Work

business & working

introduction to working smarter

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The nature of work has continuously changed over time. Factories and manufacturing are no longer where most of us work. We work in offices, at home, and often remote from our team mates. Today, much of what we do at work is networked via digital technologies.

Here is a useful model of working smarter by connecting our work teams with our professional communities and networks. It is based on three practices: seeking knowledge, sensemaking, and sharing our knowledge, or simply put — seek > sense > share.

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slow media for the great reset

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As of today, about 1 billion people are in some form of physical isolation. One of my clients, a global financial institution, has most of its over 200,000 employees at home. Many of these people are encountering distributed work for the first time. Free of the office and the commute they might be able to focus on productive work, depending on their living arrangements. What most of us know — who already work from home — is that a good day is only a few hours of productive work. Knowledge workers cannot produce for more than that. Our brains can’t handle it.

“Thus, while it may be hard for some to believe, the eight-hour workday was initially instituted as a way of making the average workday more humane.

Now, the workday is ripe for another disruption. Research suggests that in an eight-hour day, the average worker is only productive for two hours and 53 minutes.

That’s right–you’re probably only productive for around three hours a day.” —Inc.com 2016

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distributed liberating meetings

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A great source of knowledge to plan and conduct meetings is Liberating Structures — consisting of 33 different meeting types for Revealing, Analyzing, Spreading, Planning, Strategizing, and Helping. The site links to free mobile applications — Google Play & Apple App Store — that explain what each structure is good for, how to conduct the meeting, and the rationale behind it.

Liberating Structures can also help focus distributed work teams and groups. In addition, the restrictions created by the technology medium can provide more structure than many of the physical meetings we may have attended in the past. Moving these structures online might require a bit more planning, and likely more time, but can still get the job done. For example, online video conferencing platforms that offer breakout rooms are suitable for both large and small group discussions.

So if you want to articulate the paradoxical challenges that a group must confront to succeed, then Wicked Questions might be a good meeting structure. It requires groups of 4-6 and paper for note-taking. Just substitute chairs for a designated breakout room and use a whiteboard and recorded chat. Even the audio can be recorded. This exercise can be done as sessions over a period of time to promote more conversations and reflections. It does require good facilitation and curation skills by those conducting it.

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remote work and learning

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I have been working and learning remotely since 2003, when I became a freelancer. I live in a fairly remote location — Atlantic Canada  — away from major metropolitan hubs. I had to understand remote technologies in order to stay connected to my peers and potential clients. There was little chance I would bump into them here in Sackville, New Brunswick. Over the past decade the work with my colleagues at the Internet Time Alliance has been mostly remote, as we span between the UK and California. Necessity has been the mother of invention for a lot of my work.

“Harold Jarche is a true pioneer. Nine years ago [2005], long before online activities were commonplace, we conducted a series of Unworkshops on the topic of web-based learning. We relied on free software. Our students came from Australia, Lebanon, Canada, Austria, the Azores, and points in between. Lessons were both synchronous and offline. To give people exposure, we used a different platform each week. I can’t imagine anyone (aside from Harold) crazy (and innovative) enough to sign up for something like this.” —Jay Cross (1944-2015), founder Internet Time Alliance

I recently came across a site dedicated to remote work — Remote.co. This site has a number of questions to which over 100 companies have posted responses. I would like to highlight what I think are the most interesting responses to some of the questions. While many of the responses come from start-ups I will try to focus on those from larger or more established companies. Today, the drive for more remote work, even in established businesses, is quickly ramping up. Given the current global health situation, this site, which includes a blog, is quite useful.

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learning about machine learning

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Why is machine learning [ML] important for your business? If you work at Nokia, your Chairman can explain it to you in a one hour presentation he developed over six months of research. Risto Siilasmaa helped make his network smarter. Everyone needs to know if ML can help with their business problems, but first they have to understand the basics, says Siilasmaa.

  • Digitization has created an explosion of information
  • ML is based on models like logistic regression, which can be fairly easy to understand
  • ML is fitting the model to the data
  • ML is neural networks learning from data sets
  • The more high quality data, and computing power, the fewer mistakes ML will make
  • In a large neural network you can have 100 million parameters in a single layer
  • Flawed outputs can happen if human oversight confirms incorrect ML conclusions (human oversight becomes very important)
  • A neural network first learns from a data set (time consuming) and then can be tested against other data sets
  • The important work is done by systems of ML systems
  • Machines are still getting faster and more tools are being developed
  • The data we are helping create (e.g. through use of speech recognition) is feeding AI corporations
  • ML can be tricked if you know the underlying algorithms
  • Remember: Garbage-in, Garbage-out
  • Big question: What data will we need in the future to make better decisions?
  • Business and human work is moving to — Low Predictability + High Complexity
  • ML can help to experiment faster and better in order to deal with Low Predictability + High Complexity
  • The future of work: First experiment … then develop a strategy

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managers are for caring

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The evidence shows that while telecommuters create positive change, the major resistance against telecommuting comes from management.

