Much of the very helpful research and theory that under lies our field of KM is produced in the related disciplines of Organization Behavior, Organization Learning, Group Dynamics, Computer Science, and Organizational Psychology. Following are summaries of three such, highly acclaimed, books that have recently been published. They are:
Teaming
Edmondson’s book, Teaming is one of the best knowledge management books I’ve read, although I don’t think she ever mentions the term knowledge management in the book. The book is not limited to teams, rather she uses the term “teaming” as a verb, to talk about a way of organizational functioning. The major take-away from the book is that an organization needs to move from focusing on “organizing to execute” to “execution as learning”. To do this employees must make use of learning behaviors, such as, asking for help from other members, discussing differences of 
opinion openly rather than privately or outside the group, revealing their own errors to the group, and several more. The organization must provide the routines (opportunities) during which employees can use those behaviors. Those routines vary with each organization described in the book, but examples included retrospects, planning meetings, soliciting feedback from customers, strategic conversations, and surgical team meetings that occur before an operation. Edmondson clarifies that team members will only exhibit learning behaviors when they feel psychologically safe and explains in detail how psychologically safety comes about. The book is rich with examples of teaming, including the Beijing Olympics, Children’s Hospital and Clinics in Minneapolis, NASA’s space shuttle program, Intermountain Health Care, and many others. The book also includes findings from Edmondson’s own research much of which has been conducted in health care venues. It is a must read for anyone serious about helping an organization learn.
Critical Knowledge Transfer
In her book, Leonard is not addressing the transfer of all knowledge in an organization, rather she is focused on “critical knowledge,” expertise that is largely undocumented and is in the heads of employees, particularly employees considered experts who have vital knowledge that is likely to leak out of the organization during transitions. Leonard categorizes knowledge into three levels, explicit, implicit and tacit, explaining that each must be transferred differently. This book is primarily about the last two.
Explicit knowledge can be transferred through written documents and community Q&A.
Implicit knowledge is that knowledge which an expert can articulate, but only with the help of skillful elicitation techniques. Those techniques require training and experience to develop.
Tacit knowledge, that which even an expert may not be aware of, is transferred through the learner’s observation of an expert, followed by supervised practice and coaching. Leonard calls this process OPPTY (for Observation, Practice, Partnering and joint problem solving, and Taking responsibility). She explains that OPPTY works best when knowledge is transferred, not to novices, but to “near experts”.
The book has advice for managers in terms of how to determine what knowledge is critical to transfer. Leonard says, “First you have to be confident that you understand what know-how, skills, and other capabilities underlie your company’s success.” She devotes three chapters to the various techniques to elicit and capture knowledge, make sense of it, and then massage it into a form that can be transferred, with lists of knowledge elicitation questions for each. This is an in-depth look at knowledge transfer from one the great experts on the topic.
Social Physics
Pentland describes social physics as “a quantitative social science that describes reliable, mathematical connections between information and ideas on the one hand, and people’s behavior on the other.’ He builds on Bandura’s theory of social learning, “the fundamental assumption that learning from examples of other people’s behavior (and the relevant contextual feature) is a major and likely dominant mechanism of behavior change in humans.”
Pentland found that he can study patterns of information exchange in a social 
network without any knowledge of the actual content being exchanged, and using that data, can predict how effective a network is, whether a small team or a large organization. The data is gathered by means of mobile sensors, embedded in badges that employees wear. The sensors can track where employees go, how long they are there, even the tone of the conversation – but not the conversation itself. In one such study Pentland found that 50% of the variation in performance across groups and tasks can be explained by:
- The large number of ideas: many very short contributions rather than a few long ones.
- Dense interactions: continuous, overlapping cycling between making contributions and very short (less than one second) responsive comments (such as, “good,” “that’s right,” “what?” etc.) that serve to validate or invalidate the ideas and build consensus.
- Diversity of ideas: everyone within a group contributing ideas and reactions, with similar levels of turn taking among participants.”
And 35% of the variation in a team’s performance can be accounted for by the number of face-to-face exchanges among team members. From Pentland’s research, he concludes:
- It is not simply the brightest who have the best ideas; it is those who are best at harvesting ideas from others.
- It is not only the most determined who drive change; it is those who most fully engage with like-minded people.
- It is not wealth or prestige that best motivates people; it is respect and help from peers.
He concludes that leaders need to focus on changing the connections between people rather than focusing on getting individual people to change their behavior. His findings are ideas that KM has been saying all along, but Pentland has the data to prove it. This book provides evidence that being in relationship with others in a team or organization improves the flow of knowledge.
