Harold Jarche

The post-job economy

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Learning may be the work in the network age, but that does not mean that learning will get you the work. Inge De Waard discusses this in MOOCs change education, but jobs decline in a knowledge era:

The simple truth is that not all of us get jobs even when graduating from universities, and if MOOCs add to that particular degree market (universities), we are stuck, for indeed if even the ones that graduate now are not always finding jobs, with the declining job market in mind, most of the new wave of graduates will get stuck as well. A knowledge era is a fine thing, it sounds great … for a minority of people. So how do we (re)find a balance between jobs and people having them?

I’ve highlighted Inge’s question because other people are asking similar ones. Much of my professional focus is about learning at work, and improving how people collaborate, cooperate and innovate in internet time. I call it sense-making for the connected workplace. Helping people adapt to this type of workplace is a big challenge. An even bigger challenge, for which I do not have any simple answers, is: How do people adapt to a post-job society?

Many MOOC’s are based on an educational model that has a curriculum from a body of knowledge that, so the logic goes, when mastered will prepare someone for meaningful work. Improving one’s education to get a job is often a primary motivator for participation. It’s the way the system has worked for decades. The “job” was the way we redistributed wealth, making capitalists pay for the means of production and in return creating a middle class that could pay for mass produced goods. That period is almost over. America has hit peak jobs TechCrunch informs us. The New York Times calls it  the rise of the permanent temp economy. The recession, combined with technology, is killing middle class jobs, reports the Associated Press.

We will not find a rebalance between jobs and people having them.

We have connected the world so that data and information can flow in the  blink of an eye. There are fewer information asymmetries, as companies like Amazon bust down one industry after another. One recent example is a local startup that is reducing information asymmetry in the used car business. This interconnectedness and increasing computational power will continue to automate work and outsource any job that can be standardized. New businesses are employing fewer employees, while manufacturing is moving to an increased use of robots.

One of my clients is an educational institution and I was heartened to learn that they are moving away from job preparation to a focus on entrepreneurship. They see the numbers. Their graduates are not getting jobs. Creating our own work will be the only option for many of us.

Ross Dawson provides some good advice on what we can do to prepare for a post-job economy.

As I often say, in a connected world, unless your skills are world-class, you are a commodity.

However there are three domains in which individuals and organizations can transcend commoditization and push their value creation to the other end of the spectrum, where they can command their price and choose their work.
The three domains are:

    • EXPERTISE …
    • RELATIONSHIPS …
    • INNOVATION …

The future is stark. There will be a large and increasing divide between those who have one or more of these core strengths, and those who do not and whose livelihoods are on an ongoing path of commoditization.

labour and talent

 

Image Source: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motor_Manufacturing.jpg

Notes on learning and working today

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Here are some of the observations and insights that were shared via social media during the past two weeks.

The Value of Personal Knowledge Management (PKM):

@LucGaloppin – “If we’d look at digital communities as a life insurance for our own learning, exactly how would that influence our participation?”

@NielsPflaeging – “Learning is that process that continuously makes you think: How could I have been so dumb 14 days ago?”

@DavidGurteen – “PKM is actually what KM is really all about.”

Our Work Structures:

10 years of lying up the hierarchy – via @PeterVan

We should have taken our managers, chief executives, politicians, civil servants and funders to see what was actually going on. We should have persuaded them to sit on council receptions for days at a time, to listen to hours of phone calls from the public and to understand service users in their own contexts. Only then would they begin to understand the true performance of the organisation. Performance officers do not need to spend whole days tinkering with text and formatting reports, mediating reality into something palatable. There is no need for an expensive bureaucracy between the decision makers and the truth.  Confronting the brutal facts is free.

What does a ‘No Fire’ policy change? Everything. – via @StoweBoyd

Probably the biggest impact was the effectiveness of performance evaluations. Development discussions were usually wrought with skepticism from the employee standpoint — are you really trying to help me or just documenting material to potentially fire me? Since getting fired wasn’t an option, everyone became more open to talk about their real problems. Performance evaluations became what it was always intented for – development discussions, open, honest and often real and raw conversations on what people are struggling with. Since people could voice real concerns at work, they left those toxins there and didn’t take them home with them. Home life improved as well. – Charlie Kim

The Guardian: Increasingly, corporations and politicians treat the poor with distrust. 

