The Sawyer Effect: Turning Work into Play

I have just completed Drive and was reminded of Tom Sawyer (quoted by Dan Pink in the book) and my own childhood. 

I was never a very docile child and have been sent out of the classroom on more than one occasion. Mainly for asking too many questions or talking to my neighbour. While the first two minutes or so of standing outside the classroom saw me repentant and subdued, I would soon be engrossed by the black and white marble flooring of the long corridor. This would then turn into a game of hopscotch. I had thus effectively turned the 30 minutes of punishment into play drawing covetous glances from my friends inside caught in the trap of world history or whatever else happened to be going on.

This is what Tom does when Aunt Polly, as a punishment, orders Tom to whitewash her 810 square-foot fence. He's not exactly thrilled.

Excerpts from: The Adventures of  Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Tom appeared on the sidewalk with a bucket of whitewash and a long-handled brush. He surveyed the fence, and all gladness left him and a deep melancholy settled down upon his spirit. Thirty yards of board fence nine feet high. Life to him seemed hollow, and existence but a burden. 

Till a sudden burst of inspiration hits him. When his friend Ben appears, he makes the job seem like a fantastic privilege.

He had discovered a great law of human action, without knowing it — namely, that in order to make a man or a boy covet a thing, it is only necessary to make the thing difficult to obtain.

Tom soon turns the act of whitewashing the fence into a game with more and more of his friends joining him.

Thus, Mark Twain drives home the great motivational force that works with all human beings...

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

And, Dan Pink arrives at the following:

"Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He demonstrates that while carrots and sticks worked successfully in the twentieth century, that’s precisely the wrong way to motivate people for today’s challenges. In Drive, he examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action."

Once Tom takes control of the task and behaves autonomously, he is able to arrive at a purpose for performing it too...


Can we similarly find a purpose in our daily, mundane tasks and turn work into play?

This book is a must read in this age of concept workers, where intrinsic motivation will play a much greater role than extrinsic ones in deriving the best from the work force.  

Also read:
The secret to great work is great play
Effortless Success – How to turn work into play and succeed on a massive scale

Listen to: 
Tim Brown on creativity and play

Knowledge and the DIKW Pyramid

I have just been reading the following post from HBR: The Problem with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy

This reminded me of one of my earlier posts on KM: Data, Information, Insight...A Fine Balance!

In that, I had mentioned what Luis Suarez says about knowledge and included a YouTube video by Nick Milton on data, information and knowledge.

I had arrived at the conclusion then that to make sense of data/information and translate that to knowledge, we need to ask the right questions--not the quantitative W's of Who, When, Where, and What but the two Qualitative W's of How and Why. And the context surrounding the information is of utmost importance, as the Japanese truly know.

What fine-tuned my understanding was the following paragraph from The Problem with the Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom Hierarchy:

But knowledge is not a result merely of filtering or algorithms. It results from a far more complex process that is social, goal-driven, contextual, and culturally-bound. We get to knowledge — especially "actionable" knowledge — by having desires and curiosity, through plotting and play, by being wrong more often than right, by talking with others and forming social bonds, by applying methods and then backing away from them, by calculation and serendipity, by rationality and intuition, by institutional processes and social roles. Most important in this regard, where the decisions are tough and knowledge is hard to come by, knowledge is not determined by information, for it is the knowing process that first decides which information is relevant, and how it is to be used.

(Highlight is mine)

The linear view of Data>Information>Knowledge>Decision Making Power was probably true of the Information Age. But it is no longer valid.

Importance of Questions in the Concept Age

“A QUESTION NOT ASKED IS A DOOR NOT OPENED.” ~ MARILEE GOLDBERG, THE ART OF THE QUESTION

Powerful questions are viral. 

A powerful question also has the capacity to “travel well”—to spread beyond the place where it began into larger networks of conversation throughout an organization or a community. Questions that travel well are often the key to large-scale change.

I was reading the white paper “The Art of Powerful Questions: Catalyzing Insight, Innovation and Action by Eric E Vogt, Juanita Brown, and David Isaac. I came across this paper via the World Cafe site: Conversation as a Co-evolutionary Force. I have quoted liberally from the paper below to substantiate my analysis of why this age demands that we develop the art of asking questions. 


