A Critical but Often Neglected Dimension of KM
Sociologist Hartmut Rosa gives that acceleration a name. In Social Acceleration: A New Theory of Modernity (Columbia University Press, 2013), he shows how technological speed, faster social change, and a quickening pace of life feed on one another until, again paradoxically, the better we get at saving time, the more we feel we’re running out of it. He calls the result temporal alienation: estrangement from our own actions, from others, and from our sense of self. Sound like your email inbox? Or perhaps the WBS (Work Breakdown Structure) and Gantt chart for your current project?
This is more prevalent than many are willing to admit. Researchers studying epistemic temporalities find that knowledge tied to less familiar rhythms, such as cyclical, seasonal, contemplative, or Indigenous, is routinely treated as less valid than knowledge produced on mainstream business cycles, such as the quarterly report (see Govert Valkenburg, “Temporality in Epistemic Justice,” Time & Society, August 2022). When we let a single temporal monoculture dominate, we don’t just lose the semantic richness and diversity of content. We lose entire ways of knowing.
Just to be clear, temporal problems can’t be solved with better time-management hacks. If our underlying frameworks generate a pathological relationship with time, the next shiny app only amplifies and accelerates that pathology. What organizations really need is temporal wisdom—the ability to move consciously among these various knowledge dimensions, and preserve the tacit sense of timing that walks out the door every time a senior expert retires.
Steps to Take
1. Expand your knowledge audits to thoroughly incorporate temporal knowledge, not just content. For example, when you debrief retiring experts, don’t only ask them what they know. Ask when they knew it and how that process of knowing evolved over time. Dive deeply into how they sense whether a situation is ripening or decaying. Which early warning signals they look for and why. How they distinguish genuine novelty from a cycle they’ve seen dozens of times before. Massive hidden reserves of priceless tacit knowledge are waiting to be mined and transferred across a variety of demographics, with each group having its own preferences for expressing and perceiving time.
2. Broaden your temporal palette. Push back against the tyranny of the quarterly clock. Find ways to account for acyclical “pop-ups” and long-horizon thinking in addition to traditional timelines. You’ll find that some of the most valuable knowledge you capture runs on rhythms that rarely, if ever, show up on even the most popular dashboards.
3. Mind the experience–expectation gap. When expectations race ahead of hard experience, risk increases (hello again, GenAI). One way to close the gap is to dust off and refresh those old-fashioned scenario planning exercises you’ve drifted away from but which served you so well in the past.
Here’s one more epistemological-temporal tip. Like any organizational change, approach this new mindset purposefully, collaboratively, and measurably. Prescribe deliberate slowness. Budget “think time” into projects the way you’d budget any critical resource. Because it is one.
Why not take the lead and be among the first in your organization to embrace, promote, and fully integrate “ET” into your organization? (Side note: If they find terms like “epistemological temporality” a mouthful, you can always just call it by its initials.)
As a steward of organizational knowledge, you’re perfectly positioned to add these tools and practices to your KM arsenal. You’ll be pleasantly surprised, even handsomely rewarded, by what emerges. It’s only a matter of time. And that very human trait called patience.