Work

business & working

Institutions follow

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Charles Green got me thinking with this post:

Ideas lead technology. Technology leads organizations. Organizations lead institutions. Then ideology brings up the rear, lagging all the rest—that’s when things really get set in concrete.

Put more succinctly:

  1. Ideas
  2. Technology
  3. Organizations
  4. Institutions
  5. Ideology

When we look at the past century of business, the progress has been:

  1. Taylorism
  2. Mass Production
  3. Corporations
  4. Business Schools
  5. Management Theory

I am fairly positive that the industrial era based on cheap energy (oil) is coming to an end. At the same time the Internet has changed the way we work, learn and most importantly, converse. Combine ridiculously easy group-forming with energy scarcity and you get the demise of command & control and mass production & distribution.

We’re now at the stage where we have some new ideas for work (wirearchy, natural enterprises, workplace democracy) and some new technologies (social media, nano-bio-techno-cogno). The next step in this evolution is the new organization. Remember that business schools only followed after the mass production model had been proven. Therefore we cannot expect leadership from our institutions until we have proven a new organizational model. It’s time to get to work.

The future of the training department

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Jay Cross and I have written and posted The future of the training department [link updated] on our togetherLearn blog:

Prior to the 20th Century, training per se did not exist outside the special needs of the church and the military. Now the training department may be at the end of its life cycle. Join us for a brief look back at the pre-training world and some thoughts about what may lay ahead.

I’ve also developed an accompanying slideshow, which will be the basis of my CSTD online presentation on March 4th.

Training 21 C V2

5th Anniversary

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On 19 February 2004, I went down the rabbit hole and started this blog:

This is where I post my thoughts and comments on ideas, events or other writings that are of a professional interest to me. Current areas of interest include social networking applications, like blogs, wikis and the use of RSS feeds, which is one reason why I have this blog; to practise what I preach. I’m also interested in the use of open source software platforms for learning. The development and nurturing of communities of practice online is another area of applied research that interests me.

And so I began blogging in earnest, having set up a few others previously, but this time with my own domain and a bit of a plan. My personal knowledge base is now over 1,400 blog posts with +3,000 comments. Mostly, I write for myself, though I know that others read what I’ve posted and a smaller fraction make comments. Many of these people have become friends and even business colleagues. That’s been the best part, meeting people who share some of my passions.

I’m writing fewer posts than when I started out, with a peak of 58 in May 2004. I can’t imagine doing that many now. I have settled on an average of 15 per month which seems to be enough for personal knowledge management (implicit => explicit) and I don’t feel under pressure to publish. I’ve found a daily commitment a bit much, such as when I helped fill in for Stephen on OLDaily.

I’ve also taken up micro-blogging on Twitter this past year and that is enabling different kinds of conversations. What might have been a few comments here are now many 140-character tweets. This blog is still central to my Web presence but I have other windows on the world now.

Thank you for coming by here during the past five years and helping me make sense of my place in the world.

Change the structure

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Last night CBC’s Cross Country Checkup discussed the reform of our health care system. There is a sense of desperation in the way in which we are trying to save our current health care system (and education system) but in light of the near collapse of our financial systems we should be careful before prescribing any solutions.

Today’s business world is hampered by managerial capitalism, which The Support Economy shows as the primary cause of the disconnect between corporations and markets (people). Managers removed from risk helped cause the current economic fiasco. Another term, the kleptocracy, is perhaps more accurate to describe these actors. This form of capitalism also robs us of our ability for self-determination:

Psychological self-determination is expressed in three different dimensions. In the first dimension people want to live their lives the way they choose to live it. This is the sense of sanctuary. The second way people express their psychological self-determination is in the widespread desire for voice: we want to be heard and we want our voices to matter. The third way we want our psychological self-determination to be expressed is in our desire to be connected: we want to be part of communities.

Under managerial capitalism, people are called consumers or users – low forms of life without any real voice. Systems that treat individuals as replaceable units (human resources?) are part of the underlying structural problem. For instance, health care organisations should be the epitome of learning organisations, but many are stuck in their disciplinary silos and command & control structures. Kim Vicente’s book, The Human Factor, highlights some of these issues and shows how the aviation industry was able to reduce accidents and that a similar, learning-centered approach could be used in health care.

We have created self-perpetuating monopolies in both health and education and now they run us. Ivan Illich had it right over 30 years ago – we have seen the enemy, and it is us. This quote may be from 1970, but is even more pertinent today:

Everywhere the hidden curriculum of schooling initiates the citizen to the myth that bureaucracies guided by scientific knowledge are efficient and benevolent. Everywhere this same curriculum instills in the pupil the myth that increased production will provide a better life. And everywhere it develops the habit of self-defeating consumption of services and alienating production, the tolerance for institutional dependence, and the recognition of institutional rankings. The hidden curriculum of school does all this in spite of contrary efforts undertaken by teachers and no matter what ideology prevails.

