There is no normal anymore. The first quarter of the year is not even over and we have regime changes on an unprecedented level. Currencies fluctuate and peak oil looms with ever higher fluctuations. Meanwhile, startup companies in emerging sectors grow to billion dollar enterprises in under two years.
How is your organization dealing with this? If it’s a large one, you are probably doing business as usual, with a few innovation projects under the hood. The general business strategy is that things will stay the same or that there wil be some growth. We know that recruiting is a big issue for many companies, but not much has changed with HR policies for the past few decades. It’s still mostly salaried work with compensation based on hours worked within some general competency model. But that’s not how creativity is nurtured, and we need a lot more creativity in dealing with the unique and wickedly complex problems we see more and more. A current question doing its rounds on the Net today is “Would your company hire Steve Jobs?”. The implicit message being that innovators don’t get hired.
We can prepare to deal with increasing complexity by promoting agility and autonomy, but there’s only one way to do that: give up control. It’s that simple.
Today we have organizations that are well-connected both hierarchically and between individual workers. In most cases, anyone can be contacted in the organization. However, the central authority retains control, as shown in the first figure.
The model we need for an agile organization with autonomous workers doesn’t look like a pyramid. In fact, it’s the opposite. When there is no normal (and no best practices to follow) then the central authority’s role is to support with a gentle hand. Inverting the organizational pyramid clearly shows the new non-directive role of the central authority. That doesn’t mean there is no leadership, just less control and greater autonomy for workers.
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Thomas Paine’s advice to “Lead, follow or get out of the way”, should be taken by most managers. Adam Kahane wrote in Solving Tough Problems:
If we want to help resolve complex situations, we have to get out of the way of situations that are resolving themselves.
It seems that everyone has an answer in dealing with the latest iteration of web technologies – social media. However, as complexity theory tells us, there are no clear and simple answers. Simple processes can create highly complex systems. Maybe that’s why some disciplines might come across as professional liars.
The conceit that we have the answers might be partially at fault. I mean, many of us have spent years in our professions and we have the credentials and certifications to prove it. We must know what we’re talking about, right? But what if none of us can really see the whole picture?
Listening to others and engaging in meaningful conversations is a first step in losing our disciplinary blinders. Let’s not be blind monks examining the elephant.
Do hyperlinks really subvert hierarchy? I recently asked on Twitter. They can when people outside the organization take advantage of ridiculously easy group-forming. Examples such as United Breaks Guitars and the various mass, decentralized and social revolutions show what is possible when hyperlinks subvert hierarchy.
However, are there any workplace examples, where existing management practices were forced to change? I don’t know of any, though I think we will see many in the near future.
I read the Cluetrain Manifesto when it was developed and published online in 1999. I even bought a dead-tree version a few years years later. I’m still amazed how many senior executives have never even heard of the Cluetrain. While it may be a bit of a rant, it’s available online for free and makes some very important statements that still resonate a decade later. The Internet has changed the way we work.
Many of my posts over the past 7 years have been inspired by one of the Cluetrain’s 95 theses.
2004 – Lee LeFever hits the nail on the head with this Esse Quam Videre (to be rather than seem) post about weblogging in business. It’s just too easy to see through the smoke when you post every day. You have to be yourself, or you’ll get caught. Lee talks about this idea stemming from the Cluetrain Manifesto (worth the read in spite of its rant style). From Rick Levine’s section of Cluetrain, “Talk is Cheap”, is this excellent sidebar – “A knowledge worker is someone who’s job is having really interesting conversations at work.” That would be most bloggers, I would say.
2005 – Regular readers know that I often refer to The Cluetrain Manifesto. If you haven’t read it yet, take a look at the 95 theses, but I’d suggest that you read the whole book – online or in print. Scott Adams has taken the theses and re-mixed them for education. I’ve re-mixed a bit more, but don’t have the energy (yet) to address all 95:
Learning is conversation.
Learners are human beings, not demographic sectors.
What’s happening to education is also happening among learners. A metaphysical construct called “The School” is the only thing standing between the two.
To traditional educational institutions, networked conversations may appear confused, may sound confusing. But we, the learners, are organizing faster than they are. We have better tools, more new ideas, no rules to slow us down.
2006 – Markets are conversations and conversations [relationships] create markets … Let’s go back to the Cluetrain Manifesto, from which we get the initial thesis that markets are conversations. In this case, I think that theses 11 and 12 are much more pertinent:
#11. People in networked markets have figured out that they get far better information and support from one another than from vendors. So much for corporate rhetoric about adding value to commoditized products.
#12. There are no secrets. The networked market knows more than companies do about their own products. And whether the news is good or bad, they tell everyone.
2007 – One of the main forces of change that will affect how we learn is the weakening of the industrial command & control organisation. We don’t need a third party to mediate our learning because we can find interesting stuff and interesting people (interesting to us, at least) on the Web. I see those workers, who one could call the “Cluetrained’, as already dropping out of the bottom of the industrial organisation’s pyramid and doing it on their own. “It” meaning working, learning, creating and collaborating.
