Work

business & working

from responsibility to creativity

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I originally wrote new work, new attitude in 2008, but would like to revisit and add to it.

2008

Nine Shift has a few posts on the changing nature of work and how the idea of responsibility usurped morals during the industrial age (See Part 1 – Part 2 – Part 3).

“In the Industrial Age of the 20th century, you didn’t have to be of good moral character to work in the factory. But you did have to be responsible.  And so teachers in the 20th century schoolhouse and college taught (still teach) responsibility.   And by that  teachers mean specific behaviors.

Those behaviors are now obsolete. They made sense in the factory …  But not in the virtual office.”

As we moved from morality to responsibility one hundred years ago, are we now shifting from responsibility to creativity? If we are, then most of our organizational tools and measurements about productivity may have to get thrown out.

2012

“The word ‘responsible’ is one of those code-words that hides a whole range of preferred behaviours, from respecting copyright to keeping the language clean to refraining from bullying and hurtful behaviour to staying on topic, sitting up, and paying attention.” —Stephen Downes

From morality to responsibility to creativity

The past 100 years have been the first time that we have had a large middle class in many parts of the world (though this is quickly shrinking in places). The Corporation was an experiment to deal with large scale capitalism, and we had no real models to base it on, other than the military or the church. Therefore we got hierarchies. But perhaps this period was not a blip and really just the first phase of dealing with the new electric communications medium? Now that we are ~150 years post-telegraph, we are finally realizing that things have radically changed. It’s like the early 1600’s in Europe, 150 years after the printing press, and all hell is breaking loose. For a more detailed perspective on communication shifts and literacies, I would recommend “Why Johnny and Janey Can’t Read, and Why Mr. and Ms. Smith Can’t Teach: The challenge of multiple media literacies in tumultuous times” by Mark Federman.

An IBM poll of CEOs (2010) found they deemed creativity to be “the NUMBER ONE leadership competency of the successful enterprise of the future”. Today, being responsible is not good enough. Ross Dawson says that, “in a connected world, unless your skills are world-class, you are a commodity.” He suggests that there are three skill sets necessary to transcend commoditization — Expertise, Relationships, and Innovation. Creativity is needed to choose the right area of expertise, develop diverse professional networks, and be innovative. In our education systems, creativity is a fringe subject and is not nurtured or lauded.

Barbara Ormsby recently commented that, “Responsibility and creativity are two rather different qualities. This helps understand why the transition from clear responsibilities to practised creativity is such a huge challenge in organizations today.” So how can we improve creativity in organizations? We should learn from the creatives!

Make space for conversations

Creativity is a conversation – a tension – between individuals working on individual problems and the professional communities they belong to. —David Williamson Shaffer

Provide breathing room

Creativity shouldn’t–can’t–be a luxury, though. It can’t be something that we bring to a problem only when we have the space and time for it, because more often than not, we will be in situations where we lack both. We need to find ways to build it into the DNA of our working lives so that it becomes a part of who we are, not something we do only when the circumstances are “right.” This is our only security in a world that shifts constantly, demanding of us new ideas and the ability to adapt to changing circumstances. —Michele Martin 

 Abandon ‘jobs’

The core assumption of the job, that it can be ‘filled’ [just like the minds of learners], needs to change. This is the key constraining concept for the creative economy. It presumes common skills and the mechanistic view that workers can be replaced without disruption. But who could replace Van Gogh, Picasso or even Steve Jobs? Complex work requires more creativity, and confining individual creativity within the bounds of a mere job description is debilitating. Structured jobs can suck individual creativity and create an organizational framework that discourages entrepreneurial zeal.

Develop improv skills

Improv comedy can help people deal with uncertainty. They have to make difficult decisions on the spot and think quickly without scripts or plots.

