Friday, October 29, 2010
The Future of Leadership--Knowledge Workers
An interesting concept from Chapter 4 in The Future of Leadership is building knowledge communities. Even knowledge workers who are highly specialized and work to improve and create ideas have a need for community. Therefore, one of the key roles for a knowledge work manager is to help build these communities for knowledge workers. Davenport (2001) noted knowledge work managers often help create communities which revolve around similar work or "communities of practice" (2001, p 49). By doing so, knowledge workers can exchange ideas and have social interaction at the same time. This pracice reminds me of Fullan's Secret Two of connecting peers with purpose. This practice also reminds me of the value of the cohort system.
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Building true community, to me, is an art. Just setting up meetings does not assure lasting relationships. People who are in true communities and authentic connections with colleagues are very lucky people.
ReplyDeleteThe concept of knowledge communities is something the P-12 education system needs to work on. We often refer to them as PCLs and/or vertical teaming.
ReplyDeleteAs high school classroom teachers, we are isolated and rearely get a chance to discuss our content knowledge on a level allowing us to grow. As Dr. Kemp alluded, we need more than to simply call (planning) meetings, but create opprotunities to share our knowledege as well as build better working relationships with our colleagues; thus enriching what we are able to teach our students.
Personally, I enjoy when I can sit with other mathematicians and discuss concepts on an indepth level. It's exciting and we all appreciate the opprotunity to learn and grow with one another.
I really want to develop that kind of knowledge community on my campus. We are a relatively young campus as far as experience goes. I am sometimes frustrated that a person that only has 3-5 years of experience has already assumed a mindset of being an expert. Gardner states in Five Minds for the Future, "An expert is an individual who, after a decade or more of training, has reached the pinnacle of current practice in her chosen domain." I want us to have the mindset of learners, improving our craft and wanting to have those professional conversations. It's exciting and interesting for my teachers that want to take that journey.
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