Harold Jarche

Networked sharing

by

Why diversity is essential for innovation, and ultimately survival, is shown in this wide-ranging article on How Culture Drove Human Evolution:

You start out with two genetically well-intermixed peoples. Tasmania’s actually connected to mainland Australia so it’s just a peninsula. Then about 10,000 years ago, the environment changes, it gets warmer and the Bass Strait floods, so this cuts off Tasmania from the rest of Australia, and it’s at that point that they begin to have this technological downturn. You can show that this is the kind of thing you’d expect if societies are like brains in the sense that they store information as a group and that when someone learns, they’re learning from the most successful member, and that information is being passed from different communities, and the larger the population, the more different minds you have working on the problem.

If your number of minds working on the problem gets small enough, you can actually begin to lose information. There’s a steady state level of information that depends on the size of your population and the interconnectedness. It also depends on the innovativeness of your individuals, but that has a relatively small effect compared to the effect of being well interconnected and having a large population.

It’s not about innovative individuals so much as the ability of the network (society, organization, company) to stay connected to its collective knowledge.  This is an important factor to consider in knowledge-intensive organizations. How quickly would your lose collective knowledge if people do not share their knowledge? Are your knowledge networks large enough to ensure that collective knowledge does not get lost? Is your organization more like an isolated island or part of a connected and diverse continent?

 

First we shape our structures, and then the sociopaths take over

by

We will create the future organization by bringing democracy to the workplace, I wrote last week in How we will manage. The essential factors, in my opinion, for an effective networked workplace (Enterprise 2.0, Social Business, etc.) are not what we have seen in many industrial style companies:

  1. Shared power: necessary in a networked economy.
  2. Autonomy: essential for an engaged workforce.
  3. Finally, the social contract for work needs to change.

In one of the best blog posts I have ever read, Venkat Rao discusses The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”. The initial premise is Hugh Macleod’s cartoon on the company hierarchy, which often elicits a chuckle when I show it to others [especially since I have it on my business cards]. The entire article is well worth reading.

To summarize, the losers have opted out of the system and just do the work they need to do. They find joy and value outside of work. The clueless have bought into the company bullshit and think that if they work hard for their masters, they will move up the ladder. The clueless keep the machine working. The sociopaths buy and build companies and suck their profits for as long as possible and then cast everyone aside to start something new. The sociopaths don’t give a shit. Often, the CEOs are merely part of clueless layer and are beholding to the VC sociopaths.

company-hierarchy-red
Image: gapingvoid.com

I recently listened to a programme on CBC Radio’s Maritime Magazine on work bullies and it only reinforces the premise that sociopaths run too many organizations. “So why do so many bullies rise to a position of power?” asks Jerry West, the radio host. Here is a reference to the answer given:

In 2005, British psychologists Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon at the University of Surrey interviewed and gave personality tests to a number of high-level executives. They then compared their profiles with those of criminal psychiatric patients at Broadmoor, the all-male high-security hospital, home to some of England’s most notorious murderers. The researchers found that three out of eleven personality disorders were actually more common in managers than in the disturbed criminals:

  • histrionic personality disorder
  • narcissistic personality disorder
  • obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

This has led researchers to describe such disturbed executives as “successful psychopaths” and similarly disturbed criminals as “unsuccessful psychopaths”.

And you wonder why I rage against the machine when it comes to hierarchies and institutions? In the CBC programme, a Dalhousie University professor states that in job interviews, no one bothers to look at deviant or counter-productive behaviours. Hiring those who are prone to bullying then leads to a hostile or toxic work environment.  As Jerry West says, “It’s not difficult to find hierarchical work environments that are toxic” and organizations that exhibit this behaviour include Canada’s RCMP.

So what are the options? The programme suggests:

  • Conduct interviews that might determine bullying behaviours [easy, but not always effective].
  • Leadership & management must stay vigilant and engaged [not often the norm].
  • Legislation to protect the bullied in the workplace [will only happen in the long term].

But even these recommendations seem almost futile in many organizations today. While people may be talking about it now, the real challenge is to change our work structures so that it is much more difficult for bullies (sociopaths) to succeed. We need to understand and talk about how our structures shape us.

As Jerry West concludes, “Doing nothing is a choice, too.”

