The Dog of War: Reflections on the Journey of a

Future Knowledge Manager

When I was trying to find a starting place for this journal, this image was the first thing that came
to mind. It’s a scan from an issue of a Justice League comic that I’ve had for almost three years
now. I always found its wisdom to besoothing, I suppose.
The Dog of War Young, 2002

This semester I’ve been working with the theme of inspiration. I chose this theme last year after
speaking with a former HRD 631 student who told me about her learning autobiography and I
knew, immediately, what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it.

So, driven by this theme (and a well-timed Christmas present) I’ve been running around
Portland (and everywhere else I might go) taking pictures and collecting memories for my
autobiography.

Originally, I had planned on pursuing this theme in the context of what inspires others to learn,
to progress, to keep on moving, but this semester has brought to the surface such unexpected
tests and challenges, trials and tribulations, that I’ve opted to change gears and focus on
myself, my own inspiration. I’m concentrating on the places, books, people and things in my
surroundings that inspire me, that give me strength and encouragement, being so far from home
and separated from the family and friends that I usually turn to for support.

The need to understand inspiration has become even greater for me after dealing with rejection
upon rejection from consulting firms regarding my program evaluation project. I wasn’t really
even mad at having my requests denied so much as having requests denied because I wasn’t a
B-School student. The worst of the bunch came from Booz Allen Hamilton’s Dr. Charles Lucier,
a senior VP and CKO (Chief Knowledge Officer),

From: Lucier, Charles

To: D. Christian Young
Sent: Thursday, 07 February, 2002 02:29 PM
Subject: Re: KM ROI Evaluation

Christian –
As you can imagine, we receive numerous requests like this from students. We
have evolved a policy of helping only business school faculty and PhD students:
there are just too many requests. I’m sorry.

From: D. Christian Young

To: Lucier, Charles
Sent: Thursday, 07 February, 2002 11:35 PM
Subject: Re: KM ROI Evaluation

Dear Dr. Lucier:

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my request. I too am sorry that I will
not have the chance to work with Booz Allen on my research project. I am also
disappointed that other academic disciplines are not included in the scope of the
research projects considered by Booz Allen. When I first considered following
my study of KM into a College of Education I was concerned about how I would
be received by business professionals at the completion of my schoolwork.
The Dog of War Young, 2002

However, what I have learned from first hand comparisons of MBA courses and
the courses in my field are that B-school students often miss out on the holistic
study of concepts, theories, practices, and philosophies that have a tendency to
lead to the same difficulties many organizations continue to deal with, but not
resolve.

I wish you and your company well and encourage you to revisit this policy, at
least on a case-by-case assessment.

I was angered by the idea that, somehow, being an Education student meant I wasn’t good
enough to evaluate Booz Allen or that it game me less qualification to understand the goings-on
of this organization. And, even though I feel my response was both appropriate and
respectable, I can only wonder if it was enough. As someone who has been studying KM for
nearly 2 years I find it enormously insulting that people considered to be leaders in the KM field
are still following the same routes to success and innovation. Oh sure, they have new lingo and
they are all dabbling in more “metaphysical” theories and, of course, metaphors are all the rage,
but for all of the banter and all of the talk about change and new rules of business I see the
same cycles perpetuated, the same patterns of behavior weaving in and out of corporate and
organizational communities. I’m not a business consultant (yet) or a financial advisor. I can
barely understand the stock market and don’t even ask me about the state of my checkbook,
but I see organizational patterns, I understand the influence of politics (power) and the roles that
‘need’ and ‘want’ play. I understand the basics of economics – me want, you have; me
negotiate to get. Call it caveman economics, if you’d like.

Having spent a huge chunk of my Christmas vacation working on summer internship

applications I’ve been caught up in the act of, first, finding a job, and second, finding one that
incorporates the various themes of adult education which have captured my fascination. On the
heels of these rejections (a likely prelude to my internship search) I can’t help but fixate on how I
will ever be able to get people, businesses and organizations to see the depths of adult
education; to come to understand it, admire it, and become as passionate about it as I have.
Because, if I can get people to understand how substantial and diverse this field is then, not
only can I create an impact, I can keep from stressing out about finding jobs that will respect the
knowledge I am acquiring.

I know this is getting off subject. So, what’s all of theis got to do with adult education and the
adult learner?
The Dog of War Young, 2002

I entered into this program because I wanted to understand learning; how people learn. I
wanted to figure out how I could get into people’s heads to bring about the kinds of profound
and intimate changes in values that are critical and fundamental to change. I know how to
create organizational change. Any idiot with a textbook and some authority (however limited)
can create organizational change. How effective and how long-standing/enduring that change
will be depends upon a whole lot of factors that, ultimately, make or break the proposed
changes.

