Inspired?

“Do you feel inspired, Rob?” I remember being asked once at work, quite deadpan. I had to stop and think, because it wasn’t obvious that I was genuinely experiencing inspiration at that precise moment in reaction to some planned organisational announcement – and I suspected the “correct” answer was “Yes, I sure am!”. But I can never bring myself to fake it, I’m afraid. And it does seem to be so very important to many people to be inspired or to inspire others. Does it matter to us in KM and how would that work?

I tend to go into a deep thinking when I find I’m just marching out of step with others. It occurs to me that this concept of inspiration has two distinct flavours, which are very relevant to us in KM.

On the one hand people report feeling “inspired” in the moment by something they reacted to emotionally or intellectually. It’s like saying they were really intrigued, excited, surprised (in a thrilling way) by some idea, or by a story or a person. The real ‘force’ of the word inspired in this usage gives the word a different meaning to what we might usually think it has: It’s far more towards “was excited, intrigued, stirred”.

But mostly this feeling of inspiration is transitory or remains purely intellectual. As in the ‘knowing-doing gap’ it’s a case of mistaking something declarative for an actual undertaking. Do we much care for inspiring people like this in KM? Giving them the rollercoaster thrill of a top-notch Ted talk?

Along similar lines, sometimes we say “that performance is really inspired”, but I think the meaning is usually more along the lines of doubleplusgood rather that making a claim that it was driven by some specific external inspiration. We’re more likely to be praising originality than inspiration. The difference between semantics and pragmatics.

The other kind of being inspired sits on the ‘doing’ side of the gap and is actually being motivated in an active, not passive sense. You might feel inspired by great music, but unless it leads to you doing something as a result then it is only the composer who has an answer (perhaps) to “what inspired you to write this music?” And I think we do want others to become players, and perhaps conductors or composers of KM change – we do want to motivate people to action.

Yes, I’d like people to feel inspired but only because it’s a good feeling. Yes I’d like people to do work that is praised as ‘inspired’ because that’s a good feeling both for them and for those doing the appreciation.

But I think the inspiration that matters – the kind that we should seek to master – is the kind that is truly the motivation for action, not just intellectual endorsement or emotional empathy alone.

I am inspired, both persistently and intermittently, quite often. There’s inspiration for KM everywhere if you just put each idea through that filter of “how could I use something from this in my work?”. But I’ll tell you that the inspiration comes from everywhere else except other KM. Our field is small and isn’t producing many breakthrough new ideas. But the world is wide and full of new ideas. And the inspiration I’m talking about is taking ideas from one place and applying them in practice, re-cast, in your KM.

I was surprised to be inspired by the world of wellness and couldn’t really figure out why I was spending my time on it until the penny dropped that KM is all about wellness. It led me to act more on the wellbeing needs and benefits for the people I serve with KM.

These last 2 years I’ve worked closely with experts in sustainability. At first I was delighted to have the chance to work in support of these issues which I’ve always been excited by. But I didn’t see that they were the same as KM for a while. Now, all of my designs for KM are inspired in a practical way by circular economy, regeneration and renewal.

I’d like to inspire people who sit on the other side of this relationship to also see that there’s a way to do KM that is entirely harmonious with their values and patterns and that this is a fresh view of KM very distant from a more linear and wasteful one (and likewise far away from a KM that taxes their wellbeing as well).

Mostly, as an introvert, I find that my drive comes from within rather than as a response to the outside. So, yes, in that sense I’d have to say I’ve been inspired to keep going, keep trying, keep creating in this KM business. Inspired by an idea that makes sense to me and that reaches to an outcome I’d like to see. This is about doing.

The other kind, the kind that is a ‘feeling’ falls in a class of questions the answer to which just doesn’t, for me, comply within the given framing. “Do you feel inspired, Rob?” I seem to recall answering “Yes, sometimes I really do.”

I think I have a better answer now.