The irony and the truth is that we are so busy coming up with what we fondly believe are the right answers that we forget to ask the right questions.If asking good questions is so critical, why don’t most of us spend more of our time and energy on discovering and framing them? 

One reason may be that throughout our educational life, the focus on having the “right answer” rather than discovering the “right question” has been emphasized. “Talking” in class was discouraged; discussing was not the norm; individual excellence was stressed; there was always one right answer. Questions were uni-directional—from the teacher to the student, from a source of power to the subjugated. Questions came to be seen as a means of wielding authority or, in rare cases of order reversal, as a sign of rebellion or disrespect. 

Thus, right from our school days, we are “trained” to provide the right answers else our grades suffered, entry to sought-after colleges/institutions were blocked.After that, once you enter the “jobosphere” of the corporate world and start your work life, the likelihood is that you will come across managers and bosses, 99% of whom:

1. 
   
   

   Hate to be approached with problems
2. 
   
   

   Are extremely wary of questions and deem that as a threat to authority (ask too many questions and the chances are you will be thought of as a rebel, maybe even a negative influence)

3. 
   
   

   Expect you to approach them with questions as well as the answers (solutions)

How often have you heard a manager say: “Don't come to me with a problem (most managers hate to use the word problem thinking that existence of a problem is a slur on their management skills instead of embracing each problem as an opportunity to probe and explore and make better); come with the solution as well.” Unfortunately, that has become one of the tenets of traditional, authoritative style of management. 

OTOH, how often have you heard a manager say: “Hmmm...that seems to be a “problem with possibilities”. Let's thrash it out, frame all the critical questions we can ask to get to the root of all the possibilities; then we'll try to see what can be the solution(s).” 

The aversion in our culture to asking creative questions is also linked to an emphasis on finding quick fixes and an attachment to black/white, either/or thinking. This approach worked well enough in the Industrial Age and the process-driven work culture (where there was a clear relationship between cause and effect) set in place by Frederick W Taylor with his Efficiency Movement and, subsequently, in the Information Age dominated by lawyers, programmers, MBAs, MTechs, and CAs. 

However, it no longer answers the needs of this age of right brain driven, conceptual, creative thinkers. It is no longer a viable option in a culture that requires innovation, conversation and collaboration to move ahead, to make sense of the chaos, to see the emerging patterns in the change. 

The black and white approach worked when work processes were simple, linear, could be standardized, and yesterday’s best practices still worked just as fine today. Today, according to Dan Pink, Automation, Asia, Abundance have forced creative thinking out in the open. The ability to ask the right question has become more important than the ability to come up with quick fix, short-term solutions.

Asking questions indicates a desire to listen, to probe and understand, to share and converse. All of these are pre-requisites for success in the Concept Age, where organization have moved from simple to complex and approaching the chaotic, where yesterday’s rules cannot solve today’s problems.  

Refer to the Cynefin Framework developed by David Snowden for an understanding of the increasing complexity of today’s environment. The following two posts by Shawn Callahan are an excellent introductions to the dynamics that drive today’s work culture.

1. A simple explanation of the Cynefin Framework
2. When should we collaborate?

Thus, the importance of conversations cannot be over-emphasized in this age of high concept and high touch, where effective “knowledge work” consists of asking profound questions and hosting wide-ranging strategic conversations on issues of substance. 
Conversations start with the right question, which brings me back to the topic of my post.  
Suggested readings to understand today’s world…

1.      Five Minds for the Future

2.      A Whole New Mind

3.      Informal Learning

4.      Drive

5.      Switch      

The most fascinating find in the white paper was the following bit of information: 

Are there organizations that do place a high value on questions? Consider this: In Germany, the job title Direktor Grundsatzfragen translates as “Director of Fundamental Questions.”As a German colleague aid: “Yes, there’s a job title of Direktor Grundsatzfragen. Some of the larger German companies have an entire department of Grundsatzfragen. These are the people who are always thinking about what the next questions will be. Of course, these people are only in the German companies headquartered in Germany, such as Daimler, Bayer, Siemens, or SAP. If the German company is acquired by a U.S. company, they usually eliminate the Grundsatzfragen positions.”

It is small wonder given the culture that gave birth to some of the most profound philosophers and poets of our time like, Nietzsche, Kant, Goethe, Rilke…

Let go to move on...

