Category Archives: InternetTime

It’s not complicated, you see

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When Bayer’s Material Sciences Division decided to become more collaborative, they realized that the main challenge in promoting knowledge-sharing across organizational boundaries is culture. They deployed the software platform (IBM Connections) without any formal training, saying that when the tool is simple to use, people focus on collaboration, not the software. Their solution was simple.

I know few enterprise software projects that go without a hitch. These are complicated tools and even after implementation most people only use a few functions from the wide array that are available. As complexity increases, and we keep adding new tools to the workplace, the simpler the tool, the easier it will be to implement, especially since the lifespan of our knowledge tools keeps getting shorter.

Complication is the industrial disease. Understanding the difference between complication and complexity is extremely important in today’s workplace. The Cynefin framework  distinguishes between four domains to describe systems:

  • Simple, in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious to all, the approach is to Sense – Categorise – Respond and we can applybest practice.
  • Complicated, in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge, the approach is to Sense – Analyze – Respond and we can apply good practice.
  • Complex, in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe – Sense – Respond and we can sense emergent practice.
  • Chaotic, in which there is no relationship between cause and effect at systems level, the approach is to Act – Sense – Respond and we can discover novel practice.

Most of today’s larger companies have developed complicated structures. To enable growth and efficiencies, more and more processes have been put in place. Management schools aided and abetted this movement. New layers of control and supervision continue to appear, silos are created, and knowledge acquisition is formalized in an attempt to gain efficiency through specialization. To compensate for complicated processes, some enterprises have attempted to become learning organizations, putting significant effort into training (but not learning). But training design & development just got more complicated.

Complexity is the new normal. Because everything is interconnected by networked technologies today, systemic changes are sensed almost immediately. Reaction times and feedback loops have to get faster and more effective to deal with this. Formal training addresses a mere 5% of workplace learning, and our current models for managing people, training, and knowledge-sharing are insufficient for a workplace that demands emergent practices just to keep up. Knowledge workers today need to connect with others to co-solve problems, but complicated policies, procedures, and guidelines often stop them.

In a short interview, via Luis Suarez, Steve Jobs describes how Apple deals with complexity through simplified design. First of all, there are no committees. Secondly, only one person is responsible for each area (simplified leadership). Finally, teams communicate and collaborate with other teams on an ongoing basis. Jobs says that Apple is run like a start-up.

Organizations need to embrace complexity, instead of treating it as mere complication. We know that  innovation can abound in start-ups, but why not in larger organizations? One problem is that growth creates sustainable efficiencies, which get embedded and codified. These efficiencies can lead to greater market share, which companies become addicted to, not seeing that they are simultaneously becoming less innovative.  A Probe-Sense-Respond approach, or perpetual Beta releases, is necessary to deal with complexity, through constant learning by doing. Continually probing via many new, small initiatives means that organizations have to abandon complicated command and control systems, trust workers, and give them the space to learn while working.

The challenge is to get the addicts (companies) to stop their lifelong destructive behaviours, which are now catching up with them. It won’t be easy, but it’s not complicated. It’s actually simple ;)

Marketing and learning are the same

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When you learn with and from your customers, marketing and learning are the same. If companies are focused on their customers, why are learning resources not customer focused? Google’s power-searching course is an excellent example of marketing integrated with learning. As Jay Cross describes:

This has to be one of the least expensive marketing campaigns ever devised. The only tools required are a video cam and the free Google suite of applications. Other out-of-pocket costs are employee time to design and create the course, and a little more time tending the Google+ sessions and answering questions.

Everything is connected to everything else

The big lesson of the 21st century thus far is that everything is connected to everything else. It’s all one big network, folks.

No corporation is an island. (Everything’s a node.) A corporation and its connections form an extended enterprise.

For Us to prosper, we have to be on the same wave length as our connections in the extended enterprise. Since the environment of our enterprise is forever changing and learning is the way we adapt to change, we all need to be learning together. Otherwise, someone will be falling behind, and our combined performance will suffer.

I’m going to call learning with other players in the extended enterprise co-learning. If I were an instructional designer in a moribund training department, I’d polish up my resume and head over to marketing. Co-learning can differentiate services, increase product usage, strengthen customer relationships, and reduce the cost of hand-holding. It’s cheaper and more useful than advertising.

The marketing department can benefit from a new learning focus, as noted in the book, The Hyper-social Organization, on the value of traditional marketing materials:

McKinsey estimates that two-thirds of all buying decision-focused conversations do not involve anyone from the company. In a separate study, IDC estimated that only 20 percent of all content developed by the typical marketing department is actually used by the sales organization. What we can extrapolate from this information is that the content developed by most marketing departments is used in less than 7 percent of all buying decisions.

Let’s go back to the Cluetrain Manifesto (1999), from which we get the initial thesis that markets are conversations, in addition to:

#11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.

#12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.

What better way to understand your markets than engaging in co-learning? They will learn with, or without, your company.

