Learning

Learning

it’s not a skills gap

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The lack of skills is not the main problem facing most organizations today, in spite of what many managers and executives might say.

Researchers Dave Swenson and Liesl Eathington identified several factors contributing to hiring challenges, but a widespread lack of skilled workers was not one them … The Iowa researchers’ conclusion? “When employers say there’s a skills gap, what they’re often really saying is they can’t find workers willing to work for the pay they’re willing to pay,” —GE Reports

Neither is a lack of tools the core issue in organizational performance. Many organizations have more tools than they need. I worked with a company that had several hundred software platforms and programs at its disposal. It still had issues around sharing knowledge, managing institutional memory, and collaborating across departments.

Tools and skills are easy-to-fill buckets, but meta-competencies of learning to learn and working in digital networks take significant time, effort, and support to fill. A long-term strategy to support these meta-competencies is lacking in most organizations today. Everyone wants a quick fix. Projects are designed around clear short-term deliverables. Few measure competencies for the long term.

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supporting the business of learning

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The 2nd edition of the 70:20:10 Report has been published by GoodPractice. I have described 70:20:10 as a useful model and have suggested nine ways to implement the model. These form the core of the social learning workshop.

The 70:20:10 model is based on observations that in the workplace, people learn 70% of what they need to do their job from experience. About 20% is learned from exposure to new tasks or environments. Only 10% is learned from formal education and training. While these numbers are not firm, they provide a rule of thumb.

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the problem is to know what questions to ask

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“As we move to driverless cars and machine learning and an economy in which any action that is repeated can be automated, let’s spare a thought for the kids who only get Cs in school. What will become of them? What do you mean you have no idea? That’s your job! Let’s bring some small measure of consensus back to political culture.” – John Ibbitson, Globe & Mail 2016-10-07

As we move into a network society, every existing form of human organization will come under pressure to adapt to the new realities that are beginning to emerge. Almost everything is changing, except human behaviour. First we shape our structures, then our structures shape us. We are in desperate need of new structures.

We are the media: Social media extend emotion, obsolesce the linearity and logic of print, retrieve orality, and when pushed to their extreme result in constant outrage. This is what John Ibbitson is so concerned with. But this is the new nature of a digitally networked world. We cannot ‘go back to Peoria’, as it no longer exists as a convenient litmus test. It has been fragmented into millions of disconnected pieces.

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the third bucket

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In a discussion I had with a senior Human Resources executive at a large corporation, he noted that when it comes to managing people and their talents, there are three buckets. Two of these are easy to fill, while the third is the real challenge:

1. Tools

2. Skills

3. Meta-Competencies:

Learning how to Learn (e.g. PKMastery)

Working in Digital Networks (e.g. Perpetual Beta)

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to retrieve or to extend

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It seems that ‘millennials’ in America do not have a lot of confidence in their institutions and markets. According to a 2016 Vox survey, corporate America, governors, and news agencies ranked the lowest. The status quo is not faring well. This is not surprising if we look at the major shift in how we humans are organizing, which is only the fourth in history. The TIMN model shows how each shift created a new dominant form of organizing people: first in tribes, then through institutions, and later in markets. And now we are beginning an age of network dominance.

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seek > sense > share for cities

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Two years ago, a number of members from UCLG (United Cities & Local Governments) participated in a personal knowledge mastery workshop. This was part of the organization’s search for “practical solutions to fulfill the citizen’s demand” acknowledging that “learning cannot be conducted alone but has to be part of partnerships”. One result was an initiative between Mozambique and Brazil that embraced my seek > sense > share framework in a unique way (PDF pp. 44 – 47).

“The methodology used throughout the project and the role of partners is described using Harold Jarche’s ‘Seek, Sense, Share’ learning framework as it seeks to facilitate the sharing of complex knowledge and foster a network built on trusted relationships.

Seek: Identify Partners, Cities, Technical and Political Leaders, and People
“The objective was to bring the actors together through triangular cooperation built around Brazilian cities’ experiences and expertise, European support and Mozambican leadership.”

Sense: Building Content and Results
“This methodology was an eye-opener for many mayors, who thus had a better understanding of the role and work of their technicians, which led to higher levels of trust.”

Share: Disseminate Results and Evaluate the Process
“Additional outreach included a blog to share the results and to connect to other stakeholders; a newsletter; radio interviews provided by Brazilian mayors; and strategic connections to other events and meetings in Brazil.”

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a workable future

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In the IFTF report Ten Strategies for a Workable Future, the authors highlight issues for the US labour force, which I believe are applicable to many other countries and economies. (full report PDF)

  1. Combine the best of investor-owned and commons-based platform models
  2. Solve for both transparency and privacy
  3. Integrate marginalized workers in a sustainable economy
  4. Ensure opportunities for workers to advance outside of traditional organizational hierarchies
  5. Support worker-owned identities
  6. Create ways for workers to bring their voices together
  7. Reinvent benefits to follow workers everywhere
  8. Integrate learning and work
  9. Prepare youth for “the hustle”
  10. Champion a good work code

I have discussed most of these issues on this blog, such as platform capitalism, integrating work & learning, and the limits of hierarchies. The triple operating system model for network era organizations aligns with these recommendations, particularly the need to operate as temporary, negotiated hierarchies and the requirement for safe places to work on alternatives (communities of practice). This model is based on the core principles of subsidiarity, wirearchy, and network management.

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carpe diem

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Arun Pradhan recently asked about my own experiences of learning and working. I decided to work and learn out loud and post my responses here. There were four questions, but my responses overlapped, so I have written a single, narrative response, below.

  1. Q1. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from experience, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you used intentional practice, learnt from failure, learnt from ambitious projects and/or used reflection)
  2. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from people, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you learnt from project teams, mentors, coaches and/or broader social networks)
  3. In your working life, how have you learnt effectively from courses, research or investigation, please provide an example if possible? (e.g. how have you learnt from reading on the web, reading books or attending courses)
  4. What’s your top advice for someone who wishes to develop faster and learn complex skills in modern workplaces?

The first twenty-one years of my work life were spent serving in the Canadian military. During that time I had four years of formal university education, followed by military courses and instruction totaling several years. I also completed a Master of Education degree part-time while working. I was a trained and qualified infantry officer, health care administrator, and training development officer. On leaving the military in 1998, I starting working in the field of learning technologies, where I had minimal formal education, other than a course in instructional design. My Master’s degree was in adult education and not much use in the field of knowledge management or human performance technology, the main focus of my work for my first two civilian jobs.

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retrieving rationality

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“The underlying social and psychological motivations that drive crowds have remained constant over time. But our new technological scaffolding has changed the way that they form and exist in the world. Today’s crowds can grow to unheard-of proportions and never dissolve. Their members are no longer equal. And for the technologically savvy, their power they embody is easier to wield, and the members are easier to manipulate.” – Renee DiResta on RibbonFarm

According to Renee DiResta, the new digital crowd that influences public opinion is “persistent and large & unequal and easy to manipulate”. Digital social media platforms are changing the influence that crowds have on society because once formed, they no longer need to disperse. I mentioned before that social media can reverse into constant outrage, in we are the media.

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