Have you ever felt free? Really really free? Unfettered, unbounded, untethered?

If you have stretched yourself to your limit and beyond to get a really really important project, and then finally gotten it, you are left with a feeling of exhilaration mixed with a sudden emptiness...

Do you know what I mean? It's a bit like the race is over, you are down on your knees on the tracks, you have won the gold but you are too tired to appreciate its worth! You hear the sound of rejoicing around you but you are disconnected from it all...

And then the project execution starts. And once again you are up-to-your eyes in work...designing, thinking, coordinating--all the tasks involved in delivery. You are one of those key people on the project who probably has the most knowledge of the client's requirements. You are important!

Then, one fine day, you wake up feeling miserable...feverish, achy all over, irritable and weak. And in your gut you know that you are really ill, more ill than you have been in many years...

Suddenly, by virtue of being ill, you are out of it all...

1. Mails you were sending are now being sent by someone else. 
2. Tasks that you thought only you could do are still being done, without any help from you.
3. Everything is moving on just as it used to. 

You suddenly realize that you are dispensable. I realized too! And like all humans, felt sad, nostalgic, a bit pained--all the gamut of normal emotions. 

Till something clicked, and I was free!

I realized I had done a number of things right and therefore I was dispensable. 

1. I had effectively transferred explicit and tacit knowledge that enabled my peers to take on where I left off.
2. I had created self-standing documents (course design templates and design specs) that anyone could pick up and use--even non IDs--making the process person independent.
3. I had reduced all dependencies on me.
4. I had effectively pushed everything off my plate. My plate was clean to take on new things, new challenges...

This realization brought with it a sense of release, of freedom, of knowing that I could move beyond to follow my passion...

If you want freedom to pursue your passion, let go! Let go to move on.

The Metaphor of Personal Space

Personal space is a metaphor of our existence! 

Here's a little story before I get to the crux of my post.

A few years’ back, in an earlier organization where I used to work, I was sent onsite for about 8~9 weeks. When I came back, I found someone else sitting at my workstation. Initially thinking this to be a temporary arrangement, I was deeply hurt to find out that the arrangement was permanent. However, chiding myself for being childish, I wandered around in search of an empty workstation. Feeling as I had felt on my first day in office—lost, confused, rootless—I wondered why it affected me so.

In retrospect, I realized how that incident had almost symbolically marked the beginning of my disconnect from that team. Till the end of my stay there, I could never regain my sense of belonging.

The incident came back to me today as I sat leafing through one of my favorite books, Dan Pink’s A Whole New Mind during one of the fever recession periods normal in Typhoid.

In the book, he talks about the importance of Design and the value that titans such as Karim Rashid and Philippe Starck add to human life. They have moved beyond the merely utilitarian and have added significance to the daily, mundane articles of human existence. Imagine this: “Target and other retailers have sold nearly three million units of Rashid’s Garbo molded polypropylene wastebasket. A designer wastebasket!”

Does it mean people with ample money are throwing their money around? No! Those who bought this item are quintessentially middle-class, and Target is a quintessentially middle-class, middlebrow store.

This need for beauty and elegance, of leaving a mark of our individuality is an essential part of being human. Think of the cave dwellers who painted their tales of valour and passion on the walls of their caves. Think of the remote Warli tribes who simply narrate their lifestyle on mud, charcoal and cow dung based surface. 

People project their identity on to the space they occupy—be it their home or their workspace. Many are willing to pay shocking amount of money to interior designers to create spaces reflective of their uniqueness and individuality. In this way, the space surrounding us becomes the metaphor of our existence.

How often have you walked around your office and on encountering empty workstations of friends or colleagues, commented: “Look at all those Dilbert artifacts! Only L would have a workstation like that.” OR “Those crazy post cards are so typical of A.” The workstations are redolent of a person’s distinctiveness, identity, and sense of belonging.

When we visit a friend’s home, we associate the place with his/her uniqueness. I have a friend whose washbasin is a designer piece with a flower in the middle that acts as the water outlet, and who prefers a wine cooler over a refrigerator in his kitchen. Coming from anyone else, this would have seemed an extremely odd behavior but coming from S it reflects his personality to a T.

Anyone familiar with Maslow’s Hierarchy will immediately note that these are directly linked to the Social Need for Belonging and the next level of need, that of Identity.