Corporatist systems, where managers have benefits but almost no risk, are the root of many problems in business, health care and education. However, the collapse of the financial system may force some changes on the education system first. Many people will no longer have the luxury of borrowing to go to school. For example, finding buyers of US student loans that have been in default is getting more difficult, according to Inside HigherEd. Other sources of savings for education, such as Canada’s Registered Education Savings Plan, have been affected by the market drop with many people losing 20 to 50% of their savings. I’m one of them. Will there be a dip in enrolment in the next few years, as costs continue to increase?

For universities and colleges, now is the time to examine operating models and assumptions, before the full impact of the recession hits. This goes against conventional wisdom which says that demand for education goes up in a recession, but that is only when people have savings or the ability to borrow. As government funding becomes the main source of operating capital, will education be able compete against health care?

Both health care and education are state-funded oligopolies, reliant on the willingness of government (and the electorate) to fund them. As governments become limited in their spending power, with decreased revenues and perhaps devalued currency, these institutions will need to re-evaluate their models. The type of organisational structures that helped to create this financial mess are not the examples that our institutions should use. While we have some time and room to maneuver, now is the time to look at better ways of doing things, but it has to be done from a structural perspective.

Photo: Life_Through_a_Viewfinder

Natural entrepreneurship

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When you come to a fork in the road, take it. – Yogi Berra

As I look at what I’ve learned about business, information technology and learning over the past decade I see two major influences, perhaps not mutually exclusive, that will change how we work and learn. One is the pending major shift in energy consumption and the other is our increasing connection through the Internet.

My observations and readings tell me that when we change how we work, our education systems follow suit. There is no doubt that many of us will be changing how we work in the near future. That will mean changes in how we educate ourselves.

Peak oil has already passed and we will have to come to terms with using more costly sources of energy and using less of it. That will change how we get to work, how we go to school, and especially how we make and move goods. Scenarios such as Jim Kunstler’s are one possibility, but there are many others. Change does not happen in a straight line. However, there is no doubt that the shift away from the cheap oil economy will have repercussions at all levels.

The Internet has also changed how we work and communicate and this will continue unless something like the long emergency happens. In the meantime, the Net is changing how we do business and how we perceive learning (e.g. connectivism). For example, command & control, supply chain management and performance management are all being turned on their heads as hyperlinks subvert hierarchies. The same is happening in schools as what is taught inside has less relevance with the outside. Here in New Brunswick debates rage on singing O Canada and wearing sweats in school while critical thinking and basic digital literacy are ignored. Meanwhile, kids are having conversations with friends around the world, getting involved in international causes or creating media that is watched by over 150,000 people. Not your typical day at school.

Can we simultaneously prepare for these two possibilities- a connected world and a long emergency? I believe there is a viable option in natural enterprises, as put forth in Dave Pollard’s Finding the Sweet Spot, which I reviewed last year. Natural entrepreneurship will work in either an electric or a non-electric future, making it more resilient than most industrial models. For instance, Dave found that successful entrepreneurs had several things in common.

They built strong, collaborative relationships and networks, and operated their enterprises “on principle”. They understood that powerful social relationships are the underpinning to all human enterprise, and that collaboration succeeds better than competition. And by sticking to principles of responsibility and sustainability they ensured that these relationships were deep, trusting, and reciprocal.

Principles for natural enterprises can work whether the network of relationships is local or global. Since business models drive education models I would suggest that our business schools take a serious look at new business models and do so soon. Meanwhile, our educators have to engage in discussions on what our education system can do to build the skills for natural entrepreneurship. Time is running out.

First we shape our structures and then our structures shape us – Winston Churchill

Networks

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For several years I called this blog “Conversations at the intersection of learning, work & technology” and still use that tag line from time to time. During the past decade I’ve worked at that intersection, sometimes more focused on one aspect than another. I’ve seen a merging of work and learning as more of our lives are lived in larger and more complex networks. Working in what my friend Jay Cross calls Internet Time, blurs the lines between work and learning. The blurring of lines between the silos of disciplines and knowledge is happening everywhere as we get the ability to quickly jump from one field to another, and it’s reaping the reward of innovation, as Franz Johansson notes in The Medici Effect.

This decade has witnessed an increasing use of social network analysis and value network analysis, while social media are starting to permeate every type of business, especially marketing. In learning theory we now have Connectivism – the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories. Understanding networks provides new insights into learning and business.

