Work

business & working

Social Learning Handbook

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This post is an excerpt from Jane Hart’s recently published  Social Learning Handbook 2014.

social learning handbook 2014It’s all about people.

Today’s digitally connected workplace demands a completely new set of skills. Our increasing interconnectedness is illuminating the complexity of our work environments. More connections create more possibilities, as well as more potential problems.

On the negative side, we are seeing that simple work keeps getting automated, like automatic bank machines. Complicated work, for which standardized processes can be developed, usually gets outsourced to the lowest cost of labor.

On the positive side, complex work can provide unique business advantages and creative work can help to identify new business opportunities. However, complex work is difficult to copy and creative work constantly changes.

But both complex and creative work require greater implicit knowledge. Implicit knowledge, unlike explicit knowledge, is difficult to codify and standardize. It is also difficult to transfer.

Implicit knowledge is best developed through conversations and social relationships. It requires trust before people willingly share their know-how. Social networks can enable better and faster knowledge feedback for people who trust each and share their knowledge. But hierarchies and work control structures constrain conversations. Few people want to share their ignorance with the boss who controls their pay cheque. But if we agree that complex and creative work are where long-term business value lies, then learning amongst ourselves is the real work in organizations today. In this emerging network era, social learning is how work gets done.

Becoming a successful social organization will require more than just the implementation of enterprise social technologies. Developing, supporting, and encouraging people to use a range of new social workplace skills will be just as important. Individual skills, in addition to new organizational support structures, are both required.

Personal knowledge management (PKM) skills can help to make sense of, and learn from, the constant stream of information that workers encounter from social channels both inside and outside the organization. Keeping track of digital information flows and separating the signal from the noise is difficult. There is little time to make sense of it all. We may feel like we are just not able to stay current and make informed decisions. PKM gives a framework to develop a network of people and sources of information that one can draw from on a daily basis. PKM is a process of filtering, creating, and discerning, and it also helps manage individual professional development through continuous learning.

Collaboration skills can help workers to share knowledge so that people work and learn cooperatively in teams, communities of practice, and social networks. In order to support collaborative working and learning in the organization, it is important to experience what it means to work and learn collaboratively, and understand the new community and collaboration skills that are involved. “You can’t train someone to be social, only show them how to be social.” Practice is necessary.

The power of social networks, like electricity, will inevitably change almost every existing business model. Leaders need to understand the importance of organizational architecture. Working smarter in the future workplace starts by organizing to embrace networks, manage complexity, and build trust. The 21st century connected enterprise is a new world of work and learning.

For example, traditional training structures, based on institutions, programs, courses and classes, are changing. Probably the biggest change we are seeing is that the content delivery model is being replaced by more social and collaborative frameworks. This is due to almost universal Internet connectivity, especially with mobile devices, as well as a growing familiarity with online social networks.

Work is changing and so organizational learning must change. There is an urgent need for organizational support functions (HR, OD, KM, Training) to move beyond offering training services and toward supporting learning as it is happening in the digitally connected workplace. The connected enterprise will not wait for the training department to catch up.

Moving to the edges

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Innovation comes from the edge, almost never from the centre. Sometimes it’s cool to live on the edge but for the most part it’s hard work. Things keep breaking. The business models are not proven. The procedures aren’t fixed. The models and metaphors are not understood by everyone. It’s difficult to connect with the mainstream. This is life on the edges.

I have been living on the edges for over a decade and it has given me a unique perspective. Twenty years ago I saw the power of the internet and that it could have as great an impact on society and business as the printing press did. My graduate thesis discussed this and I have since examined in depth the world as it has changed into the global village that Marshall McLuhan saw. I chose to move to the edges of business and technology to explore the emerging network era, giving up mainstream employment in order to do so. I figured that to be a good teacher I would first need to be a good learner.

In the near future, the edges will be where almost all high-value work will be done in organizations. Change and complexity will be the norm in this work. Most people will work the edges, or not at all. Core activities will be increasingly automated or outsourced. This core will be managed by very few internal staff.

This is a sea change in organizational design. Some companies are already playing with new designs, tweaking their existing models. A few, mostly start-ups, are trying completely new models. Any work where complexity is not the norm will be of diminishing value. Freelancers and contractors, already increasing in number, will be needed to address continuously evolving markets. The future of work will be in understanding complexity and dealing with chaos.

