Stuff or love? How metaphors direct our efforts to manage knowledge in organisations by Daniel G. Andriessen, in the Journal of Knowledge Management Research & Practice, is a charming paper proposing that the metaphors we use to describe knowledge affect the way that it is managed. Managers often talk about knowledge as a commodity or resource to be exploited – it has a finite value, can be traded, conserved, wasted, and presumably can run out. Having discussed various metaphors of knowledge as a resource, Andriessen asked people to talk about knowledge thinking of it as love. He says: “The topic of conversations changed completely. Suddenly their conversations were about relationships within the organisation, trust, passion in work, the gap between their tasks and their personal aspirations, etc.”
He points out the “knowledge as a resource” is a very Western viewpoint, whereas knowledge as love is more akin to Eastern philosophies. Knowledge as love can be shared without it running out, but it is much harder to direct or control it. It is not difficult to guess which metaphor managers tend to prefer!
Andriessen points out that the metaphors we use tend to remain hidden and unquestioned in our subconscious. He urges us to think about the metaphors underlying our discussions and research on knowledge management and ask “What would have been the outcome of the research if we see knowledge not at stuff but as love?”
Fran –
Thanks so much for this post. It’s a wonderful reminder of how a change in metaphors can open up new ways of thinking about an old topic.
– Mary
I am intrigued by the slow transmission of this idea. I think it is really important, but it hasn’t had much recognition in the KM community. I came across a conference paper of Andriessen’s over a year ago (which means that someone else must have blogged about it because I would never have found it otherwise). I even noted it myself (buried in a long post amongst a bunch of other stuff).
The great thing about Andriessen’s work is that he has backed it up with research. It isn’t just wishful thinking. Are we afraid of its implications for our work?
Thank you Mary and Mark for your comments. I think it is a powerful idea too and the question of why it isn’t being picked up is a good one. I’m not really qualified to speculate but here are a few random thoughts.
Metaphors are used a lot in KM and management generally and so perhaps there is a bit of a metaphor overload that makes it hard to sort the insightful from the cliched (the deeply patronising – IMHO – metaphor overkill Who moved my cheese? for example).
I also think they are quite hard work to put into practice – you have to think through how the metaphor should be applied in your context, turn that into some concrete proposals, and then try to explain it to other people (there’s a great one on website usability – attention as an octopus in a pile of rags – sounds great but what does it really mean?).
Thirdly I think the knowledge as love metaphor, as Andriessen himself points out, implies that knowledge is a bit wild and uncontrollable, forging controversial Romeo and Juliet style liaisons, making intense links then cutting them off dramatically, taking up with other people’s partners, etc. That’s not something that is going to play well in a controlled corporate environment.
I recall a discussion several years ago at AOK (http://www.kwork.org) where the discussion leader proposed that we think of knowledge-as-verb. I think this find is closely related, though the “love” metaphor does some interesting things.