Gurteen Knowledge Letter: Issue 308 - February 2026

Gurteen Knowledge Letter
Issue 308 – February 2026

I am planning several events for the year ahead. Here is what is coming up.

The year begins with a series of Knowledge Cafés exploring different aspects of Conversational Leadership. The first takes place in February and offers a high-level introduction to the practice, what it is, what sits behind it, and why it matters. It is aimed at people who are curious and want to better understand how this way of working can benefit them and their organization.

In March, I will be running a Knowledge Café workshop focused on how to design and host these conversations for yourself, both online and in person. I have run many of these workshops over the years, and they remain popular and well-received, which is always encouraging.

Looking further ahead, in September, John Hovell and I will be working with the KM Institute to host a five-day, face-to-face event in the English countryside. This will be a deeper exploration of Conversational Leadership, and I will say more about this next month.

It feels like a good start to the year, and I am very much looking forward to what 2026 has in store.

1. Using Generative AI with Care
   Some practical warnings worth paying attention to
   
2. Knowledge Management Is Not Enough
   Knowledge Management verses Conversational Leadership
   
3. Sharepoint Is Not a Knowledge Management System
   The persistent confusion between knowledge and information
   
4. An Organization Is Not a Talking Shop, or Is It?
   Conversation as the fabric of organizing
   
5. I Love Substack
   Good writing, thoughtful voices, and room to think
   
6. Griefbots and Memorybots
   Consoling the Bereaved and Fighting Dementia
   
7. Help Keep My Work Alive
8. Coaching
9. Unsubscribe
10. Gurteen Knowledge Letter

Simon Wardley has published a LinkedIn post that is well worth reading. It sets out a clear and well-structured set of warnings about generative AI.

The post names some basic risks that are easy to overlook when tools appear fluent, helpful, and confident. It is not an argument against using generative AI, but a reminder to do so with care, judgment, and a clear sense of what these systems can and cannot do.

You can read Simon’s post here: https://bit.ly/3ZcI3SY

I give regular talks where I introduce the idea of Conversational Leadership. A question that often comes up is how it differs from Knowledge Management. I am writing about this in more depth elsewhere, but in a nutshell, this is the difference:

Knowledge Management helps us organise and share information, but it cannot do the thinking for us.

Knowledge only comes alive when people talk, question, and reason together.

By practising Conversational Leadership, we build on Knowledge Management and actively engage our collective intelligence.

Credit: David Gurteen

Although my focus these days has shifted from Knowledge Management to Conversational Leadership, I keep finding myself drawn back to KM.

One thing that continues to irritate me is the claim that platforms like SharePoint are Knowledge Management Systems. They are not. SharePoint and similar platforms manage information. They store documents, support coordination, and enable communication. All of that is useful, but none of it is knowledge management.

More fundamentally, I am not convinced there is any such thing as a Knowledge Management System at all. Much like the phrase “Knowledge Management” itself, the idea that a system can manage knowledge misunderstands what knowledge is.

Knowledge shows up in judgment, learning, sense-making, and action. It emerges in practice, often through conversation.

I recently wrote a short post making this argument and shared it in a small number of LinkedIn KM forums, including the KMI Knowledge Management in Practice forum. It attracted a lot of attention, and although most people agreed with the argument, I am not sure I see that agreement reflected in other KM discussions. Many KM practitioners still seem to implicitly conflate knowledge with information, even when they claim otherwise.

Chris Mowles is Professor of Complexity and Management at the Hertfordshire Business School and a thoughtful voice on how organizations actually work. He writes a Substack called On Complexity, where he brings ideas from complexity theory into everyday organizational life.

His recent post, An organization is not a talking shop, or is it?, challenges some common assumptions about talk, meetings, and what counts as real work in organizations.

Many people dismiss talk in organizations as idle chatter, something to be minimized or streamlined away. Chris goes deeper. He notes that when we shift our focus from abstract structures and strategies to actual interactions between people, we are paying attention to conversation itself as the fabric of organizational life. In doing so, he draws out a simple yet powerful point: organizations are patterns of interaction, and talk is not peripheral to them; it is central to how they come into being and how they change.

At the end of the piece, he underlines what many of us in Conversational Leadership have argued for some time: Changes in organizations are changes in conversation.

Just a reminder that I’m now writing on Substack. It’s still early days, with 29 posts up and around 117 subscribers. One thing I particularly like is the quality of writing there. There are some very good, often brilliant writers, and many genuinely fascinating posts, well beyond anything I’m posting myself.

Check it out here: https://davidgurteen.substack.com/

I would like to draw your attention to a new book by Dan Remenyi, a personal friend and someone who has been thinking seriously about artificial intelligence for many years. The book explores a topic that is both unsettling and deeply human: how AI might shape the way we deal with loss and support people living with memory problems.

Griefbots and Memorybots looks at emerging applications that use AI to simulate conversations with deceased loved ones and to help people with memory loss recall events, relationships, and everyday details. These ideas raise difficult questions about memory, identity, consent, and emotional reliance. The book does not shy away from them. It is careful, reflective, and grounded rather than speculative or sensational.

It also considers practical ways AI might support people with cognitive impairment, from mild forgetfulness to dementia, while keeping ethical concerns clearly in view.

The paper edition is available here: https://tinyurl.com/5d7eadez

The electronic PDF version is available here: https://tinyurl.com/3ewdfzsz

For almost 25 years, I've been sharing the Gurteen Knowledge Letter each month, and many of you have been reading it for five years or more. My Knowledge Café also reached a milestone, celebrating its 20th anniversary in September 2022.

If my work has made a difference to you, I'd be grateful if you could consider supporting it. A small monthly donation or any one-off contribution would greatly help cover some of my website hosting costs.

Thank you to the 50+ patrons who have already supported me - your generosity means a great deal.

If you're curious about how a more conversational approach might shift the way you work with others, whether in leading, learning, or collaborating, I offer one-to-one coaching tailored to your context.

We explore real challenges and possibilities through dialogue, helping you develop your own way of practicing Conversational Leadership in daily work.

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David Gurteen
Gurteen Knowledge
Fleet, United Kingdom