In a business world that’s more uncertain than ever it pays to be able to think on your feet. That’s why some business schools are using improvisation classes to teach skills such as creativity and leadership … As well as teaching people to react and adapt, he [Robert Kulhan] said improvisation can teach creativity, innovation, communication, teamwork and leadership. —CNN Route to the Top

 

A quick case for social technologies

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I have been reviewing a number of resources I have collected on social media, social learning and return on investment. The bottom line seems very clear to me. Social technologies remove artificial organizational boundaries and let knowledge be shared more easily. I create slide presentations so that I have something ready in case I need to quickly review a subject, such as an impromptu client brief. I put this one together as an aid that might be helpful in presenting a few aspects of the positive impact of social technologies in the workplace.

#itashare

Validation and feedback

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Here is a new approach to evaluation, by Nick Shackleton-Jones:

After the event, however, the system automatically prompts the chosen peer group to reassess those same behaviours at intervals of say one, three and six months. At the end of this period a ‘change score’ is calculated: an average value representing the amount of observed behavioural change that has taken place. Knowing that they are living up to the expectations of their peers, people make an effort to change. By coupling a meaningful challenge to the event, learners will endeavour to practise what they have learned – and we can skip directly to robust ‘level 3’ results.

Which is based on an old military approach, Training Validation, as exemplified by the Canadian Army:

On-job Performance
On-job performance is an evaluation measure that aims to determine if the trainee has been able to transfer the knowledge, skills or attitude learned in the training environment to the real world of the job. Within the ASAT, on-job performance is an element of validation conducted after at least three months following the training event. There are many different approaches to conducting this form of evaluation. Trainees, superiors and peers can be queried both through written questionnaires and personal interviews, and the results can lead to measurement of the effectiveness of the course/training activity. The validation of individual training is the responsibility of Commander LFDTS.

Training Efficiency
Examination of trainee reaction, the learning process and the transfer of learning to the job against the anticipated results and resources expended is the final method of determining efficiency. This analysis is a strategic responsibility, and the results are used to modify the conduct of future courses/training.

These are good systems if training was the correct solution in the first place, but note that formal instruction only accounts for 5% of workplace learning. As I wrote in a previous post, these types of methods work very well when you know what you are trying to achieve and understand the systems you are operating in. They work well when you have established best or good practices to base the training on. But what happens in complex environments, when ”the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance”? This is the situation many workers find themselves in today.

Feedback and validation have to be part of our daily work, not just for training events. This is where PKM practices can help on a personal level, work narration for teams, and communities of practice for disciplines. Once again, work is learning and learning is the work.

First we shape our structures, and then the sociopaths take over

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We will create the future organization by bringing democracy to the workplace, I wrote last week in How we will manage. The essential factors, in my opinion, for an effective networked workplace (Enterprise 2.0, Social Business, etc.) are not what we have seen in many industrial style companies:

  1. Shared power: necessary in a networked economy.
  2. Autonomy: essential for an engaged workforce.
  3. Finally, the social contract for work needs to change.

In one of the best blog posts I have ever read, Venkat Rao discusses The Gervais Principle, Or The Office According to “The Office”. The initial premise is Hugh Macleod’s cartoon on the company hierarchy, which often elicits a chuckle when I show it to others [especially since I have it on my business cards]. The entire article is well worth reading.

To summarize, the losers have opted out of the system and just do the work they need to do. They find joy and value outside of work. The clueless have bought into the company bullshit and think that if they work hard for their masters, they will move up the ladder. The clueless keep the machine working. The sociopaths buy and build companies and suck their profits for as long as possible and then cast everyone aside to start something new. The sociopaths don’t give a shit. Often, the CEOs are merely part of clueless layer and are beholding to the VC sociopaths.

company-hierarchy-red
Image: gapingvoid.com

I recently listened to a programme on CBC Radio’s Maritime Magazine on work bullies and it only reinforces the premise that sociopaths run too many organizations. “So why do so many bullies rise to a position of power?” asks Jerry West, the radio host. Here is a reference to the answer given:

In 2005, British psychologists Belinda Board and Katarina Fritzon at the University of Surrey interviewed and gave personality tests to a number of high-level executives. They then compared their profiles with those of criminal psychiatric patients at Broadmoor, the all-male high-security hospital, home to some of England’s most notorious murderers. The researchers found that three out of eleven personality disorders were actually more common in managers than in the disturbed criminals:

  • histrionic personality disorder
  • narcissistic personality disorder
  • obsessive-compulsive personality disorder

This has led researchers to describe such disturbed executives as “successful psychopaths” and similarly disturbed criminals as “unsuccessful psychopaths”.