A core organizational design challenge in this shift will be addressing our inherent tribal nature. People have a strong need to belong to something identifiable. But this need for a sense of belonging can detract from critical thinking and questioning the inherent assumptions of our existing structures. However, this questioning will be essential as organizations test out new work models. Unfortunately, anthropology does not scale as easily as technology does. While some organizations may have the software networks in place, most lack pervasive network thinking and social skills.

As organizations become more technologically networked, they also face skilled, motivated and intelligent workers who can now see systemic dysfunctions. But those who talk about these problems are often branded as rebels. Pitting tribes of rebels against tribes of incumbent power-holders only detracts from the serious organizational redesign that needs to be done. In addition, traditional external consultants will be of little help because trying to solve this challenge from the outside will only result in the problems being changed from the inside. Organizations will have to solve their own problems, and this takes time.

From my perspective on the edge, a new type of business relationship is needed. Change management has to be seen as a way of working, not a separate process, and not an event. It needs to involve all tribes. On the edges the answers may not be clear, but  they are less obscured than in the centre. A new business partnership is needed, between current management on the inside, workers moving to the edges, and others living beyond the organizational edges. Organizational development and change management need to move to the edges, and quickly.

This post is a follow-up to Rebels on the Edges.

live_on_the_edgesImage: @gapingvoid

Six roles of network management

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If helping the network make better decisions is a primary role of management in the emerging economy, how does one get there? I highlighted the six roles of management in the network era in my last post and I would like to build on these and show how this is being practiced at Change Agents Worldwide.

help network make better decisionsFirst of all, the founders set a good example of transparency and working out loud. Subsequent members have joined and continue to narrate their work. Also, the network does not have a marketing department, as everyone is responsible for connecting with our markets. Everyone must set an example because there is no one to defer work to. In this environment everyone is learning and everyone is teaching by example. As a result, work gets done very quickly, such as our first ebook, that would have taken months to complete by a central marketing department.

We are all knowledge managers at CAWW, sharing as we work transparently. Some, like myself, share blog posts at appropriate moments. Others share tools, techniques, and experiences. The organizational knowledge base, much of it captured in a large wiki, constantly grows. There is no central management for our knowledge.

It is important to know why we are creating this not-for-profit “collaborative sharing economy model for consulting services”. We constantly discuss the Why of our work, and ensure we stay focused and do not chase every new opportunity. Our Why is to change how work gets done in large organizations. As a result, we have a very diverse group of change agents, from various disciplines, countries, and industries.

It is interesting to see how our discussions focus on improving insights and we are not overly focused on merely improving internal processes and procedures. We leave that to people doing the work, as change agents are independent and can choose their own tools and techniques, like true knowledge artisans.

With hundreds of years of experience, an open discussion environment, and people who have worked as internal and external consultants, there is no shortage of learning opportunities. Change agents can freely join project teams and try something new. CAWW is one big learning experience for everyone, and the speed of learning is amazing.

These ‘management’ roles apply to all members, for in a network, everyone is a manager, and everyone can play a leadership role. The principles of openness, transparency, and diversity provide a solid foundation for these roles to be practiced. I think this model will help to create a new way of approaching workplace change. Large, hierarchical consultancies are no longer sufficient to help organizations adapt to the network era. As Donald Clark says, “Dinosaurs don’t give birth to gazelles.”

Helping the network make better decisions is the primary job of every change agent. It should be the job of every person in every organization. Perhaps some day it will be.

Management in Networks

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In networks, cooperation is more important than collaboration. Collaboration is working together toward a common objective. This is what most workplaces are focused on. It is also what most managers focus on. Implicit in many workplaces is that if you are not focused on the objective at hand, you are not doing any real work. This emphasis on collaboration blinds managers. They cannot see the potential of social networks for enabling sense-making and knowledge-sharing. Many managers do not understand the value of cooperation, or sharing freely without direct reciprocity. Cooperation sounds too much like wasting time on Facebook or Twitter. Most management practices today still focus on 20th century models, such as Henri Fayol’s six functions of management [look familiar?].