2008 – Here is an important note to corporations; Cluetrain Thesis #20:
Companies need to realize their markets are often laughing. At them.
Gee, what’s next, people making fun of education?
2009 – Cluetrain #10. As a result, markets are getting smarter, more informed, more organized. Participation in a networked market changes people fundamentally.
To make the money I don’t make teaching, I consult and speak for various media companies and brands. The only reason I get those gigs is because companies read the ideas I discuss at Buzzmachine and ask me to come and repeat them in PowerPoint form and explore them with their staff. I’ve also been asked to teach executives how to blog (a class that should, by rights, take about two minutes). That work and the teaching get me to a nice income in six figures. So I’m not looking quite as idiotic now, I hope.
NPR, all my work in New Media, Blackwater, Education – all my paying gigs have come through this medium [blogging].
2010 – 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. The opportunity the Internet has given individuals is the chance to work cooperatively toward a shared purpose (Seb Paquet calls this “ridiculously easy group-forming”). The Internet also affords organizations the opportunity to loosen the dependence of workers through participative engagement (as The Cluetrain Manifesto explained a decade ago). The new organization must be some mix of free-agent autonomy, support mechanisms for mastery, and a wide enough span for each person to develop a personal sense of purpose.
I’ve been putting my thoughts on this blog for seven years now. When I started (19 Feb 2004), the term blog was not exactly mainstream and one media “guru” said blogs were on their way out. Today, my blog is still the main part of my “outboard brain” and I can’t see how I could manage my sense-making processes without a blog as home-base.
I have tried to keep this blog true to my principles and beliefs but still professional and courteous. I cannot say the posts here have a neutral point of view. I was an advocate of open source software before it was popular with the mainstream. I have commented on oligopolistic practice, suggested that the LMS is not the centre of the universe and have advocated for de-schooling. While not radical, this blog has not been corporate mainstream either. Of course, there is always a price to pay for that, as I continue to learn. However, I cannot see how I could remove myself from my online life. For instance, I never comment online under a pseudonym. My writing reflects me and nobody else, though I try to be restrained and provide balance. I allow negative comments and only delete spam.
If you want to know what I think, read my blog. If you’re surprised by my behaviour, you may not have read enough.
Here are some of the things I learned via Twitter this past week.
“It was 1977. We thought we were doing an experiment. The problem was, the experiment never ended.” ~ Vint Cerf on the Internet. via @moehlert @monkchips
This idea is of course ridiculous. It’s ridiculous not because companies can’t or shouldn’t track performance in those areas — they can, and they should. It’s not even ridiculous because such performance can’t be quantified — many environmental and social impacts can be measured, and companies’ performance on various measures can be tracked from year to year.
No, the problem with the 3BL is that it’s a terribly misleading metaphor. It’s an accounting metaphor, used in domains that don’t satisfy some of the basic assumptions that make financial accounting work. (In my Critical Thinking class, this is what we call the “False Analogy” fallacy.)
Learning is not a FedEx package that you sign for at the door. Learning happens on its own schedule. We often realise the significance of events long after their original impact, and may actually continue to revise what we think the lesson is as our lives unfold.
C’est Tim Kastelle qui m’a présenté le concept Agréger-Filtrer-Connecter pour l’innovation, que j’ai utilisé pour mon PLE (Personal Knowledge Management) avant de le changer en Enquêter-Discerner-Partager. L’innovation est inextricablement liée à la fois aux réseaux et à l’apprentissage. C’est pourquoi les compétences nécessaires à l’apprentissage en réseaux sont essentielles pour les entreprises aujourd’hui. Nous avons besoin d’innover pour rester en tête dans un monde en mutation. Les règles sont en constante évolution. A peine le temps de s’habituer à de nouveaux business modèles comme Amazon ou Google, que quelqu’un comme Alvis Bigis nous propose un excellent article sur la façon dont l’économie américaine a besoin de devenir sociale. A parlant du site Groupon.com, il dit « Jamais avant Groupon, une entreprise n’avait atteint 2 milliards de dollars de chiffre d’affaires annuel en seulement 2 ans. » Qui sait quelle sera la suite ?
The Dare to Share: A New Culture of Collaboration in the Enterprise infographic, by Socialcast provides an excellent snapshot of the need for collaborative work and learning practices.
The web and ever-transforming digital technology have revolutionized the concept of communication and collaboration at work. Fundamental to employee collaboration is how individuals join together to achieve a mutual goal. Collaboration is based on the idea that sharing knowledge through cooperation helps solve problems more efficiently.
One part of the graphic shows three areas of opportunity for most organizations: sources of wasted effort. These are activities where you should be able to get measurable results fairly quickly.
In The 2020 Workplace, Jeanne Meister & Karie Willyerd make 20 predictions at the end of the book. William Gibson said, “the future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed.” Here are my thoughts on where we are with some of these predictions:
Your mobile device will become your office, your classroom, and your concierge. We’re already seeing this with young people. They’d rather go without a car. Mobile computing is the future that is already here.
