Week's Learning #3: Hyperlinks, Serendipity, Learning

I have been collating interesting tweets and bits of learning from my Twitter feed. I aim to be more regular but somehow the postings have been erratic thus far. Here are some snippets I found especially interesting this week. 

From Hopscotch by Richard Martin:

The hyperlink. It is the bridge that builds connections. The symbol of choice and decision making. The glue that binds networks of information. The hyperlink represents a path that connects a breadcrumb trail of clues. It invites investigation and detection. As with Dr Who or Bill and Ted, the hyperlink enables us to travel through space and time. Or, like Sherlock Holmes, to skip and jump through the mind palace of accumulated memories and knowledge.

He goes on to write about the subversive and fluid nature of hyperlinks comparing it to a metaphoric game of hopscotch. This aptly describes the disruptive and non-linear nature of hyperlinks. And this is how the web works. 

From Knowledge, Trust, Credibility and a Focus on Results by @jonhusband

Basically, in an interconnected and hyperlinked world (henceforth the new conditions in which we live in much, but not all, of the world) the incessant flows of information increasingly define key aspects of what we do and how we live.  These flows of information are occurring in a public space, and are beginning to be a key ingredient of communal, societal (and perhaps global) opinion and cultures.  

From  Serendipity, discretionary energy, and the Harlem Renaissance

These days, we’re bombarded with stories about purpose, intent, planning, and goal-setting. The economy is or isn’t going according to plan, the military is developing a new strategy, the new CEO will head in a different direction to revive a struggling company. And yet, no matter how much plans and strategies accomplish—and it’s a ton—they cannot command individuals to commit their discretionary energy to a project, and they can’t produce serendipity at a moment’s notice.

Most organizations fail to tap into the discretionary energy of their employees. "The discretionary energy and enthusiasms of your workforce can lead to serendipitous breakthroughs, thus producing the resilience and adaptability that organizations most need today."

From @gapingvoid 

From Digital is Just a Means to Reach People by +Brian Solis 

The problem is purely philosophical. Social is part technology but it is what social unlocks and also empowers that is truly transformative. It’s a great equalizer. Social flattens markets and connects people to other people. As we become more connected we become more informed. With information comes power and empowerment. And with empowerment, consumers become more demanding.

Serendipity and Learning are two of my favourite words. I am a firm believer in serendipity. 

Why Organizations Must Encourage Collaboration: Building a Case

Organizations, i.e., the business leaders and executives are not interested in learning. Nor do they care much about collaboration. Business cares only about the outcome. It is up to us--L&D professionals--to connect learning and collaboration to business goals like customer satisfaction, efficient troubleshooting, innovative design ideas, reduced production time, and such.

This brings us to the questions that are floating around in most organizations today:

1. Why should employees collaborate? 
2. How can facilitating collaboration help the organization? 
3. What is in it for the employees?

Until and unless L&D can clearly and unambiguously articulate the responses to these questions, business will continue to view ESNs and collaborative learning/collaboration with scepticism. Even when businesses invest in an ESN platform, most become ghost towns after the initial 2-month hype. 

I have attempted to share some of my thoughts and responses to the questions mentioned above. 

Why should employees collaborate?

Readers of my blog know that I have written about this before since it's one of my pet topics. I will briefly summarize my key reasons here. 

Organizations today deal with a multitude of tasks and challenges that are complex, and more of exceptions than norms. Rapid technological advancement, a global workforce, and constantly changing and unique requirements make it impossible to train people for all eventualities before putting them to work. Shorter and shorter production cycles, demanding and informed customers, and increasingly interconnected and complex work require workers who are agile and adept at picking up new skills, are willing to experiment, and can learn quickly from failures. And these cannot happen when employees work in silos or as individuals. 

Complex work requires multi-disciplinary skill sets and diverse perspectives. The Industrial Era thrived by making each employee perfect a skill through repeated application. This led to improved productivity. However, anything that can be perfected through repetition has been automated. As Ben Hammersly had said: "Anything that can be reduced to a flowchart, will be automated." And it has.

