1  2 

Of Knowledge Management, Stories, Story Boards and Metaphor

Authors Graham Williams and Dorian Haarhoff explain how the medium of story (and the metaphors, reframings and imaginative journeys within the stories) is used to engage, involve, convey insights and stimulate meaningful conversations.

by Graham Williams and Dorian Haarhoff

The authors, Graham Williams and Dorian Haarhoff, follow a multi-dimensional approach aimed at using story-telling and story-listening in many different ways and contexts for different purposes. The common factor in all of their endeavours is that story (and the metaphors, reframings and imaginative journeys within the stories) is used to engage, involve, convey insights and stimulate meaningful conversations. For further information, contact Graham William at centserv@iafrica.com.

Data, information, knowledge, wisdom
Knowledge Management (KM) is the way organisations make best use of their intellectual assets. Using technology, processes and people, they dredge for knowledge (sometimes very subjective, tacit and hard to articulate) and spread insights and experience to where it counts and can be applied to improve performance. For example, customer-facing employees can access expert systems containing technical solutions, or they can look up a base of non-technical knowledge in order to answer the customer immediately – without having to escalate the interaction to a higher, more knowledgeable authority.

Those who work with KM systems tend to distinguish between, and see a progression from, data to information (where connections between data and the meaning of data is understood), to knowledge (where the information and how it may be responded to, is understood) and to wisdom (sound principles and insights for applying the knowledge to obtain the best outcomes). 

Story connects people and is able to carry knowledge in a way that helps listeners or readers to absorb, interpret and retain well. Joanna Sinclair [1] cites a story by Annette Simmons [2] to illustrate how stories “carry any level of the knowledge hierarchy, i.e. data, information, knowledge or wisdom:
‘The early bird gets the worm, but something that is just as true – and that people don’t talk about as much – is that the second mouse gets the cheese!’ ”

An organisation bent on a product leadership strategy, when weighing up the pros and cons of being first to market with a new product design and slick marketing processes, could find in this tiny story much to debate and explore.

Or consider the case of the village headman. In this story, what would you classify as data, information, knowledge, wisdom?

“The headman had three sons and in the event of his death decreed that the eldest son would receive half of his fortune, the second son one-third, and the youngest son would receive one-ninth.
When the headman died at a ripe old age, his fortune consisted of 17 camels.

This was a dilemma. For a long time the sons were unable to receive their inheritance because no one knew how to divide the fortune according to their father’s wishes. At last they consulted a wise old lady in a nearby village, and she had the solution:
‘Take my camel,’ she said. ‘Then you will have 18 camels. Give one-half to the eldest son (9), one-third to the second son (6) and one-ninth to the third son (2). That totals 17. Then return my camel’.”

1  2