General Lecture on Knowledge, Learning, Creativity & Innovation in Orgs 20130208

General Lecture on Knowledge, Learning, Creativity & Innovation in Organizations Spring 2013 Prof. McDonald R. Stewart
© 2003-2013 M.R. Stewart, E.G. Carayannis 1© 2003-2013 M.R. Stewart, E.G. Carayannis 1
Knowledge Management,
Strategic Learning, Creativity &
Innovation in Organizations
Series on Management of Science, Technology & Innovation
McDonald R. Stewart
Adjunct Assistant Professor
The Graduate School
Spring 2013

© 2003-2013 M.R. Stewart, E.G. Carayannis 2
For continuity, slides 3 thru 6 repeat
slides 19 thru 22 from the previous
slideshow on Technology & Innovation,
Information Systems, and Dystechnia

• There must be a flow of knowledge
– To enable the transfer of capability
and expertise across from where it
resides to where it’s needed
• Most IT targets data and
information, not knowledge
– There is an inverse relationship
between abundance and
actionability in the
knowledge hierarchy
• The relationships depicted here
provide the conceptual basis for
Expert Systems and Knowledge
Management systems
©2005E.G.Carayannisetal.
Abundance
Actionability
Data
Information
Knowledge
?
 What is it that distills in the apex tagged with the question mark?
 And can technology ever embody and deploy that potential?
 Intelligence is the process of filtering, consolidating, and comprehending our way up the pyramid
 Intelligence is how well we learn
 Aptitude is the bandwidth across which intelligence progresses
 Aptitude is the potential for rapid learning
Noise
Information Is Not Enough
(from Carayannis, GWU Lectures, 2000-2013)
Wisdom or Intuition

• Knowledge dynamics occur
within an organization and
across organizational
boundaries:
– Knowledge can be derived
from data and information
stored and processed using
technology.
– Knowledge flows in and
through people (or fails to)
– Knowledge sharing behaviors
are constrained by culture.
• IT efficacy depends on
education, attitudes,
behaviors, policies, and
practices.
P
T
C
Organizational
Environment
Components
People
Culture
Technology
Capacities
Creation
Absorption
Diffusion
Reprocessing
Transfer
©2004E.G.Carayannis
Technology Is Not Enough
(from Carayannis, GWU Lectures, 2000-2013)

Knowledge Management Systems
• A Knowledge Management (KM) system is an integrated
mechanism for supporting the creation, absorption, diffusion,
reprocessing, and transfer of expertise and knowledge in an
organization. A KM system can be:
1) Document-based—including indexed paper, microfilm, and page
images; formatted electronic documents such as Lotus Notes,
distributed databases, etc.
2) Ontology-based—adding linkages to facilitate functionality;
terminologies to summarize the documents such as author, subject,
key words, etc. (as in DAML & other XML-based ontologies)
3) AI-based—using customized schemata to represent the problem
domain (still in early development).
• KM Functions:
– Knowledge Creation (Research & Discovery)
– Knowledge Absorption (Capture & Storage)
– Knowledge Diffusion (Internal Sharing)
– Knowledge Reprocessing (Assimilation)
– Knowledge Transfer (External Sharing)

Knowledge Management Systems (cont)
Some Benefits of KM:
 To share valuable organizational knowledge.
 To facilitate teaching and learning.
 To avoid re-inventing the wheel.
 To reduce redundant work.
 To reduce training time for new employees.
 To free the experts for additional knowledge creation.
 To free experts for additional knowledge reprocessing.
 To retain intellectual property after employees leave.
 To safeguard organizational memory.
 To enable organizational wisdom.
• However: There is no such thing as complete
“automation” of these capacities!
– The KM “System” includes components which are technology
enablers, but any system also depends on processes and
operators.

Strategic Learning – 1
CHAOS
Unknown Unknowns
(Ignorance of Ignorance)
QUESTIONS
Known Unknowns
(Awareness of Ignorance)
ANSWERS
Known Knowns
(Awareness of Awareness)
EXPERTISE
Unknown Knowns
(Ignorance of Awareness)
The challenge becomes learning what you need to know, and
then transferring to others what you have come to know.