The Knowledge Era requires workers to be innovative and creative, to come up with simple and elegant solutions to complex business challenges, and each solution will require cross-disciplinary teams. Thus, collaboration across teams and projects, across business functions and disciplines, both within and without the organization can no longer be viewed as something "employees should do if they can find the time". It is something that "employees and business leaders must become adept at if they wish to survive and thrive in today's work environment". 

Collaboration implies "working together toward a common goal" (from +Harold Jarche). As more and more people--across countries and cultures, across disciplines, across projects--are required to work together to design a solution, collaboration is the only way. What does this mean in terms of concrete action from the employees? It means some of the following:

1. Sharing a common understanding of the goal the group is striving toward
2. Narrating one's work so that others can learn from the successes and failures
3. Sharing resources, expertise and knowledge openly and generously 
4. Openly respecting everyone's inputs, and building on each other's ideas 
5. Fostering trust so that sharing of tacit knowledge becomes easier
6. Always keeping the end goal in mind 
7. Seeking and providing continuous feedback 
8. Believing in the prime directive of the Agile Retrospective: "Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand."

How can facilitating collaboration help the organization? 

When employees work towards a common goal, it benefits the organization. Collaboration and trust elicits the sharing of tacit knowledge that is an accumulation of years of experience and expertise. This is critical for the growth of an organization. By empowering, enabling and trusting employees to keep the larger organizational vision in mind, orgs take employees into partnership thus building engagement and commitment. 

However, to arrive at this stage requires concrete actions steps from leaders and executives. We have heard often enough that culture can kill all good intentions; culture literally can eat strategy for lunch, dinner and breakfast. Leaders need to walk the talk. Most ESNs become ghost towns because driving engagement become the responsibility of L&D/HR. L&D/HR can and should be facilitators. However, true engagement must come from the leaders. Only when leadership shows they are willing to be harbingers of change, can any change take root and flourish. Collaboration and sharing need to be built into and accounted for in the organizational learning and growth strategy. It cannot be a add on. It must be an integral part of the strategic vision of the 21C organization. Moreover, by delegating collaboration to L&D, leaders send out the message that it is not really important. By not engaging on the organization's ESN, they implicitly communicate their lack of faith and commitment. In such cases, true collaboration and engagement is bound to fail. Some things start at the top...even in an ever flattening, networked world. 

What is in it for the employees?

When asked to share or contribute on the organization's ESN, the most frequently heard responses/questions are:

1. We don't have the time.
2. What do we share?
3. I posted something last week but no one responded.
4. I have to send everything I want to post for review; it's too tedious.
5. How is collaborating here related to my work? 

Obviously, there is a problem. The most glaring one is that there is no synch between one's workflow and the ESN. Sharing and collaborating on the platform feel like an additional piece of work. This is a challenge for L&D and leadership to resolve. 

To come back to the WIIFM for employees, we need to highlight these. The first and very obvious one is the professional development for the employees. Whenever someone shares their expertise, they gain credibility over a period of time. They are recognized and sought after. The second critical advantage, IMHO, is the opportunity to develop skills of narrating one's work, online collaboration, curation and writing. These are critical 21C skills that will stand all who have them in good stead. The third one is the ability an organization-wide ESN platform provides to connect and share learnings with colleagues from across the globe. It is no longer restricted to who is next to you or in the next cubicle. This can be highly impactful for both the employees and the organization. Different perspectives and diverse opinions/ideas lead to creative solutions. If actively used and facilitated, employees can begin building their personal learning networks (PLN) and carry the skills with them wherever they go.

All of these not only make an employee more immediately efficient but it also make ongoing learning a part of their workflow. This in turn has a positive impact on productivity. Just like the Industrial Era couldn't do without training, the Knowledge Era workers and organizations will flounder without the skills of collaboration, building of personal learning network and the ability to manage their own professional development. 

L&D needs New Skills

While we would love to think that employees will--seeing the looming complexities and unpredictability of work today--become self-driven, autonomous learners keen to acquire all the skills and knowledge required, this is not what usually happens. 

