Self-determination at work

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There’s a common saying that entrepreneurs should work on the business, and not in the business. It makes sense to stay above the day-to-day details in order to help steer the business. Perhaps it’s time to think of all businesses as networks of entrepreneurs. Everyone should be working on the business. As Peter Drucker said, “Nothing is less productive than doing what should not be done at all”. Being efficient at something that is not effective is a waste of time, and a cause for workers to mentally disconnect from the company. Efficiency for its own sake makes job a four-letter word.

How do you get an entrepreneurial mindset in a hierarchical, just-follow-the-rules, organization? Start by looking at what motivates people. Dan Pink popularized three key motivators in his book, Drive (2011): Autonomy, Mastery, Sense of Purpose. The basis of this is self-determination theory, which I think provides a much better understanding of motivation at work, and from which the following image comes.

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Cooking out loud

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The simple structure of the company, with its solidly embedded organizational chart restricting knowledge flow, cannot deal with the complexity of the networked economy. It takes too long to make decisions or try new things out. Looser hierarchies and stronger networks are required, but how do you go about this?

Working and learning out loud are essential practices that can change the nature of work. They help make transparent what is happening in the organization and democratize knowledge creation. First of all, everyone must be engaged in observing their environment. Then groups of people can work on problems together and learn as they work. The results of working and learning out loud can then be codified as network knowledge, which is always open for modification, as knowledge flow becomes knowledge stock. PKM – Seek > Sense > Share – is a core part of enabling knowledge to flow, unrestricted by hierarchies.

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Create space for sense-making

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Listening to a story about exploitation in the ivory tower on CBC Sunday Edition this morning made me realize how much we are prisoners of our current reality. The poorly paid contract teaching staff saw no way out of their plight and the professor-turned-administrator went from questioning the current system to promoting its inequalities as the only viable way to keep universities afloat. It seems that as soon as you identify with a system, whether it is good for you or not, then it becomes the only frame of reference. There was no discussion on what systemic changes could humanize the life of sessional instructors. Everyone sounded so powerless.

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Post Labour Day Finds

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Here are some observations and insights that were shared on social media this past fortnight. I call these Friday’s Finds.

“We teach people how to remember, we never teach them how to grow. – Oscar Wilde” – via @BestOscarWilde

@ShawnCallahan – “The stories we find, and especially the ones we retell, change who we become.”

@edmorrison – “Our challenge is not to banish hierarchies, but to balance them with open systems, properly guided.“

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our education system stumbles into the future

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It’s back to school time and education issues come to the fore with a provincial election in a few weeks. According to a local professor, the New Brunswick education system is too centralized — but it’s not just education. Addressing the problems of centralization is an issue with all established institutions as we shift from an industrial to a networked economy. First we might look at the underlying premises of the current system. According to SFU Professor Kieran Egan, in The Educated Mind, three premises compete for attention in our public education systems:

  1. education as socialization
  2. education as a quest for truth (Plato)
  3. education as the realization of individual potential (Rousseau)

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Guest Posts

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I frequently receive requests for guest blog posts, which I always turn down, for several reasons.

My website has my name on it, and I feel personally responsible for everything written here. Any guest post would not reflect my views.

Much of my professional reputation is based on my writing, and many of my perspectives were formed here as ‘half-baked ideas’ on this blog.

All of my content is licensed for sharing as: Creative Commons – Attribution, Non-commercial, Share-alike so that other bloggers can easily use it and build upon it, negating any need for guest posts here.

It is ridiculously easy to create your own blog so you do not need mine to post from.

In addition, most of the requests come from people I do not know. Requesting a guest post is like inviting yourself over for dinner. I don’t even know you, but you want a free meal, and then want to tell everyone about it?

Instead, please join in the conversation, add some value with your own perspectives, and maybe we can learn from each other.

The Garden of False Learning rench; Hanging; Textiles-Embroidered Date 1550–80 Medium Wool and silk on canvas Cross stitch, 48-56 per sq. in., 9 per sq. cm.

The Garden of False Learning – Wikimedia

Small thoughts, loosely joined

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With a hyper-connected society, enabled by over 2 billion connected people and an expected 50 billion devices in the near future, the environment any organization is facing is much more complex than it was a couple of decades ago. But this was when most executives were learning how to do their jobs. Many are ill-equipped for the cognitive overload they face, as traditional jobs –  from typing, to customer service, to legal research –  are constantly automated by software. Software enabled teams like AirBNB, Netflix, and Uber, are able to directly compete with industry incumbents, and can do so with significantly fewer employees.

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reflecting on reflection

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Missing from most workplaces today is any time for reflection. Even events that are designed to promote learning, like the ubiquitous professional conference, ignore time for reflection. In these discrete time-based events, there is little time for reflection. Presenters hold back their knowledge in order to ‘deliver’ it just before the big official presentation. This presentation is followed by some immediate questions, discussions, and a quick break. Then it’s off to see the next presentation. Reflection, if it occurs, comes much later, and usually after the participants have gone home. It’s the same at work.

It seems that most of us are in a hurry today, and I meet few people who have read even a few good books lately and have had the time to reflect upon them. Fewer still have taken the time to digest new ideas and discuss their learning with others. There is always a need to balance action and reflection, but the latter seems to be losing out in many of our workplaces.

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Strawberry Jam Finds

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Here are some observations and insights that were shared on social media this past fortnight. I call these Friday’s Finds.

I am spending my weeks in Toronto on a consulting assignment (which also explains my infrequent blogging), returning home on weekends, but I thought the last find at the bottom of this post rather appropriate.

“Any plan conceived in moderation must fail when circumstances are set in extremes.” – Prince Metternich – via @k1v1n

@leadingincontxt – Dealing With Complexity in Leadership – with various links

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Error reduction interferes with gaining insights

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Is your organization  focused on merely reducing errors or is it also promoting ways to improve insight?

Fifty-eight of the top Fortune 200 companies bought into Six Sigma, attesting to the appeal of eliminating errors. The results of this “experiment” were striking: 91 per cent of the Six Sigma companies failed to keep up with the S&P 500 because Six Sigma got in the way of innovation. It interfered with insights. – Gary Klein

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