Tending the Garden of Knowledge:
A Look at Communities of Practice with Etienne Wenger

by Jeff De Cagna

Jeff De Cagna is managing director, Strategic Learning and Development for the Special Libraries Association. He may be reached at jeff@sla.org.

Tend to your Organization's Knowledge Gardens more Successfully

Two years ago in an interview with Fast Company magazine, learning organizations thinker Peter Senge advised those of us who are concerned about change to "act more like gardeners than mechanics." We think that this is particularly good advice for information professionals who are interested in facilitating the work of their organizations' "communities of practice." Communities of practice do not form and exist according to the command-and-control model of Industrial Age organizations. Instead, these learning communities are truly organic, energized primarily by a generative blend of individual identity and shared passion.

"Communities of practice are very rich sets of relationships and responsibilities around learning and knowledge that really are the cornerstone of the knowledge management initiative in an organization."

To learn more about these emergent organizational forms, Information Outlook decided to chat with the man who, quite literally, wrote the book on communities of practice three years ago. Consultant and speaker Etienne Wenger is widely regarded as perhaps the world's leading communities of practice "green thumb." We think his perspectives will help you tend to your organization's knowledge gardens more successfully.

Jeff De Cagna: Dr. Wenger, let's begin with the central question: what is a "community of practice?"

Etienne Wenger: Well, a "community of practice" is a group of people who share an interest in a domain of knowledge, for instance, how to do open-heart surgery or how to write children's books. Together, they develop a set of approaches that allow them to deal with this domain successfully.

More formally, I would say that a community of practice really must have three elements in it: domain, community, and practice. The first one is that it must have a domaina specific area of expertise that members share. So, in this sense, it is different from an informal network of relationships among people.

The second thing that you want to have is a communitya set of people who interact with one another, who engage with one another, who talk with one another, who think together and develop relationships with one another in that process. So a website is not a community of practice. And the third important element to have is a practiceways of dealing with the problems typical of their domainthat is developed over time. So a community of practice is more than a mere community of interest.

JD: How is a community of practice different from a team in an organization?

EW: Well, a team is defined by a task. So I think what distinguishes a "team" from a "community" is the distinction between a task and a domain.

When you are given a task, it is important is to coordinate your actions with others on the team in order to accomplish it. Teams frequently break up once the task is finished, because the team was defined by its task. A community of practice, on the other hand, is defined by an interest in a shared domain, and so what brings people together is the interdependency of their knowledge, not the interdependency of specific tasks on which they are working.

The community of practice may engage in certain tasks, but it doesn't end there. What brings value in a community of practice is its members' shared learning. Members of a community of practice frequently don't work together on a day-to-day basis, and so what brings them together is the exchange of ideas, best practices and new knowledge that allows them to return to their teams and do their jobs better.

JD: You have anticipated my next question. Can you elaborate on the way in which communities of practice contribute to the sharing of knowledge within organizations?

EW: If you want to manage your knowledge as an organization, you have to understand which knowledge domains are essential to the organization's success. So, for example, if you are an automotive manufacturer, brake design or windshield wipers are important knowledge domains.

Then you must ask who is in the best position to manage the knowledge in that domain, and I think again and again, companies are coming to the conclusion that the people who are in the best position to manage knowledge in a given domain are its practitioners, not a database and not a specialist group at headquarters, but the group of practitioners who actually are doing the work. You can see why the concept of community of practice is very powerful because, at its core, it is a group of practitioners who have taken on the responsibility of managing knowledge in their domain. This responsibility entails not only sharing knowledge, but also creating knowledge, and scanning the environment to see what new technologies or methods may be on the horizon. It may also mean introducing newcomers to this knowledge domain, as it exists within a given organization.

So communities of practice are very rich sets of relationships and responsibilities around learning and knowledge that really are the cornerstone of the knowledge management initiative in an organization.

JD: What role do communities of practice play in organizations when it comes to contributing to and "stewarding" innovation?

EW: If you are on a team, you innovate because you face new problems, and you must invent new solutions. But, again, the difficulty is that you are very task-focused. So, if you have a new half-baked idea that is not quite ready for prime time but has potential, your team will say, "Forget it, we need to complete the project by the deadline."