In typical organizations with a hierarchical structure, employees are still expected to do as told. In most cases. It is hardly surprising that employees who have worked for years under such a structure become more of order takers than proactive doers. This impacts the way they take responsibility for their personal learning as well. The approach taken is still that of “the organization will provide the training I need”. While this seems like a sweeping indictment, it is not meant to be one. There are organizations that encourage and facilitate self-driven learning. There are workers who take charge of their own personal and professional developments. These individuals are most often attracted to organizations where they are given the autonomy to do their work the way they feel best. And the work is usually imbued with a purpose. They feel a sense of progress and are eager to achieve mastery. Yes, I am falling back on what Dan Pink says in Drive. These three are fundamental to intrinsic motivation, which is a critical factor in self-driven, autonomous learning.

There are workers in the other kind of organization—the hierarchical, command and control ones—who flounder when expected to take charge of their own professional development. And this is for multiple reasons—the most important being fear of failure and making mistakes closely followed by that dreaded encounter with their managers. Add to that a bit of a cultural sauce, and we have employees waiting to be told what to do, how to do it, and relinquishing control over their professional development. 

A study by Geert Hofstede on Cultural Dimensions helps us to view this through a different set of lenses. According to this study, India is one of those countries where the Power Distance is high. Power Distance is defined as:

"...the extent to which the less powerful members of institutions and organisations within a country expect and accept that power is distributed unequally."

Given below is a comparison between India and the USA across the six cultural dimensions as defined by Hofstede. 

This is an insightful tool to understand why hierarchy and authority have a greater impact in some countries, in addition to the already prevailing organizational culture. This could help L&D teams (especially those working across countries and cultures) be more aware of the nuances of cultural differences. While the organizational culture plays a huge role, the embedded collective social psyche/unconscious is also responsible to some extent for employee behaviour. Given the high power distance in a country like India, it is little wonder that most people accept authority and hierarchy more easily than perhaps in the West. This in turn impedes their ability to take focused decisions with regard to something as critical as personal learning. 

In such context, it becomes even more imperative to create an organizational culture that is safe, open, and supportive of its employees. Fearless employees are more likely to take ownership of their own learning and give their best to the organization.

That was a bit of a detour. The main point of the post is how can L&D facilitate autonomous learning, and help an organization integrate learning into its workflow. 

L&D, IMHO, has to don the hat of change agents to bring about this transformation. This implies taking on quite a few challenges and tasks that may not be within the current purview of one's L&D roles/tasks. More importantly, it requires the L&D team to have a set of skills that are typically not considered when building the team. These include:

Be able to hold difficult conversations: Kerry Patterson's book, Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High is a good one to start with. While a book is not going to give us the skills we need in totality, it's a good starting point. The next step is to practice holding such conversations beginning with people we feel relatively safe with. If possible, asking someone to provide feedback and coaching would be helpful. I consider this a critical skill because very often L&D teams are equipped with the requisite knowledge but flounder when the time comes for those executive level, decision-making meetings and presentations. To persuade and influence business leaders, it is often necessary to be conversant in the art of conversation. Some amount of influencing and negotiating skills will be useful as well. 

Know how to build one's PLN (online and offline): The L&D team must "walk the talk". And to do so, we need to practice and be proficient in the behaviours we want to instil. As agents and drivers of change, we have to begin by embracing the change ourselves. Since not all L&D members possibly use social media to drive their own professional development, acquiring the skills of building a personal learning network (PLN) and practising personal knowledge management (PKM) will require some time and effort. While most people today use multiple social tools, using them to enhance and support learning and professional development may not come naturally. 

Here are some starting points that can help L&D gain the skills they need:

1. PKM in 40 days by Harold Jarche 
2. Guided Social Learning Experience Design by Jane Hart 

These are workshops targeted at L&D and Training folks to help them face the challenges posed by today's workplace and redesign workplace learning experience. Here's an interesting experience sharing post by Jane Hart on how she helped a group of trainers to use social media tools for learning: A Special Social Learning Experience in India. Two related posts filled with practical insights are Responding to the Mobile 1st Ecosystem and Driving Engagement with Social Learning Communities by @sundertg. 

