Work

business & working

Negotiating between chaos and project deadlines

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I watched Dave Snowden talk about tacit knowledge, and many other things, at the State of the Net Conference. Several comments are worth repeating, in my opinion:

If we don’t understand the why of things, we can never scale the how.

Management science regularly confuses correlation with causation.

We will always know more than we can say. We will always say more than we can write down.

Fallacy: If you give the right information, to the right people, at the right time, they will act accordingly. As “pattern-seekers” we may not even “see” the data when it is presented.

Human knowledge requires mediation.

Resilience comes from early detection, fast recovery & fast exploitation of the opportunities presented, which then becomes a new paradigm. We need to architect organizations based on an assumption of failure, not an assumption of success.

As I reflected on Dave’s comments I thought about my previous presentation on coherent communities and how it is important to connect people in the most appropriate way for the problem at hand. It seems that chaos abounds on the Internet, with a flood of ideas  and nobody really knows what is causation and what is correlation. However, there may be something to be learned here, hence the value of disparate social networks. Communities of practice have the openness and flexibility to deal with complex problems as people can share freely but are in a constrained problem space, so that over time we can share more than what we say or write down. Meanwhile, getting work done inside the organization has to be further constrained, and focused on projects where we can see the relationships between cause and effect.

For the knowledge worker, and for networked organizations, the challenge is in negotiating, and understanding, all three spaces. It is necessary to know where failure is optimal (early) and how to mediate knowledge from the chaotic edge to the work bench. Work needs to be simultaneously informal & structured and balanced between both goals & opportunities. Constantly negotiated boundaries (as Dave says, it’s like raising teenagers) can help organizations become more resilient. Identifying the boundaries is a good start.

 

Narration is only the first step

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I think that narration is one of the key principles of an effective networked workplace, or social business. Narration is making one’s tacit knowledge (what one feels) more explicit (what one is doing with that knowledge). Narrating work is a powerful behaviour changer, as long-term bloggers can attest. In an organization, narration can take many forms. It could be a regular blog; sharing day-to-day happenings in activity streams; taking pictures and videos; or just having regular discussions. Developing good narration skills, like adding value to information, takes time and practice. Narrating work also means taking ownership of mistakes.

Jane Bozarth discusses the nuts and bolts of narrating our work in this Learning Solutions Magazine article:

By sharing what we are doing and how we are learning, we distribute the tacit knowledge otherwise so hard to capture; invite feedback and encouragement from others; invite others to learn with us; document our work and learning for future use; and tie our learning to the efforts of others. Here’s a true story about physical rehab turned learning turned hobby turned community of practice turned two successful businesses, all via informal, social means. And all within six months.

The story that Jane tells happens outside the walls of an organization. I think this is important to note, because one of my other principles for an effective networked workplace is shared power. Shared power enables faster reaction times so those closest to the situation can take action. In complex situations there is no time to write a detailed assessment. Those best able to address the situation have marinated in it for some time. They couldn’t sufficiently explain it to someone removed from the problem if they wanted to anyway. This shared power is enabled by trust. Power in knowledge-based organizations must be distributed in order to nurture trust.

But sharing power is really difficult. In the video Dare to Disagree, via Jim Hays, Margaret Heffernan describes how people inside organizations, and professional communities, are afraid to challenge conventional wisdom, even when the data are overwhelming. The power structure exerts great pressure to conform. Only organizations that share power and encourage conflict can advance different ideas. As she says, “openness alone can’t drive change”.

Power-sharing decreases the fear of conflict. When those at the top hold most, or all, of the power, then  those near the bottom will try to avoid conflict. But conflict is essential for learning. As Heffernan describes in the video, only in trusted relationships can conflict for learning happen. Sharing power creates trust.

Unfortunately, power is addictive. For example, simulations reveal that when there are no levels of hierarchy, everyone shares in the rewards of the system. When only one level level is added, then those at the top get 89% while those only one level down have to share the remaining 11%. No wonder hierarchies are so appealing. Power, and its effects on organizational performance, are holding us back. This is why we need to experiment with new and much flatter work structures.

As Heffernan says, the truth will not set us free until we have the courage to use it. Our organizational structures, and their power systems, are a major part of the problem. Command and control are the barriers to an effective networked workplace. I have written that Enterprise 2.0 and social business are hollow shells without democracy because without power sharing, narration of work & transparency are a useless two-legged stool.

