Harold Jarche

Make the room smarter

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The title of Dave Weinberger’s book, Too Big to Know: Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren’t the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room, describes what should happen in a room where knowledge is freely shared. However, in most organizations, invisible power structures influence communications and the flow of knowledge. Some of these power messages are even embedded in the environment, as the SPATIAL learning model shows.

Imagine a meeting room filled with many people, representing all the departments in an organization. The objective is come up with the best decision to address a current crisis. If this is run in typical fashion, those with power and influence will dominate the discussions. Now imagine if you could read everyone’s mind and were appointed the moderator. You could quickly scan and see who had subject expertise or who had the most current information. Often these people do not get a chance to air their views, or have been beaten back due to previous experiences of being ignored. One could conclude that a meeting with completely transparent information would lead to better decisions. That’s the assumption of market capitalists, isn’t it?

The three principles of net work were developed as ways to improve networked organizational effectiveness, and may even improve efficiency over time. Narration, transparency and shared power help to get information into the open so the organization can make better decisions. Narration of work helps to metaphorically read people’s minds, at least in retrospect. The narration of what we are thinking and doing on a daily basis helps us to know ourselves and to better know others. Transparency means sharing as much as possible, and not assuming who has a need to know. At some point in time, someone may have a need to know, and management can never know in advance who this might be. If all information is transparent, anyone will be able find it. This is how much of the Web works. Finally, sharing power distributes decision-making authority throughout the organization. When this is done in a transparent environment, people can act responsibly, knowing their actions are observable by others. As US Justice Louis Brandeis wrote, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants“. It keeps organizations clean and healthy.

Narration of work, especially with some of the simple-to-use social media platforms available today, is the first step in making better organizational decisions. There have been many terrible decisions made in recent memory by corporations, governments and non-profits (Deepwater Horizon, Morgan Stanley and the Facebook IPO, WMDs in Iraq, the Catholic Church abuse scandals, etc). These organizations typically have strong hierarchies and significantly weaker networks. Decision-making is centralized, the power structure is rigid, and knowledge is hoarded. Practising narration, transparency and power-sharing can help to reverse this to weak hierarchies & strong networks and create more resilient organizations, able to deal with more complex issues.

Sharing lessons

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

@LucianT – “3M publicly hire for ‘Misfits’ – people that don’t fit into the norm. 35% of their revenue comes from products created within last 5 years”

@LeeJCarey – “Don’t be an instigator, don’t interrupt, don’t be disruptive, don’t talk back, don’t rock the boat; now get out there and lead”

elearnspace: What is the theory that underpins our moocs? by @gsiemens

The Coursera/EDx MOOCs adopt a traditional view of knowledge and learning. Instead of distributed knowledge networks, their MOOCs are [mostly] based on a hub and spoke model: the faculty/knowledge at the centre and the learners are replicators or duplicators of knowledge.

Shelley Wright: A wicked problem – via @SheilaSpeaking

Finally, we need to encourage and support the risk-takers and innovators in our school systems. Too often the status-quo is supported because of the comfort level it affords. As Brian Harrison stated in a recent blog post, “…it is clear to me that we cannot sustain a great system of public education by rewarding those in our schools and systems who do not innovate at the cost of those who do.”  Too often those who are engaging students in meaningful learning close their doors, so they can do what is best for their students. Why? To reduce the backlash from others. I know. I’ve done it, and I’ve listened to the stories of many other educators who have experienced this same phenomenon. If we truly want to do what is best for kids, we need to support teachers who willingly engage the messy landscape of student-centred learning.

Tweets from DAU/GMU Innovations in eLearning where I spent much of the week:

@moehlert – “You can’t research social learning without being a participant yourself”

@Dave_Ferguson – “Thought: do some (many) people not see collaboration with others as “learning” because it doesn’t look like the schoolhouse model?”

Jane Hart: “Between 33% and 66% of employees are meeting their own needs by going AROUND the training department.” via @jsuzcampos

@wadatrip – “It is ok to fail if you learn a lesson and even more so if you share the lesson you learned from the failure.”

