| This study explores the aspects of knowledge management (KM) that contribute to the passion expressed by knowledge management thought leaders. Further, it looks at the nature of that passion, and the relationship of thought leaders to those aspects. Across four continents, almost all of the 34 KM thought leaders---working in and with industry, academia and government---consider themselves both practitioners and thought leaders. Passion is made up of desires, behaviors, and thoughts that suggest urges with considerable force and is used as a determinant or indicator of what is of higher interest or great.; A framework was developed to consider thought leader responses in terms of their relationship to elements contributing to passion. The tremendous diversity and multidimensionality among the aspects surfaced in the thought leader responses span the entire spectrum of the framework, including external and internal inducers, externally observed and internally felt elements, and correlates to the larger aspects of self. External stimuli include the field itself, the breadth of the field (multidimensionality of experience), the changing nature of the field, the excitement of new thinking, challenges and opportunities, value and results (including transfer and reuse of knowledge), and a sense of knowing. Throughout the responses weave the themes of learning, sharing knowledge, and a shift that is underway.; Thought leaders link their passion to a higher order and consider passion itself a reward. Thought leader values are closely connected with the field, and, in the words of one thought leader, "Somehow I've matched up people's value systems with a process." The field of knowledge management appears to have a magnetic attraction. One interpretation of these intense connections is the resonance of the field with our fundamental nature as human beings, those things identified in the framework that contain the seeds of passion itself.; The interviews also led to new insights into the nature of the KM field itself. For example, the field of KM is self-referential, complex adaptive, has no dominant leader and its nature supports autotelic work. |