What I’ve learned by venturing into the world of adult education is that people are not just
organizational components. They are not just fixtures or a spreadsheet or a data chart. ‘Talent’
and “Human Capital’ may be the hot terminology for describing people in organizations but they
don’t take people as a whole and complete beings. These are people with dreams and goals
and desires and passions, people who, more often than not, work to live, not live to work.
People who, chances are, would rather be home with their spouse/partner, their children, on the
Riviera, at the gym or the movies or the mall. People who would like to be working on that
dreamed of novel or studying towards a first, second or advanced degree – anywhere but work.
People who see themselves as cogs in a machine, rats in a race because these are the
metaphors and attitudes ensconced in organizational policies and rhetoric.

What I’ve learned is that the Knowledge Economy is really about the humanization of the
workforce. It’s about relating the concept of soil fertilization to investments in people.

Within CEHD (The College of Education and Human Development) I feel like I’m getting a
million dollar education and, often, I feel like Moses at the flaming bush on Mt. Sinai – total
epiphany! Perhaps I need to study how Moses came down from that summit and not only
convinced Pharaoh to let the Jews go but convinced them to high tail it out of dodge. How do
you change a world that isn’t prepared to change and seems even more unwilling? So this is
where I come full circle back to inspiration. I’m curious about not just how inspiration arouses
people but how adult education can be used as a rock to spark it.

The first thing I’ve had to do is separate inspiration from motivation. In a previous presentation
on inspiration the following distinctions were made between the two:

Motivation: external, working towards an end-goal, action-oriented

The Dog of War Young, 2002

Inspiration : internal, for “me”, contemplative

Wondering: Looking over Women’s Ways of Knowing has there been a comparable study of
people of color in adult education (across gender and economics)?

So far, I’ve yet to be engaged in the issue of inspiration with any of our readings. Erik
Weihenmayer’s Touch The Top of the World seems much more involved with motivation – the
motivation of the author to struggle against his blindness. I’m not even sure if he was inspired
by his mother and her devotion to giving him as much self-sufficiency as he might ever achieve.
It’s quite possible, but I don’t recall reading it.

In Meno, Plato refers to the divinity of virtuousness, but while virtues may be divinely inspired
there is no linkage here for me. After all, taken from this perspective, inspiration is not only a
divine act but the end result – virtuousness (given to the virtuous by “divine dispensation”) –
requires no act on the part of the individual once they’ve met the qualification. I mean, if you
must be virtuous to be dispensed virtue then what follows next? Continued virtuousness? What
I’m looking at is inspiration that, however dispensed, causes the inspired to contemplate their
life, their options, their place in the world; inspiration that leads to motivation to act on their
contemplations. I’m not even as concerned with the sources of dispensation, if you will (which
are many and varied, I’m sure), as I am with the concept of becoming such a source – how do
we as adult educators inspire, how do we go beyond simply motivating people (easily
accomplished using Skinner’s methodology) to stimulating within people an intense desire to
draw in knowledge and learning? I have no doubt that this is beyond my present ability to
explain but, just as I felt that developing an understanding of learning would be necessary to get
to the core of Knowledge Management, I believe that developing an understanding of inspiration
is essential to getting to the core of learning and adult education.

In considering the different models of cognitive development, I find myself partial to a feminist
epistemology. Maybe not exactly the models proffered by Belenky et al1 but at least one that
examines cognitive development with respect to power, social roles, and culture. I especially
relate to the concept of varying cultural and contextual values of knowledge. I find this ideology

1
Belenky, M., Clinchy, B., Goldberger, N. & Tarule, J. (1986). Women's Ways of Knowing: The
Development Of Self, Voice, And Mind. New York: Basic Books.
The Dog of War Young, 2002

to have particular significance to the construction and application of knowledge management

strategies.

Going to back to popular (current) literature on management, despite the acknowledgement that
people have different learning styles and that various techniques and approaches to learning
should be employed, this is all largely (if not exclusively) based on a “Euro-centric” perception of
knowledge. That’s to say, the dominant attitude underlying all of these so-called radical
approaches to learning have an extremely narrow viewpoint of what constitutes knowledge and
knowing. In a global economy, this is bad enough, but in a knowledge economy this is criminal.
In order to rope the wind, one must understand how it blows; in order to harness the limitless
potential of knowledge, one must respect knowledge in its entirety, in all of its aspects.

As I have settled upon the topic, “The Metaphysics of Adult Education” for my doctoral research,
I have no doubt I will be studying the work of Drs. Wilber and Thomas in depth. More and more
I’ve come to see adult education in alchemical terms and I’ve found the field to be a perfect
medium for the facilitation of the “magnum opus” or the great work, “the certain of (wo)man by
him/herself; the perfect emancipation of his/her will”2 The transcendence view of cognitive
development seems to champion the movement towards a higher state of consciousness which
I see as an inherent (and ultimate) goal of adult education. (Though I do not share their
seemingly atheistic attitude about this expanded state of being, indeed, for many people this
movement is most probably guided or initiated by their spiritual beliefs.)

