Replying to LO29961 --
Dear Das,
Your posting on mentoring & coaching for knowledge management arrived on
my computer like a gift. I am right in the middle of writing about the
implications of KM & LOs for my organization, so thank you for giving me
these insights before I even knew to ask for them! Could you please
provide a citation for the second quotation on KM, so I can refer to it in
my paper?
As for your question linking mentoring & coaching to KM, your first
quote seems to emphasize the benefits that flow from "veterans" to
"newcomers," i.e., how the transmission of hard-earned tacit knowledge
about "how things work around here" helps protegés become
acclimated/socialized into the organization. Much of what I've read about
mentoring also notes the return benefits to the "veterans" -- the
opportunity to get exposed to the fresh knowledge and paradigms that
newcomers can bring to the organization. In the agricultural research
organization where I work, mentoring relationships between senior
scientists and freshly-minted post-docs are often the very best way to
bring cutting edge basic science and new methodologies into the mainstream
of a more applied research setting.
I would also assume that in the dynamics of this mentoring interaction,
innovative ways may emerge to graft new ideas into existing organizational
frameworks in a way that allows the graft to take hold most effectively
(as opposed to being rejected as totally foreign tissue). This may be a
hypothesis worth exploring further...
Warm regards,
Anne Acosta
Fielding Graduate Institute OD Ph.D. student &
Coordinator, strategic planning, International Maize & Wheat Improvement
Center (CIMMYT)
http://www.cimmyt.org
--"Acosta, Anne (CIMMYT)" <A.ACOSTA@CGIAR.ORG>
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