KM: Cultivating the fire of the human spirit

In the late 1990s, a small team of people, including Roberto Chavez, Seth Kahan and Lesley Shneier and myself, with very few resources and only sporadic management support, helped turn the World Bank--hitherto, a slow moving bureaucracy--into the one of the world’s most admired knowledge enterprises.

On Sunday August 1, 2010, a group of us got together for a reunion. We had a barbecue and then a discussion about why those couple of years were so productive for the organization and yet also so meaningful to us.

What's interesting to me about this video is that it responds to a wonderful quote from Kristin Arnold: "I think it's hard for those who have never been on a high performance team to understand how cool it is." This video comes close to capturing the spirit and feeling of what's like to be in high-performance team.

For more, go to http://www.stevedenning.com/Books/radical-management.aspxm

Comments

[Imelda McGrattan]

It never ceases to amaze me how the energies of a few people are drawn together to accomplish a creative task that can make such a difference to business and utlitmatley to lives.

Passionate people are a joy to work with and that collective energy can find new ways, through, round and over mountains.

The link that is forged lasts a lifetime.

[Steve Denning]

Hi Imelda, I agree. What made it happen in the first place, however, was having the courage to stand up and say: this must happen, even though a lot of top management was in total disagreement. We had to have the courage of our convictions. It was a thrilling, hair-raising ride, and in the end, successful.

How often do we look at a problem and never get round to taking a stand? We have more power than we think.

Best
Steve