  1. forecasting
  2. planning
  3. organizing
  4. commanding
  5. coordinating
  6. controlling

I heard these same functions discussed by a workplace issues consultant on the radio as recently as yesterday morning. Notice that there is no function for enhancing serendipity, or increasing innovation, or inspiring people. The core of management practice today has not changed since the days of Fayol, who died ninety years ago.

But the new reality is that networks are the new companies. The company no longer offers the stability it once did as innovative disruption comes from all corners. Economic value is getting redistributed to creative workers and then diffused through networks. Knowledge networks differ from company hierarchies. One major difference is that cooperation, not collaboration, is the optimal behaviour in a knowledge network. In networks, cooperation trumps collaboration.

So what are the functions of management in the network era?

managing network era

Improve insights – Too often, management only focuses on reducing errors, but it is insight that drives innovation. Managers must loosen the filters through which information and knowledge pass in the organization and increase the organizational willpower to act on these insights.

Provide Learning Experiences – As Charles Jennings notes, managers are vital for workers’ performance improvement, but only if they provide opportunities for experiential learning with constructive feedback, new projects, and new skills.

Focus on the “Why” of Work – Current compensation systems ignore the data on human motivation. Extrinsic rewards only work for simple physical tasks and increased monetary rewards can actually be detrimental to performance, especially with knowledge work. The keys to motivation at work are for each person to have a sense of Autonomy, Mastery and Purpose. This is a network management responsibility.

Help the Network Make Better Decisions – Managers should see themselves as servant leaders. Managers must actively listen, continuously question the changing work context, help to see patterns and make sense of them, and then suggest new practices and build consensus with networked workers.

Be Knowledge Managers – Managers need to practice and encourage personal knowledge management throughout the network.

Be an Example – Social networks shine a spotlight on dysfunctional managers. Cooperative behaviours require an example and that example must come from those in management positions. While there may be a role for good managers in networks, there likely will not be much of a future for bosses.

Connected leadership is helping the network make better decisions

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Organizations face more complexity in the type of work they do, the problems they face, and the markets they interact with. This is due to increasing connections between everyone and everything. To deal with this complexity, organizations must structure around loose hierarchies and strong networks. This challenges command and control management as well as the concept that those in leadership positions are special. It makes the concept of High Potential [HiPo] employees seem rather old-fashioned. Leadership in networks is an emergent property.

In networks, everyone is a contributor within a transparent environment. Effective networks are also diverse and open. Anyone can lead in a network, if there are willing followers. Those who have consensus to lead have to actively listen and make sense of what is happening. They are in service to the network, to help keep it resilient through transparency, diversity of ideas, and openness. Servant leaders help to set the context around them and build consensus around emergent practices.

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Working Socially

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Why should I, as an OD/HR/L&D professional, concerned with the human aspects of organizations, have to understand social media and enterprise social networks?

Saying we don’t need to understand social media is like saying we didn’t need to understand speaking, reading or writing to do our jobs before. With ubiquitous connectivity, more of our work is at a distance, either in space or time. Distributed work is becoming the norm. If we are going to support people doing this kind of work, we need to understand it. However, working in online social networks takes practice to be proficient. It is difficult to understand theoretically. For example, even though I had worked online for over a decade, I did not really understand Twitter until I started using it regularly in 2008.

One fundamental difference about social media is they have a strong influence on the user, very much in a McLuhanesque medium/message/massage way. Those who come to social media for the first time are like adults learning a new language. They cannot start with the same advanced mental models and metaphors that they have in their primary language. The image below shows the effects of enterprise social networks, from a McLuhan tetradic perspective.

tetrad ESNSocial media change the way we communicate and social media can change the way we think. We need to use the tools in order to understand what it’s like to be a node in a social network. There is almost nothing like it in the industrial workplace or school system to prepare us for this. Therefore we won’t know what we’re talking about until we learn the new language of online networks. The only way to learn a new language is through practice.

How do you start the discussion about social networks with senior managers who think of technology as just different products and platforms?