Intelligence
I have to say that I take issue with the need to measure intelligence. I don’t know if this is a
Western habit or if cultures throughout history and across the planet have developed some
system for measuring intelligence, but it seems stupid to me. Perhaps if more time and energy
was focused on developing intelligence and less measuring git (sort of an intellectual pissing
contest) we’d be a much more advanced race. The only function I can see measurement
serving is a political one; just like the artificial constructions of race and beauty and gender
roles, an artificial construction of an intelligence hierarchy is designed to confer power and
authority to a select few. I think of children born with Down’s Syndrome or a mental handicap of
some sort who are able to lead fulfilling, meaningful and purposeful lives despite being labeled
as defective. Years ago (and not necessarily in the triple digits) these people were ridiculed,

2
As defined by Eliphas Levi. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Work
The Dog of War Young, 2002

written off, drowned, or locked up because they were deemed un-intelligent or incapable of
being productiveso much for that theory. And, it’s not just the mentally handicapped, the
same assessments are used to oppress and undermine people culturally and ethnically:

“Consider Claude Steele’s research on the effects of stereotyping on

performance. African-American students perform worse than White
students when they are lead to believe that the test is an intellectual one
and that their race matters, but these differences wash out completely
when such “stereotype vulnerable” conditions are removed. (Gardner)"3

I liked this passage because, just as I was discussing in class, I believe that considerations of
power and perceptions of power are not about learning new fangled ways to control the world
but about teaching people to recognize the power that they possess; to recognize and
acknowledge what privileges they enjoy and all it entails. We are all masters of our own fate, if
you will, but we have been led to believe that we have no power and to accept others’ definition
of what is power (financial, political) so that even our conception of power restricts our ability to
acquire and control it.

What we must do is strip away the illusion of powerlessness and reset, re-align, re-establish
true parameters of power; real powerpersonalindividual. I see this as a side effect of adult
education. A side effect because for me the goal is self-actualization. I’m reminded of the book
Hinds Feet On High Places by Hannah Hurnard. The story is a metaphor for finding one’s way
to God and works on many levels (for those not religiously inclined). In the story, Much Afraid
must make her way up the mountain and the rough (sometimes treacherous) terrain if she
wishes to make it to the “High Places” where she will be transformed into the strong and
beautiful Grace and Glory. From my perspective, adult education is the Shepherd (the Christ
metaphor) which does not itself take the adult learner (Much Afraid) on the journey but facilitates
the trip, providing encouragement and support. The goal of the journey is to get to the top but
along the way Much Afraid is confronted with both physical and mental challenges that,
ultimately, prepare her for come becoming Grace and Glory. Again, these changes were side
effects of the journey, but necessary in order for her to achieve her goal. This is the same for
the adult learner.

Learning Autobiography

3
H. Gardner, "Cracking Open the IQ Box," American Prospect, 20 (1995): 71-80. Retrieved online at
http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=cracking_open_the_iq_box
The Dog of War Young, 2002

So, I’ve been doing some work on my learning autobiography. Right now I’m just collecting
photos and I won’t know what text (specifically) I will include. One idea is to match up song
lyrics with each of the pics and then write a blurb or pull something from my Ramblings (my
journal) to go with each photo. We’ll see how it goes. I’m still very excited about the project and
I can’t wait to see how it turns out. Hopefully it will be as inspirational as the name I’ve chosen
for it: Thâeopneustie Andragogos: The Scriptures of Adult Education.

I settled on this title after researching the origins of the word inspiration. The theological
definition of inspiration is “a supernatural divine influence on the prophets, apostles, or sacred
writers, by which they were qualified to communication moral or religious truth with authority; a
supernatural influence which qualifies men to receive and communicate divine truth; also, the
truth communicated.”4 From the Bible, 2 Timothy 3:16, it is written, “all scripture is given
inspiration by God or given by the inspiration of the Spirit of God.”

I thought that was cool.

I wanted my learning autobiography to have thisappeal; one of divine inspiration. I wanted to

organize a work that tells a different story to each person who reads it. I wanted an inspired
work that inspires others. We’ll see if that’s something I’m able to achieve.

Whew, journaling is a definitely therapeutic. Being able to put my thoughts on paper (or e-
paper, as it were) I find myself in a position to heed the sage counsel of Wonder Woman’s
mother: do not seethe, studyand strategize. As I continue on my journey towards becoming a
knowledge manager I find myself understanding more and more the purpose of being still and
reflecting on past lessons to discover new insights and opportunities. I realize that the
obstacles I face are mired in the fears and insecurities about one’s own ability to achieve
greatness on a balanced playing field. I realize that if I am to create change and become a
force for awareness and inspiration then I must forge new tools to combat the oppression of
existing social, philosophical, religious and political structures and, like the dog of war, I must
know when best to bite.

4
http://dictionary.babylon.com/inspiration