Sea Stories and Fairy Tales

What’s the difference between a sea story and a fairy tale?  Fairy tales start, “Once upon a time…” and sea stories start, “No shit, there I was…”

I may have mentioned this before: I am a movie buff and I love using movie scenes as allegories and metaphors to illustrate a point.  Sadly, this does not always work well for me because often my listeners don’t always know what I’m talking about as they haven’t seen the movie.  You know how sometimes you see a movie and it’s beautifully crafted but you aren’t quite sure you got the point?  I am learning through these readings that I should make my point up front, so here goes:  Knowledge is not always written down but it could still be explicit; it can be communicated but still be implied; it can illustrate a point while teaching a broad lesson.

Frank Blackler (1995) writes that there is strong “interest in the competitive advantage that knowledge may provide for organizations and in the significance of knowledge workers, organizational competencies and knowledge-intensive firms”.  Since I ‘grew up’ in the era of Knowledge Management Systems and worked for Documentum (a hugely successful document management firm at the time), I completely believe in the promise that informed workers do better.  Blackler makes the point that the concept of knowledge is complex and the relevancy of knowledge on organizational theory has not been sufficiently developed.  Blackler attempts to explore the relevance of the terms knowledge, knowledge work, and knowledge-intensive firm on organizational theory.  One way to tackle this is to look at the image of organizational learning (which is a metaphor itself) and he lists five types of organizational knowledge:

1. Embrained knowledge,
2. Embodied knowledge,
3. Encultured knowledge,
4. Embedded knowledge, and
5. Encoded knowledge.

I started thinking about this and realized that there have to be various methodologies by which organizations do learn.  Let us examine the military today.  I watched the Ken Burns’ documentary, “The Vietnam War” and was fascinated with the Vietnamese effort to take Dien Bien Phu (May, 1954).  Thousands of individuals scaled nearly impassible cliffs and jungle to carry – by hand, no cars or trucks – all the materials needed to the top of the mountain.  Men and women carried artillery shells one and two at a time up the hill in bare feet or bicycles; they pushed artillery pieces up the hill by hand (Images from the Getty archives).

During the Vietnam War, Robert McNamara (Secretary of Defense) believed in numbers, statistics, and reducing rather abstract things such as people and land down to computer models.  (Historians, feel free to comment; I’ll try to make the point quickly).  Humans and their passions are not so easily reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet.

Fast forward to today, where we find ourselves engaged in Afghanistan; a location so rugged, remote, and isolated that no modern invaders have ever successfully held the country.  Yet the military has learned how to deal with the locals, how to inspire them, and work with them.  I see this as organizational learning in action; so clearly, organizations can learn.  

So how is all this embodied / encultured / embedded into the organization?  Amin and Roberts (2008) make the point that the popular term “communities of practice” lacks the specialization needed to distinguish among the action resulting from any one community.  There are Craft/task-based communities, professional communities, epistemic/creative communities, and even virtual communities.  If you think about it, many of these exist within the military today, so I will continue using them as an illustration.  (See table from Amin & Roberts, below).

The military clearly fits the ‘profile’ of professional community, although I would contend that it fits all of them, and I will address that aspect. Amin & Roberts point out “A … distinctive feature of professional communities is that the protectionist role of professional associations can act as a barrier to radical change” (well, when I was in the Navy, we used to say that “it was an organization with 200 years of tradition unhampered by progress”) and the military is no exception in having organizational resistance to change.  Yet it does change, and often with alacrity.  So, how does it keep itself together?  Well, ‘oral tradition’ is strong in the military.  (27 Feb: As an addendum, you should check out Jenn Nippert’s article on Social Capital – an internal brand really based on what people think you know – her conclusion that a healthy morale and a culture of informal learning is key).  

Which brings me to Colon-Aguirre’s 2015 treatise on knowledge transfer through stories.  Stories help organizations learn even when the protagonist has left the organization; or as might be said in the Navy, ‘sea stories’. Every sailor has one, many have more.  Some are humorous, some are tragic.

“The main topics covered by the stories all deal with cultural knowledge exchanges, while also serve as coping mechanisms and present important organizational culture aspects. The stories shared also reflect negative aspects related to the lack of proper communication within the organizations, with the presence of rumors among the narratives shared”.

I know I learned a lot of things about life, discipline, and the military just by living, listening, and telling stories.

Say, did I ever tell you about the time … ?

Amin, A. & Roberts, J. (2008). Knowing in action: Beyond communities of practice. Research Policy, 37, 353–369. doi: 10.1016/j.respol.2007.11.003

Blackler, F. (1995). Knowledge, Knowledge Work and Organizations: An Overview and Interpretation. Organization Studies, 16, 1021-1046.

Colon-Aguirre, M. (2015). Knowledge transferred through organizational stories: a typology. Library Management, 36, 421–433. doi: 10.1108/lm-06-2014-0073