Work today has few time or geographical boundaries. As our water coolers become virtual, social relations online will be the glue that connects us in our increasingly distributed work. Every little tweet, blog post, comment or “like” online shares our individuality and humanity. These actions help us be known to others in the digital surround. They help us build trust to get things done, be productive and innovate. However, we cannot benefit from professional social networks unless we engage in them. This requires more than merely mastering the technology. It means being social in our work. Not using social media to connect, contribute and collaborate is like sitting in a closed office all day.

To stay engaged with interconnected markets, business has to get more social. Social learning, a major activity on social media, is how we get things done in networks.  Most organizational value is created by teams and networks, not individuals working alone. Organizational learning spreads through social networks. Therefore, social networks are the conduit for effective organizational performance.

Blocking, or circumventing, social networks slows learning, reduces effectiveness and may in the end kill the organization. Senior managers need to understand social media in order to support learning in social networks which will enable practitioners to produce results.

Does being social at work mean being highly connected?

Does social mean highly connective? It’s much more than that. Social means human. It is an understanding that relationships and networks are complex. Our industrial management models are based on a belief that our structures are merely complicated, but more of our work is dealing with complex problems, for which there is no standardized approach.

Social bonds keep us together. Much of it is about trust. If I trust you, I might ask you for advice, so trust is essential for collaboration. We lose it if we try to micro-manage knowledge work. The argument that ‘business is business and social is social’ makes little sense today. Business is social because it involves people. Business must be more social the more complex the work and the greater the need for collaboration and cooperation. We foster innovation through social interactions. The idea that a lone person working in a lab can come up with a brilliant idea is largely unfounded. Connections between people drive innovation.

“Connecting ideas is the core of innovation, but without connecting ideas to people, there is no innovation at all. – Tim Kastelle

What kind of changes are needed in the way we organize work?

We need to understand complex adaptive systems and develop work structures that let us focus our efforts on learning as we work in order to continuously develop next practices. The role of leadership becomes supportive rather than directive in this new knowledge-intensive and creative workplace. Artificial boundaries that limit collaboration and communication only serve to drag companies down and create opportunities for more agile competitors.

Most managers would agree that an increasing amount of work and effort is in exception-handling. Social networks are an excellent framework to deal with these, as they enable people to crowd-source problem solving and speed the flow of knowledge.

What does exception handling mean for companies and employees? A practical definition is the time that employees – both management and front line workers – spend managing the non-routine tasks that must be addressed even though they occur outside the realm of standard daily business operations. It’s the things that just come up and disrupt someone’s workflow, requiring special time and attention. – Tim Young: Socialcast blog

To understand social networks, it is best to be able to see them. Visualization, like value network analysis, enables people to see the workplace with new eyes. This in turn can lead to diverse ideas and innovative approaches. Visualizing network relationships can give the initial leverage of getting complex new ideas accepted into general management thinking. Visualization is the fulcrum to widespread understanding of social connections in business.

Finally, it’s rather obvious that many HR policies imply that people cannot be trusted. Almost all IT policies say that. But it’s an interconnected world. Everything is transparent, whether we want it to be or not. Once management realizes that their company is a glass house, they will have to start working differently.

Note: This post is a synthesis and update of several conversations I posted as Organizational Development Talk, in 2011.

The network era transition

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I concluded in my last post that organizations will need to adapt to the network era. Another possibility is that hierarchical organizations, like most companies, will not be able to adapt to the network era. As with the assembly line, the view of the company as an organization chart may become a relic of the past. org chart

In the very near future it is quite possible that most of us will be working in knowledge networks, whether we are farmers or software engineers. A knowledge network in balance is founded on openness which enables transparency. This in turn fosters a diversity of ideas, and can promotes innovation. The emergent property of all of these exchanges is trust.

The network era may revert the role of the organization to merely a supporting one. We might even see corporations bidding for the privilege of supporting knowledge networks. I see evidence of this new approach to work at Change Agents Worldwide, which is firmly based on transparency and trust amongst its current 33 members.

As more people work in distributed networks they may realize how little they have to gain from traditional organizations. Networks that foster autonomy as well as interdependence are a much better vehicle for rewarding work than hierarchical organizations can ever be. Hierarchies, driven by external and formal direction, cannot compete with connected workers working in trusted networks, for they are intrinsically motivated.

In networks, cooperation trumps collaboration. Collaboration happens around some kind of plan or structure, while cooperation presumes the freedom of individuals to join and participate. Cooperation is a driver of creativity. Cooperation is also driven by intrinsic motivation.