Craig Wiggins @oxala75 live-blogging @quinnovator Clark Quinn’s session

a wicked problem

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All levels of complexity exist in our world but more and more of our work deals with real complex problems (in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect), whether they be social, technological, or economic. Complex environments and problems are best addressed when we organize as networks, work to continuously develop emergent practices; and cooperate to advance our aspirations.

There is no normal anymore. What we thought was normal is going away. It is really different this time.

“Technology is not only driving down the price to do things. It is driving down the cost of labor to the point where many people may simply never find a job that pays a living wage.” – A Man With A Ph.D.

Standardized and repeatable work is getting automated and outsourced. But there is an infinite amount of complex and creative work to be done. We are just not organized very well to do it. This is the huge challenge we face. Working smarter is not an incremental thing, it’s how we are going to transform society so that most of us can be productive AND earn a living. The JOB is not the answer. Freelancing is not a blanket solution. We need to get really creative about how we work, because work gives meaning, not just compensation. Social business may be part of the solution but the challenge is much bigger than that. Richard Florida alludes to it with the notion of a widespread creative class.

Do you want a complex problem? Figure out how we are going to keep producing stuff and still give people ways to buy that stuff. Think about what will happen if we don’t address this complex, wicked problem.
wicked-problem

Pulling informal learning

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Take a look at these 8 demand-side knowledge management principles by Nick Milton.

  1. People don’t pay attention to knowledge until they actually need it.
  2. People value knowledge that they request more highly than knowledge that is unsolicited.
  3. People won’t use knowledge, unless they trust its provenance.
  4. Knowledge has to be reviewed in the user’s own context before it can be received.
  5. One of the biggest barriers to accepting new knowledge is old knowledge.
  6. Knowledge has to be adapted before it can be adopted.
  7. Knowledge will be more effective the more personal it is.
  8. They won’t really know it until they do it.

They highlight the difference between Push and Pull learning. Training is Push. Informal learning is mostly Pull. Look at what Push can mean in the context of demand-side KM:

  1. How often are training courses aligned with the moment of need?
  2. Do participants request and value compliance training?
  3. How credible are trainers with those in the business units they support?
  4. How much time and affordance is there to put training courses into individual context?
  5. How is old knowledge respected and then challenged in a non-confrontational manner?
  6. What kinds of tools are available to adapt new knowledge?
  7. How personal are courses and classes?
  8. What opportunities do people have after a course to practice and get feedback?

There are many do-it-yourself applications available today that let people take control of their learning. Traditional courses can be designed or taken from a wide variety of sources, such as Udemy. Professional communities on platforms like LinkedIn abound. Knowledge workers are shifting their professional development from Push to Pull. They are also more in control of who Pushes to them, through social networks and other sources of online information. Networked sense-making frameworks like PKM can give more control over one’s learning.

For learning & development departments, a Pull workplace changes the traditional expert-led dynamic of content creation. The shift to more Pull and less directed Push learning also challenges the role of the instructional designer. The ID, who spends a long time getting a course “just right” with  learning objectives aligned to Bloom’s taxonomy, engaging graphics, and absolutely correct wording; may be becoming an anachronism. By the time the instructionally-sound course has been developed, the work requirements may have changed (again).

It’s not that informal learning support is better than anything instructional design can deliver, it’s really a question of time. Getting roughly integrated knowledge assets and professional advice from a network is better than waiting six months for a polished course to be developed. It’s also a matter of  increasingly complex work requirements and dealing more with exception-handling, rather than routine procedures. Exceptions cannot be taught through training; but learning about them on the job, and in networks, can and should be supported.

In the network era, the days of an instructional design team working in splendid isolation to produce award-winning courses may be numbered. The pace of change and the level of complexity are outpacing the ability to Push the knowledge artifacts needed for an agile workforce. Connections are more important than content in the networked enterprise. As workers take control of their learning by Pulling it in, the training department had better adapt.