Be well-versed in today's technological landscape: I won't harp on the dispersed and diverse nature of today's workforce. It's well known. Today's L&D is faced with the challenge and the opportunity to enable and empower a workforce spanning five generations, all the continents, and working in a ubiquitously connected environment. It's the best of times and the worst of times to be in L&D. Either ways, it's the most exciting of times. And L&D cannot afford to ignore the big four, a.k.a SMAC that is at the root of most of the changes. 

Most often, we fail to analyse our own knowledge and skills gap we are so busy analysing it for the rest of the organization. It is critical for L&D today to understand how Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud impact not only how we work but also how we learn and connect. Without an understanding of this, it will not be possible to comprehend the breadth and depth of change impacting business. There is no dearth of literature on any of these topics, and we don't need to become experts in all of them. What is critical for us to know is how can analytic impact learning or what are the affordance of mobile that should be kept in mind when designing a program? 

There is a course on Data, Analytics and Learning in edX that is worth dipping into. The Shift Index reports published by Deloitte are another great source of staying on top of technological trends and their impact. 

This doesn't cover all the skills we need to develop. However, if we can begin by shifting how we think and see our role against the broader business canvas, it's a good start. And we can't forget that we are operating in the VUCA world. Being learning agile is the only way to move forward. 

The Changing Nature of Workplace Learning

Recently, I read two posts that to me reflected the changing nature of work -- from divergently different perspectives. One was from the field of architecture and the other was by Harold Jarche on workplace and learning. Given below are excerpts from both. 

From Googleplex's Designer on the Future of Office

Wilkinson proposed building out the entire GLG office to accommodate "activity-based working"--the theory that employees no longer need personal workstations so much as they need many different settings in which to meet, collaborate, or focus, depending on which tasks they're working on. His concept split the office footprint into a handful of smaller "neighborhoods."

The other piece is from The Post-Hierarchical Organization by +Harold Jarche 

Complex problems cannot be solved alone. They require the sharing of tacit knowledge, which cannot easily be put into a manual. In addition, tacit knowledge flows best in trusted networks. This trust also promotes individual autonomy and can become a foundation for organizational  learning, as knowledge is freely shared. Without trust, few people are willing to share their knowledge.

Read in conjunction, the two pieces shed a lot of light not only on how today's workplace is changing but also on its impact on how we learn. While the former reflects the redesigning of workplace as a physical manifestation of this change with its focus on enabling communities and collaboration, the second one squarely focuses on empowering autonomous learning and facilitating the building of trusted networks. Both articles--in their different ways--are talking about creating and facilitating communities at the workplace. Communities which in turn will facilitate the creation of new knowledge, sharing of tacit knowledge and empower workers to move toward autonomous learning.

This is a shift from the way L&D/HR have been working thus far. 
So far, the role of L&D has been to identity existing skill gaps, design training programs to bridge the gaps, and get supervisors or the individuals concerned to nominate themselves for the training, attend the "requisite" training and get back to work and be efficient. The training hours per individual seemed like a good enough matrix. We know how obsolete and redundant that matrix is in today's context. 

In the face of sweeping change encompassing complex and interdependent workflows, globally dispersed teams, cross-cultural work environment, different kinds of employees (contractors, consultants, full-time, part-time, project based, working in offices, working from home and anywhere else including moving vehicles, and any other combination), HR and L&D are faced with multiple challenges, even if we were to consider for a moment that the prior model of skills-gap analysis followed by training still works. Unfortunately, the traditional training model that organizations boasted of and even espoused as one of the employee benefits is broken, and we are faced with complexities at multiple levels.  

What does this imply for L&D/HR? 

IMHO, L&D and HR have to work together--very very closely. They have to forego the linear model of analysis --> training --> work with models that enable and empower them to foster communities, facilitate conversations and collaboration, and most importantly, breakdown organizational silos. In theory, we know this is what will work in the long run. This is the model to follow, iterate and perfect. Many organizations are also beginning to believe this and are investing in Enterprise Social Network (ESN) platforms. Only to be disillusioned by the lack of engagement on these platforms, empty discussion forums and zero conversations. What is beginning with a bang is fizzling out with barely a whimper!

