Work is learning. Learning is the work.
If this site is popular, it is because of the content, not the design. I have not put much effort into the design and visual art is definitely not one of my skills. For the most part I have just used templates or very simple layouts. Here are some of the iterations through time.
Knowledge management (KM) does not have to be a major enterprise effort. But the lack of a KM strategy can be a drag on innovation or hamper decision-making in a knowledge intensive organization. While not perfect, a simple approach to KM may be better than none at all, and preferable to a flawed and expensive enterprise-wide approach. At least this model can be implemented with relative ease and no costly software platforms.
A simple approach to KM in the organization is to look at it as three connected but independent levels. The simplest is organizational KM, which ensures that important decisions are recorded, codified, and easily available for retrieval. This is mostly explicit knowledge that ensures the organizational memory remains clear on what key decisions were taken and why others were not. Over time, this becomes more valuable. Focusing only on decision memories ensures that enterprise KM does not require significant resources but does yield useful results.
The most important aspect of PKM is that it is personal. In order to stick with a routine over time, people have to find what works for them. Blogging has been a core part of my sense-making routine over the past decade. When I conduct workshops, my primary aim is help others discover what works for them. I do not have a secret formula, only some general guidelines developed through experience, plus a lot of ideas and suggested areas to explore.
My colleague Jane Hart shared her daily PKM routine recently and it’s different from mine, which of course it should be.
According to Dion Hinchcliffe, we need to rethink work and reinvent collaboration.
At a high level, there appear to be three major root causes for why collaboration — the very core of how people come together and function as a business — is in the midst of reinvention:
1. Hierarchical management styles break down in the face of the inherent complexity and scale of the modern business environment.
2. New digital tools have put us in constant and direct contact with nearly every person in the developed world at virtually no cost or effort …
3. There has been a sustained shift in the power of creation, as the edges of our organizations and marketplaces now have readily in hand as much — and often more — productive power and reach than our institutions …
At the highest level, we are changing the way we organize as a society. This has only happened twice before. The emerging form (networks) is not a mere modifier of previous forms (Tribes, Institutions & Markets), but a form in itself that may be able to address complex societal issues that the previous forms cannot. This is why changing how we work seems critical to so many people today.
some blame the management, some the employees;
and everybody knows it’s the Industrial Disease —Dire Straits
We are so interconnected today that many cannot imagine otherwise. Almost every person is connected to worldwide communication networks. News travels at the speed of a Tweet. Meanwhile, inside the enterprise, reaction times and feedback loops have to get faster to deal with markets that can create multi-billion dollar valuations seemingly overnight. But are they getting faster?
Most IT, HR, KM, etc. projects seem to assume the situation is complicated.
Complicated – relationship between cause & effect requires analysis, investigation, and expertise.
We should Sense – Analyze – Respond & we can apply good practices.
However, most projects involving people should assume they are complex.
Complex – relationship between cause & effect can only be perceived in retrospect.
We should Probe – Sense – Respond & we can test emergent practices.
So beware the cookie-cutter salespeople, as best practices do not help with complex problems. Most best practices are self-evident, whereas the problems that consume our time and efforts are usually complex. Instead of looking for best or good practices, we should take the time and money to invest in an experiment (a Probe).
Wirearchies are smarter than the sum of their parts. But what are the parts? One way to look at wirearchy is as four interrelated levels:
All levels are necessary and knowledge has to flow between them, or companies will get disconnected from their markets and their people. This is why trust is so important, and the sharing of power and authority is the visible evidence of trust.
Networked markets are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them. Thanks to the web, markets are becoming better informed, smarter, and more demanding of qualities missing from most business organizations. —The Cluetrain Manifesto
In a wired world, companies have to re-wire. The gap between markets and companies can only be addressed by two-way conversations between real people. Companies need to foster not only internal communities of practice but external communities of expertise. Only people can enable knowledge, trust and credibility to flow within and between markets and companies. Business in a wired world is first interconnected people, and then technology. Wirearchy puts people first.