So what lies at the intersection of learning, work and technology? NETWORKS

The Practice of Training in the 21st Century

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The Practice of Training in the 21st Century is an online presentation I will be doing for CSTD on 4 March 2009 at 1:00 PM EST. There is a fee for the event which supports CSTD’s work in fostering the profession of training, workplace learning and human resources development in Canada [my services are pro bono].

The presentation is an update of the ideas from the Training Department in the 21st Century. There is also a version on SlideShare. The March presentation will give more detail than what is on my related blog posts and enable some feedback, as well as open up the concept to a broader audience. As I re-do the presentation, any suggestions or criticism would be appreciated.

The Fourth Turning

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I picked up a used copy of The Fourth Turning (1997) as I had read some reviews, positive and negative, and for the price figured it was worth it. I won’t go into the entire premise of the book, as the reviews on Amazon give a good overview, but I find the recommendations from 1997 to prepare for the predicted crisis in the first decade of the millennium (now) most interesting:

Once the Crisis catalyzes, anything can happen. If you are starting a career now, realize that generalists with survival know-how will have the edge over specialists whose skills are useful only in an undamaged environment. Be fluent in as many languages, cultures, and technologies as you can. Your business will face a total alteration of market conditions: Expect public subsidies to vanish, the regulatory environment to change quickly, and new trade barriers to arise. Avoid debt or leverage investments, including massive student debt. Assume that all your external safety nets (pensions, Social Security, Medicare) could end up totally shredded.

Related to my post of the Cuspers going into small business are some recommendations for this generation (AKA: 13ers):

The Fourth Turning will find other generations with lives either mostly in the past or mostly in the future, but it will catch 13ers in “prime time”, right at the midpoint of their adult lives. They must step forward as the saeculum’s repair generation, the one stuck with fixing the messes and cleaning up the debris left by others.

President Obama campaigned on this fact and even Prime Minister Harper has had to discard some of his conservative principles and get down to the messy job of repair. Both are members of this generation. The Crisis is here and there’s lots of work for all of us to do.

Preparing for Business 2.0

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If you were to advise someone considering going into business or becoming an entrepreneur today, what would you tell them? What is the best advice for today’s business schools? Where would you start; with underlying processes, human psychology, supply & demand theories or principles of management? I’ve been using the wirearchy tag to note articles that talk about the changing nature of work. Here are some examples:

Wirearchy: The performance management schemes, grade levels in the organizations and compensation practices have yet to recognize how work gets done in networked environments and increasingly, in a networked world.

FastForward Blog: … the radical reduction of transaction costs shifts the economic reality enough to eliminate the current value of organizations, making organizations effectively irrelevant.

Umair Haque: That’s the third, simplest, and most fundamental step in building next-generation businesses: understanding that next-generation businesses are built on new DNA, or new ways to organize and manage economic activities. Think that sounds like science fiction? Think again. Here are just a few of the most radical new organizational and management techniques today’s revolutionaries are already utilizing: open-source production, peer production, viral distribution, radical experimentation, connected consumption, and co-creation.

Scott Anthony: The Great Disruption creates real challenges for managers who have made a career out of focused execution. Smart management and prudent cost controls might have been enough to survive the Great Depression, but they are wholly insufficient for surviving the Great Disruption. For example, all the operational acumen in the world won’t help U.S. newspaper companies handle the seismic shifts in their industry.

G. Oliver Young: I see a fundamental rethinking of the definition and function of the firm; the single biggest change since the industrial revolution.

Are there any books that you would recommend to someone entering into a commerce program or starting their first foray into business? I think that the rules are changing rather quickly, as I see what people in my own networks are doing, especially with start-ups.

Is there a way to study and prepare for business today or is it better to jump in and make mistakes as you learn? Recommendations would be appreciated, especially from younger entrepreneurs.

The leaking pyramid

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Two years ago I wrote about the the forces of change and how workers, who one could call the “Cluetrained’, were dropping out of the bottom of the industrial organisation’s pyramid and doing it on their own. “It” meaning working, learning, creating and collaborating.

Today, these outlets are bigger and more obvious:

  • Informal learning is increasingly available from formal venues, such as Stanford’s series on Darwin’s Legacy that I’m following on YouTube.
  • Social networking is getting more pervasive (Facebook, Twitter or DIY with Ning) and accepted in the mainstream, such as Linked-In for recruiting.
  • Distributed work and tele-work are becoming more acceptable. It is almost normal to work from home from time to time.
  • User generated content is getting people noticed. Job offers are posted (or reverse job postings) and made through blogs while videos on YouTube can catapult people to fame.
  • Creative Commons is becoming the normal license for digital media, enabling easier sharing, and even the White House is using it.

I would say that the bottom of the Command & Control pyramid is getting much more porous.