Graham: By the way, the term knowledge tends to carry with it a sort of a neutral, independent, almost a non-human corporeality to it.
Peter: Apart… Graham: Yes, a part. It's almost as if it exists independent of human beings and it's to there lying there to be discovered. Whereas there is much of knowledge of course, that is not that – I mean that's the scientific paradigm that we bring to an array of knowledge in our society, but what of cultural knowledge? What of beliefs and values that are equally powerful in shaping a decision? Is that not knowledge? Do we only call it knowledge when we observe it in somebody else's behavior? I mean in my view, we have to be much more sophisticated about the knowledges that we bring into this kind of a discussion and into a knowledge exchange discussion for example.
Peter: Okay. How would you do that? I mean is that something that you are exploring right now or is that something that's on the table? Graham: Well ya it is something we're exploring right now. I know that in one of the programs that we're doing, we went to a lot of effort to try to discriminate between the different forms of knowledge and I know the research community, CHSRF for example, has done a lot in terms of differentiating between what they might call systematic evidence versus grey literature which is more anecdotal kinds of evidence. It doesn't have the same rigor as systematic evidence does. So we're looking at building sort of a map – a knowledge map if you like – of the constellations of knowledge and just saying “these are the constellations that are out there, you may wish certain form of knowledge to have more impact on a decision and let's move towards that but don't do it being unaware of all the other constellations of knowledge that are going to be brought in…if they're…implicitly or explicitly to a decision that's being made. Peter: Okay so there's choice that can be made in terms of what is used and you have to recognize that there's choice. One of the challenges, and we've talked about this before, is related to value and so perhaps in the hierarchy around different forms of knowledge is that because more choice is made for certain types of knowledge over others, it's then regarded to have more value. How do you interact with that concept of value.
Graham: It depends on how you determine what the value…how you determine value.
Peter: So how do you determine value?
Graham: If for its value, is intrinsic in the knowledge itself, which a researcher in many cases believes that a good research produces a product that has value in its own self. On the other hand if you are a decision maker or a politician, you might…can say that it has little value if it doesn't create an effective decision or a policy change. So the value of a chunk of knowledge is dependent on the perspective and the role you're planning. Peter: So almost the marketplace – like your constellations – they're different market places and different values get attributed to the same thing. Graham: That's right. Now I'll give you a classic example. Suppose we have all the research in the world that suggests that multi-disciplinary teams are a better way to deliver a health service than say, current practice where we have separate professions working somewhat independently. That research knowledge is very, very important – very valuable but suppose you have a decision maker over here that suggests maybe you should build health centers that have doctors and nurses and physiotherapists all working as a team. But suppose you have a person over here who has to implement that but has a knowledge that says, “Physicians will not accept that kind of relationship with others in a work setting”. All the research in the world isn't going to help you if that piece of knowledge about the physician's receptivity is going to be a major factor in the decision making. It might just…say well that's fine, we're not going to use the knowledge that's of value in the research setting because it won't work. Peter: Okay. So how do you, when you think about value and you think about these exchanges, how do you…I mean what everybody wants to do is…in the portfolio of things that they know they want to increase the value of it. So how do you increase the value through knowledge exchange? Is there an equation?
Graham: Yes, I think you increase the value by listening to what the knowledge needs of others is. So a true exchange process begins, I think with an awareness of the knowledge the person you wish to exchange it with needs, wants, must have.
Peter: So the demand.
Graham: The demand side and you've heard me say this at some of our meetings is that we have an awful lot of knowledge producers who then create a supply and then they push the supply out with no marketplace for it because they're not necessarily producing the knowledge that the market place needs or wants. There's an awful lot of applied research happening in the cell phone arena these days for example, because there's a clientele that wants cell phones. So we've had a ton of good research in that field creating knowledge that has created some amazingly interesting products. You can see I'm bringing a utilitarian bent to knowledge and to the value of knowledge that others may not bring. Knowledge to other may be valuable in its own right whether it has utilitarian basis to it or not. But given that I'm a person who teaches leadership, I tend to come at it from that perspective. Peter: Well not only do you teach leadership, but when I was identifying…sampling for these podcasts, you were identified as a leader in knowledge exchange. Why do you think that people are identifying you and the work of your Centre, not just because it's on leadership, but that you, as a leader? What is it about the work that you are doing that others identify as being leading? What is good leadership in the context or the world that you work in?
Graham: Well I think many of the concepts and ideas that I've talked about effective knowledge exchange are also principles of effective leadership. In other words, when you are trying to solve problems that involve a huge array of people for the resolution of a problem, then you have to employ mechanisms that I would call leadership mechanisms, to engage those people to want to solve the problem together. That to me is what good leadership is about. The knowledge component is what is the information and the knowledge you put into the decision making arena to shape that decision appropriately. So…but the conditions for a knowledge exchange, for knowledge exchange sake, and the creation of the conditions for it being mobilized to action, which is what leadership is about in my view, and maybe that's why because I've often spoken to leadership as knowledge mobilization having a huge importance in the field of leadership. That too much of the knowledge that is used in the field of leadership is knowledge that is either opinion or pure values based. It isn't balanced by some of the research knowledge. And I've never argued that it should be replaced by research knowledge, but I certainly believe that it should be balanced by it. Peter: Given the work that you do, what are the biggest challenges you face? What are the things that kind of keep you up at night?
