Lipstick

We learned last night on prime time TV that the only difference between a "hockey mom" and a pit bull is ... lipstick.

Tenacity. Perseverance. Toughness. Fighting spirit. These are some of the characteristics typically associated with pit bulls. Of course, there's also meanness and deadliness, but since this blog is NOT about politics, we won't go there.

All of this talk of groups of people and animals got me thinking about the characteristics knowledge management experts share. We need the tenacity, perseverance, toughness and fighting spirit of pit bulls. But, equally, we need empathy, intuition, ingenuity and the ability to put others at ease as we encourage them to do things they would not otherwise do. So, to be effective at knowledge management, we need to be a cross between pit bulls and ... what?

Perhaps we should look to the patron saint of animals, St. Francis of Assisi. He was a troubadour and poet, a soldier, a teacher, an evangelist, a person capable of changing how others lived, the founder of a major institution, a person who accomplished great things despite poverty, someone who was completely attuned to his environment. We could do much worse.