sensemaking’s secret weapon

“Communities of practice are groups of people who share a passion for something that they know how to do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better.” —Etienne Wenger

“Communities of practice emerge in the social space between project teams and knowledge networks.” —Verna Allee

It is not the size of our networks and communities that matters but how we engage people with diverse opinions and experiences. Networks help us see opportunities and new ideas. Communities give us a place to discuss and learn about these. We need to engage in both.

Networks give people a ‘vision advantage’ in terms of seeing and developing rewarding opportunities. But the lack of spillover from a neighbour’s network implies that this advantage comes not from having access to new information, but rather from having to juggle diverse bits of information. This is the key shift that Ronald Burt emphasizes in his book — Neighbor Networks: Competitive Advantage Local and Personal. “It is not being in the know, but rather having to translate between different groups so that you develop gifts of analogy, metaphor, and communicating between people who have difficulty communicating to each other,” says Burt.

A core part of our ongoing sensemaking is translating between groups. This becomes our secret weapon — the ability to perceive situations from a variety of perspectives.

Here is a basic practice structure to make sense from our communities and networks.

• We can seek new ideas from our social networks and then filter them through more focused conversations with our communities of practice, where we have trusted relationships.
• We can make sense of these embryonic ideas by doing new things, either ourselves, or with our colleagues.
• We later share our creations, first with our teams and perhaps later with our communities of practice or even our networks.
• We use our understanding of our communities and networks to discern with whom and when to share our knowledge.

“By seeking, sensing, and sharing, everyone in an organization can become part of a learning organism, listening at different frequencies, scanning the horizon, recognizing patterns and making better decisions on an informed basis.” —The Best Leaders are Constant Learners

Learn more — personal knowledge mastery workshop