Why simple rules are important in KM

How do Simple Rules help share or prompt knowledge in a complex world?

Image from wikimedia commons

Donald Sull and Kathleen Eisenhardt's book "Simple Rules: How to Thrive in a Complex World" describes the development of what we might call heuristics, or "rules of thumb" as simple ways to guide behaviour (see an excellent review here).

As they define them, simple rules refer to “a handful of guidelines tailored to the user and the task at hand, which balance concrete guidance with the freedom to exercise judgement.” These rules “provide a powerful weapon against the complexity that threatens to overwhelm individuals, organisations, and society as a whole. Their simplicity increases the odds that people will remember them, act on them, and stick with them over time ”. They also suggest that "collective action, like the honey bees choice of a nest, can arise from simple rules even when ... no one individual understands the situation in its entirety).

An example of simple rules comes from the initial UK response to Covid - "Stay at home, protect the NHS, save lives". Just one rule really - "stay at home". This later changed to "Stay alert, control the virus, save lives" which was widely criticised as being ambiguous and not helpful. Not simple, in other words.

Here are the simple rules for using simple rules.

1. Simple rules consist of a handful of guidelines applied to a speficic activity or decision
2. Simple rules are tailored to the situations of specific people who will use them, rather than one-size-fits-all
3. Simple rules are most effective when they apply to critical activities and decisions that represent bottlenecks to accomplishing an important goal
4. Simple rules give concrete guidance without being overly prescriptive

I think another rule might be to ensure the simple rule does not become a "motherhood". I heard a really interesting story recently, and the "rule" the teller drew from it was "when you run out of planned solutions, you need to think aboutside the box". This I would suggest is a truism or a motherhood, rather than anything particularly helpful.

Simple rules are used by experts all the time as a shorthand for knowledge, and in Knowledge Management terms, a community of practice can co-develop their own "simple rules" as a shared framework for sense making and decision making. Experts can also identify and share the simple rules they use unconsciously, as a way of sharing knowledge with less experienced staff. As the billionaire Charlie Munger described -

If you’ve got a full list of tools [simple rules], and go through them in your mind, checklist-style, you will find a lot of answers that you won’t find any other way". 

Some of these rules - the most robust ones - can be written down in the form of external checklists, and the checklists used by surgeons and pilots represent a set of shared rules, built up from years of safety analysis, which allow them to perform their jobs effectively and efficiently.

 Other simple rules can be used as a framework for mentoring more junior staff, by providing them with a set of ways to think about a problem. Charlie Mungers mental checklist could be used as the basis for training or coaching aspiring business people, but will certainly need the presence of the trainer or coach for the knowledge to be effectively transferred.


Sometimes simpler is better.

Sometimes its best to develop and discuss  in your communities of practice, until they are fully internalised, the simple rules that give concrete guidance, and then leave further details up to the individuals.

Here are some examples of simple rules from the book

 Surgeon General WWII triage rules:

1. Sort into following categories
Stable vital signs: Green
Unlikely to survive even with heroic medical intervention: Black
Badly injured (a shot at survival, but only if they receive immediate attention): Red Others: Yellow
2. Give those with black tag palliative care
3. Treat the rest in the order Red, Yellow, Green 

 HF rules for investing in Yeltsin Russia:

1. Have revenues of $100 million to $500 million
2. Compete in an industry in which we have previously invested
3. Offer products the typical Russian family might purchase if they had an extra $100 to spend per month
4. Work only with executives who know criminals but are not criminals themselves 

Loeb's stopping rule:

If an investment loses 10 percent of its initial value, sell it 

Donald Sull's bouncer rules:

1. Don't let trouble in the door
2. Stay sober until the last patron leaves
3. Double up for heavy metal, ska and punk bands
4. Keep the bikers on your side 

 Lobby's sports commentary how-to rules

1. set the scene;
2. describe the action;
3. give the score or results, regularly and succinctly;
4. explain, without interrupting, the stadium's reaction to the game's event;
5. share "homework," such as historical facts and figures or personal information;
6. assess the significance of the occasion and key moments 

 US Forest Service how-to rules

1. start an escape fire in the path of the advancing fire if possible;
2. go to where the fuel is thinner;
3. turn toward the fire and try to work through it;
4. don't let the fire choose the spot where it hits you 

Google hiring rules:

1. look for eccentricity;
2. look for strong referrals from other Google employees;
3. avoid anyone with even the smallest inaccuracy on their resume

Napoleon's "coordination" rule:

"march toward the sound of gunfire" 

Note that these rules leave a lot of room for further judgment, but help rapidly guide decision making in a complex environment.