No person, no matter where in an organizational hierarchy, has all the knowledge needed to thrive in the network era. Neither does any company. Neither does any government. We are all connected and dependent on each other. Hierarchies divide us.

Managing professional relationships as a network allows each node (person) to be unique. This removes the artificial barrier of the job, which assumes that people are replaceable, and that knowledge flows up and down. Knowledge in a network is about connecting experiences, relationships, and situations.

The latest example of this organizational shift is Zappos, the online shoe company, that is going “holocratic”(R).

“We’re classically trained to think of ‘work’ in the traditional paradigm,” says John Bunch, who, along with Alexis Gonzales-Black, is leading the transition to Holacracy at Zappos. “One of the core principles is people taking personal accountability for their work. It’s not leaderless. There are certainly people who hold a bigger scope of purpose for the organization than others. What it does do is distribute leadership into each role. Everybody is expected to lead and be an entrepreneur in their own roles, and Holacracy empowers them to do so.” – Quartz: Zappos is going Holocratic

“The future has arrived — it’s just not evenly distributed yet.”– William Gibson

Talking about the Network Era

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Interesting things happen when hyperlinks subvert hierarchy, as the writers of the Cluetrain Manifesto said in 1999. Wikileaks, Edward Snowden, Arab Spring, and the Occupy Movement are just a few recent examples. Spying on entire populations is another network era phenomenon. In education, the current subversion is the MOOC, which has already itself been subverted by corporate interests. In the labour movement we are seeing things like alt-labour as well as a growing shareable economy. Networked, distributed businesses, like AirBNB, are disrupting existing models, with the inevitable push-back as they become successful.

Networks will transform education, business, the economy, and society even further. In the network era, the creative economy will gain dominance over the information and industrial economies. Professional knowledge distribution will move away from institutionalized business schools into networked communities of practice.

The key to a flourishing society in the network era will be distributed sense-making. Self-instruction, the basis of personal knowledge mastery, will be a requirement in a growing number of peer-to-peer networks. Networked learning will give rise to networked decision making. David Ronfeldt articulates this well, with his TIMN [Tribes-Institutions-Markets-Networks] framework. Anyone raised during the past several decades probably understands tribes and institutions and even market forces. This is a triform society (T+I+M). But what happens as we become a quadriform society (T+I+M+N)?

TIMN has long maintained that, beyond today’s common claims that government or market is the solution, we are entering a new era in which it will be said that the network is the solution (e.g., here and here). Aging contentions that turning to “the government” or “the market” is the way to address particular public-policy issues will eventually give way to innovative ideas that “the network” is the optimal solution.

In the network era we have to understand how to become contributing members of networks, for work and for life. This should be a major focus for all professional training and education.

“Reed’s Law” posits that value in networks increases exponentially as interactions move from a broadcasting model that offers “best content” (in which value is described by n, the number of consumers) to a network of peer-to-peer transactions (where the network’s value is based on “most members” and mathematically described by n2).  But by far the most valuable networks are based on those that facilitate group affiliations, Reed concluded. – David Bollier

Without good sense-making skills, the citizenry cannot understand complex issues that affect us all, such as individual privacy versus national security. These issues require networked, human intelligence, not broadcast sound bites, nor ‘learning objects’.

Sensemaking should drive policy. Policy drives decisions. Decisions, of course, need to be informed. If the People don’t know what makes their world go ‘round, the folks on the Hill sure won’t. Globalized governments can’t. – Gunther Sonnenfeld

As David Bollier concludes, “Legitimate authority is ultimately vested in a community’s ongoing, evolving social life, and not in ritualistic forms of citizenship.” Should not education move beyond ritualistic forms of subjects, classes, and certifications and toward ongoing, evolving social learning? How else will we be able to deal with the complexities of this networked, connected sphere that we inhabit?

Jon Husband says that we are all in this together.

The interconnected Information Age is beginning to show us that we’re all linked together – and that the whole system matters.

This principle applies to organizations, to networks of customers, suppliers, employees and communities, to our societies and to the planet.

New language for this principle is popping up everywhere – knowledge networks, intranets, communities of practice, systems thinking, swarming, social software, social networks, tipping points.