So having colleagues who understand your perspective and can say, "Wow, this is really a great idea, we need to pursue that," is very important.

I am not saying that communities of practice are the only places where innovation occurs. Innovation takes place under many different circumstances, but it is great to have a community within which you can discuss the latest ideas, explore them together and get feedback.

Let me add one more thing. We should not idealize communities of practice too much because they can also become closed, self-concerned and narcissistic. So I think it is very important for communities of practice to interact with people outside and keep open boundaries so they keep learning.

JD: In the May issue of Information Outlook, Larry Prusak and I discussed the idea of social capital, and I want to ask you about it as well. What is your view on the importance of social capital within communities of practice?

EW: Social capital is essential and, actually, communities of practice are a very good context for generating social capital because people help each other. They create relationships and friendships that are often more enduring than the teams on which people work. There is something stable about a community of practice that makes it a very good place for building social capital.

Also, what is important is that communities of practice combine social capital with intellectual capital and with structural capital, so that the skills of people, the relationships they build with each other, and the tools and documents that they construct and share all are part of the practice.

JD: As I listen to you describe the richness of the social environment one finds within communities of practice, I cannot help but wonder how organizations can appropriately use the variety of technologies that exist today to support their work. What do you think?

EW: I have just finished a study of technologies for communities of practice, and the first thing to say is that communities of practice existed for a long time before anybody provided technologies to them. So while technologies can be good, they are not going to make the critical difference. Many organizations have installed technologies that are not being used. Community development is not a technology process, but a social and cognitive process.

Still, there is a great deal of technology available today, and with more and more communities of practice involving people who are not co-located, the technology can really help. So one tool that is used frequently is teleconferences. It is a technology that's been around for a long time, but now there is web meeting software that can make teleconferences much more interesting with a presentation or a white board. There are also discussion boards that I use with many communities to float questions to people. There are file-sharing technologies that are important, and just having a website is a way for a community to assert its existence within an organization. So there are many kinds of technology that can be used to help communities, but it would be a mistake to think that the technology can drive the process.

JD: So what are the questions you would advise organizational leaders to ask themselves as they are thinking about which technologies to employ?

EW: I think the crucial idea here is to really understand the real needs of the community. Do these people need to have conversations with one another or, for example in the case of an energy company, do they need to be able to look at a map together and say, "Oh, there must be oil in here because I can see the shape of the landscape?" So, for me, the most important thing is to look at the practice of the community and ask how do we fill the holes and what kinds of activities do they engage in through which they learn? What you want to do is support activities that create value for the community and for its members. You cannot answer this question in the abstract. You have to engage the community with the design of the system.

JD: I have a broader question about organizational support for communities of practice. How do you advise organizations to strike the balance between, on the one hand, supporting communities of practice and, on the other hand, not being too "hands on" so as to avoid crushing the community with the weight of too much organizational expectation?

EW: I think that is really a crucial question because dealing with communities of practice is something really new for organizations. Organizations deal with teams, of course, but as we discussed earlier, teams are given tasks that are determined by the organization. When you are talking about communities of practice, their knowledge domains are their own. They have expertise in their domains that nobody else has. They participate because they have a passion for that domain. So there is a level of independence that is necessary for these communities to survive. This goes beyond what is done with teams.

We must understand that good communities really work on passion. They work on people's identity and their identification with the domain. There is a sense of excitement and a sense of "wow!" The community is where I can discuss things that are really meaningful to me and are deeply a part of my identity. But the passion aspect of communities is tricky for organizations to deal with, because you cannot control it or force it. And yet in a knowledge economy, if you want people to be engaged with the organization, then you have to take their passions, their interests, their personalities and their identities as a whole. If people are to be creative in their work, they must be able to be a whole person.

At the same time, when you discuss this with some managers they say, "Oh, okay. Let's just leave them alone." What I say is no, no, no, no! To leave them alone is just the other side of the coin of controlling them. If I can't control them, then I should just leave them alone. This is also wrong. What you need to do is really engage the communities in the way that you run the business, to expect them to make a difference, and to engage them when you have any important decisions that involve their domains.