Download PDF: wirearchy in 4 parts
“Our research indicates that, contrary to what one might assume, good analysis in the hands of managers who have good judgment won’t naturally yield good decisions.” — What Matters More in Decisions
Is it because they are assuming the problem is complicated …
Complicated, in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge, the approach is to Sense – Analyze – Respond and we can apply good practice.
… when in fact it is complex?
Complex, in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe – Sense – Respond and we can sense emergent practice.
Our linear management models are based on people developing skills and expertise and over time moving up the organizational or disciplinary hierarchy. The higher up one goes, the greater the qualifications, and the better the compensation. These people are our experts.
One of the things that makes experts so convincing is that they exude confidence. They can talk calmly and knowledgeably about a subject, make reference to relevant facts and build a compelling logic for their case. A good expert is always impressive, but still usually wrong.
In fact, in a twenty year study of political experts, Philip Tetlock found that their predictions were no better than flipping a coin. Further, he found that pundits who specialized in a particular field tended to perform worse than those whose knowledge was more general. —Why experts always seem to get it wrong
Most expertise looks backwards. Experts develop case studies from their experience, and then best practices through reflection on these experiences. In a linear world, this is good. For complicated problems, reliance on experts usually works.
In a complex world, experts may inform our decisions but we should not rely on them. We need to try things out in context. Lots of things, lots of times, and with little fanfare. This is management in perpetual Beta. It means thinking for ourselves and developing our own expertise for our constantly changing environments. Getting current managers to understand and accept this is one of our major organizational challenges.
Many parts of knowledge work have been routinized and standardized with the ongoing marriages of business processes and integrated enterprise information systems. What has not changed much yet is the adaptation of structures and culture to permit easily building flows of information into pertinent, useful and just-in-time knowledge, or fanning out problem-solving and accountability into networks of connected workers. —Jon Husband
Chee Chin Liew’s 2010 slide presentation on moving from hierarchies to teams at BASF shows how IT Services used their technology platforms to enhance networking, knowledge-sharing, and collaboration. The slide on the character of communities (#14) shows one approach to “building flows of information into pertinent, useful and just-in-time knowledge”.
Adapting these ideas to a model that promotes a “dynamic two-way flow of power of authority enabled by interconnected people and technology” shows how knowledge can flow in order to foster trust and credibility. Creating this two-way flow of dialogue, practice, expertise, and interest, can be the foundation of a wirearchy.
[Note: I might rename Dialogue to Coordination in a future version.]
Work in the network era needs to be cooperative and collaborative, and organizations have to support both. This may not be an easy transition for companies based solely on unified leadership. Collaboration is not the same as cooperation. Collaboration means working together, with an objective, and usually for a boss. This can work well when the objective is clear and the conditions do not change. Cooperation means sharing and helping others without expectations of direct reciprocation. Cooperation helps to strengthen networks, without central managerial interference. In times of rapid change, and decreasing lifespans of companies, cooperation trumps collaboration.
In complex environments, weak hierarchies and strong networks are the best organizing principle. While many companies today have strong networks, they are too often coupled with strong central control. Becoming a wirearchy requires new organizational structures that incorporate communities, networks, and cooperative behaviours. It means giving up control. The job of those in leaderships roles is to help the network make better decisions.
As markets get more complex in the network era, most business value is created through innovation, not process improvement. Innovative ideas come through loose social ties and diverse opinions. Companies therefore need to push work beyond the practice layer and out to communities and networks. Openness improves task coordination, so that all problems can be seen. Transparency can improve collaboration to get tasks done better. In such a work environment, trust emerges. With openness and transparency in place, cooperation with more diverse knowledge networks can then lead to real business value. Hierarchies are merely simple control networks, while wirearchies are complex human networks.
Let me once again put forth my Principles of Management for the Network Era: It is only through innovative and contextual methods, the self-selection of the most appropriate tools and work conditions, and willing cooperation that more productive work can be assured. The duty of being transparent in our work and sharing our knowledge rests with all workers, as well as management.
We need to undo our dominant business models which are the legacy of military hierarchies because they are inefficient, ineffective, and stifle innovation. Hierarchies are only as good as the smartest gatekeeper. Wirearchies are smarter than the sum of their parts.
