March 2014 – Harold Jarche

Engaging the creative workforce

2015-08-052014-03-31 by Harold Jarche

Collaboration happens around some kind of plan or structure, while cooperation presumes the freedom of individuals to join and participate. As a free-agent, much of my time is spent cooperating. When I cooperate, I give freely, but no one tells me what to do. On the other hand, collaboration is required to get things done. This is when we have milestones, deadlines, and deliverables. I collaborate on the projects and work I commit to do.

The social contract for independent creative workers is relatively simple. For much of my day, I work on what I want to. I do a lot for free. This is on my terms. I write my blog and share ideas with the world. I license these for easy sharing. Many people and companies use these ideas. This is fine, as I get to decide what and when I want to share.

The CEO will be the next CLO

2017-04-062014-03-26 by Harold Jarche

Chief Learning Officers will be the next CEO’s say John Hagel and John Seely Brown, in this short video from Deloitte. I disagree, because I do not see business leadership coming from Organizational Development, Human Resources, or Training & Development. I think it will be much easier, and more important, for business leaders to understand the significance of learning in the workplace. Even Adidas has adopted my adage that today, work is learning and learning is the work.

A well-rounded CEO can more easily become the CLO than vice versa. In addition, the generalists are already in charge. Often, the learning professionals are not core to the business. So where will learning leadership come from? I think it will come from business, and that is where I am focusing my efforts, helping business understand workplace learning, not helping learning professionals understand business.

If business is waking up to the fact that learning is now mission critical, will executives continue to allow learning policy to reside in a separate department? Will they will let learning professionals maintain sole control? I doubt it.

What matters in knowledge work

2014-03-25 by Harold Jarche

This Venn diagram by Oscar Berg says a lot about the nature of work and management today.

What I see on the right are all the attributes of being a free agent and working in trusted networks like the Internet Time Alliance. The only thing missing from these networks is a salary. Almost everything on the left is a control measure in return for a salary. It reinforces the blunt stick of economic consequences as the prime motivator to do work.

If we want knowledge workers to be truly productive we have two major options. We can create new organizational models. These could be new or based on one of the well-known 18 bossless companies. Or we can try a hybrid model, as Rod Collins advocates to Steve Denning [Collins’ other two models are a sub-set of the 18].

The third option is the hybrid option. This is more likely what a big old firm is going to use. Hybrid options are transition options. You are blending network features with a hierarchical structure. It can happen in a couple of ways.

That’s about it, because the status quo is not really an option. Not for leadership and not for dealing with complexity.

Absorbing complexity with PKM

2023-04-012014-03-24 by Harold Jarche

Have you ever heard of the Law of Requisite Variety? Anne Marie McEwan explains its effects, in Why Your Network is Your Life Support System:

The concept implies that organisations that fail to distribute responsibility for absorbing complexity will eventually cease to be viable – they will not be resilient against shocks coming at them from their external environment.

Management is for suckers

2014-10-132014-03-21 by Harold Jarche

@nilofer: “In the industrial era, what created scale was more resources. In the social era, what creates scale is trust.”

“When my information changes, I alter my conclusions. What do you do, sir?” – John Maynard Keynes – via @flowchainsensei

Scaling knowledge

2019-04-242014-03-20 by Harold Jarche

Most organizations grow from simple to complicated structures and in so doing keep adding layers of control. These complicated organizations usually wind up getting industrial disease. On the other hand, networked organizations can scale because they do not need to control every connection. People who participate in structures like open source software projects can join and connect to others at will. Designers of these open organizational structures understand that in complex un-order, loose hierarchies and strong networks are best.

Make Work More Human

2021-07-052014-03-19 by Harold Jarche

2013: The Incredibly Shrinking American Middle Class — Bill Moyers

2013: Five Myths about Canada’s Middle Class — Globe & Mail

2013: RIP: The Middle Class — Salon

2013: The Next Middle Class — Harold Jarche

2014: The Middle Class is Steadily Eroding — New York Times

The titles above indicate a shift in the economy and many of our assumptions about the nature of work, at least in my part of the world. There are many definitions of what middle class means, but for me it is the class of people who are experienced, trained or educated yet still have to work to earn a living. Where I grew up, many of our parents were immigrants who all had jobs. We were lucky. School did not require fees and most extracurricular activities were free. Many things have changed since then.

Learning and Emergent Leadership at Google

2016-11-222014-03-18 by Harold Jarche

Two themes I have discussed here for a number of years are: 1) work is learning and learning is the work; and 2) leadership is an emergent property of networks. Helping people work on complex problems in networks is one of our management challenges for this decade. Learning has to be part of the workflow. In addition, leadership in networks does not come from above, as usually there is no top. This challenges the practice of management by hierarchical position. Leadership is an emergent property, not something bestowed from on high. Some companies understand this, but most do not. Google seems to get it. Gideon Rosenblatt highlights a conversation in the New York Times that Thomas Friedman had with Google’s VP of People Operations, Laszlo Bock.

Personal Knowledge Mastery

2016-09-182014-03-17 by Harold Jarche

PKM for me was initially a way to keep my professional development costs as low as possible. I wanted to use the open web in the best way to stay current in my field. In 2004 this was by following early bloggers and also by blogging myself. I must say that my posts in the early years were not very good. These past few weeks I have been compiling, updating, and editing my best articles. The earliest post in that selection is from 2007. It took me three years to write a blog post that would stand the test of time.

The road to mastery needs practice and perhaps some guidance. My PKM workshop is a more structured approach to start your practice.

some useful models

2014-03-13 by Harold Jarche

Unless we test new work models now, we will not be ready for the demands of the future. Trying out new management structures while we have time is better than trying to make a quick shift during a crisis. Change management today means practicing change, not waiting for it to hit you on the side of the head. Smart companies don’t wait for change, they constantly experiment in anticipation of change. Whether it’s climate change or a new market demand, chance favours the prepared company.