Work

business & working

understanding work systems

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Continued from focus on the system.

“Over the long haul, even strong people can’t compensate for a weak process. Sure, some occasional success may come from team or individual heroics. But if you pit a good performer against a bad system, the system will win almost every time.” —Rummler & Brache

The nine-box model is an effective model for unearthing systemic issues that influence how work gets done. It looks at Goals, Design, and Management from three levels — the Organization, the Processes, and the Work Teams. This is a tool I have used for several consulting engagements during my career as a workplace performance improvement specialist.

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knowledge flows at the speed of trust

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Transparency

Businesses that are open, transparent, and cooperative are more resilient because they rely on people, not processes. In a transparent organization there is no way to game the system as an individual. A transparent business focuses on long-term value, not short-term profit. It can also foster innovation, as diverse ideas come to the fore when people openly share their ideas. Workers become a social network, cooperating in order to make the organization better.

Knowledge networks are similar. They function well when they are 1) based on openness, which 2) enables transparency, and 3) in turn fosters diversity — all of which reinforce the basic principle of openness. In such a transparent workplace, the role of management is to give workers a job worth doing, the tools to do it, recognition of a job well done, and then let them manage themselves.

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from training to learning to performance

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I have been reading in several places recently that a new concept of learning in the flow of work, or workflow learning, is the latest advance in the learning & development field. It’s not that new though.

So I dusted off my copy of Electronic Performance Support Systems (1991) by Gloria Gery, which begins with an identification of problems with the training industry.

  1. Training (and learning) was moved out of the actual job context.
  2. The experts were removed from the novices.
  3. Post-training support was reduced to manuals, an occasional job aid, and intermittent supervisory commentary.

Does this sound familiar in any workplace today?

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dancing in the dark

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Peter Drucker (1909-2005) was an American management consultant whose work has influenced how business is done for more than 50 years. He was a prolific writer and is often quoted, though frequently incorrectly. Some of his quotes are pertinent today, especially here in New Brunswick, Canada where we have dropped all public health measures in advance of what will likely be a sixth wave of coronavirus, as infection rates in Europe are beginning to indicate.

“… no human being can possibly predict the future, let alone control it.” —Peter Drucker

Our government and public health authorities are confident that while hospitals are near capacity, vaccine efficacy is waning, and vaccination rates in children are low to nil, any subsequent wave of viral infection will not require any precautionary measures.

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perpetual beta — our new normal

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The perpetual beta model describes how knowledge can flow between professional networks, communities of practice, and work teams. It shows that it is necessary to connect all three in order to ensure a diversity of ideas and perspectives — as well as safe places to test these — in order to support increasingly complex collaborative work tasks. An essential component of this is ensuring individuals develop the discipline of personal knowledge mastery.

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super-connectors

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Richard Claydon tells a story about a ‘super-connector’ he once worked with. This person was highly respected by everyone and could get things done across departments, ignoring the official hierarchy.

“In today’s interconnected complexity of work, it is next to impossible to isolate performance to the granular, individualised level of a KPI. Everything happens in dynamic context, impacting and being impacted by stuff that is going on elsewhere. A super-connector navigates this complexity for the benefit of all.

Super-connectors are vital for creative and innovative work. They are the people who take strands of thoughts from multiple domains, synthesise them and turn them into something novel. Without people capable of listening to, comprehending, sharing and combining such thoughts, creativity and innovation hit roadblock after roadblock.” —Are you a super-connector?

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sensemaking through irony

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How can we thrive in a broken system? This is perhaps one of the greatest challenges many of us face today, whether it be where we work, the institutions we deal with, or the governance systems that control us. Geoff Marlowe explains that how we perceive the situation and what type of humour we use, are critical in getting to a point where we may be able to take constructive action. Neither apathy nor cynicism will get us there, only irony might.

Ironic humour is often misunderstood and maligned by the positionally powerful because it challenges the deference they can assume is their due …

Which raises the question that if irony is so vital in maintaining a positive state in the face of an aspiration / actuality gap, why not just focus on humour?

That’s because without honesty and humility, any humour intended as ironic runs a real risk of sliding into sarcasm – literally “tearing off the flesh” of others.

Humour deployed as a form of violence isn’t going to contribute to the collective sense making, decision making & action taking that’s vital in an increasingly uncertain and unpredictable world. —Thriving in a broken system

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distributed work 2021

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I am quite certain that distributed work is here to stay. Even Dr. Anthony Fauci at the US CDC is surprised at how long this pandemic is lasting. With the highly infectious Omicron variant becoming dominant in many countries, it does not look like it will be over soon. In a few months time, some people will have been working distributively for two years, not at their request, but having found new work norms to get things done. I have spoken to many people who will not go back to a carbon-intensive work commute.

Here is a review of some thoughts on distributed work throughout 2021.

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a labour of love

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I have mentioned over the years that you have to own your data and that many online platforms are set up for crowd-milking. One of the latest platforms for writers to make-it-rich is Substack, where the top writers may earn six figures. Substack lets writers set up paid subscriptions and takes 10 percent. However, the platform also paid high profile writers in advance to get them to use the platform, and in turn could say how much money writers were making. Annalee Newitz described this scam, ironically, on Substack [as an aside, I think that Newitz is a great writer].

Simon Owens recently discussed the gritty reality of Substack’s middle class. He has turned down full-time writing and editorial jobs and is completely focused on producing content, both free and paid. His observations include:

“you really have to minimize time spent on anything other than content creation”
“You need some sort of financial cushion.” — “I think it’s safe to say that you’ll want to have a minimum of one year’s salary in the bank before even considering making the plunge.”
“While I was constantly experimenting with small tweaks during this time, there was simply no way to collect quantitative data on whether they were actually effective.”
“I do think it’s very much possible for the average person to join this middle class, but it’s important that everyone understands the punishing economics at play.”

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social learning powers distributed work

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Distributed work is here to stay, because many people like it, the pandemic is not over and there will be others, and market forces will seek to maximize profits and reduce labour costs. But Zoom calls all day are not going to create work environments where knowledge workers can deal with complex problems or create innovative solutions. The key to distributed work is social learning.

Distributed work is driving a work-from-anywhere culture and is increasingly reliant on asynchronous communication, as people move to multiple time zones. In order to share the necessary implicit knowledge needed for complex work, trust has to be developed. People only share with others they trust. This trust takes time to develop between people. How can they do this when they are not in the same office?

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