The importance of "rules of thumb" in Knowledge Management

Heuristics, or "rules of thumb" are how many decisions get made. Here's how KM can support this.

N44 rule of thumb by Timothy Valentine on Flickr

In the seminal book "Working Knowledge", Larry Prusak and Tom Davenport take a wise and insightful overview of the whole topic of Knowledge as it applies to the world of work. One of the elements they pick out is the topic of "Rules of Thumb". Here's what they say.

"Knowledge works through rules of thumb: flexible guides to action that developed through trial and error and over long experience and observation. Rules of thumb (or, in the language of the artificial-intelligence community, heuristics) are shortcuts to solutions to new problems that resemble problems previously solved by experienced workers. Those with knowledge see known patterns in new situations and can respond appropriately. They don't have to build an answer from scratch every time. So knowledge offers speed; it allows its possessors to deal with situations quickly, even some very complex ones that would baffle a novice".

I was reminded of this paragraph when reading this description of how the billionaire Charlie Munger looks at business opportunities. He described his thought process as like a checklist in his head.

"You’ve got to use those (analysis) tools checklist-style, because you’ll miss a lot if you just hope that the right tool is going to pop up unaided whenever you need it. But if you’ve got a full list of tools, and go through them in your mind, checklist-style, you will find a lot of answers that you won’t find any other way".

What Charlie is describing is his own heuristics, his own "rules of thumb" for analysing a business situations - rules of thumb, by the way, which have made him very rich. These rules of thumb allow rapid and reliable judgement to be made, on the basis of long experience.

The rules of thumb in the heads of experts form a very valuable knowledge resource within an organisation, and one focus of knowledge management can be to build a repertoire of shared rules, by bringing the experts together to talk about their work and about how they make their judgements.

Some of these rules - the most robust ones - can be written down in the form of external checklists, and the checklists used by surgeons and pilots represent a set of shared rules of thumb, built up from years of safety analysis, which allow them to perform their jobs effectively and efficiently. I certainly have my own "rules of thumb" for analysing a KM issue, many of which I have shared in The Knowledge Manager's Handbook.

Other rules of thumb can be used as a framework for mentoring more junior staff, by providing them with a set of ways to think about a problem. Charlie Mungers mental checklist could be used as the basis for training or coaching aspiring business people, but will certainly need the presence of the trainer or coach for the knowledge to be effectively transferred.  I don't think anyone could take Charlie s checklist and go off and become a billionaire, without also understanding some of the stories and case histories behind the rules, and knowing when and how to apply the rules.

The key to transferring rules of thumb is ultimately less about learning a set of rules, and more about using the structures that experts use in order to make decisions. Once the novice has learned to think like an expert, the knowledge has been transferred, and the mental checklist - the rules of thumb and the heuristics - has been rebuilt in the novices brain.

(Incidentally, the term "rule of thumb" comes from master carpenters, who would use their thumb  - combined with a lot of experience! - as an alternative to a ruler)

KM and "Battle rhythm"

"Battle rhythm" is a concept used in the military, and is used as a framework onto which to pin Knowledge Management. Maybe we can use a similar concept in the office?

My colleague Cory has just published a very interesting paper entitled "Knowledge Management in a combined/joint environment". He looks at the challenges of introducing KM in a joint endeavour between many different military organisations, and makes some great recommendations.

Once of the concepts that Cory's paper refers to is the idea of Battle Rhythm. This is defined as follows:

A deliberate daily cycle of command, staff, and unit activities intended to synchronize current and future operations. (Military dictionary)

The battle rhythm is the heart of the military's operational knowledge management process. Effectively managing the battle rhythm means effectively processing inputs and intent to allow the Commander to make decisive decisions. (Managing the battle rhythm).