Inside Amazon’s flagship factory in Rugeley, Staffordshire, a new way of working is evolving. There is a strong topnote of distrust, evinced by the full-body scanners that workers have to pass, every time they leave, to prove they haven’t stolen anything. The profound insecurity built into the employment model is dressed up as discipline – which is to say, Amazon expects huge seasonal fluctuations in the number of people it needs, yet likes to mask their dismissals behind a misdeameanour, so a lot of people get axed for crimes like being ill. There’s a lifesized blonde lady made of cardboard at the entrance, with a think bubble coming out of her head that says, “This is the best job I’ve ever had!” If that detail alone is enough to make your blood run cold, marry it to the testimony of the chairman of nearby Lea Hall Miners Welfare Centre and Social Club: “The feedback we’re getting is that it’s like being in a slave camp.”

company hierarchy

Global Guerrillas: Life in a Networked Age

So, what’s going to replace bureaucracy and markets?

We don’t have digestible names for them yet.  However, let’s just call them few to many (F2M) systems and P2P systems.   F2M systems are run by a few people and delivered to a great many people.  In contrast to broadcast, these systems are interactive and smart.  Many use software bots to gather and process data 24/7.

P2P systems allow ad hoc interaction between indepedent individuals.  Every node in this type of system is an equal to any other.  They are not dependent on each other.

Both types of systems have value.  Both have problems.  Both are immature.  As we move to an information based global economy, we’ll see these systems increasingly dominate the playing field (to the detriment of bureaucracy and markets).

Scaffolding and capability building

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Jane Hart’s recent post on changing the role of L&D (learning & development) explains how training departments need to move beyond packaging content and toward scaffolding and capability building.

What I like about this matrix is that it makes it easier to describe my professional services in the organizational learning area. I have highlighted my areas of focus in red. The rest is not really my business, as there are plenty of companies that do that. I used to say I did ABC Learning [Anything But Courses]. Jane’s graphic makes it  much more clear, and it’s what our new Connected Worker site is all about.
scaffolding

It’s the worldview, stupid

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I have written on various topics on this blog over the years. For example, I believe that it is only by working (and learning) interdependently, retaining our autonomy, co-developing our mastery and feeling a shared sense of purpose that we will be truly motivated. Imagine my surprise when I watched the movie, Crossroads: Labor pains of a new worldview, when it began with interdependence and then went on to discuss recent mass, decentralized, social world events; the need for cooperation; the Stanford Prison Experiment; and how our social networks influence our behaviour.

This documentary clearly shows that if we change our worldview, we can change the future, for good. However, institutional, business, and political leaders are too committed to the status quo. Meanwhile, the global poor are too busy surviving. That leaves those in the middle, and I would surmise that would be most of the people reading this blog. It’s up to us. As noted in the video, research shows that it only takes 10% of a population to spread an idea. If you understand that we are all connected and that only together will we get ourselves out of the messes we have created, then this video is for you.

Watching this movie was like seeing many of my thoughts put together in a single narrative. I have seen several future-looking videos in recent years but this one really covers the complexities of our current situation. It is worth the one hour of your time. I strongly recommend it. Changing our worldview will be a process of social learning.

Video — Crossroads: Labor Pains of a new worldview

Social Learning in Business

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Social learning is how work gets done in the network era. But what does that really mean?

Our dominant frameworks for structuring work are currently hierarchical structures, like corporations and bureaucracies. But these structures are failing us, as the world gets so networked that traditional command & control structures cannot deal with the rapid change and increasing complexity. As Umair Haque asked last year, “Name a ‘working’ institution. Just one. Better yet, define a ‘working’ institution. See the problem? ”

Because of powerful software and cheap worldwide  communications, routine work is getting automated and outsourced. Routine means work that can be standardized, and that applies to any work that can have a ‘job description’. Here are some examples:

– get ready to lose your job

– recession & technology kill middle class jobs

– job commoditization

If routine and standardized jobs are relics of the past, what can we do now to ensure that we have meaningful work?