 

A guide to complexity and organizations

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Via Jay Cross is this amazing synthesis – Organize for Complexity – of how complexity affects our work and the ways in which we can change our organizational structures to account for complexity, instead or adding more complication. If you know nothing about complexity, read this. If you know a lot on the subject, keep it as a job aid or use it to help others.

I like the depiction of market dynamics, to which I have added the upper image. It shows the fundamental shift we are going through as the network era unfolds.

The definition of complex systems is quite useful:

Complex systems have presence or participation of living creatures. They are living systems – that’s why they may change at any moment. Such systems are only externally observable – not controllable.

A complex system’s behavior is non-predictable. Here, it’s natural that there is a level of error, uncertainty and illusion that is much higher than in complicated systems.
A complex system may possess elements that can operate in standardized ways, but their interaction would be constantly changing, in discontinuous ways.

The paper includes design principles as well as “how-to” implementation suggestions. Start with, “Design principle ‘Beta’: Self-regulation within the team. Control through peer pressure and transparency. Principles and shared responsibility.” This is a comprehensive, but not heavy, read. I am sure I will turn to it often.

I must say that I agree with pretty much everything in this paper, so I strongly recommend it.

It’s not complicated, you see

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When Bayer’s Material Sciences Division decided to become more collaborative, they realized that the main challenge in promoting knowledge-sharing across organizational boundaries is culture. They deployed the software platform (IBM Connections) without any formal training, saying that when the tool is simple to use, people focus on collaboration, not the software. Their solution was simple.

I know few enterprise software projects that go without a hitch. These are complicated tools and even after implementation most people only use a few functions from the wide array that are available. As complexity increases, and we keep adding new tools to the workplace, the simpler the tool, the easier it will be to implement, especially since the lifespan of our knowledge tools keeps getting shorter.

simplified design for complexity

Complication is the industrial disease. Understanding the difference between complication and complexity is extremely important in today’s workplace. The Cynefin framework  distinguishes between four domains to describe systems:

  • Simple, in which the relationship between cause and effect is obvious to all, the approach is to Sense – Categorise – Respond and we can apply best practice.
  • Complicated, in which the relationship between cause and effect requires analysis or some other form of investigation and/or the application of expert knowledge, the approach is to Sense – Analyze – Respond and we can apply good practice.
  • Complex, in which the relationship between cause and effect can only be perceived in retrospect, but not in advance, the approach is to Probe – Sense – Respond and we can sense emergent practice.
  • Chaotic, in which there is no relationship between cause and effect at systems level, the approach is to Act – Sense – Respond and we can discover novel practice.

Most of today’s larger companies have developed complicated structures. To enable growth and efficiencies, more and more processes have been put in place. Management schools aided and abetted this movement. New layers of control and supervision continue to appear, silos are created, and knowledge acquisition is formalized in an attempt to gain efficiency through specialization. To compensate for complicated processes, some enterprises have attempted to become learning organizations, putting significant effort into training (but not learning). But training design & development just got more complicated.

Complexity is the new normal. Because everything is interconnected by networked technologies today, systemic changes are sensed almost immediately. Reaction times and feedback loops have to get faster and more effective to deal with this. Formal training addresses a mere 5% of workplace learning, and our current models for managing people, training, and knowledge-sharing are insufficient for a workplace that demands emergent practices just to keep up. Knowledge workers today need to connect with others to co-solve problems, but complicated policies, procedures, and guidelines often stop them.

In a short interview, via Luis Suarez, Steve Jobs describes how Apple deals with complexity through simplified design. First of all, there are no committees. Secondly, only one person is responsible for each area (simplified leadership). Finally, teams communicate and collaborate with other teams on an ongoing basis. Jobs says that Apple is run like a start-up.

Organizations need to embrace complexity, instead of treating it as mere complication. We know that  innovation can abound in start-ups, but why not in larger organizations? One problem is that growth creates sustainable efficiencies, which get embedded and codified. These efficiencies can lead to greater market share, which companies become addicted to, not seeing that they are simultaneously becoming less innovative.  A Probe-Sense-Respond approach, or perpetual Beta releases, is necessary to deal with complexity, through constant learning by doing. Continually probing via many new, small initiatives means that organizations have to abandon complicated command and control systems, trust workers, and give them the space to learn while working.

probe sense respond

The challenge is to get the addicts (companies) to stop their lifelong destructive behaviours, which are now catching up with them. It won’t be easy, but it’s not complicated. It’s actually simple ;)

Marketing and learning are the same

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When you learn with and from your customers, marketing and learning are the same. If companies are focused on their customers, why are learning resources not customer focused? Google’s power-searching course is an excellent example of marketing integrated with learning. As Jay Cross described:

This has to be one of the least expensive marketing campaigns ever devised. The only tools required are a video cam and the free Google suite of applications. Other out-of-pocket costs are employee time to design and create the course, and a little more time tending the Google+ sessions and answering questions.

