are raising the visibility of knowledge management using leader-
ship’s performance objectives. My recommendation is to make sure
that you don’t stop there. Davenport and Beck note that you can-
not control what people focus on (except in the short term) and
that “... ultimately, people direct their own attention....
Controlling one’s own attention is the one freedom an individual
will always possess.”^10
ConclusionSo orchestrating knowledge to make it move and, perhaps more
important, to make it moving to the user requires more than a
solely technical approach. If you’ve ever listened to a piece of music
that was played with technical proficiency but without heart, you
know why knowledge management has to be performed by engaged
people who feel free to share and learn from each other.
Creating, sharing, and using knowledge is much like playing
the piano for the love of music, the joy of entertaining others,
and the inspiration that comes from performing the work of
great composers. It has to be a blend of the technical basics
that soon fade into making each performance personal and tied
to the everyday motivation and practice of the performers. When
we learn to manage knowledge as conductors orchestrate
symphonies, bringing out the best in each performer yet inspiring
each to blend it into the sound of the whole, we will make knowl-
edge move, and the knowledge we produce will move us to great
performance.
MAKINGKNOWLEDGEMOVE 239Tip:When you find yourself saying, “We’ll add this to the perfor-
mance objectives,” understand that this may be number 16 on the
list of really critical things to do this year. Better to find ways to
embed behaviors into existing processes and to use champions to
help keep people engaged.