The battle rhythm is effectively a learning and decision making cycle of Plan, Do, Monitor, Learn, used to drive effective decision making through gathering and integrating knowledge and information. The second reference above describes how the battle rhythm process can be boiled down to four basic phases:

• receiving observations from multiple sources, 
• integrating observations to create usable knowledge and insights, 
• deriving learnings and knowledge which can be passed to decision makers, and
• reaching a decision point. 

These steps can be adapted to all levels of command: from the strategic down to the tactical, with adjustments made for the rapidity of information flow using technology and processes. Battle rhythm also ensure the flow of knowledge upward through the layers of command, so decisions can be made at the right level.  Software tools are often applied to ensure the correct upwards flow of knowledge.

So can we do the same in our own organisations?

Yes, of course we can. We can use similar learning cycles of Plan, Do, Monitor, Learn, adapted to our own rhythms of work. As this blog post points out:

Every good organization has certain regular patterns. Staff meetings are at 9:00 on Tuesdays. Quick huddles are every morning at the beginning of the day. Subordinates submit standard reports every Friday on the week's activities. Football teams establish this sort of standard practice week before Saturday games. Teachers / construction workers / policemen know and understand the flow of the week and what they must do as a part of each of the mandatory activities. This is the framework in which we fit everything else we must do.

These rhythms might be;

• Tasks
• Activities
• Projects
• Sprints and scrums
• Daily operational meetings
• Weeky planning meetings
• Monthly sales cycles
• Monthly/quarterly/annual production cycles
• and so on

For example, the world of onshore oil well drilling is divided into three cycles - 

• Daily cycles of performance targets and reporting
• Cycles based on individual wells from start to completion
• Cycles based on programs of wells.  

This is the "battle rhythm" of drilling onshore wells. The learning cycle, and Knowledge Management, can be brought into this at three levels as well;

• Informal conversations around the morning report to identify lessons and make decisions for the next day's operation;
• End-of-well After Action reviews to identify lessons used to make decisions for the next well;
• End of Program Retrospects to capture high level lessons, which will be used to make decisions for future drilling programs. 

So what is the "battle rhythm" for your organisation?

What is your activity cycle, and decision making cycle?

Once you have worked out what this is, then you know how and when to apply Knowledge Management to ensure that the decisions makers at all levels are always supplied with the correct knowledge to make their decisions as successful as possible.

Better informed, none the wiser?

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Do you know the saying "I am better informed, but none the wiser?  It effectively means "I have extra information but do not know what it means nor what to do with it".

The phrase has entered common English usage, but originally comes from the statesman, lawyer, orator, and friend of Churchill, Frederick Edwin Smith, 1st Earl of Birkenhead, as part of this courtroom exchange;

Judge: I've listened to you for an hour and I'm none the wiser.
Smith: None the wiser, perhaps, my lord but certainly better informed. 

For me, this exchange marks a crucial difference between information management and knowledge management.

The accumulation of information makes an organisation better informed, but without the accumulation of knowledge they cannot make the next step towards wisdom, because they do not know what to do with the information they have gathered..

Ultimately organisations need information, and they need that information to be ordered and stored and shared and accessible. That's Information Management.

They also need knowledge - they need know-how - they need to know what that information means, and how to deal with it.

Knowledge management therefore involves review,collective sense-making and the derivation of shared understanding and shared heuristics and rules. Knowledge management is less about accumulation than it is about synthesis; less about information than about understanding and decision making. It is the understanding that needs to be created and shared, which then makes the information actionable.

Let us make sure that, though a combination of Information Management and Knowledge Management, that our organisations are both better informed and more knowledgeable, and therefore wiser.

How the Persians made decisions

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"According to a report from Herodotus dating from about 45 B.C., whenever the ancient Persians made a decision following sober deliberation, they would always reconsider the matter under the influence of wine.

Tacitus claims that during Roman times the Germans too had a custom of arriving at each decision twice, once sober, once drunk".

From Irving Janis, "Groupthink"