Wirearchy

Wirearchy

A linchpin culture

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Here is Seth Godin being interviewed by Hugh Macleod:

In a sta­ble envi­ron­ment, we worship the effi­cient fac­tory. Henry Ford or even David Gef­fen… feed the machine, keep it run­ning smoothly, pay as little as you can, make as much as you can. In our post-industrial world, though, fac­tory worship is a non star­ter. Cheap cogs are worth what they cost, which is not much. In a chan­ging envi­ron­ment, you want peo­ple who can steer, inno­vate, pro­voke, lead, con­nect and make things hap­pen. That’s my the­sis. This is a new revo­lu­tion, and just as Marx and Smith wrote about the indus­trial revo­lu­tion, I’m wri­ting about ours.

Godin’s new book is called Linchpin: Are You Indispensable? and he hits the nail on the head that the industrial model for work design is no longer of much use. The work that we will be paid for is the difficult, innovative, one of a kind, creative stuff.

The cynefin model (below) shows that emergent practices are needed in order to manage in complex environments and novel practices are necessary for chaotic ones. We will be facing more complexity and chaos in our work. There are fewer easy answers, easy jobs with good pay, or simple ways to keep a job for life.

I don’t believe that it’s any longer a question of whether standardized work will be outsourced or automated, but when. How much time do we have to prepare people for the new revolution? Any scenario that I consider – peak oil, global warming; globalization; Asian dominance – still requires that the developed world’s workforce deals with more complexity and even chaos. We need to skill-up for emergent and novel practices and that means a completely different mindset toward work.

cynefin linchpin

It’s not enough that I am ready or that you are prepared. We have to be able to deal with change as a society. How can we help get our communities out of their comfort zones or overcome their fears and get their innate creativity flowing? Becoming a linchpin is the first challenge, but enabling a linchpin culture is the greater one.

PKM: aggregate, filter, connect

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Knowledge Squared equals Power Squared, says Craig Thomler:

However the knowledge hoarding model begins to fail when it becomes cheap and easy to share and when the knowledge required to complete a task exceeds an individual’s capability to learn in the time available.

This has been reflected in a longitudinal study of knowledge workers that Robert Kelley of Carnegie-Mellon University conducted over more than twenty years. He asked professionals “What percentage of the knowledge you need to do your job is stored in your own mind?”

In 1986 the answer was typically about 75%. By 1997 workers estimated that they had only about 15% to 20% of the knowledge needed in their own mind. Kelley estimated that by 2006 the answer was only 8% to 10%.

Given that professionals now need to draw 90% or more of the knowledge they need to do their jobs from others, in my view ‘Knowledge equals Power’ is no longer true.

I believe it is now more accurate to state Knowledge Shared equals Power Squared.

I see the basis for sharing knowledge in the connected workplace is personal knowledge management or what I’ve called our part of the social learning contract. You need to have something to share in the first place and that happens when you make your work transparent. This means showing your sources (aggregation) and then what you find important (filtering) and sharing that with others (connecting).

In my case I use Google Reader as a feed aggregator, with shared items public. I also share articles with my Internet Time Alliance colleagues using Posterous. I filter more with this blog by writing about and commenting on much of what I have read and learned. I also filter information with Twitter and my weekly Friday’s Finds. I connect through this blog and the comments left by others, by leaving comments, via Twitter and in the increasing number of web conferences and discussions becoming available. Essential in all of this are the tracks I’ve left for others and for myself to retrieve as necessary, as I do during my frequent searches of this blog, Twitter favourites and my social bookmarks.

None of this is new, but I think that the three-step process of Aggregate/Filter/Connect is much simpler than my previous model of four internal actions and three external ones.

pkm-flow

A simpler model, inspired by Ross Dawson’s post on enhanced serendipity, may be easier to communicate (and remember).

You cannot control serendipity. However you can certainly enhance it, act to increase the likelihood of happy and unexpected discoveries and connections. That’s what many of us do day by day, contributing to others like us by sharing what we find interesting.

I’ve found that this diagram works better in explaining my PKM process and how it relates to other people, all engaged in similar, but not identical, sense-making endeavours [Updated here: PKM in 2010].

PKM-AFC

The business of information

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I have been discussing business models for information-based businesses and in those talks realized how Tim Kastelle’s Aggregate, Filter, Connect model makes good sense. If you’re in the information or knowledge business, which is any media company, then it’s exceptionally important to master each of these three processes.

You need to aggregate from your network and your suppliers in order to have access to just-in-time as well as just-in-case information. Good aggregation means that you can write an article on short notice or summarize a complex event, such as the situation in Haiti. If you only have have access to limited information, your analysis will be poor.