Basic Skills for Net Work

by

We are starting the online PKM Workshop this week, with a free webinar on 5 September.

Here are some questions that personal knowledge management can address:

How do I keep track of all of this information? >> start small

How do I make sense of changing conditions and new knowledge? >> curation

How can I develop and improve critical thinking skills? >> Observe, Participate, Challenge, Create

How can we cooperate? >> freely share

How can I collaborate better? >> learn out loud

How can I engage in problem-solving activities at the edge of my expertise? >> net work skills

#itashare

An artistic mindset

by

My colleague Jane Hart writes that, “supporting social collaboration is underpinned not only by new technologies but by a new mindset“.

Perpetual Beta is my attitude toward learning and work – I’ll never get to the final release and my learning will never stabilise. I’ve realized that clients and colleagues with a similar attitude are much easier to work with than those who believe that we will reach some future point where everything stabilizes and we don’t need to learn or do anything else. I think this point is called death. Perpetual Beta is pretty well an artist’s perspective, always seeking a new creative endeavour and not just producing the same work over and over. As industrial and even some knowledge work gets automated and outsourced, adapting to an economic life in perpetual Beta may soon become the norm.

With 2 billion people connected by the Internet, we are entering a post-industrial Network Era. Effective knowledge networks are composed of unique individuals working on common challenges, together for a discrete period of time before the network shifts its focus again. We are moving from a “one size fits all” attitude on work and learning to an “everyone is unique” perspective. The network enables infinite combinations between unique nodes. For example, better connections enabled a high school student to create a better cancer diagnostic tool. We will see many more of these connected discoveries in the network era. Also, in a networked world, where everyone is unique, there is little need for generic work processes (jobs, roles, occupations) and no need for standard curricula. Institutions, and mindsets, will collapse.

The real challenge to be productive in this new networked workplace will be an attitude shift. In the near future, organizations may no longer be concerned if you work a full shift or are spending time at your work space. Compensation may become focused not just on results but creative solutions. The core work attitude may be creativity, as in “what have you done that’s different?” Artists think about the impossible, as Hugh Macleod shows:

About one hundred years ago we moved from morality as our core behaviour, to responsibility, as workers left their agrarian communities, where your word was your bond, and became reliable factory workers instead. Are we now shifting from responsibility to creativity? If we are, then most of our organizational tools and measurements about productivity may be obsolete, as well as our mindsets about work and learning. Perhaps, metaphorically speaking, the MFA will become the new MBA.

Friday's visual finds

by

Here are some of the observations and insights that were shared via Twitter this past week.

@GeorgeMonbiot: “The “self-made man” fallacy is essentially psychopathic: denies the role of and need for other people.”

“Theatre companies don’t talk of their actors as ‘human resources’ – none of them would work for them if they did. ~ Charles Handy.” via @CharlesJennings

Gary Wise: An Evolving Ground Zero for Training Solutions – via @tmiket

“A cool infographic from @atlassian that shows being productive at work is harder than it seems”, via @DanielPink – email is culprit #1

 #itashare

Barriers to PKM

by

A few weeks ago I asked my extended online network: What do you think is the biggest fear/need/barrier when it comes to adopting personal knowledge mastery (PKM) as a practice?

Finding someone to talk to about PKM was a common response, as was the observation that management’s perception is often that not everyone has the same level of ability to do PKM sufficiently well. Management thinks PKM is only for certain, higher-level employees (it’s not). Also listed were fear of technology and fear of complexity, and I see these as two sides of the same coin. Network technologies make things more complex as there are exponentially more connections and possibilities. The complexity of multiple perspectives and solutions can be quite confusing. In PKM, there is no test and no answer sheet, only deeper questions, but an expanding network to help you.

Some people cited a lack of time management skills to make room in the day for changing and learning. Others listed difficulties in being able to build relationships or dealing with too wide of a range of topics. Perhaps the latter is a byproduct of our education systems where we concentrate on only a few subjects at a time, and seldom make connections between them. One person in the PKM Workshop said that sharing what you really think and finding your real voice is a major challenge for those not used to capturing and sharing their learning.