As an L&D professional who is passionate about self-driven learning, #pkm and #pln, and believe in and evangelize social and informal learning, I realize it's time to take a step back and do a reality check. Whenever I talk to clients and colleagues about the power of networks and social learning--and I do so given a sliver of opportunity--I realize that everyone is struggling with the choice between what is known, has worked so far (formal, push training) and has been established in the collective organizational psyche vs. what is new and unfathomable--social, collaborative learning, open sharing, transparency and working out loud. It's not the social media tools that are held under scrutiny and doubtfully examined. It's the principles behind these tools. Principles like openness, sharing, transparency, dialogue and collaboration make organizations uncomfortable. Organizations are more comfortable with ideas like market share, sales strategy, training, competitive advantage, and such. The apparent vulnerability and the threat of exposure that social media and social networks (even within the organization) pose are counter intuitive to all good organizational strategies learned thus far.

The most common questions I encounter when speaking about social tools, sharing and collaborative learning are:

• How will we measure the ROI?
• How do we know everyone has learned? (Read: how do we know everyone has clicked through everything shared?)
• How do we know employees will not be indiscreet or give away organizational secrets?
• Who will review what employees post on these network?

And other similar questions...

We might roll our eyes and slap our foreheads, but the reality is that organizations still think like this. To make the change stick, to foster engagement on the ESNs and to create communities in the workplaces, it is essential to dig deeper into the organizational culture. Gautam Ghosh's post on How Organizational Culture is the Key to Social Business Success is a succinct summary of the key points. 

None of the systems set up in typical organizations reward collaboration or sharing. There is no apparent link between one's KRAs and performance appraisal and responding to questions on the discussion forum. If anything, those sharing or frequent postings--albeit on internal social networks--to actively work out loud or narrate one's work are likely to be viewed by peers as not having enough to do, time wasters or show offs. Given these various cultural conflicts and tensions, it is little wonder that ESNs become ghost towns, and the status quo continues to the organization's loss. 

What can L&D do to foster the necessary change?

Here are some of the steps I can think of:

Understand the industry the organization is in: It is important for L&D / HR to be thoroughly aware of the organization's business goals, where it stands in the current context, how is it faring in relation to its past, and what critical changes have affected the industry the organization belongs to in the past decade. For example, as someone who belongs to the elearning and organizational learning industry, I need to be on top of the critical impact of technology like Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud on workplace learning. The impact is far-reaching, complex and irrefutable. Without an understanding of this, any solution I recommend would only be a short-term band-aid.

Dialogue with the leadership/C-suite: We hear often enough the L&D doesn't have a seat at the table. I don't believe that. I firmly feel that not only does L&D have a seat, but in this time of change and complexity, it has one of the most critical seats. However, this requires an organizational attitudinal change. As long as organizations view employee learning as a good-to-have benefit to be knocked off at the slightest sign of bottom line drop, it will continue to take a lopsided view of learning. Continuous learning and autonomous learners are two goals organizations must strive toward to make an impact today. To achieve this, they require L&D teams who will facilitate this change in collaboration with the leaders of the organization.

Share well-known success stories: There are many success stories out there of organizations embracing internal collaboration and thriving. Collating these stories and sharing add persuasive power to one's conversation. L&D needs to direct the decision makers to these. Often times, a strong case study communicates more than hours of meeting. 

Showcase benefits of personal learning networks: This, I believe is one of the most critical steps. We cannot espouse with any confidence what we don't follow ourselves. So, an L&D personnel advocating informal learning is not likely to carry weight if s/he doesn't engage on a social media platform or has a personal learning network to speak of. This often becomes the Catch 22 situation. And many L&D teams back down or fail to make forceful cases because of our collective lack of exposure and experience in using collaborative networks to drive our own learning. 

Highlight the power of autonomous learners: Organizations would love to think that employees are so motivated and engaged that they do everything in their power to learn new skills to apply to their work. However, this won't happen unless employees feel empowered, rewarded and fearless about making mistakes, sharing and collaborating. All point to a need for cultural change. L&D has to be able to articulate the value of autonomous learning and drive the same. This may often mean taking on the status quo at multiple levels--C-suite, employees who will resist change, and systems and processes aligned with the old world. 