Filtering is the ability to not only find the needle in the haystack of bookmarks, files, reports and blog posts, but knowing which ones are trusted and most suitable for the task at the hand. The perfect picture for a specific context can tell a great story. We can filter with the assistance of our subject matter networks – knowing who to ask about what and when.

Once again, based on the context of the situation, which still requires mostly human skills, we can connect objects, ideas and people. The more complex the situation, the more important it is to connect the right pieces together. Connecting is getting the best information at the optimal time to those who need it.

Here is part of the presentation that I used in my discussions this past week:

Net Work

View more documents from Harold Jarche.

Work is learning, learning work

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My Twitter bio reads, “Work is learning, learning work – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know [apologies to Keats]. That’s pretty much what I believe will be a necessity for the post-industrial and post-information era that we are beginning to enter. Some call it the knowledge economy or perhaps even the learning age. Whatever it will be called, our networks of networks are making life and work more complex. We need to adapt to better ways of working with abundant information and expanding connections, as I said in sharing tacit knowledge:

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 merely complicated. Knowledge workers today need to connect with others to co-solve problems. Sharing tacit knowledge through conversations (the only way to do this) is an essential component of knowledge work. Social media enable adaptation (the development of emergent practices) through conversations.

Emergent practices are developed collaboratively while solving problems for which there are no definitive answers. For instance, what’s the “best” Internet business model? Where once we could document knowledge and develop guidelines and practices followed by most workers, we now need to let workers develop their own practices, according to their particular context, which is constantly in flux. This is a very different approach from the way we designed jobs and training in the past.

Social media are the tools that can help us develop emergent practices. They enable conversations between people separated by distance or time. The organizing framework for using social media for business is the learning network. Learning networks are not just for what we used to call training & development, but can also help us engage (not target) our markets. Chris Koch, marketing and sales strategist, shows no doubt with: There is only one objective in social media: create learning networks

The purpose of social media is to create learning networks that buyers want to join. The enticements are ideas and education. That means social media are extensions of our content development and dissemination processes. By creating content that offers relevant, timely, and useful ideas and education for buyers at all stages of the buying process, we create the incentives for buyers to engage with us in conversation and community. Whether it’s blogs, Twitter, LinkedIn, or private communities that we build ourselves, the common thread is that by focusing on learning we build and retain buyers’ interest.

Social media are the vehicles by which we can share our tacit knowledge through conversations to inform the collaborative development of emergent work practices.

emergent practices

Sharing tacit knowledge

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H.L. Mencken, American satirist, wrote that, “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” That pretty much sums up the problems we are facing today in our organizations and institutions. We are using tools that assume simple, or at most complicated, problems when many are actually complex. A mechanistic approach to problem solving is inadequate in complex adaptive environments. Global networks have made all of our work, and all of our problems, interconnected. We live in one big, unfathomable complex adaptive system.

Managing in complex systems is more about influencing possibilities rather than trying to determine any predictability. This requires tacit knowledge, or ways of thinking that cannot be codified and written up as best practices. It’s a continuous process of trying things out, sensing what happens and developing emergent practices. This is the great potential of web social media. Social networking supports emergent work practices.  The true value of social networking is in sharing tacit knowledge.

What hinders the adoption of social media is that hierarchical leaders (those in power by virtue of their position, not their knowledge or ability) are not able to function when ideas and knowledge flow laterally as well as vertically. Hyperlinks subvert hierarchy. Social media bypass the organization’s information gatekeepers and render hierarchical leadership useless.

Over the past century, large organizations have simplified and codified their processes in order to get economies of scale. They have also centralized as many functions as possible, including anything related to learning and performance. This is the modern institution and corporation. The problem is that this will not work any more. Biological, technological, environmental and societal change are accelerating. Moore’s Law states that computational power doubles every 18 months while human knowledge doubles every year.

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 merely complicated. Knowledge workers today need to connect with others to co-solve problems. Sharing tacit knowledge through conversations (the only way to do this) is an essential component of knowledge work. Social media enable adaptation (the development of emergent practices) through conversations.

In the 21st century, conversation is learning and learning is work.

complexity

Co-operation: from soft skill to hard skill

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What are known as soft skills, like getting along with others, are becoming much more important than commonly known hard skills. This is still not a general perception amongst business leaders; as recently as last year, Management-Issues reported:

The annual CEO study by PricewaterhouseCoopers has argued that what companies around the world are crying out for is CEOs with technical and business expertise, who have global experience, are strong leaders, innovative, creative and who can manage risk effectively.

People skills, while a bonus, were not seen as an essential, despite the fact that fewer than half of CEOs globally (and around a third in the UK) felt their HR department could manage the people agenda adequately by itself.

