Work – Page 27 – Harold Jarche

adapting to perpetual beta

2017-05-252015-02-18 by Harold Jarche

There is no such thing as a social business strategy.
There are only business strategies that understand networks.
Cooperative and distributed work is becoming the norm in the network era.
Social learning is how work gets done in networks.
Sharing power, enabling conversations, and ensuring transparency are some of the values of networked business.
Trust emerges when these principles are put in practice.
Learning is part of work, not separate from it.

What follows is a summary of what I believe are some of the most important issues facing organizational design today.

enough training

2015-05-262015-02-11 by Harold Jarche

In a recent CBC News story, a railway conductor lost her job following a derailment. She claimed she was not adequately trained. Here is a comment from the Railway Association representative:

“In your job, you are qualified and do your job, but you feel you should know more. It doesn’t mean you are not qualified for your job. You might have a personal perception, that you would need additional training, but the minimum standards for your position are determined by the railways.”

I think I have always been averse to hierarchies, yet I joined the Army and entered the most hierarchical organization in the country. I graduated from military college and began my career as an infantry officer. Career progression was through promotion, based on yearly performance reviews.

It was supposed to be a meritocracy but was much more tribal. Having a senior officer looking after your career was a great help. I did not have that. I also bored easily and it was the Cold War with us fighting fictional Soviet troops on the Canadian prairies. So I decided to leave the infantry and transfer to the medical services, where I thought I would do more practical work.

from training to social learning

2017-07-242015-02-02 by Harold Jarche

This video provides an overview of my six-week online social learning workshop. It is focused on moving from training, to performance improvement, to social learning.

L&D outside the box

2021-04-112015-01-29 by Harold Jarche

This article appeared in Inside Learning Technologies & Skills Magazine, January 2015

Harold Jarche issues a challenge to L&D professionals in an environment where getting the work done is more important than learning anything new.

In the mid 1990s I became involved with my most expensive learning project. I was then serving as a Training Development Officer with the Canadian Armed Forces, working in tactical aviation (helicopters that support the Army). We had just purchased 100 helicopters. A $25M full-motion combat simulator had been thrown in with the $1B budget.

I was able to watch as the new simulator was installed at our training unit, as my office was next to it. As it was tested, discussions began on how best it could be used. As the ‘training guy’ I started researching best practices in flight simulation, and was able to see what our NATO allies were doing.

every medium

2015-07-162015-01-26 by Harold Jarche

Wirearchy is “a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority, based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology”. It is a medium for organizing how people work together. Wirearchy is a new way to work. Viewing wirearchy through the tetradic laws of media might give some clarity on what it can be, and what we need to beware of.

play the long game

2022-05-312015-01-20 by Harold Jarche

Platform capitalism is the ability of a common internet exchange medium to enable easy commercial transactions. Buyers of services get convenience, while sellers get a larger market. The spoils go to the owner of the platform, receiving a percentage of revenues. Most of these platforms are created when regulations and oligopolies make these transactions difficult by traditional means. Platform capitalism initially disrupts a sector that is poorly served.

a simpler approach to content management

2015-01-18 by Harold Jarche

I was recently asked what I thought about content management systems (CMS); how content should be developed; whether generational differences should be considered; and how to keep content relevant. The best example of a CMS is the Web. There is relevant and irrelevant content. The relevant content is often found through referrals. This may be in terms of ratings, curation by a trusted party, or from a known source. Referrals can be pushed, through something like a subscription service, or pulled from knowledge networks when there is an immediate need for information. People with more diverse and deep knowledge networks get better information.

So what does a CMS have to do with it? Not much.

caught in-between

2016-09-192015-01-15 by Harold Jarche

The core premise of finding perpetual beta is that the digital world is bumping against the analog world and we are currently caught in-between.

9 ways to improve workplace learning

2018-02-032015-01-14 by Harold Jarche

Training, and education, are often solutions looking for a problem. But good training and education can have a huge impact on behaviour and performance. Remember that great teacher who inspired you? Did you ever have a coach who got you to a higher level of performance? But throwing content at someone and hoping for learning to happen is not a good strategy. This is how far too many courses are designed and delivered.

“As I’ve been working with the Foundation over the past 6 months I’ve had the occasion to review a wide variety of elearning, more specifically in the vocational and education space, but my experience mirrors that from the corporate space: most of it isn’t very good. I realize that’s a harsh pronouncement, but I fear that it’s all too true; most of the elearning I see will have very little impact.” —Clark Quinn