This brings us back to the importance of Design as the metaphor maker. The design of the space surrounding us is who we are because we fill it with personal metaphors. “A large part of self-understanding,” says George Lakoff, “is the search for appropriate personal metaphors that make sense of our lives.”

Going back to my little tale, since I was moved from workstation to workstation, I could not personalize any of them. I never stayed in one place long enough to build a connection. I used these workstations merely to keep my laptop and complete my day’s tasks, sometimes preferring to work from the privacy and peace of my home.

And each time I passed my original workstation and saw my key chain dangling from the drawer, I felt a small ache. My daughter had bought that key chain for me on one of our trips to Crosswords.

Adaptive Project Framework in Celebration of Change...

A colleague pointed out the article from which I have pasted the excerpt below. Since my primary job is that of a learning solutions consultant and designer of training to corporate organizations, I tend to  apply my learnings to today's training design scenario...

The traditional world of project management belongs to yesterday. There will continue to be applications for which the traditional linear models we grew up with are appropriate, but as our profession matures we have discovered a whole new set of applications for which traditional project management (TPM) models are totally inappropriate. The majority of contemporary projects do not meet the conditions needed for using TPM models. The primary reason is the difficulty in specifying complete requirements at the beginning of the project. That difficulty arises from constant change, unclear business objectives, actions of competitors, and other factors.

While the article is targeted at project managers, anyone who is involved with designing training for a product that is being developed in tandem will understand the challenges such a scenario poses. Trying to pin down the overall scope at the initial stage is like trying to hold on to a handful of sand...You cannot prevent the grains from trickling out no matter how tightly you close your fist. And waiting for clarity on scope and all other "changeable" aspects of a project at the outset will be akin to Waiting for Godot...

The only constant will be the change and change can no longer be perceived as a challenge...

Change will now be a constant parameter in all projects and how we deliver the end solution while embracing change is what will distinguish today's project management from yesteryear's TPM.

What this also means is being comfortable with less-than-perfect information, being able to envision the end without knowing each and every step in-between, being able to ADAPT as the project moves without going off-track, having a finger on the pulse and thinking innovatively...

"From its very beginning to its very end, APF is designed to continuously adapt to the changing situation of a project. A change in the understanding of the solution might prompt a change in the way the project is managed, or in the very approach being used. Learning and discovery in the early cycles may lead to a change in the approach taken...Nothing in APF is fixed. Every part of it is variable, and it constantly adjusts to the characteristics of the project."

I think such dynamic projects have three key requirements for successful delivery:

1. Collaboration
2. Communication 
3. Creativity

I urge all concerned with project management or designing training solutions that the client can use to read this report...Personally, I look forward to such dynamic projects. I will share my recent experience on one such project in my next post.

Introduction to the Adaptive Project Framework

Unbooks, Informal Learning, and Collaboration: The Age of Questions

In an earlier post,The Meaning is the Message, I quoted from Stephen Downes' presentation:  

Knowledge has many authors, knowledge has many facets, it looks different to each different person, and it changes moment to moment...

Today, while reading Working Smarter by Jay Cross, I came across the reference to "unbooks", books that are in a permanent state of Beta.

Unbooks are never finished (because there’s always room for improvement). Unbooks make room for readers as well as authors. Unbooks put the author back in control.

The definition of "unbooks" is similar to that of Informal Learning. 

1. Informal learning is never finished.
2. It puts the learner back in control.
3. Informal learning has room for multiple perceptions, sources of knowledge, collaboration.

These are three distinct areas that I have mentioned above.

1. The first lies in the realm of Knowledge Management.
2. The second talks about unbooks and the changing nature of information.
3. The third is about learning and learners.

But the root of all three is the same.

They usher in:

1. Co-creation of knowledge
2. Collaboration and sharing
3. Change and the ability to keep up with it
4. Comfort with the "less than perfect"
5. "Un-closure" vs. neatly closed, boxed in pieces of information
6. Fluidity vs. rigidity; dynamic vs .static
7. The age of the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy (Blooms is not dead; just undergoing an order reversal)
8. Celebration of "unlearning" and "relearning"
9. The Age of Questions instead of Answers
10. The age of WE vs Me

Another interesting post in this context: Social OS and Collective Construction of Knowledge