Work in networks requires different skills than in directed hierarchies, which have nurtured these CEO’s for the past decades. Co-operation is a foundational behaviour for effectively working in networks, and it’s in networks where most of us, and our children, will be working. Co-operation presumes the freedom of individuals to join and participate so that people in the network cannot be told what to do, only influenced. If they don’t like you, they won’t connect. That’s like being on Twitter with no followers and never getting Retweeted (RT). You are a lone node and of little value to the network. In a hierarchy you only have to please your boss. In a network you have to be seen as having some value, though not the same value, by many others.

Co-operation is not the same as collaboration, though they are complementary. Collaboration requires a common goal while co-operation is sharing without any specific objectives. Teams, groups and markets collaborate. Online social networks and communities of practice co-operate. Working co-operatively requires a different mindset than merely collaborating on a defined project. Being co-operative means being open to others outside your group and casting off business metaphors based on military models (target markets, chain of command, line & staff).

cooperation

We are moving from a market economy to a network economy and the the level of complexity is increasing with this hyper-connectedness. Managing in complex adaptive systems means influencing possibilities rather than striving for predictability (good or best practices). Co-operation in our work is needed so that we can continuously develop emergent practices demanded by this complexity. What worked yesterday won’t work today. No one has the definitive answer any more but we can use the intelligence of our networks to make sense together and see how we can influence desired results. This is co-operation and this is the future, which is already here, albeit unevenly distributed.

Co-operation is a soft skill? I think not.

Communities and Work

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A recurring, and popular, theme here over the past year has been communities:

The Community Manager and this follow-up, the Role of an online community manager

Communities of Practice

Connecting Ideas with Communities

Networked Community Management

Some observations on communities:

The role of online community manager is fast becoming a hot job opportunity for people who not only understand the technologies but how to exert influence in a network. It’s like pushing a rope. Leadership by example (or modelling instead of shaping) is a good starting point. Think of multiple communities divided by low stone walls that serve to delineate areas but also are places to meet and converse “over the fence”. The bottom line is that the community manager doesn’t manage much, but is more of a coach and facilitator.

An important issue is what we call, and how we define, communities in our work practice. I see online communities more as networks than groups. In a network, joint activities are co-operative and non-directive. No one is in charge. Communities and networks exemplify complexity, with fuzzy boundaries, shifting cultures and mostly autonomous members. On the other hand, online work groups have lower levels of complexity in order to get things done in a timely manner. Members have less autonomy and there are clearer roles for managers. The work in these groups may be complicated but there are rules, boundaries and processes.

Networked communities are better structures in dealing with complexity, when emerging practices need to be continuously developed and loose ties can help facilitate fast feedback loops without hierarchical intervention. Collaborative groups are better at making decisions and getting things done. The constraints of the group help to achieve defined goals.

Net Work LearningEffective knowledge workers participate in communities and networks and work co-operatively, sharing openly and learning from each other. Communities of practice are more clearly defined communities, focused on a particular field of work. Groups may form within or across communities in order to get work done, often this is project work with deliverables and remuneration. Online communities are where knowledge workers can learn and share and from which they can gel as groups from time to time in order to get work done. This is the nature of net work in an interconnected world.

Embracing complexity at work

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After our session at Online Educa this morning (well, it was early morning for me anyway) I thought some more about one of the models I used. The Cynefin framework is a good way to explain different types of work and how training can only help in some cases: when work is simple (cause & effect are obvious) or complicated (cause & effect can be determined through analysis). Training is of little use in developing the necessary emergent practices for dealing with complex problems in our work environment.

cynefin and training
Source: Wikipedia

My basic guideline for the workplace is that:

  • Simple work will be automated
  • Complicated work will go to the lowest bidder, as processes & procedures become more defined and job aids more powerful (e.g. mortgage applications)
  • Complex work requires creativity and is where the value of the post-industrial (network era) organization lies
  • Dealing with Chaos sometimes has to be confronted and this requires creativity as well as a sense of adventure to try novel approaches

Reading between the lines of many comments from Online Educa, one thematic question would be: This stuff may be interesting from a conceptual perspective, but what can organizations do right now to address increasing complexity? Initially, I would say there are two laws at work over which you will have little control:

  1. The bottom of the complexity pyramid (simple work) will continue to be automated.
  2. All work that is merely complicated will be done as cheaply as possible (outsourced, partially automated, done as cheap piece work)

Here is a possible strategy to consider:

Work that is merely complicated does not require all of a worker’s cognitive capabilities (really). Use this cognitive surplus and couple it with a time surplus, like Google’s 20% for engineers to work on pet projects. Have incentives for workers to find the complexities in their work and try out creative ways to address them. This will encourage people to move up the creative ladder, into more complex work. Remember, almost all of this complexity is man-made. We decided to network the planet and increase the speed of human communications. We will continue to create more complex work to do.

