Organizational Development for Knowledge Management at Water ...

After 10 minutes, disperse subgroup members and regroup into new subgroups - be
sure that everyone hears from every other member in one of the subgroup sessions.
Note: Rotations should last just long enough for members to gather information, but
still want more time -- whet their appetite!
Repeat subgroup formation until each member has completed a card for all of the
other members.
Tip: Provide complete set of blank cards to new members as they join and encourage them to
complete them, one-on-one, with each member.
Tip: As new members join, provide new factoid cards to existing members and encourage them
to complete new cards informally and add them to their rings.
What's the Moral of the Story?
An exercise called What's the Moral of the Story? can be used to practice sifting through
information and deriving lessons learned. It is effective in a group of 8-20 and takes
approximately 8-10 minutes. The only props required are fables.
Follow these easy steps:
1. Ask participants to pair up.
2. Distribute fables.
3. Explain that fables and folk tales are short fictional narratives that illustrate a moral, or a
lesson. They are an indirect means of telling truths about life. Thus they have a level of
meaning beyond the surface story.
4. Tell pairs they have five minutes to read two fables and find a moral in each.
5. After five minutes, ask members to discuss possible morals of the story.
A variation on this theme is to use fables without known morals and ask the group to develop
some. Some suggested Fables from Aesop are The Rooster and the Jewel, the Crow and the
Pitcher, and the Ass and his Shadow.
The Rooster and the Jewel. A Rooster, scratching for food for himself and his hens, found a
precious stone and exclaimed: "If your owner had found thee, and not I, he would have taken
thee up, and have set thee in thy first estate; but I have found thee for no purpose. I would
rather have one barleycorn than all the jewels in the world." Moral: The misinformed despise
what is precious only because they cannot understand it.
The Crow and the Pitcher. A Crow perishing with thirst saw a pitcher and, hoping to find
water, flew to it with delight. When he reached it, he discovered to his grief that it contained so
little water that he could not possibly get at it. He tried everything he could think of to reach the
water, but all his efforts were in vain. At last he collected as many stones as he could carry and
dropped them one by one with his beak into the pitcher, until he brought the water within his
reach and thus saved his life. Moral: Necessity is the mother of invention.
The Ass and His Shadow. A Traveler hired an Ass to convey him to a distant place. The day
being intensely hot, and the sun shining in its strength, the Traveler stopped to rest, and sought
shelter from the heat under the Shadow of the Ass. As this afforded only protection for one, and
as the Traveler and the owner of the Ass both claimed it, a violent dispute arose between them
as to which of them had the right to the Shadow. The owner maintained that he had let the Ass
only, and not his Shadow. The Traveler asserted that he had, with the hire of the Ass, hired his
Shadow also. The quarrel proceeded from words to blows, and while the men fought, the Ass
galloped off. Moral: In quarreling about the shadow we often lose the substance.
In Project Study #29, the Utility implemented a formal mentoring program to build
relationships and develop leadership competencies.
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