In my opinion, a major barrier to adopting PKM practices is the perception that it will take more time, when in fact, most people waste a lot of time on existing work habits that could be changed. Another reason is the baggage of our education and training systems, which tell us that we cannot learn for ourselves and need an expert or teacher to always guide us. The image below is from a post I wrote 5 years ago, on what is weighing down learning, but is still relevant I think. PKM practices can help people take off those weights. You might call it the PKM Weight Reduction Program for self-directed and peer-supported learning.
iceberg

How we will manage

by

Is Google an indication of the how organizations will manage in the 21st century?

Experienced managers who join Google from other companies can find it difficult to operate in a culture where power over subordinates is derived from one’s ideas and powers of persuasion, not job titles, says May. Decisions on promotions and raises are often made by consensus among peers and superiors. An employee isn’t necessarily going to obey a manager just because he or she is a manager. This is radically different from most traditional corporations, which have a top-down, hierarchical style of management. —eLearning

This sounds like a wirearchy, “a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology.”

Perhaps we are seeing the future of work appear on the edges of the economy, as Google is definitely a new economy company. Freedom (democracy) seems to be a requirement for success in the network era, as Jason Fried writes about an experiment to let employees decide what they do for a month at 37Signals.

How can we afford to put our business on hold for a month to “mess around” with new ideas? How can we afford not to? We would never have had such a burst of creative energy had we stuck to business as usual.

Bottom line: If you can’t spare some time to give your employees the chance to wow you, you’ll never get the best from them.

 John Hagel shows that standardized work is obsolete.

Now, think about this. If we reduce work to highly specified and standardized instructions that can be performed efficiently and predictably, what have we done? We have reconceived work so that it can be performed by computers and robots. In fact, computers and robots are far more preferable than humans because we humans are ultimately unpredictable and have a really hard time following instructions to the letter, day in and day out.

We are moving to a new economy that does not value any work that can be automated & outsourced. Taylorism is dead. Stephen Gill describes how we have to focus on work that cannot be done by robots.

This new robotics “megashift” has huge implications for the workplace. Employers will need workers who are better educated, more willing to change, and more flexible in their schedules and work habits than ever before. These workers won’t be needed for simple, repetitive jobs. They will be needed for computer-assisted jobs and for jobs that require creativity, innovation, and teamwork. They will have to be continuous learners, keeping up with technology, globalization, and new ways of organizing work.

So what’s the point?

  1. Shared power is necessary in a networked economy.
  2. Autonomy is essential for an engaged workforce.
  3. The social contract for work needs to change.
How will we manage? We will manage by bringing democracy to the workplace.

Trust is an emergent property of effective networks

by

It seems that markets, our dominant form of economic transactions, are not really designed to optimize trust. As Charles Green states:

The reason is simple: trust is not a market transaction, it’s a human transaction. People don’t work by supply and demand, they work by karmic reciprocity. In markets, if I trust you, I’m a sucker and you take advantage of me. In relationships, if I trust you, you trust me, and we get along. We live up or down to others expectations of us.

We currently organize around Tribal models, plus Institutions, plus Markets. In the 21st century, Networks are becoming the next dominant organizing model, as explained by David Ronfeldt in this diagram.

As the Network organizational model comes to dominance, I think we will see a return to trust as a lubricant of social and economic exchanges. Trust is an emergent property of effective networks.

If trust is a sign of healthy networks then, as Charles Green says, we are teaching the wrong things at school and at work.

Our public education and culture is loaded with the free-market versions of trust. We teach, “If you’re not careful they will screw you.” We passcode-protect everything. We are taught to suspect the worst of everyone, be wary of every open bottle of soda, watch out for ingredients on any bottle.

Then in business school, we are taught that if customers don’t trust you, you need to convince them you are trustworthy – partly by insisting on our trustworthiness.  You can’t protest enough for that to work: in fact, guess the Two Most Trust-Destroying Words You Can Say.

I have noted that there is significant difference between cooperation and collaboration, with the former often overlooked in the workplace. Collaboration works well when the rules (like markets) are clear, and we know who we are working with (suppliers, partners, customers). However, in networks, someone may be our supplier one day and our customer the next. Cooperation is a better behavioural norm because it strengthens the entire network, not just an individual node. Cooperation is also a major factor in personal knowledge management, for we each need to share and trust, as our part of the social business (learning) contract.