Engage, out loud

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Why Google Isn’t Making Us Stupid … or Smart, by Chad Wellmon is a very good look at our relationships with knowledge, how we codify it, and how we connect to it.

Only at this macro-level of analysis can we make sense of the fact that Google’s search algorithms do not operate in absolute mechanical purity, free of outside interference. Only if we understand the Web and our search and filter technologies as elements in a digital ecology can we make sense of the emergent properties of the complex interactions of humans and technology: gaming the Google system through search optimization strategies, the decision by Google employees (not algorithms) to ban certain webpages and privilege others (ever notice the relatively recent dominance of Wikipedia pages in Google searches?). The Web is not just a technology but an ecology of human-technology interaction. It is a dynamic culture with its own norms and practices.

A key idea here is that our actions are much more important than any technology. One group that has developed new norms for knowledge-sharing is the software development community. Dave Weinberger talks about public learning, what I call learning out loud (LOL), in this video where he describes how developers are “learning in a way that simultaneously makes the environment smarter”.

Dave’s video is his contribution to the Adidas blog carnival on a new way of working and learning.

John Stepper describes working out loud as the most practical way to start online collaboration.

Confused about what to write? Simply post about what you’re working on every day. Who you’re meeting with. The research you’re doing. Articles you find relevant. Lessons you learned. Mistakes you made.

The form factor of short posts that are easy-to-skim make this kind of narration practical – for both the author and the audience.

This reinforces my three key principles for net work: narration, transparency, shared power. By changing our norms and practices, we can use the Internet in ways that are best for people, workplaces and society. But first, we have to be engaged.

Complexity thinking

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So in summary systems thinking is about closing the gap to an ideal future state using and focusing on individuals while complexity thinking is about understanding the present, and evolving through collective action to a future state which could not be fully anticipated but which is sustainable and resilient. Now I know its a lot more complex than that, and also that some of the greats before popularisation are probably turning in their graves, or their emeritus chairs when they see what has happened. However systems thinking is pervasive, and its linked with models and ideas such as memes and Dawkin’s attitudes in general, i.e. we have an emphasis on causality at the cost of evolution. ~ Dave Snowden

Thanks to John Tropea

Social systems

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

“A System is a set of variables sufficiently isolated to stay constant long enough for us to discuss it. ~ W. Ross Ashby” via @cyetain

@dlnorman – “that’s not curation, it’s hoarding. curation is a mindful act of storytelling, which is not what these scoop.it / paper.li things do.” [I definitely agree]

@JeanHouston – “It is as if a worldwide nervous system is in the works. Each of us is a brain cell in that system, with powers that once belonged to kings”

@metaphorage – “Life is complex, unpredictable & messy: just admit it & act accordingly. “7habits” & “10 Rules” can be helpful, but overly simplistic”

@HildyGottlieb – “Nobody convinces anybody of anything. People come to their own learning. What does that mean for how you’re doing your work?”

The rise of social everything – by @marciamarcia

The organization began using social tools as an internal document repository for operations; yet over time, it grew to become a dynamic communications tool across their internal and external partners. By capturing learning in the moment, the organization could quickly leverage the collective knowledge of its consultants and provide more value and collective intelligence, to the organizations it served.

Networked Individualism: what in the heck is that? – via @LindaP_MD

At the same time, the networked individualism operating system requires that people gain new social skills to operate within it. They need to develop new strategies for handling challenges as they arise. They must devote more time and energy to practicing the art of networking than their ancestors did in order to get their needs met. They can no longer passively let the village take care of them and protect them. They must actively network to leverage the human resources they need, and they must actively manage the boundaries of their self-presentation in these networks.

Organizational models for social business – via @VernaAllee

You can’t plan networks or force fit them into any pattern. You can’t constrain a network to be purely within your own organization – at least not if you want to get any value from it. Networks involve customers/citizens and partners. In fact every participant in a network is a partner – not in some corny marketing sense but in the reality of the exchanges in the network. Networks support communication across channels you didn’t predict in advance. They cross any organizational unit you might have defined – even following the VSM [Viable Systems Model]. For all these reasons networks are great sources of innovation – and that innovation is emergent.

