Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Communities of practice and goose

I read a story about a goose (with my children). The goose wants to fill a pond and puts up a bucket. Because the bucket fills up slowly, he starts to run around which doesn't help. Then he starts to tun around even faster and faster. But it doesn't fill the bucket. He finally succeeds when it starts raining much faster and with bigger drops.

The analogy with organisations supporting communities of practice struck me. I've seen organisations who continue organising another training and another training in the hope to build capacity, but it may not be within the real learning interests of the participants. The art of cultivating communities of practice is in linking up with natural processes and that sometimes means waiting to see what emerges rather than running around faster and faster.

2 comments:

Emmanuel.K.Bensah II said...

interesting analogy you've got there. You are talking about people being patient with what they are doing, and not expecting results too soon...human nature regrettably:-(

Marco said...

I like a lot this connection that you make, Joistke, between a daily life experience(family, children) and the business world! Good picture, also!