The answer lies in our networks. Knowledge networks are like the paradox of life; the more you give, the more you get. If you don’t engage, you get nothing.

“We learned that individual expertise did not distinguish people as high performers. What distinguished high performers were larger and more diversified personal networks.”  —Rob Cross, et al

In knowledge networks, openness enables transparency, which fosters a diversity of ideas. Diversity is essential for innovation, and innovation drives business success.

“We need input from people with a diversity of viewpoints to help generate innovative new ideas. If our circle of connections grow too small, or if everyone in it starts thinking the same way, we’ll stop generating new ideas.” —Tim Kastelle

Social learning is how work gets done in the Internet age. As John Kelldon observed, “In a network, one of the few things that scales really well is social learning.” It’s the secret sauce for organizational success today, increasing return on engagement for both employees and customers.

On March 1st, I will start my last workshop of our series at the Social Learning Centre, on Social Learning in Business. It is based on my work over the past few years, with both large organizations and free agents around the world. The focus will be on understanding networks and how social learning is the lubricant that helps intangible capital flow. In a world where intangibles drive the economy, we need practical ways to work in this fuzzy space.

Jay Deragon says that, “Work is a by-product of intangible capital that creates tangible results beyond expectations.” Intangible capital, unlike tangible capital, cannot be stored, moved, or transferred. It needs the constant involvement of people and their complex relationships. Supporting social learning is essential for organizations today. Understanding social learning is critical for managers. Practising social learning is important for all of us.

Social learning is how work gets redesigned in the network era

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Jon Husband referred me to a 2005 paper by Martin Weisbord, Techniques to Match our Values (PDF) that discusses the shifts in approaches to work design over the past century, from scientific management, to socio-technical redesign, to “whole system in a room”. The paper is a must-read for anyone involved in organizational design & development. Weisbord shows that even large group, participatory redesign efforts may not be good enough to deal with the rapid environmental changes all organizations face today in a networked world.

No matter what strategies we choose, if we organization designers want job satisfaction, we still are stuck with finding techniques equal to our values. Techniques cascade down the generations like Niagara Falls. Values move like glaciers. Techniques fill whole bookshelves. Values take up hardly space room at all. I can still say mine in eight words: Productive workplaces that foster dignity, meaning and community.

In the intervening years since Weisbord wrote this paper describing his whole system in a room technique,  there has been one major change – the room is virtual and it is almost immeasurable. This change has the potential to involve everyone in the constant process of organizational redesign. Social learning can help organizations address rapid and constant organizational change, and get people committed. As Weisbord states, “Nobody has yet figured out how to commit people to organizational designs, even very good ones, over which they have no influence.” Social learning, facilitated by transparency, work narration and shared power, keeps everyone involved in organizational redesign, through ongoing conversations. John Kellden clearly shows the value of social learning, in The 11 Conversations: it’s return on engagement.

11 conversations by John Kellden

Weisbord’s conclusion tells us that we have to work on these things together.

I can tell you right now, though, what the future holds: unpredictable change. All we have to work with is our own experience . The learning curve belongs to all of us.

But for once, we have the technologies that can help enable this.

social learning is how work gets doneSocial learning is also how work gets redesigned in the network era.

Collaboration is a means not an end

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Collaboration Isn’t Working: What We Have Here is a Chasm writes Deb Lavoy in CMS Wire.

Why do teams fail to act the way we think they will? Are we oversimplifying the notion of team? What about organizations? Where is the deeper insight on the relationship between teams and organizations? Why isn’t a sophisticated vocabulary breaking out? Why do we not yet have 100 words for different kinds of collaboration and teams, as expert in it as we think Eskimos are about snow? What is the difference between an intranet, a community and a team?