Awareness is the key.  Maintain an “open focus”.

Being aware of yourself, others and the effects of your actions and ways of being in relation to others is a fundamental requirement in these conditions.

To thrive in the network era we need to understand networks – social networks, value networks, information networks, etc. Therefore we will need network era fluency.

network era fluencyNetwork era fluency could be described as individuals and communities understanding and being part of global networks that influence various aspects of our lives. For individuals, the core skill will be critical thinking, or questioning all assumptions, including one’s own. People will learn though their various communities and in doing so, develop social literacy. Information literacy will be developed by connecting to many networks. Diversity of our knowledge networks can foster innovation and improve our collective ability to adapt.

Mass network era fluency will keep our knowledge networks social, diverse, and reflect many communities. This kind of fluency, by the majority of people, will be necessary to deal with the many complex issues facing humanity. We cannot address complex issues and networked forces unless we can knowledgeably discuss them. To understand the network era, we need first to be able to talk about it.

The network era has already changed politics, created new dominant business models, opened up learning, and is now changing how organizations operate – on the inside. Once we are able to talk about networks, we will see that many of our current work practices are rather obsolete. From how we determine the value of work, to how we calculate pay for work; organizations will need to adapt to the network era.

I think business leaders and HR departments do not understand this shift, or the fact that this shift is accelerating, so that in a year or two 75% of peoples’ value will be based on their network performance, their ability to contribute to and accept from others. – Stowe Boyd

The changing nature of work

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In 2013, I was able to spend some time looking at the changing nature of work. I continued to read from many sources, and I observed what and where I could. I used this blog to help make sense and engage with my professional learning networks. Here is a single-paragraph summary of what I see as the major issues affecting the management of work.

First of all, it is becoming obvious that the fundamental nature of work is changing as we transition into a post-job economy. The major driver of this change is the automation of procedural work, especially through software, but increasingly with robots. The drivers behind the post-job economy are also changing our work structures. Organizations will need to become more networked, not just with information technology, but how knowledge workers create, use, and share knowledge. This new workplace also will require different leadership that emerges from the network and temporarily assumes control, until new leadership is required. Giving up control will be a major challenge for anyone used to the old ways of work. An important part of leadership will be to ensure that knowledge is shared. But moving to a knowledge-sharing organizational structure will be difficult, because of the knowledge sharing paradox; which is that the more control is exerted, the less knowledge is shared. All of these challenges need to be addressed, and rather quickly, as software continues to eat jobs, and income disparities get wider.

nature of work is changingReferences:

the-post-job-economy

from-hierarchies-to-wirearchies

connected-leadership-is-not-the-status-quo

organizational-knowledge-sharing-framework

the-knowledge-sharing-paradox

Engaged for work

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There is a real change in how work is getting done today. It’s not just factory workers but many professionals whose work will be automated by software and robots.

Procedural work will keep getting outsourced to the lowest cost of labour. The industrial world deskilled work to its component parts, and today these parts continue to get automated or crowd-sourced. Traditional jobs will not come back.

So how will anyone be able to make a living? Get creative. Creative work cannot be automated. “Focus on the human factor,” says futurist Gerd Leonhard, “If our work – and our output – is robotic we will soon be surpassed by intelligent software agents and machines.” Human creative work is not just art, design, and the like, but includes making valuable things for a specific context, need, or market. The internet makes finding these markets much easier.

So how can anyone learn and prepare for this world of work? We know that training works well to learn a defined skill, such as how to drive a car. You can also train for a field, such as carpentry. But training does little for creativity.

First of all, learn real skills, not just how to make it in an organization. Artists first learn the skills of their field. Learn how to code, bake, or some other defined skill. Master it, and then start breaking the rules. This is the Picasso approach. “Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” [attributed].

At the same time, learn how to cooperate in networks. Start right now in engaging in diverse professional learning networks. Put yourself out there, for in this new world of work, you are only as good as your network.

Cleric-Knight-Workman
Image: Cleric — Knight — Workman

Think of yourself as a freelancer for life and always nurture your networks, no matter what. Avoid getting lulled into a false sense of security. To stay engaged, take control of your professional development. The alternative is rather feudal.