And you wonder why I rage against the machine when it comes to hierarchies and institutions? In the CBC programme, a Dalhousie University professor states that in job interviews, no one bothers to look at deviant or counter-productive behaviours. Hiring those who are prone to bullying then leads to a hostile or toxic work environment.  As Jerry West says, “It’s not difficult to find hierarchical work environments that are toxic” and organizations that exhibit this behaviour include Canada’s RCMP.

So what are the options? The programme suggests:

  • Conduct interviews that might determine bullying behaviours [easy, but not always effective].
  • Leadership & management must stay vigilant and engaged [not often the norm].
  • Legislation to protect the bullied in the workplace [will only happen in the long term].

But even these recommendations seem almost futile in many organizations today. While people may be talking about it now, the real challenge is to change our work structures so that it is much more difficult for bullies (sociopaths) to succeed. We need to understand and talk about how our structures shape us.

As Jerry West concludes, “Doing nothing is a choice, too.”

How we will manage

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Is Google an indication of the how organizations will manage in the 21st century?

Experienced managers who join Google from other companies can find it difficult to operate in a culture where power over subordinates is derived from one’s ideas and powers of persuasion, not job titles, says May. Decisions on promotions and raises are often made by consensus among peers and superiors. An employee isn’t necessarily going to obey a manager just because he or she is a manager. This is radically different from most traditional corporations, which have a top-down, hierarchical style of management. —eLearning

This sounds like a wirearchy, “a dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on information, knowledge, trust and credibility, enabled by interconnected people and technology.”

Perhaps we are seeing the future of work appear on the edges of the economy, as Google is definitely a new economy company. Freedom (democracy) seems to be a requirement for success in the network era, as Jason Fried writes about an experiment to let employees decide what they do for a month at 37Signals.

How can we afford to put our business on hold for a month to “mess around” with new ideas? How can we afford not to? We would never have had such a burst of creative energy had we stuck to business as usual.

Bottom line: If you can’t spare some time to give your employees the chance to wow you, you’ll never get the best from them.

 John Hagel shows that standardized work is obsolete.

Now, think about this. If we reduce work to highly specified and standardized instructions that can be performed efficiently and predictably, what have we done? We have reconceived work so that it can be performed by computers and robots. In fact, computers and robots are far more preferable than humans because we humans are ultimately unpredictable and have a really hard time following instructions to the letter, day in and day out.

We are moving to a new economy that does not value any work that can be automated & outsourced. Taylorism is dead. Stephen Gill describes how we have to focus on work that cannot be done by robots.

This new robotics “megashift” has huge implications for the workplace. Employers will need workers who are better educated, more willing to change, and more flexible in their schedules and work habits than ever before. These workers won’t be needed for simple, repetitive jobs. They will be needed for computer-assisted jobs and for jobs that require creativity, innovation, and teamwork. They will have to be continuous learners, keeping up with technology, globalization, and new ways of organizing work.

So what’s the point?

  1. Shared power is necessary in a networked economy.
  2. Autonomy is essential for an engaged workforce.
  3. The social contract for work needs to change.
How will we manage? We will manage by bringing democracy to the workplace.

The collaboration field needs to cooperate

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Eugene Kim looks at a variety of disciplines in the collaboration space, using LinkedIn network analysis to see if and how they are related. The resulting map, and Kim’s explanations are most interesting for anyone doing work related to enterprise collaboration.

According to Kim:

The densest cluster is the organizational development cluster, which is left of center. There are a bunch of skills here that are tightly interconnected, largely centered around leadership development, coaching, and group transformation.

The other large, dense clusters — management consulting, participatory processes, design thinking, and collaboration / technology — are largely distinct, although there is some bridging, mostly around learning-related skills. This makes sense: A high-performance group is a group that learns, a conclusion that you should draw regardless of your starting point.