Everything is connected to everything else

The big lesson of the 21st century thus far is that everything is connected to everything else. It’s all one big network, folks.

No corporation is an island. (Everything’s a node.) A corporation and its connections form an extended enterprise.

For Us to prosper, we have to be on the same wave length as our connections in the extended enterprise. Since the environment of our enterprise is forever changing and learning is the way we adapt to change, we all need to be learning together. Otherwise, someone will be falling behind, and our combined performance will suffer.

I’m going to call learning with other players in the extended enterprise co-learning. If I were an instructional designer in a moribund training department, I’d polish up my resume and head over to marketing. Co-learning can differentiate services, increase product usage, strengthen customer relationships, and reduce the cost of hand-holding. It’s cheaper and more useful than advertising.

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Flatter hierarchies require deeper skills

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The writing is on the wall.

Most people manage themselves with great success: they manage to get out of bed in the morning, they manage to get dressed, they manage to get to the office on time.

Then, at the office, they meet the “manager” that will manage them until end of the day. That’s at best a paradox, at worst a devastating error. – Let the Managers Go

At this point, our entire company is flat.  With no hierarchy, everyone leads within their areas of stewardship and responsibility.  Many will have excess capacity and offer to help another teammate or even go to another department to ask how they can help. (Yes, this really happens—in some cases, it happens every day.) – The End of Middle Managers (And Why They’ll Never Be Missed)

In an interconnected work environment, people with only broad skills are no longer required. People with general management skills are becoming less valuable to the organization. Many of the coordination activities of managers are being replaced by software or circumvented by connected workers. Take a look at the new global powerhouses like Apple or Google. They have far fewer employees (and fewer managers) than 20th century titans like GM or Exxon. The trend to smaller companies, many with shorter life spans, only seems destined to continue for the near future.

I think this indicates major changes for any support function (including learning & development) in organizations. If support functions do not contribute to the company’s value creation, then they will likely be reduced, replaced, or just closed. For middle managers and support functions, this should be a warning. You need to have business skills in addition to general ones. For example, if you are a learning specialist for a software company, it might make sense if you could also do some graphic design, scripting or coding. Billable skills come in handy when the pressure is on.

The future manager, or support specialist, will have to have a T-shaped set of skills. Broad  knowledge & skills in what was once their specialty, and deep knowledge & skills in a business area (preferably billable). These deep skills will differentiate the generalist from the person who gets hired and stays hired.

 

Training, Performance, Social Workshop Notes

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We launched a new online workshop today called, From Training, to Performance, to Social. It’s a Beta version, at a reduced price, but we have had a good number of participants sign up. I came up with the idea while conducting one of the PKM workshops and noticed that many people either mixed up training with performance improvement, or thought of social learning as merely a bolt-on to a formal course.

The first assignment has started with a bang this week, with many long and thoughtful posts about training and instruction. We will move to performance improvement tomorrow and then focus on social learning all of next week. There is one assignment for Training, two for Performance Improvement, and three for Social; reflecting, in my opinion, their relative importance in any organization. It roughly aligns with the 70:20:10 framework.

We have participants from AUS, NZ, UK & Europe, and North America, from many types of organizations and backgrounds. The workshops are designed to give just enough structure, without constraining personal and social learning. We curate what we think are the essential resources on a topic and also provide additional links and resources for those who are interested. We encourage all discussions to be done in the group area, so that people can learn from each other. Also, participants get my attention for two weeks. I try to find ways to help each person as I see what issues arise in the conversations. Without these conversations, I would not be able to help in an informed way. For those attending the workshops, the more they give, the more they get.

This is my fourth online workshop this year and it seems to be a model that works for me as well as participants. Feedback has been almost universally positive and I find the workload manageable. We will be offering more topics, and suggestions are always welcome. Custom workshops for organizations can also be developed.

courses artifacts

Innovating our way out of the industrial era

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I have frequently said that simple and complicated work is getting automated and outsourced and that the real value in the networked enterprise is in complex (creative) work. Standardized work, that can be done by many, is low value in the network era. See my posts on Job Automation or Exception Handling for further reading.