Communities of practice enable the integration of work and learning

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COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

  • Our world is getting more complex as everything gets connected.
  • Complex problems require more implicit knowledge, which cannot be codified.
  • Implicit knowledge can only be shared through conversations & observation.
  • Collaborative and distributed work is becoming the norm.
  • Knowledge-sharing and narration of work make implicit knowledge more visible, especially in distributed work teams.
  • Transparent work processes foster innovation.
  • New ideas come from diverse networks, often outside the organization.
  • Learning is part of work, not separate from it.
  • Communities of practice enable the integration of work & learning.

So what is a community of practice? Maybe we should start with what it is not:

  • It is not a help desk filled with subject matter experts.
  • It is not a work group, or even task focused.
  • One is not appointed by management to join a community of practice.

Some characteristics of communities of practice:

  • People want to join them.
  • They usually have a higher purpose, that one person alone cannot achieve.
  • People feel affinity for their communities of practice.
  • There are both strong and weak social ties.
  • You know you are in a community of practice when it changes your practice.

Training, Performance, Social Workshop Notes

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We launched a new online workshop today called, From Training, to Performance, to Social. It’s a Beta version, at a reduced price, but we have had a good number of participants sign up. I came up with the idea while conducting one of the PKM workshops and noticed that many people either mixed up training with performance improvement, or thought of social learning as merely a bolt-on to a formal course.

The first assignment has started with a bang this week, with many long and thoughtful posts about training and instruction. We will move to performance improvement tomorrow and then focus on social learning all of next week. There is one assignment for Training, two for Performance Improvement, and three for Social; reflecting, in my opinion, their relative importance in any organization. It roughly aligns with the 70:20:10 framework.

We have participants from AUS, NZ, UK & Europe, and North America, from many types of organizations and backgrounds. The workshops are designed to give just enough structure, without constraining personal and social learning. We curate what we think are the essential resources on a topic and also provide additional links and resources for those who are interested. We encourage all discussions to be done in the group area, so that people can learn from each other. Also, participants get my attention for two weeks. I try to find ways to help each person as I see what issues arise in the conversations. Without these conversations, I would not be able to help in an informed way. For those attending the workshops, the more they give, the more they get.

This is my fourth online workshop this year and it seems to be a model that works for me as well as participants. Feedback has been almost universally positive and I find the workload manageable. We will be offering more topics, and suggestions are always welcome. Custom workshops for organizations can also be developed.

Link: SLC Schedule of Activities

It’s time to focus on your LQ

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Learning is everywhere in the connected workplace. Networked professionals need more than advice (training); they need ongoing, real-time, constantly-changing, collaborative, support.  However, many of us have relegated our own learning to the specialists over the years – teachers, instructors, professors. We’re not used to handling all of this learning on our own. But if we want to thrive in complexity and if we want our work teams to be effective, we have to integrate our learning into the workflow.

On 11 June 2012 we will start the next online personal knowledge management workshop.  PKM is the foundation of connected work. It’s up to each of us to develop, and continuously revise, our sense-making frameworks as we work inside and outside the increasingly permeable walls of our organizations. Unlimited information, distributed work, self-publishing, and ridiculously easy group-forming all point in one direction – the organization will no longer address all your learning needs in the network era.

Additional skills are needed to help groups and teams learn as they work. Narration is a base skill for the networked workplace. Other skills include network weaving, curation, and network analysis.  We also have workshops on how to use social media for professional development, as well as setting up and sustaining an online community. These workshops are not just for ‘learning professionals’ but for any role; from sales to marketing to production, and especially for management. More workshops are in development and we are always interested in getting suggestions. Custom workshops and skills coaching can also be arranged.

To improve our own and our organization’s learning quotient, we need to look at ways to be more self-directed,  social, and agile learners. Life in perpetual Beta requires a high LQ.

Leadership is an emergent property of a balanced network

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This is my second recent quote from Mark Fidelman, who writes in Forbes. He has a good perspective on the integration of work and learning, and how technology is only a very small part of social business.

Investment in social business platforms and mobile solutions are great – we’re finally on the right path. But ignoring the workplace infrastructure to accommodate them will be a missed opportunity. We have to move away from the Mad Men era office, to digital workplaces that take advantage of the entire social, mobile and content being produced by an organization’s greatest asset.

Its employees.

Fidelman discusses the new role of management in the future workplace.

The new role of management is to facilitate the finding of solutions; not to dictate them. The new role of management is to facilitate “connections”, to match people with the right skills and abilities to projects where those skills are most needed. The new role of management is to remove hurdles to engagement by building approvals mechanisms into workflows. Management won’t do this alone. They will leverage new technologies that automatically introduce employees to employees, partners and suppliers in order to build relationships that help you and the organization become more effective.

Culture is an emergent property of people working together. For example, trust only emerges if knowledge is shared and diverse points of view are accepted. As networked, distributed workplaces become the norm, trust will emerge from environments that are open, transparent and diverse. As a result of improved trust, leadership will be seen for what it is; an emergent property of a balanced network ["in-balance" may be a better term for this changing state] and not some special property available to only the select few.