The last sentence underlines my own focus for the past decade or more. Work is learning and learning is the work. Collaboration and learning go hand in glove.

Training, HR, OD, KM, IT, etc. use different models, speak different languages and go to separate conferences. However, they’re all in the business of collaboration. They just don’t do it with each other. Given the imperatives for continuous growth today, these disciplines need to give serious consideration to recombining their organizational DNA.

Just read a few professional journals and blogs and you will see that the same workplace issues are being faced by HR, IT, OD, KM, Marketing, Communications and T&D departments. Similar complaints and parallel strategies are being developed in isolation in each of these areas. We really need to get away from our self-imposed tribes and adopt network thinking and practices.

All levels of complexity exist in our world but more of our work (especially knowledge-intensive work) deals with complex problems, whether they be social, environmental or technological. Complex environments and problems are best addressed when we organize as networks; our work evolves around developing emergent practices; and we cooperate to achieve our goals. In the network era, collaboration specialists need to cooperate. Cooperation is quite different from collaboration.

In many ways it’s a case of the blind men and the elephant. We are constrained by the blinders of our profession’s models. That’s why I like to take my models from a variety of fields, as no single discipline has a network perspective. Everyone is struggling to keep up with change but most are using outdated tools and models. As Lou Sagar commented on Umair Haque’s 2009 post, ” … the emergence of new business models are ahead of the organizational framework to embrace and manage the impact.” Not much has changed. That pretty well sums up the problem in my mind. We are all blind men unable to understand the new realities of work.

 

I believe that a wide range of disciplinary silos can be incorporated into one support function. Professionals could have a variety of roles, depending on organizational needs, but all have to be focused on the organization and its environment. Separate departments create tribes and internal cultures that may be at cross-purposes with other departments or the overall organization. With hyper-linked information and access to expertise, not only are internal departments of less value, they could subvert the organization’s future by not responding quickly and appropriately.

I am sure there’s more than one way to achieve better functioning organizations but tearing down the artificial disciplinary walls would be a good place to start. With a networked, cooperative mindset, it is possible.

Connecting learning and work and life

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In discussing how communities of practice can bridge the gap between innovation (new ideas) and getting work done (usually in project or work teams), I derived this graphic. For a detailed explanation of my thinking behind this, see my presentation on communities and the coherent enterprise.

I have observed that what underlies creative and complex work (the future of work in the network era, in my opinion) is  empowered workers who take control of their own learning. This is the premise of personal knowledge management. PKM is not just about finding information, but also connecting to people.

Using the Seek-Sense-Share framework, people seek new contacts in their social networks, and over time (filtering), some become co-members in communities of practice. Communities of practice help to inform our work and life, some of our learning and observations creating new ideas or practices. We can then share these new ideas with our communities, discerning who and how to share with, at the appropriate times. For instance, we may share a new practice first with a professional community of practice before publishing it to our general social networks.

A key part of PKM is connecting our networks, our communities, our work, and our lives together in order to make sense, be more productive, and open ourselves to serendipity. It’s a holistic approach, not one that compartmentalizes work and life, but something that helps us to make sense of the whole messy, complex world we live in. As such, it’s always a work in progress, but it starts by connecting to others.

Supporting workplace learning

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It takes much more than courses delivered through a learning management system to support workplace learning in the network era.

The basic building block, in my experience, is personal knowledge management. People who can seek new information, make sense of it, and share it with their colleagues, will be an asset to any work team. However, they need access to their learning networks while at work, and this is often a challenge. Reduce these barriers, and support PKM practices, and the organization will benefit.

Performance support tools can be developed by observing how work gets done and then creating ways to make it easier, or simpler, or safer. Good performance support enables workers to focus on the important things.

Communities of practice provide the bridge between new ideas and the workplace status quo, ensuring innovation.

Professional networks outside our workplaces keep us connected to new ideas and diverse opinions, which we may not come across, even in large organizations.

I haven’t mentioned knowledge management in general, because I think it underlies all of these components. As Patti Anklam explains:

In this last, the role of the corporation in supporting KM then becomes facilitating personal content management, providing methods (and training) to support information processing, and providing a rich and integrated infrastructure for employees to use the personal content management and the social tools that make sense for each them, their teams, and their communities.