As for people whose work already requires creativity in dealing with complexity there are a few things they can do. First, they can become mentors and guides for those doing merely complicated work. This is one way to address Richard Florida’s concern that we need to make the service industries more creative. Who we work with makes a significant difference in how creative we are. Everyone can be creative – just watch this video involving the highest and lowest paid staff in a hospital creating a powerful message together.

Those dealing with complex work situations can also be further encouraged to take on Chaotic situations. It’s one thing to be creative and quite another to jump into the unknown by taking action without any idea of what will happen. Here’s a good video on systemic, organizational change explaining some aspects of simple, complicated, complex and chaotic work environments.

The bottom line is to make organizations more flexible, able to deal with change and even create change. Complexity should be embraced as the future of work and the key to an engaged workforce. Few are bored with complex challenges.  The more people who are engaged creatively, the more effective the organization will be and no, there isn’t a course you can take to address this.

Success depends on who we work with

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Here’s a description from Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives, in which sociologist, Brian Uzzi, describes how creative teams (musical productions) function:

Uzzi found that teams made up of individuals who had never before worked together fared poorly, greatly increasing the chance of a flop. These networks were not well connected and contained mostly weak ties. At the other extreme, groups made up of individuals who had all worked together previously also tended to create musicals that were unsuccessful. Because these groups lacked creative input from the outside, they tended to rehash the same ideas that they used the first time they worked together. In between, however, Uzzi once again found a sweet spot that combines the diversity of new team members with the stability of previously formed relationship. The networks that best exhibited the small-world property were those that had the greatest success.

Production company networks with a mix of weak and strong ties allowed easy communication but also fostered greater creativity because of the ideas of new members of the group and the synergies they created. Thus, the structure of the network appears to have a strong effect on both financial and critical success.

As the need for creativity in the workplace increases, organizations should give some serious thought to the structure of work groups and networks. As Gary Hamel described at the Spigit Customer Summit, traditional (industrial) employee traits of Intellect, Diligence & Obedience are becoming commodities (going to the lowest bidder?). The Creative Economy requires more independent workers (like musical productions?) with the following traits that can not be commoditized:

  • Initiative
  • Creativity
  • Passion

It seems that successful creative work groups need to be just cohesive enough with some additional “friction” from new members in order to keep the passion and creativity flowing. This brings into question the rationale for practices such as:

Mass training with standard performance objectives for everyone

Predominantly full-time, salaried employment (few options for part-time work at the control of the worker)

Standard HR policies

Banning access to online social networks at work

With working life in perpetual beta, it’s time to re-think not just how we work, but with whom we work.

Wirearchy in practice

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So far, wirearchy as a managing framework for networked business and organizatons is the only one that makes sense to me, which is why it has a category of its own here.

“A dynamic two-way flow of power and authority based on knowledge, trust, credibility and a focus on results, enabled by interconnected people and technology”

A while back, Jon Husband parsed wirearchy to see if it still made sense, and it does. In looking at the parts of the framework; they are, for the most part, embraced by progressive organizations:

  • knowledge – check
  • trust – check
  • credibility – check
  • results – check
  • interconnected people – check
  • interconnected technology – check

However, there are not too many places where you actually see “a two-way flow of power and authority”. Actually, the only place I’ve seen this two-way flow is in cooperatives or loose networks, like our group, the Internet Time Alliance. I’ve recommended before that the training department inverse the hierarchical pyramid, but can corporate management do this? Can there be a real two-way flow of authority? We have a two-way flow of authority in democracies, but this usually flows up the the pyramid only every four years or so.

Corporations were created to give limited liability to organizations that were taking on large, capital-intensive projects. Today, many corporations are based on intangible goods and services, like software or processes. Do we still need a corporation to enable wealth for post-industrial businesses? Open source has shown that software can be developed faster and cheaper (and many would say better) without a corporate structure. There are alternatives.

We should be looking at alternatives to the corporate model because networks are not markets and networks require structures that are more flexible and can respond faster to change than hierarchies. I’ve said before that work in complex environments require faster feedback loops. Social networks, which are comprised of people that we trust in some way, can speed up feedback loops in our problem solving at work. However, to do this, we have to already have that connection. The organization has to incorporate social networks as part of its structure and perhaps that is the first step in developing a wirearchy: giving explicit permission to engage in social networks and bypassing, or even obsolescing, the formal communications structures.  If the work still gets done, you don’t need the formal structure any more, and you’re on the road to becoming a wirearchy.