Network Culture

Building on my previous post - that in complex environments, loose hierarchies and strong networks are the best organizing principle – here is my view of how a transparent, diverse & open workplace should function.

Networked contributors (full-time, part-time, contractors) need to work together in a networked environment that facilitates cooperation and collaboration. This is why the narration of work  and PKM will become critical skills, as work teams ebb and flow according to need, but the network must remain connected and resilient. A key function of leaders (think servant leadership) will be to listen to and analyze what is happening. From this bird’s-eye view, those in a leadership role can help set the work context according to the changing environment and then work on building consensus.

I’ve noted before that the power of social networks, like electricity, will inevitably change almost every business model. Leaders need to understand the importance of organizational architecture. Working smarter in the future workplace starts by organizing to embrace networks, manage complexity, and build trust.

PKM Workshop Introduction

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My next Personal Knowledge Management online workshop is scheduled for 11-22 June 2012. PKM is also one of the topics for our social learning Summer Camp during July/August 2012. Here is a 10 minute video that covers PKM and gives an introduction to the workshop. It should help in deciding if this workshop is for you. Feel free to ask any questions. The last two workshops fostered some good conversations and I look forward to this next one.

 

Feedforward

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One of the consultant’s dilemmas is that you have to stay ahead of the curve to remain relevant. Yesterday’s problem doesn’t need to be solved – there’s probably an app for that already. This is why “perpetual Beta” informs all of my work.

I used to work as a training designer but there’s really not much to differentiate one course from another. Training content development has become a commodity and many companies are forced to compete on price. Even performance consulting, a good part of my consulting business for the first five years, is becoming more commonplace (and that’s a good thing). I’m now focused on working smarter, helping organizations integrate learning into the workflow, especially using social media.

More and more people in the workforce are now facing the same challenges as consultants. How can they re-skill and provide services for today’s and tomorrow’s problems, not yesterday’s? Schools don’t help much, with curriculum that is developed looking back at best practices and only reviewed every few years. Off-the-shelf training programs sure aren’t of much use, having been reduced to the lowest, and simplest, common denominator.

As I work with our PKM Workshop, now in progress, I realize that I have to keep things up to date and reflective of the participants’ needs. Before I release an assignment or resource, I have to review it in light of the current context. Sometimes I add in new discoveries just hours before publishing. This is professional development in perpetual Beta. I think more and more professional programming will go this way in time. MOOC’s are another example of this non-fixed curriculum perspective.

There is no normal. We need to think like artists, less concerned with feedback and more focused on feedforward.

Thus, the artist’s job is to dislocate the old media through their art to reveal the ground effects of the new media. McLuhan’s observations are as relevant now as they were forty years ago: The artist is the person in any field, scientific or humanistic, who grasps the implications of his actions and of new knowledge in his own time. S/he is the person of integral awareness. ~ Mark Federman

Learning is the new black

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Work is learning and learning is the work. Yet too much of our organizational learning is focused on the 5% that is not at work, and usually sitting in a classroom or staring at a screen clicking the next button.

If you want to show that you are not in the shovelware business and understand how important learning is for business, you can now show your colours.

Learning is the new Black

Here’s something for the subversive workplace learning specialist who has more to offer than just training. Learning isn’t just for the classroom. Learning goes with everything and it’s always in season!

Front:

Back:

PerpetualBeta (USA) Store

PerpetualBeta (Canada) Store

PerpetualBeta (UK) Store

PerpetualBeta (Australia) Store

Shifting to Net Work

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Our first Net Work Literacy session ends this week. There were several reasons why Jane Hart and I decided to offer this two-week online programe. The idea first came to me as I realized how many of my clients and colleagues were not as connected as they could be, too often wasting their time on routine things and not building networks that could help them get work done.

I’ve also noticed that people in their mid to late job careers are woefully unprepared to adapt to a post-job world, where work is simultaneously connected, contractual, part-time, global and local. Once the job is gone, many also lose their professional networks. The Net Work Literacy programme aims at getting people to think in terms of networks, with a focus on taking control of their professional development.

Our programme is global in scope, with participants from four continents so far. However, a key to long term success in learning and working in a post-industrial society is connecting these global learning networks with one’s local community. As energy costs increase, more of our resources will have to be local. Using network skills at the local level, connected to a global support network, is one way to develop a sustainable way of life.

As we continue with the Net Work Literacy programme, I intend on getting more stories about what is happening in various localities and learn how people are dealing with what my friend Bill Draves calls a Nine Shift.

There are 24 hours in a day. We have no real discretion with roughly 12 of those hours. We need to eat, sleep, and do a few other necessary chores in order to maintain our existence. That hasn’t changed much through the centuries, so far.

That leaves approximately 12 hours a day where we, as individuals, do have some discretion. That includes work time, play time, and family time.

Of those 12 hours, about 75%, or 9 hours, will be spent totally differently a few years from now than they were spent just a few years ago. Not everything will change, but 75% of life is in the process of changing right now.