ANSWERS
Known Knowns
(Awareness of Awareness)
EXPERTISE
Unknown Knowns
(Ignorance of Awareness)
Expertise is the pinnacle of learning
• see also wisdom and intuition at slide 3
These most advanced states of learning and knowledge
tend to be deeply internalized
• hence ignorance of awareness
This deep state of knowledge embeddedness is called
tacit knowledge
Working knowledge is the product of questioning and
learning, subject to the organizational capacities and
functions as previously described
• see Creation, Absorption, Diffusion, Reprocessing,
and Transfer at slides 4 & 5
These more common states of learning and knowledge
tend to be conspicuous and more freely shared
• hence awareness of awareness
This communicable state of knowledge openness is
called explicit knowledge

– Knowledge and experience can only exist in a usable way inside
a single, live mind
– Knowledge Management facilitates the storage, retrieval, and
sharing of knowledge and experience between minds
• Strategic Learning is part of a triple-layered architecture of
technological learning:
– Operational level, accumulating experience and learning by doing
• We learn new things
– Tactical level, learning how-to-learn
• We adapt the rules and contingencies for decision making to facilitate the learning
of new things in the short term
– Strategic, learning to learn-how-to learn
• We internalize and institutionalize new views to redefine the fundamentals of our
operating universe in the long term
Adaptedfrom
TheStrategicManagement
ofTechnologicalLearning
©1998-2013E.G.Carayannis

• The objective is to leverage the exchange of knowledge within
and among organizational members and KM archives for
enhanced organizational development.
– Transitioning Explicit Knowledge to Tacit Knowledge through personal
learning and growth
– And transitioning Tacit Knowledge to Explicit Knowledge through training
and mentoring
• In a dynamic and empowering positive feedback cycle

The Spiral of Enlightenment
• The objective is to leverage the exchange of knowledge within
and among organizational members and KM archives for
enhanced organizational development.
– Transitioning Explicit Knowledge to Tacit Knowledge through personal
learning and growth
– And transitioning Tacit Knowledge to Explicit Knowledge through training
and mentoring
• In a dynamic and empowering positive feedback cycle

Tacit Knowledge Transferability Factors
Content
Context
Processes
Impact

Creativity & Innovation
The uncreative mind can spot wrong answers, but it takes a very
creative mind to spot wrong questions. –Anthony Jay
• Creativity
• The result of inspiration and cognition
• The liberation of talent in a nurturing or provocative context
• Mostly an intensely private and individualistic process
• Operates at the micro (individual) level
• Innovation
• Changes the yield of resources
• A new product or method that boosts supply-side productivity or
increases the value obtained from resources by the consumer
• Not just invention, but economically viable adaptation, improvement,
or creation
• Research is transforming money into knowledge
• Innovation is turning knowledge into money
• Operates at the meso (team/group/organizational) level

Creativity + Innovation = Competitiveness
• Competitiveness
• The edifice resting on the pillars of creativity, invention, and innovation
• The capacity of a project team, organization/firm, industry, or nation to attain
and sustain greater productivity than similar entities
• The drive for survival and ascent
• Operates at the macro (project/firm/industry/national/regional) level
• Creativity, Innovation, and Competitiveness
• Can be modeled as a double helix
• Akin to nature’s fundamental scaffold and evolutionary competence
• One strand represents the flow and record of creativity
• The other strand represents competitiveness
• The value-adding chain of creativity, invention, innovation, productivity and
competitiveness links both strands
• This chain catalyzes strategic learning
• To do things better, cheaper, faster
• At the micro, meso and macro levels

The CIC Double Helix
and Value-Added Chain
Individual,organizational,socio-economiclearning
Levels – Scale and Scope
Invention
Early
Innovation
Late
Innovation
Productivity
CREATIVITY CIC Value-Added Chain COMPETITIVENESS
COMPETITIVENESS
CREATIVITY
Micro-level Meso-level Macro-level
Micro
Meso Macro
Mostly
Project
Firm
Industry
Nation
Region
Mostly
Team
Group
Organization
Mostly
Individual
Diagram©2003E.G.Carayannis&E.Gonzalez

Creativity & Innovation —
A Different Perspective on Project Slack
• Common purposes of slack in a project:
– To permit smoother coordination of transitional nodes and milestones
when individual task schedules are uncertain but interdependent
(between node slack)
– To improve likelihood of completing a given task on time, given risks and
uncertainties of forecasted task requirements (within node slack)
• What if some of this built-in slack could be used in advance to
develop assurances that the rest of the project will need less slack to
still meet the quintuple constraint?
– Or even exceed stakeholder expectations?
– Could such a “slack-time investment” deliver an adequate return?
– Isn’t this called “working smarter – not harder?”
• If given initial (and periodic) freedom to create and innovate, can a
Project Management team boost their own performance?