Job requirements for CEOs will include blogging. How else can you communicate with everyone effectively and efficiently? It’s sure not by email and face-to-face is difficult in distributed organizations. I would include podcasts & video in this statement.
Social media literacy will be required for all employees. I give this perhaps 24 months. We no longer offer training on email. Connecting to online social networks for working and learning will be a fact of life much sooner than later.
The lines between marketing, communications and learning will blur. I’ve called this the integration of organizational support. What we at the Internet Time Alliance call working smarter is a culture supported by social learning; collaborative work and a leadership framework. Technology enables this but the three pillars are more important than any technology platform.
Let me be clear – training is not an event; learning is a connected, collaborative and continuous process. It can and does occur in formal, informal and social ways every day in and out of your job. In your email, with the statement “what happens after the training event”, you have cemented (again) the root cause of the Kirkpatrick model. The ‘event’ is not solely how learning occurs. Whether in the original model, or the weakly updated model, the single largest flaw with the Kirkpatrick Four Levels model is the fact its basic premise is that learning starts with an event. Once you ultimately get past this stumbling block, the Kirkpatrick Four Levels model will potentially become relevant again, should it be suitably updated again.
Dan is not the first person to show the limitations of the Kirkpatrick model. Eric Davidove and Craig Mindrun wrote in Verifying Virtual Value:
The key to determining the business value of networked learning, however, is a more expansive view of the kinds of outcomes delivered. Traditional training analyses, such as Kirkpatrick’s four levels of evaluation, were designed to assess solutions that are delivered in a linear manner. Since networked or collaborative learning solutions are informal, integrated with the workflow and driven by the learners, these traditional assessments will not work.
Event-based instructional interventions, or the course as learning vehicle, is an outdated and useless way to look at workplace learning. Courses are an artifact of a time when information was scarce and connections were few. The internet is an environment optimized for ABC learning [Anything But Courses].
In “Not Your Father’s ROI”, Jay Cross suggests:
Make a hypothesis of cause and effect. Interview a statistically significant sample of the workforce to see if the hypothesis holds up. Often, results obtained from social science research methods will produce more meaningful feedback than solid counts of the wrong thing.
Changing our training evaluation models shouldn’t be a management focus anyway. That’s looking at the wrong thing. Even if we get 100% efficiency, and some level of effectiveness, we’re missing 90% of the picture, as shown in this graphic by Charles Jennings.
Training more efficiently is a mug’s game. Managers and workplace performance professionals should focus on Working Smarter, by helping people learn and develop socially.
Here are some of the things I learned via Twitter this week:
From KM to complexity – Necessary silos, cognitive truths about knowledge sharing, narrative as mediator, the zone of effective diffusion, and decision-making; by @johnt
At the highest level of abstraction (you have a conversation with yourself) the cost of codification is very low as you have a 100% shared context (hopefully).
[NOTE: the moment you have to transfer (it’s more of a dance rather than a transfer anyway) with another person then you have to be aware of the barriers (their current level of understanding, expert language, world view) which are ultimately overcome with experience and acquiring skill…see curse of knowledge]
On the other hand if you want to share your knowledge with everyone then the cost of codification will approach infinity.
Blogging is primarily known as an instrument for personal publishing, reaching a broad and often unknown audience without pushing content on them. While blogging is personal, most of its advantages are the result being part of an ecosystem, where weblogs are connected not only by links, but also by relations between bloggers. Those relations do not appear automatically: it takes time and effort before one can enjoy social effects of blogging. To sustain blogging before those effects appear it is important to find a personally meaningful way to use a weblog.
It’s time to think about what companies really are, and to design with that in mind. Companies are not so much machines as complex, dynamic, growing systems. As they get larger, acquiring smaller companies, entering into joint ventures and partnerships, and expanding overseas, they become “systems of systems” that rival nation-states in scale and reach.
So what happens if we rethink the modern company, if we stop thinking of it as a machine and start thinking of it as a complex, growing system? What happens if we think of it less like a machine and more like an organism? Or even better, what if we compared the company with other large, complex human systems, like, for example, the city?
Egypt is about much more than a popular uprising against a ruler who has stayed in power through what can only be described, charitably, as a corruption of the democratic process. Egypt is the most compelling example to date of how the physics of human society are being rewritten. In much the same way that Quantum Physics turned Classical Physics on its head, the twin revolutions of information and connectivity are turning society upside down or perhaps better put, every which way and loose.
Mimi likes to learn. She’s pretty typical. Eunice ensures that learning is focused on the task at hand. She is a typical manager in many organizations.
Anybody still wondering why social tools in the workplace, enabling collaboration & social learning, have a tendency to fail?
Today we have organizations that are well-connected both hierarchically and between individual workers. In most cases, anyone can be contacted in the organization. However, the central authority retains control, as shown in the first figure.