My immediate response was to say to myself, why of course it isn’t working, based on my own observations and client experiences. Collaboration is only part of the solution to building social or open businesses. I have looked at the two types of behaviours necessary in a social enterprise: collaboration and cooperation. Cooperation differs from collaboration in that it is sharing freely without any expectation of reciprocation or reward. Try to get people to openly cooperate in most businesses and they will be reprimanded for not being focused on their jobs, the bottom line, or shareholder value. However, cooperation contributes to the REAL bottom line: the entire business ecosystem.

One other necessary change in becoming a real social business is much more difficult. Both Don Tapscott (via Ross Dawson) and I see certain principles necessary for open networked business.  Transparency, Collaboration, Sharing, and Narration are all relatively easy. Empowerment, or distributed power, is rarely, if ever, discussed when it comes to social business. It’s the big gorilla in the room that can scare owners, executives, and managers senseless. But we have the technology to move away from command & control, because, as Gwynne Dyer clearly shows, “Tyranny was the solution to what was essentially a communications problem.” We no longer have that communications problem in business.

Social business lacks overarching principles. Social business is a means to an end, not an end in itself. For me the objective is clearly the democratization of the workplace. Many business leaders shirk away from such thoughts. Wirearchy, as Deb notes, is an excellent example of such a principle [notice the bit about “power & authority”]. It sounds more like a democracy than a well-oiled industrial business machine.

“Wirearchy: a dynamic flow of power and authority based on trust, knowledge, credibility and a focus on results enabled by interconnected people and technology.”

wirearchy

Vendors of collaboration platforms are selling tools that can enable a more democratic workplace, but most clients don’t want that, so vendors don’t mention it. Business just wants more efficient and effective work. Networks, by their very nature, subvert hierarchies, whether those in charge like it or not. But hyper-connected work environments require different operating principles. That’s the big shift that has happened over the past two decades. It’s becoming much more obvious now because people outside the business structures are seeing the value of cooperation in a networked world; Wikipedia being the best-known example. Many in business still need to wake up to the notion of cooperating with your environment, your customers, your suppliers, and especially your workers.

Until workplaces becomes more cooperative, enterprise collaboration software will amount to very little. Social business is just a hollow shell without democracy (I wrote that a year ago and little has changed). Businesses can harness the powers of knowledge networks by promoting cooperative behaviours, within an overarching organizing principle like Wirearchy. While it’s not about the technology, the technology has changed everything. I cannot see any other way that businesses will remain relevant in a networked world other than by becoming more open, and democratic.

Create conversation spaces

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Curation is more than integration, writes Rick Segal in Forbes [via Robin Good]. Segal discusses how marketing is about curating all the conversations around a subject.

In truth, curation has more to do with the multi-participant communications flowing in the stream of social media conversation …

Now, marketing communications must be framed by the conversation, and not just by the marketer, but by all the parties to the conversation …

A conversation is not like an exhibit hall. It’s physical boundaries are potentially limitless, though most can and will exhaust in time. The membership of a conversation is certainly not always well-controlled. A new meme or raconteur can abscond with it, if we’re not careful. Not everything that shows up belongs. But the great curator, like the great raconteur, is always two or three stories or anecdotes ahead of the rest of the table.

Now think of this from a workplace performance perspective. Solving complex problems also requires “multi-participant communications”. In the network age, learning is conversation. But aren’t training courses more like “exhibit halls”? They are prepared in advance, checked for quality control, and delivered with the best look & feel. Conversations are messier with ill-defined boundaries; just like work and just like life.

Informal Learning Conversations

Personal knowledge management is akin to pre-curation. If we look at workplace performance support as curation, then creating spaces for conversation would be an obvious component. Getting all the necessary parties involved in workplace conversations can enhance knowledge-sharing and contribute to greater diversity of ideas, a necessity for innovation. I think training & organizational development can learn a lot from marketing, but of course I’ve said that before.

The connected leader

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HBR: How Poor Leaders Become Good Leaders

  • They improved their communication effectiveness.
  • They made an effort to share their knowledge and expertise more widely. 
  • They developed a broader perspective.
  • They began to encourage cooperation rather than competition.

