Work is learning. Learning is the work.
There are three structures that exist in all organizations, with three different sources of power, and three types of leadership required for each structure. This is the thesis that Niels Pflaeging puts forth in Organizational Physics.
Organizational performance improvement is comprised of reducing errors and increasing insights, according to Gary Klein. For the past century, management practice has focused very much on error reduction, with practices such as Six Sigma, especially in manufacturing.
“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
Learning and development (L&D) practices reflect this priority on error reduction. Subject matter experts are interviewed or observed, good practices are noted, and then training programs are designed to develop the skills that make up some or all of a job. Anyone with the requisite abilities, as quantified in the job description, can then be trained.
Learning is the new literacy. Personal computers are just one example. We buy new ones every few years. Operating systems change. Programs change, get replaced, or become obsolete. But we often continue with the same habits until something goes wrong. Few of us do the equivalent of ‘looking under the hood’. We learn enough to get our work done, but often do not take time to understand the underlying systems and logic.
By not being active learners we lose the agility to react quickly to changing situations. We have to take the time to keep learning. It’s an effort that too many of us avoid. When was the last time you learned a new computer program? How many books do you read? When did you try to master a new skill? These are things we need to make a priority. If not, we risk becoming obsolete before our time. Aiming for retirement is not a bad thing, but what happens when it is forced on us and we are not ready?
“Statistics Canada estimates 158,400 people aged 55 to 64 were handed permanent layoffs in 2015. Is there any hope of a comfortable retirement for those folks?” – CBC News
Every fortnight I curate some of the observations and insights that were shared on social media. I call these Friday’s Finds.
“An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times.”—Nina Simone, via @PENamerican
“It seems my latest hobby is finding interesting artists to follow on Instagram. Art as a refuge etc.” —Hugh MacLeod
“I studied critical thinking for my PhD thesis. What we’re missing in the world isn’t critical thinking as much as it’s listening and empathy.” —@Bali_Maha
Harvard Business Review described The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge, as one of the seminal management books of the previous 75 years. The five disciplines necessary for a learning organization are:
These disciplines have influenced my professional work which is based on individuals taking control of their learning and professional development and actively engaging in social networks and communities of practice. In this article I want to focus on the first two disciplines: Mastery and Models.
Personal knowledge mastery (PKM) is a framework I have developed over the past 12 years. It is an individual, disciplined process by which we make sense of information and our interactions with people and ideas. While it is an individual discipline, PKM is of little value unless the results are shared by connecting to others, and contributing to meaningful conversations. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts as we build on the knowledge of others. As knowledge workers or citizens, PKM is our part of the social learning contract. Without effective PKM at the individual level, social learning has less value.
Why is populism so darned popular in many parts of the world today?
In stark terms, Cas Mudde, a Dutch political scientist, has defined populism as “an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite.'” … “Populism presents a Manichean outlook, in which there are only friends and foes,” Mudde has written. —Aaron Wherry, CBC 2017-02-26
As we shift from a print and market dominated economy to a digitally networked economy, much of what we take for granted about how society should work goes out the window. Our institutions were not designed for a network era. At the same time, with social media, we all have the ability to participate in global conversations. Many of us want to be heard, but few of us listen. We have no history of engaging in meaningful global conversations on a mass scale and few examples to guide us. In this networked world we are mostly illiterate, digital natives and immigrants alike.
Network literacy is needed everywhere but most of us do not have even the basic skills to sift through the fake/alternate news that flows by each day. Disciplines like personal knowledge mastery are no longer a luxury. We all need trusted knowledge networks to help us make sense of the shifting world. We have to build these soon, before we drown in an ocean of manipulated data.
Il devient de plus en plus évident que plusieurs de nos structures organisationnelles actuelles et leurs approches de leadership sont inadéquates pour un monde où les réseaux fluides ont remplacé les hiérarchies rigides du passé. Un nouveau paradigme de gestion émerge de cette nouvelle réalité.
Nous devons revoir nos structures et systèmes d’environnement de travail pour le Beta perpétuel — le changement en continu. J’aide les dirigeants et leurs équipes à s’adapter à ce nouveau paradigme. En travaillant sur l’apprentissage social et le leadership connecté, j’offre de l’accompagnement pragmatique et pratique sur la façon de travailler en mode «Beta» perpétuel en utilisant le levier des réseaux sociaux, des communautés de pratique et du PKM, le Personal Knowledge Mastery.
Je présenterai une introduction de mon atelier et ma stratégie PKM pour survivre et vous épanouir dans ce nouvel environnement, à Montréal:
L’atelier du 15 mars 2017 inclura les sujets suivants :
Inscription: http://communautesdepratique.com
I will be hosting the next Beta Conversation on Wednesday, March 8th at 16:00 GMT/UTC (08:00 Pacific, 11:00 Eastern, 17:00 CET). The subject will be the topics discussed in working in perpetual beta.
This is part of a regular series of web discussion on topics I have written about in the perpetual beta series. Each session is 90 minutes long. For participant confidentiality, these sessions will not be recorded.
The format of each session is as follows:
Given the positive feedback from previous conversations, these sessions will be capped at 7 participants. This will ensure time for deeper dialogue and to address everyone’s questions. We will use the https://zoom.us/ platform.
If you are interested in applying new organizational models for the network era that optimize human learning, based on cooperation, knowledge-sharing, and transparency, then please join us.
Next month I will be facilitating a workshop at The Arts in a Digital World Summit, hosted in Montreal by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Among other things, the summit will be a chance to share knowledge, mobilize – and possibly even incubate projects. We’ll consider our digital reality as an opportunity to:
- develop innovative approaches
- re-imagine how artists and arts organizations engage with citizens
- seed collaborations within the arts community, and with other sectors.
It will bring together over 250 artistic and administrative leaders, digital experts, and strategic thinkers selected by the Canada Council to represent the vast diversity of the sector and to contribute to the testing and understanding of its new Fund for the arts in a digital world. The event will be by-invitation however many parts of it will also be accessible online.
My workshop is entitled The Arts in Perpetual Beta. This is how I describe the 90 minute session: We live in a networked world. Automation and connectivity are changing how we work and learn. How does the digital surround affect how human knowledge and creativity are shared? Join this workshop to discuss some key trends, understand knowledge networks, and critically examine the technologies we use.
I intend to focus on network thinking, machine augmentation, and the tetradic effects of technology. I’ll also talk about learning like an artist.
I would be interested in the perspectives of anyone working in or with the arts. I am especially curious how their work has changed in the past decade or so as a result of automation or connectivity.
Today marks 13 years of blogging here, with 2,901 posts. I have just returned from 3 weeks in Europe, working with several people and organizations who first connected through my blog. Next month I will be contributing to the Arts in a Digital World Summit because the organizers found me through this blog. The ability for anyone to publish their work to a global audience is one of the most important attributes of the web and our digital world: for better and worse. In spite of the rise in fascist thinking and post-truth moments, being connected can be liberating for humanity. However, it will always be a work in progress, like democracy. I am deeply thankful for our connected world, remembering what it was like before the web, and for the many friends and colleagues I have gained over the past 13 years.
Here are a few of my thoughts on blogging over the years.