 

Let the droids do the boring stuff

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Is simpler work getting automated and outsourced? I think so. That leaves complex and creative work that continue to be in demand, and even increase. Work that has a high degree of task standardization is getting replaced by machines, and this trend will only accelerate.

Andrew McAfee discusses technology’s impact on the labour force in a TEDx Boston presentation, particularly 1) language translation (already here & growing) and 2) automated vehicles (coming soon). If something as complex as translating an article or negotiating a vehicle in heavy traffic is already being automated, how many of today’s jobs will go that way? There will be less demand for standardized human labour, and the whole notion of a standard job will quietly go away. The end of Taylorism cannot come soon enough, in my opinion.

McAfee says that networked computers are as revolutionary as was the steam engine, in how they change the way people do work. The steam engine overcame our physical limitations and computers will help us overcome our cognitive limitations. Here’s why, says McAfee:

  • economies run on ideas, which drive innovation
  • computers are making innovation more open and inclusive (especially for the bottom of the pyramid)
  • technology is freeing us to do better things and this trend will increase

We are not just losing standardized work tasks but we are gaining the tools and the time to do greater task variety, and of our own choosing. Networked computers allow us to learn informally and share tacit knowledge, leaving the boring stuff to the droids. Probably our greatest limitation is our ability to cast away our old ideas about how we learn. We need to think for ourselves and take advantage of network technologies, wider social connections, improved peer interactions, and informal learning. Economies run on ideas, not assembly lines. Work is learning, and learning is the work.

Idea management requires shared power

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Nancy Dixon discusses The Three Eras of Knowledge Management, an excellent read on how lead organizations are using idea management. This post confirms, in my mind, the three principles of net work, or how work gets done in the network era. The description of convening  is similar to openness, though in the explanation below, it is a more deliberate process than what might be thought of as a community of practice. .

The NASA example illustrates the three enablers of the third era, 1) convening, 2) cognitive diversity and 3) transparency.

1. Convening
Convening is the skill and practice of bringing groups together to develop understanding of complex issues, create new knowledge and spur innovation. It is about:
• designing meetings as conversations rather than presentations
• identifying who needs to be in the conversation, including those who do the work and are impacted by it
• framing the question in a way that opens thinking
• arranging the space to facilitate conversation
• using small groups as the unit of learning
I have written about convening and the role of the leader in The Power of the Conversation Architect to Address Complex, Adaptive Challenges

Cognitive Diversity
Cognitive diversity is the deliberate use of difference to bring new understanding to an issue. When faced with complex issues our inclination is to collect more data, survey, or assign a task force to conduct interviews; when what is needed is a new way to frame the issue. Cognitive diversity brings people trained in different heuristics, problem solving strategies, interpretations, and perspectives into the room. Cognitive diversity can be found in different parts of the organization (e.g. marketing, finance, engineering), in different disciplines (e.g. biology, neuroscience, archeology), or outside the organization (e.g. suppliers, customers, consultants, academicians, alliances).

Transparency
Transparency includes the willingness of management to say, “I don’t know” and therefore to employ the organization’s collective knowledge. It is also about management providing all the available information and data on an issue so that those convened have what they need to do the work of sensemaking. Organizational members also have a role in transparency, that is, to be open about what is happening at their level, rather than hiding or discounting bad news to appease management – to bring the best available knowledge to bear on organizational issues

What I find implicit in the notion of idea management though, is shared power. Just doing idea management, like narration of work, is not enough. If the high-value work today is in facing complexity, not in addressing problems for which a formulaic or standardized responses have been developed, then learning and solving problems together is a real business advantage. If idea management requires those in control to say, “I don’t know”, then there are many organizations where this will not happen. If idea management requires  employees “being open about what is happening at their level”, then personal knowledge management skills need to be widespread (something I have yet to see in most organizations).  Command & control remain the major stumbling blocks in effective idea management. However, it is great to see that there are lead organizations, like NASA,  setting the example.