Christmas Lessons and Carols

One of our favorite holiday traditions is to listen to the Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols broadcast from King's College Cambridge. It provides a glimpse of a useful knowledge management lesson -- in this case regarding innovation.

For those of you unfamiliar with the service of lessons and carols, it is a tradition that began in 1918. It tells the story of prophecy and fulfillment, drawing on sources in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. The lessons read from the Bible each year are the same ones read in 1918. What changes from year to year are the carols chosen. After each lesson, the superb King's College choir sings two different carols that are thematically related to the lesson just read. These carols draw on centuries of Christmas music and always feature some golden oldies. However, every year the choir commissions one new carol to be premiered during the service. This year, the new carol is entitled "Mary" and was composed by Dominic Muldowney.

I've written before about the value of incremental change. Not every law firm needs a revolution in order to have a great knowledge management effort. However, every law firm will benefit from knowledge managers who are constantly focused on making incremental improvements to the KM program, especially if those changes result in improvements in the way the firm delivers superior service to its clients. The key incremental change offered by King's College is the newly-commissioned carol. Commissioning a new piece of music is not something you do on the fly. It requires planning, inspiration, effort and time. It also requires the consistent excellence in delivery for which the choir of King's College is famous.

Plan for constant incremental improvements. Cast your net widely to find your inspiration and then cull those ideas until you find something truly worth the effort and time required. Next, be sure that you have staff and systems that operate at a level of excellence. With all these elements in place, your KM program and your law firm will be able to reap the benefits of constant incremental improvement.

Merry Christmas!