These four skills, of the nine identified by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, are some of the core skills for connected leaders. Leadership, like 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 network in balance and not some special property available to only the select few. This is connected leadership, or leadership that understands networks.

trust emerges from effective networks

In complex environments, weak hierarchies and strong networks are the best organizing principle. While many organizations have strong networks, they are too often coupled with strong central control. Letting go of control is what connected leadership is all about.

Here is how a connected workplace should function. It flips the traditional management pyramid.

leadership in connected workplace

Networked contributors (whether they are full-time, part-time, or contractors) do the bulk of the knowledge work at the edges of the organization. The narration of work  and PKM are becoming critical skills, as work teams ebb and flow according to need, but the network must remain connected and resilient. A key function of connected leaders is to listen to and analyze what is happening. From this bird’s-eye view, those in leadership roles can help set the work context according to the changing conditions and  work on building consensus.

The connected workplace requires collaboration as well as cooperation. Both collaborative behaviours (working together for a common goal) and cooperative behaviours (sharing freely without any quid pro quo) are needed, but most organizations focus their efforts on shorter term collaboration. However, networks really thrive on cooperation, where people share without any direct benefit. Practising and promoting cooperation is another important leadership skill in the connected workplace.

Connected leaders know that people naturally like to be helpful and get recognition for their work. But humans need more than extrinsic compensation, as our behaviour on Wikipedia and online social networks proves. For the most part, people like to help others. Cooperation makes for more resilient knowledge networks. Better networks are better for business.

Solving problems is what most knowledge workers are hired to do. But complex problems usually cannot be solved alone. They require the sharing of tacit knowledge, which is knowledge that cannot easily be put into a manual or procedural guide. Research shows that tacit knowledge flows best in trusted networks. Trust promotes individual autonomy and this becomes a foundation for more open social learning. Without trust, few are willing to share their knowledge. An effective knowledge network also cultivates the diversity and autonomy of each worker. Connected leaders know how to foster deeper connections which can be developed through meaningful conversations. They understand the importance of tacit knowledge in solving complex problems.

The power of social networks, like electricity, will inevitably change almost every business model. Those who emerge as leaders need to understand the new connected workplace. Working smarter in this workplace starts by organizing to embrace networks, manage complexity, and build trust.

The Connected WorkerYou cannot train people to be social; you can only show them what it’s like to be social.

 

Competitive knowledge

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Knowledge itself is not a great business advantage, and if it were, academic institutions would be running circles around the Fortune 100. It’s what gets done with the knowledge that matters. But there still needs to be a good flow of information and ideas that get tested out in the specific context of the organization, such as its markets and the technology available. Nick Milton describes four types of organizational knowledge: Core, Non-core, New, & Competitive. Moving competitive knowledge into core knowledge is a key part of this flow.

Competitive knowledge. These are areas of new evolving knowledge that the company knows a lot about. This knowledge may well give them a competitive advantage – the first learner advantage. In areas of evolving knowledge, the company that learns the best and learns the fastest, has the potential to outperform its rivals.  The KM focus for competitive knowledge is on the development of best practice. As this knowledge is being applied around the business, there needs to be a continuous capture of knowledge from practice, comparing of knowledge through communities of practice, and development of best practice. Ownership of competitive competence probably lies with the communities and networks.

I have mapped Nick’s Boston Square to the coherent organization to show how communities of practice provide the link between social networks and enterprise work teams to filter new knowledge and find competitive knowledge.

competitive knowledge

One challenge of finding new knowledge is that social networks are comprised mostly of non-core knowledge. There is often more noise than signal. However, given their diversity, social networks are where we can find innovative ideas. This is why curation and PKM skills are so important for organizations today. Testing new knowledge is where communities of practice can be handy. Gaining competitive knowledge is the obvious ROI for fostering internal and external communities of practice.

So here is a clear value proposition. Communities of practice act as filters of new knowledge in order to find competitive knowledge for your organization. People who understand the context of the work teams must participate in communities of practice, as only they can identify what new knowledge could be competitive. That means that those doing the work need time and support to get away from their teams and see the bigger picture. Does your organization provide this time, or is everyone too busy focused on managing core knowledge? The implications of myopic work practices are quite obvious.