Nurturing Creativity & Innovation – 1
• An example of businesses inspiration from an unlikely source:
• MacDowell Colony, the nation's oldest and most famous artist colony
• Engineers, software programmers, lab technicians and marketers
assigned to the same office, freed from other duties, given unusual
creative license, instructed to work together rather than separately
• Colonists work in isolated cabins containing a bed, a fireplace and relevant tools
• Picture windows offer panoramic views of pine trees and wildlife on 450-acre
campus
• To minimize interruptions, the studios aren't equipped with radios, television sets,
phones or Internet
• Breakfast and dinner are served communally in a converted barn. At lunchtime, a
wooden picnic basket silently appears on each studio doorstep
• MacDowell fosters creativity by mixing disciplines
• Informal exchanges occur during odd-hour encounters, dinner chats and
presentations about pending projects
• Participants say the reduced distractions make them so productive that a
week at MacDowell is the equivalent of four elsewhere
• Yet there's no requirement to produce anything
• Although many participants place expectations and deadlines on themselves
• Is it possible to set a due date for a breakthrough innovation?
FromJ.S.Lublin,“BusinessesLooktoTechniquesThatHelpPoetsandPaintersBe
MoreCreative,Productive”ManagingNurturingInnovation,Mar20,2006;p.B1

• Creativity is not all about unbridled, free-form artistry:
• Some of the most inspiring art forms, such as haikus, sonatas, and religious
paintings, are fraught with constraints
• They are beautiful because creativity triumphed over the “rules”
• Constraints must be balanced with a healthy disregard for the impossible
• Too many curbs can lead to pessimism and despair
• Disregarding the bounds of what we know or accept gives rise to ideas that are non-
obvious, unconventional, or unexplored
• The creativity realized in the balance between constraint and disregard for
the impossible is fueled by passion and leads to revolutionary change
• Constraints can speed development
• Rapid prototyping provides a good sense of how good a new concept is, while limiting
the investment of how many work on it for how long
• Since only 1 in every 5 or 10 ideas shows merit, the strategy of limiting time on any one
idea allows more time to try more ideas, increasing the odds of success
• Speed also lets you fail faster
• Have you ever wondered how a product so lame got to market, a movie so bad got
released, or a government policy so misguided got passed?
• It’s likely that the people working on the project invested so much time that it was too
painful to walk away
• That’s why it’s important to discover failure fast and abandon it quickly
FromM.A.Mayer,“CreativityLovesConstraints,”BusinessWeek,Feb13,2006,p.102

• Confronted with a problem ask:
• How many different ways can I look at it?
• How can I rethink the way I see it?
• How many different ways can I solve it?
• Don't ask, “What have I been taught by someone else about how
to solve this?”
• If you are the team leader, give generously to innovators of
your time and attention
• Expose people to a variety of conflicting perspectives
• Hire for raw ideas
• Allow for experimentation, mistakes, and dead ends
• Employ short-term mentors
• Engage in conversations that lead to new conclusions rather than
persuade people of foregone ones
• Periodically switch environments
If I’d listened to customers, I’d have given them a faster horse.
–Henry Ford

• Predominant personality indicators of creative style:
• Conscientiousness
• Openness to experience
• Extraversion
• Providing a basis for comparing the personality traits associated
with creative style and occupational creativity
• Creative people have an internal locus of control
• Responsible for one’s own future
• As opposed to an external locus of control
• Looking to the world for guidance and fate
• Focusing on obstacles kills creativity
• Innovation is born from the interaction between constraint
and vision
Failure is only the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.
–Henry Ford

General Lecture on Knowledge, Learning, Creativity & Innovation in Orgs 20130208

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General Lecture on Knowledge, Learning, Creativity & Innovation in Orgs 20130208