It's still easy for L&D to conduct X hours of training per year and tick it off as a task accomplished. The matrices and parameters used to measure the efficacy of L&D is obsolete. As long as L&D continues to be measured on the number of hours of training delivered and the number of people covered, organizations will continue to get exactly that. 

A systemic as well as a cultural shift is required to move to the new ways of learning and workplace. 

Social Learning is Voluntary; Collaboration Platforms are Enablers

I love this description from Jane Harts post: 

FAUXIAL LEARNING is about forcing people to use social media in courses – or even in the workplace –  and then confusing compliance with engagement (and even worse) learning.

This totally hits the nail on the head. As an Instructional Designer and L&D Consultant, I am often asked questions like:

1.What social collaboration platform should we use? 

2.How do we get people to collaborate? 

3.Oh, but they don't want to share. How do we make them share their learning?

My  first reaction is to say: "You can't make people share or get anyone to collaborate." Then, I take a deep breath and start a dialogue.

And in the course of my many conversations with different organizations and their L&D departments, I see an emerging pattern of thoughts and behavior.

Most organizations (there are exceptions like Buffer, Etsy, and Community Sourced Capital) see themselves as isolated players in competition with others in the same field. There are very few generative businesses like the ones mentioned above who see themselves as part of an ecosystem where cooperation and collaboration enables growth for all. This feeling of being in competition leads to an internal organizational culture of knowledge hoarding as a source of power and growth. This is futile of course. 

What this eventually leads to is a culture where sharing and collaboration is internally stifled. Someone up there is constantly monitoring what is being shared and who is it being shared with. Some organizations go to the extent of monitoring and reviewing posts that will be put up on their collaboration platform! Employees at all levels are not entrusted with key organizational information that will empower them to take the right decision at the right time. And the spirit of learning, cooperation and collaboration is in effect killed.

Then comes the dichotomy of having an enterprise collaboration platform where no one is sharing, where there are no conversations happening, no debates and questions. It's a ghost town. At the end of the day, the platform doesn't matter. The culture of the organization does. An organization with an essentially command and control approach, an overly competitive outlook, and a repressive environment is not yet ready for social learning.

Does this mean the employees are not engaging in "social learning"? Not at all. Learning has been social ever since human life was born on this planet and will continue to be so, with or without technology. Individuals will get their work done by talking to peers, reaching out to their network, and bringing their #pln and #pkm to work. What will be missing are: 

• a thriving internal ESN (enterprise social network) where the organization could have benefited from having their experts share their tacit knowledge; 
• an ecosystem where peers mentor and guide each other on an open platform; 
• a culture of working out loud (#wol) such that mistakes made along the learning journey are fearlessly shared;
• an environment of continuous learning 

As we move into (have moved into) the 21st Century, organizations need to take a hard look at themselves and see if their operating style still harks back to the 1970s. Here's an illuminating post on employee disengagement that ties in neatly with why many organizations just don't get social learning. No amount of fancy technology platforms and ubiquitous mobile devices can turn an organization into a truly social and learning one if the org culture is not ready for it. Employees will continue to operate in a shadow organization, do what is required to get the work done and move on to more open organizations when the opportunities present themselves. 

It's time to recognize and accept that the business landscape is rapidly changing. Organizations can no longer exist in silos -- either internally or in relation to the external ecosystem. Cooperation and collaboration will yield greater benefits than competitiveness. Employees will no longer tolerate being treated like replaceable cogs. This HBR article talks about three key features of generative businesses that should be the mantra for all forward looking, truly social orgs, and I have quoted them here:  

1. They design their work processes to power their own growth while sharing what they know, creating opportunities for other businesses to learn, experiment, or challenge themselves.
2. They build an ecosystem of mutually supportive relationships with and between their stakeholders, so the group as a whole can benefit from interactions across the network.
3. They create financial value as well as social value, which includes non-financial positive outcomes such as purpose, meaning, community, expression, and learning.

Week's Learning #2

I am continuing with the summary of what I have learned from Twitter the last. I realize it also helps me to curate and aggregate with greater focus.