In the network era, trust will become much more important, and it is not something that, once lost, we may be able to regain in a world where the network remembers everything, for a very long time. It truly is becoming a global village, for better and for worse. Trust should be taught, discussed, promoted, and practised, in schools and in business.

Please tell me about your PKM

by

I had the pleasure of a visit from Jon Husband this week, only the second time that we’ve been together. Jon and his wirearchy framework have been an integral part of my views on the network era workplace since 2004. I even have a separate category for wirearchy on this website.

During one of our conversations at a local café, Jon suggested that in wirearchies,  personal knowledge management (PKM) could become the new resumé. One problem with a résumé is that it only looks backwards, on past achievements. Even behavioural interviews look at how we have dealt with past problems. What about how we prepare for new problems?

I think that asking, “What can you do for the organization today?”, would be a better way to start an interview. Considering that in complex, networked environments, where work is learning and learning is the work, would it not be better to find out how people are learning? Imagine an interview beginning with, “Good day, Mister Jones, please sit down and tell us about your PKM.” Other questions could follow:

  • How do you keep your learning up to date?
  • With whom do you learn?
  • How do you capture your learning?
  • How do you narrate your work? Please show us an example …
  • How do you stay current in your field?
  • How diverse is your network? Could you give us some examples?
  • How would you begin to look at the following problem, which is out of your normal scope of work …

Describing how we stay actively engaged in our learning might be a better indicator of future performance, in a world where many answers do not lie in the past, but in how we manage to make connections with the present. To remain relevant, workers need to re-skill and provide services for today’s and tomorrow’s problems, not yesterday’s. We need to think more like artists and look at creating new ways of working, not polishing our previous successes. Showing how we learn, or manage our knowledge personally, keeps us focused on the present. It’s time for HR to start asking about our PKM, and understand its value.

Tweets for the network era

by

Here are some of the observations and insights that were shared via Twitter this past week.

How Narrating Your Work Helps You Become More Effective by Saving Precious Time – by @elsua

Basically, social networking tools like blogging, or microblogging, that Bertrand mentioned above as examples, to open up our interactions, to free ourselves from the email and meetings yokes, to become more transparent on what we do, because as he mentioned on that article he put together, the more open and transparent we become in the workplace working out loud the much easier it would be for everyone else to help you when you would need it. This is, exactly, what I have been advocating for myself for a long while, along the lines of this quote: “How can I help you, if I don’t know what you are doing? How can I help you, if I don’t know you, your work, and what you are trying to achieve? Help me please to understand your work, so that I can do my fair bit and help out where I can”.

App.net is just an identity provider – via @pevenasgreenwood

App.net doesn’t provide decentralization. If one company has access over all of your “social media data” that’s not decentralized.

What we really need is an open standard that uses an also open protocol to manage all this data. If we take a look at E-Mail Servers, that’s could be one way to built a decentralized “Social Grid” that doesn’t depend on one company.

Copyright v creditright by @JeffJarvis via @DavidGurteen

* When copyright changes, the idea of plagiarism changes. As I said in the Medium post, the old sin was not rewriting enough; the new sin is not attributing *and* linking. All newspaper and magazine articles should carry footnotes to their sources. I learned that ethic of linking in blogs and the practice of footnoting in writing Public Parts. There’s every reason that other media should take it up. Readers deserve it. Sources and creators deserve it. The record deserves it.

* When creditright takes over, then fair comment becomes a different beast. No longer do we fight over how much — how long an excerpt – is necessary and fair for comment. Now, the more comment the better. Just credit.

The Supreme Court of Canada Speaks: How To Assess Fair Dealing for Education by @mgeist

While the Court provides guidance on all aspects of fair dealing, its decisions have also articulated three guiding principles to assist with the analysis.

“fair dealing is a users’ right that must not be interpreted restrictively”

“technological neutrality requires that, absent evidence of Parliamentary intent to the contrary, we interpret the Copyright Act in a way that avoids imposing an additional layer of protections and fees based solely on the method of delivery of the work to the end user.”

“Persons or institutions relying on the s. 29 fair dealing exception need only prove that their own dealings with copyrighted works were for the purpose of research or private study and were fair.”