Harold Jarche

the network era trinity

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Governance, business, and learning models are moving from centralized control to network-centric foundations. For instance, coalition governments are increasing in frequency, businesses are organizing in value networks, and collaborative and connected learning is becoming widespread. In these cases, collaboration (working for a common objective) and cooperation (sharing freely without direct reciprocity) flow both ways.

There are advocates for a dual operating system to deal with the complexity of the networked era: one that is hierarchical and another that is networked. This makes more sense than an elaborate 8-step model but the duality misses an important connection between structured work and cooperative networks. That space is the community of practice, which is neither project team nor professional network. Networks provide new ideas and perspectives from their diverse weak social ties. Work teams often have to share complex knowledge, and this requires strong social ties. Communities of practice are the bridge between these two, where we can test new ideas in a trusted space. This trinity is not three separate operating systems. It is one, that without the others is ineffective.

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you are only as good as your network

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I’ve worked as an organizational learning & performance consultant since 1994. Every year I get new challenges but usually I have something in my toolbox that fits the requirement. Then one day in 2012 I was asked to solve a problem for a client that I did not have a clue how to even begin looking at. This involved complex knowledge about information technology, organizational behaviour, knowledge management, and social media. The client required a model to determine how their suite of IT platforms aligned with a newly developed learning & performance model that was being implemented across the enterprise. In short, they asked me to “simplify the complexity”.

I was a bit nervous, not knowing where to begin. But I put my faith in my knowledge networks and communities of practice where I had been involved for the past 14 years. I went out to my networks, looking for as wide and diverse opinions as possible. I also checked my collections of social bookmarks and blog posts to see if I had come across anything useful in the past few years. As I found a few models and ideas, I tested them out with some trusted colleagues, including the client team who were keen on solving the problem. Over several weeks, many conversations, and a lot of searching and probing, I developed a working model that the client accepted. It was only through the transparent sharing of knowledge and engaging the networks and communities that I had already developed, that I was able to accomplish the objective. In the end, I realized I was only as good as my network. This is the new world of work today. It requires us to not solely focus on our jobs doing regular work and projects. The network era rewards people who can bring their communities of practice and professional networks to bear on complex problems. Nobody’s individual toolbox is big enough.

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co-creating knowledge

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The are many ways we can add value to information and knowledge. I have described 14 ways of sense-making as part of personal knowledge mastery. One of these is the use of infographics, such as one on PKM published here. Recently, Tanmay Vora created a visual description of learning and leadership, based on an article by Kenneth Mikkelsen and me.

“One of the crucial leadership skills for today and future is ability to learn constantly from various high quality sources, synthesizing information and collaborating with a community to get a better grasp of the constantly changing reality.” – Leadership, Learning & PKM

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a new economy

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“It is not for me to change you. The question is, how can I be of service to you without diminishing your degree of freedom?” – Buckminster Fuller, via @decasteve

“Results are gained by exploiting opportunities, not by solving problems.” – Peter Drucker, via @africadean

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leadership archetypes

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Ubiquitous digital networks are extending our capacity to listen and speak with others. In a hyperlinked world, we can tap multiple global perspectives and easily push our own views through various free and inexpensive media options. This is making many traditional centres of expertise, like news sites, obsolete. At the same time, access to important contextual knowledge is limited to the few, such as attendees at the yearly World Economic Forum in Davos.

With all of this access to information and knowledge, we are seeing a retrieval of storytelling. The TED talks are one example of finely crafted stories, though their impact and the agenda of sponsors may over time reverse into a single or even false narrative, controlled by a few powerful interests. This is how McLuhan’s laws of media can be useful in seeing what kinds of changes digital networks will bring about in how we communicate as a society in the network era. Every new technology enhances some aspect of humanity, obsolesces some previous technology, retrieves something from our past, and can reverse into the opposite of its initial intention.

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an unstoppable force for change

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I presented the McLuhan media tetrad last week in South Africa. [see ‘a world of pervasive networks’ for background on these laws of media]. Societies change their basic organizing structures when the primary mode of communication changes [T+I+M+N]: from oral, to writing, to print, and now to electric (digital). As we shift our dominant communications medium from print to electric, our organizing methods must change as well. We no longer organize as tribes in ‘developed’ countries, but we still have strong cultural and familial bonds. Our institutions have not disappeared but they are inadequate for many of the modern challenges facing us. Faith in markets is declining, as they are found to be inadequate to share wealth in any equitable fashion. We are seeing an increase in cooperation among many agents in the networked society as they try to create new ways living together and exchanging value.

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leadership and learning

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The best leaders are constant learners is the subject of a recent post in the Harvard Business Review, written by Kenneth Mikkelsen and myself. This is resonating with many readers who realize that the network era is changing the nature of all organizational relationships.

As we attempt to transition into a networked creative economy, we need leaders who promote learning and who master fast, relevant, and autonomous learning themselves. There is no other way to address the wicked problems facing us. If work is learning and learning is the work, then leadership should be all about enabling learning. In a recent Deloitte study, Global Human Capital Trends 2015, 85% of the respondents cited learning as being either important or very important. Yet, according to the study, more companies than ever report they are unprepared to address this challenge.

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Friday’s Late Finds

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Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds [due to my travel and work schedule in South Africa this week, I am a day late].

“Money is the wealthy person’s curtain which hides all their defects from the world.” – Anon – via @RogerFrancis1

@Orgnet – “You need both strong ties and weak ties for a successful professional network”. More: Professional Social Graphs

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leadership is learning

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About 10 years ago I worked on a project with nursing staff as they changed their basic care model from one that was patient-centric to a model where “nurses engage the person/family to actively participate in learning about health”. The McGill Model of Nursing is learning-centric. This fundamental shift in focus is a prime example of the major organizational change required from both our education systems and our management models, as we transition into a networked creative economy. In an era of ubiquitous connectivity, leadership at all levels and all sectors must be about promoting learning. There is no other way to address the many wicked problems facing us. If work is learning and learning is the work, then leadership at work should be all about promoting learning.

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diverse networks, strong relationships

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Sharing complex knowledge requires trusted professional relationships. You cannot just throw people together and hope they will work effectively on difficult problems.

“strong interpersonal relationships that allowed discussion, questions, and feedback were an essential aspect of the transfer of complex knowledge” —Hinds & Pfeffer (2003)

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