Our recent report showed that many workers we surveyed viewed managerial and executive resistance to telework as a major obstacle.

Through interviews, we learned that executives saw the benefits of using flexible work to their advantage as a negotiating tool for recruitment, promotion, retention and motivation, but they often worried about the costs of training and potential culture change.

They expressed concern that allowing telecommuting could create inequitable outcomes in the workplace, and possibly negatively impact morale.

The problem with work today is management. Often, it is detrimental to our well-being. But it is pervasive. Maintaining this status quo of management is the core operating model of global management consultancies like McKinsey.

“We are now living with the consequences of the world McKinsey created. Market fundamentalism is the default mode for businesses and governments the world over. Abstraction and myth insulate actors from the atrocities they help perpetuate. Businesses that resisted the pressure to rationalize every decision based on its impact on shareholder value were beaten out or eaten up by those who shed the last remnants of their humanity. With another heavyweight on the side of management, McKinsey tipped the scale even further away from labor, contributing directly to the increase in wealth inequality plaguing the world. Governments are now more similar to the private sector and more reliant on their services. The “best and the brightest” devote themselves to client service instead of public service. —Current Affairs 2019-02-05

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solving problems together

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Most situations at work can be considered from the perspective of — is this a known problem or not? If it’s known, then the answer can be looked up or the best person can be found to deal with it. The answer may even have been automated or outsourced. Known problems require access to the right information to solve them. This information can be mapped, and frameworks such as knowledge management help us to map it. We can also create tools, especially performance support systems to do the work and not have to learn all the background knowledge in order to accomplish the task. This is how complicated knowledge continuously gets automated.

But if it’s a new problem or an exception, then the worker has to deal with it in a unique way. The main job of most knowledge workers is to solve problems and deal with exceptions. Exception-handling is becoming more important in the networked workplace. While software can handle the routine stuff, people — usually working together — are needed to deal with the exceptions. Exceptions require cooperation and collaboration to solve.

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seeing the value of cooperation

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Nancy Dixon tells a wonderful story about ‘Researcher’s Square’ and the hallway of learning. The whole story is well worth your time. It describes how a diverse group of mostly independent researchers who worked in their individual offices were able to cooperate and even collaborate due to a change in the built architecture. A central hallway was placed in the middle of 20 offices so that everyone had to 1) use the same café area, and 2) use the only available large table & whiteboard, which were visible to everyone, for group meetings. In addition, copies of everyone’s published research was on display in this central area. While most researchers felt this would not change their work behaviours, it did.

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mapping healthcare

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This past year my wife and I have spent a fair bit of time in hospitals and doctors’ offices, helping friends navigate the healthcare system. One thing we have noticed is the siloed nature of medicine here.

When you get limited time with a healthcare professional and they have limited time to get up to date on the patient, a lot of information and context slips through the cracks. Add in the fact that many of these professionals do not regularly communicate with each other, and the patient becomes responsible for closing these gaps. This is impossible with patients suffering from dementia or other cognitive challenges.

In addition, many family members do not know what information is important and are not able to be effective patient advocates. For example, some information — such as the recent death of a spouse — does not get transmitted and the physician’s diagnosis is based only on the visible symptoms as presented at the time.

This example reminded me of a project we did for a healthcare client in 2004. We conducted an elearning and community of practice initiative for a hospital system as part of the transition to a new nursing care model — from the Henderson to the McGill model. The Province of Québec (healthcare is the responsibility of each Province in Canada) was moving from a patient-centric to a learning-centric nursing framework. As part of our project, we developed software for visual mapping to support the standard patient charts and records. The software was used to create visual models of the patient’s family (genogram) and the patient’s community relationships (ecomap).

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more on meetings

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I listened to a podcast recently where Steven Rogelberg was interviewed about his 2019 book — The Surprising Science of Meetings. I think that meetings are prime areas of opportunity for workplace performance improvement. For example, optimizing meetings can make time for learning. So I reviewed Rogelberg’s web page that provides links to podcasts, interviews, and references in various media. Here are some of the highlights.

Why meetings?

“In many ways, meetings are the building blocks and core elements of our organizations. They are the venues where the organization comes to life for employees, teams, and leaders.” —Steven Rogelberg

Meeting managers

“The people who love meetings are the managers who run them.” —Quartz 2019

“In 1973, Canadian business management expert Henry Mintzberg was among the first to examine the problem [frustrations with meetings]. His book ‘The Nature of Managerial Work’ found that more than half of managers’ time in his sample was spent in meetings.” —CNBC 2015

Making meetings better

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