop a knowledge management strategy for Ecopetrol, the state oil company of Columbia, South America. I want to describe it because it has stayed with me as a good example of an organization making use of its collective knowledge. It’s not a perfect example, but it’s one I think back on often.
This was a meeting of the top 200 people in the organization who spent two and a half days talking among themselves about the real issues they were facing at a time of great turmoil at Ecopetrol. The company was moving from being wholly owned by the government to being a mixed stock-holding corporation. Out of that conversation came some amazing plans for moving forward, generated and supported by the participants themselves. Out of that conversation also came professional growth for those involved, new understanding about Ecopetrol and new insight for individuals about how to play their own role in the company.
The organizers invited two keynote speakers who had written books on KM, myself and Larry Prusak. But we were told before we came that we would only talk for 15 minutes! Now Columbia, South America is a long way from my home base in Dallas Texas and that was a lot expense to speak for 15 minutes. It would have been an unsound financial decision on the part of Ecopetrol, except the task I was given was to stimulate the thinking of the participants, not to provide them answers, because the planners for the conference assumed that the answers and innovative ideas they needed could only be found in the minds of those who were going to do the work – an assumption I heartedly agreed with. I had other tasks at the conference, to participate in the small group discussions, to comment on ideas others’ offered, to summarize what I had heard. But each of these tasks I fulfilled from my place in the group, not in front of the room, or as “authority” speaking. True to their intent, my role was not to inform, but to frame issues so that people would comprehend the opportunity and could talk through new possibilities.
Day one was designed to consider a wide diversity of ideas. Those ideas came not only from myself and Larry, but also from a number of speakers that represented organizations from varied sectors who had well-respected KM programs. The presentations of their ideas were also limited to 15 minutes each, but it definitely brought cognitive diversity into the meeting. Following each brief presentation small group conversations were held about the ideas – not the typical Q&A with the presenter, but a conversation among peers- an opportunity to make meaning out of the diverse ideas they had heard.
The morning of day two was convergent - a search for useable ideas, common ground, and limiting the many options they had heard the day before. These were multiple small group meetings using the world café format and focused around the question “What knowledge do we need at Ecopetrol that we don’t have?” The room was set up with 25 tables with a facilitator at each table with participants. There were several rounds of
discussion with people moving from table to table to talk with a new set of people about their ideas. Ecopetrol’s president, Javier Gutie´rrez, participated in the small group discussions. Like everyone else, he moved from table to table offering ideas and listening to others. This act of humility was significant to the participants, it said he was interested in hearing what others had to say and also was interested in
giving voice to his own thinking, but not from a position of authority. He was willing to let his ideas rather than his position influence the thinking of the group.
The afternoon of the second day was about constructing actions that Ecopetrol could take. Open Space Technology was used for this section. The ideas from the knowledge café were summarized and posted and participants chose a small group they had the most interest in and worked with that group to identify improvement actions that Ecopetrol could to take to make KM a reality.
The morning of the third day brought it all together with the action summaries from the day before and comments from Larry and I on what we had heard.
Across the whole of the two and a half days, I would estimate 80% of the time was spent in conversation! That is a clear commitment to conversation that leads to change.
The setting for this meeting was as conductive to conversation as a setting can be – open spaces that could be easily re-configured– open even to the outside because of the wonderfully even temperature in Bucarramanga, Columbia. Beautiful views that invited participants to slow down and think together – which of course, is what a conversation is.
I’ve described the technique, the setting, the conditions, but of course what is most important is what came out of these conversations. Out of that meeting came a KM strategy that had the full support of those that had worked together to create it. It was clearly a better strategy than Larry and I, as consultants, could have provided because those who would now implement it had created it.