Graham: There's three that spring to mind. One is the average university researcher doesn't really care that much to the extent to which their research may be of value to anybody else. That keeps me up at night because we spend a lot of money on research. The second thing that keeps me up at night is that there is a very sophisticated array of knowledge in the field of leadership that awful lot of leaders are unaware of. And when you introduce it to them, it's like their whole world has opened up because they see there's another way to engage people in resolving problems other than command and control for example - the typical positional approach to leadership. And I guess the third thing that keeps me up at night is I never get a chance to write about this stuff.
Peter: hahaha Graham: And as a consequence my own knowledge exchange is to a degree, limited by my inability to express myself cogently in writing about it. Peter: Well maybe this podcast is one way of addressing a little bit of that. You work really hard at what you do and you're very enthusiastic about it so what are the rewards? Graham: Well certainly my whole approach to leadership I guess, is that world is changing around us dramatically and rapidly, constantly and we can either be reactive to those changes, which are of a technological nature, a social nature, a global economic nature…I mean you can come up with a whole array of forces that are creating the demand for change.
I think leaders are simply people who feel comfortable in that environment of ambiguity and uncertainty and they feel comfortable because they have a vision, they have a sense that if indeed people engage in solving the problem with the array of knowledge and abilities they have at their disposal, now we can actually solve that problem and so I have a strong optimistic view - forward looking view that the solution is really high quality leadership to most of our social problems. I'm not one to wallow in despair about any issue, I just think we haven't found the way to galvanize people appropriately to resolve that issue but knowledge is out there to do it. Peter: Knowledge exchange as a field has…you talk about change over a period of time and I've asked this of everybody that I've interviewed is, in ten years, where do you see the field of knowledge exchange and knowledge mobilization being? Where is it heading?
Graham: I must admit sometimes I find these terms to a degree, stultified. In other words the minute somebody says to me knowledge managing, knowledge exchange, and I remember when I was first introduced to the term knowledge management, I was kind of scratching my head saying, “well what's that”?, and somebody tried to explain it to me and I never did get it for about the sixth explanation I was given. It sort of separates…It implies knowledge as something very special from the world around us and to me knowledge is just our perception – our interpretation of the world we're interacting with and we have ways to gather that – there's visual ways to gather it, there's physical ways to gather it, there's research ways to gather it, but that's all knowledge right? What else is there?
So it seems to be a bit of an archaic invention I think, to somehow give greater dignity to the world of disciplined knowledge, which is the world of research and evidence. And as a consequence, I actually support it because if that's what the term is truly meant to open the door to, I think that's great because I don't think that happens enough. But if it then turns around and says that that knowledge is more important and more valuable than other forms of knowledge, then I think it becomes hierarchal and I think we're just creating, instead of power of position hierarchy, we are now creating a power of expertise hierarchy, which is no more suitable for solving problems than the latter. Peter: So what I'm hearing is that it needs to be grounded in the practical – the things that we're doing on a day to day basis. On whether it's the decisions we make in government or the care that we give in hospitals or the care that we give to our children at home - if it improves that process then it works. Graham: That's correct Peter: If it's creating more differences and more hierarchy then not so much. Graham: Well I don't mind differences that create productive tension that create a need for resolution of difference because I think some of the greatest breakthroughs is when we seem have irreconcilable differences on issues or circumstances of situations and it forces us to maybe reconceptualize the whole frame of reference in which that polar dichotomy exists and that's part of the challenge that the research community faces in some ways in my view. Jonathan Lomas actually said this at one of the sessions that he was doing is that research by its very nature is not creative and does not allow for receptualization of the whole frame of reference in which it was conducted. And sometimes what leaders have to do – sometimes a really effective leadership trait is to put a piece of information into a context that re-orders the whole context for people to see things in a completely different way. So if you've spent years building a research agenda on a particular context and all of a sudden that context shifts, then my goodness the piece of research with its rigor and integrity based on that context, is no longer meaningful. So there is also great limitations to traditional research if the context around you changes. I mean just picture poor researchers in East Germany studying communist infrastructure on the day after the Berlin Wall came down. I'm mean that research might not have been of the greatest value. Peter: Graham, final words… Graham: Final words, I guess is that we all have our preferred place in the world and our preferred role in the world and as Elliot Eisner said in one of his books, he says, “when you go and look at the world, you're in a house and depending on the window you choose to look out, you see the world in a different way. The world in independent of you but your perception of it is conditioned by the place in which you see it and the eyes through which you see it”, and if knowledge exchange is about growing our collective awareness about the world we share then I think it's a marvelous, marvelous thing to do. If it becomes a way to separate a community of people who are knowledge experts from the world around them, then I think it's the exact opposite and the wrong thing to do. Peter: Great. Graham I look forward to your continued leadership. Thank you very much.
Graham: Thank you.