 Bob Cringely clearly shows how this works in information technology.

Toward the top end of IT the value of individual contributors becomes extreme. There are many IT organizations where certain critical functions are dependent on a single worker. These are complex or arcane tasks being done by unique individuals. You know the type. Every organization needs more of them and it is easy to justify looking wherever — even overseas — to find more.  It’s at this level where the commodity argument breaks down.

The bad news is that routine, standardized work has increasingly lower value. The good news is that almost every person has the capacity to do more complex and creative work. We have been designed as learning organisms. Our main constraints are our artificial structures, especially our schooling systems. Much as we no longer need the majority of the population to grow crops, we no longer need a large workforce of widget makers or data processers. However, we have an infinite demand for creative products and services.

As Cringely concludes:

So we have a standoff. Corporate America has, for the most part, chosen a poor path when it comes to IT labor issues, but CEOs aren’t into soul-searching and nobody can turn back the clock. Labor, in turn, longs for a fantasy of their own — the good old days.

The only answer that makes any sense is innovation — a word that neither side uses properly, ever.

The only way out of this mess is to innovate ourselves into a better future.

Between organizations, innovation can start by increasing connections, as it is obvious there are few connections between labour leaders and CEO’s.  Inside organizations, innovation can be facilitated through narration, transparency and power-sharing. That’s how we can start to get ourselves out of this wicked problem of work in the 21st century.

ICALT 2012

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I leave for Rome today and will be presenting a keynote at IEEE’s ICALT 2012 (International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies). Here is what I will talking about.

Integrating Learning into the Workflow

The challenge for 21st century businesses is not saving 20th century jobs that will be automated and outsourced anyway, but focusing on creating more opportunities for creative work. For institutions, employers, educators and workers, that means giving up control and co-creating a new social contract for the creative, networked economy. For all businesses this means integrating learning into the workflow. There are practical models and frameworks that all businesses can use to connect work and learning. Harold Jarche will challenge some traditional ideas about workplace learning.

Our current models for managing people, training and knowledge-sharing are insufficient for a workplace that demands emergent practices just to keep up. Formal training has only ever addressed 20% of workplace learning and this was acceptable when the work environment was relatively stable. Knowledge workers today need to connect with others to co-solve problems. Sharing tacit knowledge through conversations is an essential component of knowledge work. The effective use of social media enable adaptation, and the development of emergent practices, through conversations.

As our work environments become more complex due to the speed of information transmission via ubiquitous networks, we need to adopt more flexible and less mechanistic processes to get work done. Workers have many more connections, to information and people, than ever before. But the ability to deal with complexity lies in our minds, not our artificial organizational structures. In order to free our minds for complex work, we need to simplify our company learning structures.

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I am really looking forward to making some connections with people I know online (some for many years) but our physical paths have never crossed. Many roads lead to Rome this week, it seems.

Hans de Zwart
Sebastian Fiedler
Robin Good
Allessio Jacona

Aligned principles for an open, networked society

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Via Ross Dawson, here are Don Tapscott’s four principles for the open world:

Collaboration. The boundaries of organizations are becoming more fluid and open, with the best ideas often coming from outside.

Transparency. Open communication to stakeholders is no longer optional, as organizations become naked.

Sharing. Giving up intellectual property, including putting ideas into the commons, is a massive source of value creation.

Empowerment. Knowledge and intelligence is power, so as they are distributed, we gain freedom.

And, here are my three principles for Net Work, or getting stuff done in this open world:

Narration, Transparency and Power-sharing

Narration is making one’s tacit knowledge (what one feels) more explicit (what one is doing with that knowledge). Narrating work is a powerful behaviour changer, as long-term bloggers can attest.

Transparency is an easy concept to understand but much more difficult to implement in an enterprise. It means switching the default mode to sharing. This can be enabled by social media, but social media also make the company culture transparent. A dysfunctional company culture does not improve with transparency, it just gets exposed.

Distributed power enables faster reaction times so those closest to the situation can take action. In complex situations there is no time to write a detailed assessment. Those best able to address the situation have marinated in it for some time. They couldn’t sufficiently explain it to someone removed from the problem if they wanted to anyway. This shared power is enabled by trust. Power in knowledge-based organizations must be distributed in order to nurture trust.