{"id":765,"date":"2007-12-12T06:38:35","date_gmt":"2007-12-12T06:38:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/2007\/12\/12\/knowing-is-not-enough\/"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:36:46","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:36:46","slug":"knowing-is-not-enough","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=765","title":{"rendered":"Knowing Is Not Enough"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"104\" alt=\"b-gap.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/b-gap.thumbnail.jpg\" width=\"62\" \/>Here&#8217;s one of those really good (and at the same time really irritating) questions to ask yourself &#8211; why is it that I <em>know <\/em>so much more than I actually <em>do<\/em> when I want to be successful at something?\u00a0 This time of year always reminds me that even though I know the plan for just about every diet there is, my scale tells me that the knowledge alone isn&#8217;t very useful: <!--more--><\/p>\n<p><em>The Knowing-Doing Gap: How Smart Companies Turn Knowledge into Action<\/em>, by Pfeffer and Sutton, takes a good look at this question and has a lot to be leveraged for project management (if you haven&#8217;t checked out the Knowing-Doing Gap link on this site&#8217;s Blogroll, do it!).\u00a0 The authors found five key barriers to bridging this Gap:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\n<div>When talk is a substitute for action; talking, data gathering, planning and analyzing are treated as equivalent to taking action<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>When memory is a substitute for thinking; people continue to do what has always been done without reflecting<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>When fear prevents acting on knowledge<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>When measurement obstructs good judgment<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<div>When internal competition turns friends into enemies<\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>How often do you experience these issues in your project work?\u00a0 How much do they impact your ability to be effective?<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what really interested me though &#8211; Pfeffer and Sutton believe that most successful organizational performance improvement &#8220;depends largely on <em>implementing what is already known rather than from adopting new or previously unknown ways of doing things<\/em>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"113\" alt=\"b-gap2.jpg\" src=\"https:\/\/svapm.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/b-gap2.thumbnail.jpg\" width=\"57\" \/>Now <em>that <\/em>really sounds familiar to me.\u00a0 For many years I\u00a0 worked at &#8220;X&#8221;, a large international company in Palo Alto, and one of the laments I heard the entire time was &#8220;if\u00a0X only knew what X knew&#8230;&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0 I don&#8217;t need to say anything here about the benefit of regular retrospectives in this case &#8211; it&#8217;s so obvious that even a CIO should be able to see it!\u00a0 (well, maybe not&#8230;)<\/p>\n<p>Here are some of the ideas in the book for dealing with the barriers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Put the &#8220;Why&#8221; before\u00a0&#8220;How&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Knowing Comes From Doing and Teaching Others How<\/li>\n<li>Action Counts More Than Plans and Concepts\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>There is no doing without mistakes<\/li>\n<li>Drive Out Fear\u00a0<\/li>\n<li>Fight the competition not each other<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What would be different if these were the guiding principles where you work?\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here&#8217;s one of those really good (and at the same time really irritating) questions to ask yourself &#8211; why is 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