Work – Page 19 – Harold Jarche

it’s not a skills gap

2018-12-142016-11-03 by Harold Jarche

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.

november webinar

2018-01-132016-10-31 by Harold Jarche

Working in Perpetual Beta

I will be hosting a webinar on Thursday, 10 November at 16:00 UTC (08:00 Pacific, 11:00 Eastern, 17:00 CET).

The subject will be the topics discussed in working in perpetual beta, the last volume of the series. I will show the research behind the network learning model and the triple operating system, and explain how these were developed over several years. I will also take any questions in advance from participants. The general outline will be 30 minutes of presentation, followed by 30 minutes of discussion or answering questions and longer if there are lots of questions. I intend to use the https://zoom.us/ platform, which I have found to be very easy to access.

The registration fee includes a copy of Working in Perpetual Beta.

not working, out loud

2018-11-132016-10-26 by Harold Jarche

I am a proponent of working out loud [transparent knowledge sharing] and see it as an essential connector between personal knowledge mastery and organizational knowledge management, as it helps make organizational knowledge explicit. John Stepper has recently advanced the idea of working out loud with his book on the subject. Many others are now practicing it: #workoutloud.

a new business ideology

2016-11-132016-10-25 by Harold Jarche

“Ideas lead technology. Technology leads organizations. Organizations lead institutions. Then ideology brings up the rear, lagging all the rest—that’s when things really get set in concrete.” – Charles Green

The following table shows how ideas, technology, organizations, and institutions are changing as we enter a network economy. There is now a need for a new business ideology.

find your lumps

2016-10-242016-10-23 by Harold Jarche

I am a ‘strawberry jam’ consultant. My consulting has lumps that cannot be spread too thin. My work cannot be infinitely diluted, like grape jelly can be spread. The law of strawberry jam is part of Gerald Weinberg’s advice to consultants, which I discovered two years ago via Niels Pflaeging, who created the image below to show the different types of consulting, one for individuals and the other for big consultancies.

“Not having lumps, grape jelly is perfect for processing through manufacturing machines. It’s that lumpy third dimension—the depth—that makes mass production impractical. Grape jelly spreads infinitely thin, so the consumer can color a predictable number of slices of toast out of a single sterilized plastic container.” – Gerald Weinberg

enabling self-governing teams

2017-03-122016-10-18 by Harold Jarche

“All forms of governance are failing their citizens — dictatorships and communism failed in the last part of the 20th century, and in this century democracies are not meeting citizen expectations. No matter which leaders are chosen, the systems themselves are failing.” – Yaneer Bar-Yam

Our communities were not developed for a global economy, our institutions were not designed for a networked citizenry, and our markets were created for physical goods, not networked intangibles. We need to create new institutions and markets for the network era. Perhaps monitory democracy is an answer. Perhaps it requires an applied blueprint for the restoration of democracy.

supporting the business of learning

2016-12-102016-10-12 by Harold Jarche

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.

the problem is to know what questions to ask

2016-10-09 by Harold Jarche

“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.

life in the gig economy

2022-04-302016-10-05 by Harold Jarche

In 2011 I asked if we were in the midst of a freelance revolution.

“This transition is nothing less than a revolution. We haven’t seen a shift in the workforce this significant in almost 100 years when we transitioned from an agricultural to an industrial economy. Now, employees are leaving the traditional workplace and opting to piece together a professional life on their own. As of 2005, one-third of our workforce participated in this “freelance economy.” Data show that number has only increased over the past six years. Entrepreneurial activity in 2009 was at its highest level in 14 years, online freelance job postings skyrocketed in 2010, and companies are increasingly outsourcing work. While the economy has unwillingly pushed some people into independent work, many have chosen it because of greater flexibility that lets them skip the dreary office environment and focus on more personally fulfilling projects.”
—The Freelance Surge is the Industrial Revolution of Our Time:

Fewer Frustrations, More Stress

I’m in my 14th year of operating solo and have watched as several of my colleagues have gone independent and I have learned from others who have been freelancing longer than me. I know that many salaried jobs can be frustrating, from my own experience, client work, and talks with friends and colleagues. On the other hand, freelancing is probably less frustrating, as you have much more control, but more stressful for the same reason.

Nine years ago I wrote an article, So you want to be an e-learning consultant?, and updated it on this blog in 2011, So you (still) want to be an e-learning consultant? In 2007 I advised those considering consulting to keep costs low and not overestimate how much they will make. I noted that many clients pay 30 days or more after being billed. Well reality is that some clients take over 100 days to pay, as standard policy.

The freelance consulting field continues to grow, so there is constant global competition. This can make it a buyer’s market. I know many free agents who have significant gaps between paid work. I am currently in a period of several months without client work. During the last recession I went over eight months without revenue. If you are going to make the move, ask yourself how long you can last without any new income. It should be at least three months.

to retrieve or to extend

2019-02-202016-09-28 by Harold Jarche

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.