In addition, a big question for communities of practice in almost every organization is time. People ask, "Where am I going to find the time to belong to my communities of practice?" An important thing that organizations can do, then, is to value the communities themselves, to value the time that people spend in a community and to make that a part of yearly performance appraisals. If organizations really want to support communities of practice, they can do it by allowing people to create them and contribute to them without being penalized for it. This is a very basic form of support.

JD: What role do you think information professionals can play in identifying, nurturing and supporting the work of communities of practice?

"There are many kinds of technology that can be used to help communities, but it would be a mistake to think that the technology can drive the process."

EW: I think there are very important roles for information professionals. First, communities need help organizing their own knowledge repositoriestheir own libraries, if you will, or their websites. So, something that librarians have that is very useful for communities is an understanding of how you build a taxonomy that allows you to find the information that you want easily and quickly. A big question that the members of communities have to ask is, "Given our perspective and the kinds of problems that we face, what is the best way to organize the information we have put down on paper so we can find it when we need it?" Communities need some help with this work, and I think information professionals are very well qualified to provide this kind of assistance.

Another role is more subtle. Since information professionals tend to be at the crossroads of information seekers and information givers, an important function of the information professional is to say, "Oh, you should go talk to that person." In this sense, the information professional becomes a broker among many communities. Or they may recognize a community that needs to become more intentional about its development.

So, if you are the place where people ask for information, and if you have a set of communities that you know and can interact with, then your sense of directing people to the right place to find information is greatly increased. It is really essential, then, for information professionals in organizations to be aware of where the communities are, what they are capable of doing, and what is the best way to send them a request for information. Information professionals can be the entry points into multiple communities that have knowledge in various domains and, to some extent, I'm sure it is a role that your members are already playing. It seems to me that an effective information professional in an organization is the kind of person who has connections to all sorts of people, including members of specific practice communities to whom he or she can direct information requests.

JD: I want to get your reaction to something that I am going to read to you from an article entitled, "Bristol-Myers Squibb: Building the New Corporate Library," which was published in the Fall/Winter 2000 issue IBM's Journal of the Institute for Knowledge Management. The article, written by Alvin Jacobson and Omar Cheema, includes the following statement: "Libraries are at the very center of seminal ideas and discussions on how to foster knowledge-sharing, how best to use the library's space to promote its knowledge management potential, and how to track knowledge trends and issues." What is your reaction to this assertion?

EW: Well, as I said earlier, the people in the best position to manage knowledge are practitioners, not librarians. The roles for information professionals that we were just discussing are in the service of communities; the library is not at the center. I think of the library as a place to serve the life of communities, so my reaction to what you read is to be careful not to put the information professional at the center of a knowledge management team, but to see knowledge management as a distributed process. As an information professional, you don't manage knowledge, but you make it possible for communities to manage their knowledge and their relationships to one another.

JD: We always like to help our readers get to know the people we interview a little better. What do you like to do in your spare time?

EW: Well, I like to play music. I play both the piano and the guitar, but these days, I mostly play the piano. I like to improvise on the piano, although I'm not a great pianist. I really play for myself.

JD: Do you have a favorite composer?

EW: Well, I was educated in classical music. I would say my favorite composer is Bach, but I am very eclectic. I really enjoy jazz. My son is a jazz musician. I also enjoy rock and world music. But when I sit at the piano, what I play is what I would describe as a pseudo-Baroque improvisation.

JD: That's terrific. It's very exciting.

EW: I suppose the thing that really drives me, though, is this question: what does it mean to be a human being? What is an identity? You're born one day and you're just a blob of cells, and pretty soon you are a person who is capable of making sense, of making meaning, of learning. So what is the essence of human beings? I think that on a daily basis, that is the question that drives me.

JD: I want to thank you for sharing that thought with me, because this is a question that fascinates me as well. I have one final question for you, and perhaps it doesn't come as any surprise: what is it that you love about libraries?

EW: Well, I could spend days and days in libraries because I am a sucker for information and stories. I love knowing what other people think, how other people live, and what ideas they have. So I guess what I love about the library is the serendipitythe possibility of looking for one thing and then discovering something completely unexpected and totally interesting, which turns out to be what you really need. I think that is great.