@networkingCEO: "Happiness is not an accident. Nor is it something you wish for. Happiness is something you design." http://pinterest.com/pin/57632070206981726/ …

What Great Companies Know About Culture - @HarvardBiz http://blogs.hbr.org/2011/12/what-great-companies-know-abou/ … #culture

Although this post is more than 3 years old and #culture has been discussed ad infinitum, it’s still one of those elusive organizational aspects that everyone talks about in vague terms. The article is a short one and a good read but the most telling section for me was this:

They’re upgrading. Old-fashioned benefits like health insurance, family leave, and flex time ranked only 15 percent when considering most valued HR offerings. Traditional onsite benefits, such as cafeterias, childcare, massages, and volunteer opportunities ranked a mere 5 percent when determining what benefits provide stability during economic uncertainty. Instead programs that offer the most stability, as reported by 75 percent of respondents, are those that communicate brand mission and provide career development opportunities.

Six Components of a Great Corporate #Culture - Vision. Values. Practices.  People. Narratives. Places. @HarvardBiz http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/05/six-components-of-culture/ …

Growth Mindset: A Driving Philosophy, Not Just a Tool | Edutopia http://edut.to/1wABmbd 

I believe in the value of strong outcomes that represent high expectations, but I know that if we aren't applauding the processes along the way, we're setting ourselves up to fail -- some people's efforts will be devalued because they aren't achieving the defined goals in the given time.

Talk about open. @davegray has all 60 or so interviews for his new book, "Principles of Agility," up on @YouTube. #Delight2014

"I want you to think about storyLISTENING. It's way more important than storyTELLING. Empty your mind and listen." @davegray #delight2014

Week's Learning #1

Following Harold Jarche's example of Friday's Finds, I thought where better to collate and synthesize my week’s learning from Twitter than on my blog. Here’s the first of the series...

@jhagel: The paradox of organization - @davegray: paradox fuels power to rethink, reframe, and see more than one side of things http://bit.ly/1rEX1vU

“For example, an organization must have a way to attract and retain members, or it will cease to exist. At the same time it must constrain people’s behavior, or it won’t be able to get anything done. This means any organization has the oxymoronic goal of being an attractive prison.”

@charlesjennings: The role and value of learning content is changing. (article in TIQuarterly) @TrainingIndustr #learning #training http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/trainingindustry/tiq_2014fall/#/10 …

“The role and relative value of learning content is changing fast… A second driver for a new use of content is the jettisoning of the idea that training is primarily about knowledge transfer. It is not. Training is primarily about “enabling to do.”

@Forbes: What it takes to create a strong corporate culture: http://onforb.es/1shII2f

@edutopia: Growth Mindset, Jedi edition: http://edut.to/1sWB33V . #Pinterest #YodaWisdom

@socialmediaweek: "@iZoliswa: #QuoteOfTheDay 'Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories. #SMWJHB #SMW14"

@kaushikcbasu: When at last you meet a man with solutions to all your problems, the chances are you've met a man who doesn't know the meaning of solution.

@kaushikcbasu: "Same law for all" is no guarantee of fairness. A law that prohibits all from sleeping on park benches is clearly not targeted at the rich.

@kaushikcbasu: Those who say that a more equal world would be boring don't realize that the bottom 90% of the world would give anything for that boredom.

@AbhijitBhaduri: When CEOs tells HR to learn the "language of the business" why does it includes everything except people issues. #SHRMI14

@Josh_Bersin: How Diversity Makes Us Smarter. Very important read. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-diversity-makes-us-smarter/ … #diversity #HR @sciam

“Members of a homogeneous group rest somewhat assured that they will agree with one another; that they will understand one another's perspectives and beliefs; that they will be able to easily come to a consensus. But when members of a group notice that they are socially different from one another, they change their expectations. They anticipate differences of opinion and perspective. They assume they will need to work harder to come to a consensus. This logic helps to explain both the upside and the downside of social diversity: people work harder in diverse environments both cognitively and socially. They might not like it, but the hard work can lead to better outcomes.”

@Forbes: When you're really learning, you're going to be a novice: http://onforb.es/XoPBRl

“And becoming comfortable in that situation – staying curious and open and continuing to explore and improve – that’s the essence of real learning.”