The learning organization: an often-described, but seldom-observed phenomenon

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What should a true learning organization look like?

W. Edwards Deming understood that systemic factors account for more organizational problems, and therefore more potential for change, than any individual’s performance. The role of managers should be to manage the system, not the individual functions. The real barrier to systemic change, such as becoming a learning organization, is command & control management. This is why the third principle for net work, shared power, is a major stumbling block to becoming a learning organization. Narration of work and transparency are easy, compared to sharing power. But learning is what organizations need to do well in order to survive and thrive.

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It's time to focus on your LQ

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Learning is everywhere in the connected workplace. Networked professionals need more than advice (training); they need ongoing, real-time, constantly-changing, collaborative, support.  However, many of us have relegated our own learning to the specialists over the years – teachers, instructors, professors. We’re not used to handling all of this learning on our own. But if we want to thrive in complexity and if we want our work teams to be effective, we have to integrate our learning into the workflow.

On 11 June 2012 we will start the next online personal knowledge management workshop.  PKM is the foundation of connected work. It’s up to each of us to develop, and continuously revise, our sense-making frameworks as we work inside and outside the increasingly permeable walls of our organizations. Unlimited information, distributed work, self-publishing, and ridiculously easy group-forming all point in one direction – the organization will no longer address all your learning needs in the network era.

Additional skills are needed to help groups and teams learn as they work. Narration is a base skill for the networked workplace. Other skills include network weaving, curation, and network analysis.  We also have workshops on how to use social media for professional development, as well as setting up and sustaining an online community. These workshops are not just for ‘learning professionals’ but for any role; from sales to marketing to production, and especially for management. More workshops are in development and we are always interested in getting suggestions. Custom workshops and skills coaching can also be arranged.

To improve our own and our organization’s learning quotient, we need to look at ways to be more self-directed,  social, and agile learners. Life in perpetual Beta requires a high LQ.

Leadership is an emergent property of a balanced network

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This is my second recent quote from Mark Fidelman, who writes in Forbes. He has a good perspective on the integration of work and learning, and how technology is only a very small part of social business.

Investment in social business platforms and mobile solutions are great – we’re finally on the right path. But ignoring the workplace infrastructure to accommodate them will be a missed opportunity. We have to move away from the Mad Men era office, to digital workplaces that take advantage of the entire social, mobile and content being produced by an organization’s greatest asset.

Its employees.

Fidelman discusses the new role of management in the future workplace.

The new role of management is to facilitate the finding of solutions; not to dictate them. The new role of management is to facilitate “connections”, to match people with the right skills and abilities to projects where those skills are most needed. The new role of management is to remove hurdles to engagement by building approvals mechanisms into workflows. Management won’t do this alone. They will leverage new technologies that automatically introduce employees to employees, partners and suppliers in order to build relationships that help you and the organization become more effective.

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 balanced network [“in-balance” may be a better term for this changing state] and not some special property available to only the select few.

Network Culture

Building on my previous post – that in complex environments, loose hierarchies and strong networks are the best organizing principle – here is my view of how a transparent, diverse & open workplace should function.

Networked contributors (full-time, part-time, contractors) need to work together in a networked environment that facilitates cooperation and collaboration. This is why the narration of work  and PKM will become critical skills, as work teams ebb and flow according to need, but the network must remain connected and resilient. A key function of leaders (think servant leadership) will be to listen to and analyze what is happening. From this bird’s-eye view, those in a leadership role can help set the work context according to the changing environment and then work on building consensus.

I’ve noted before that the power of social networks, like electricity, will inevitably change almost every business model. Leaders need to understand the importance of organizational architecture. Working smarter in the future workplace starts by organizing to embrace networks, manage complexity, and build trust.