21st Century Workplace Challenges

The paragraph below taken from Harold Jarche’s post Success depends on who we work with reminded me of a post I had written some time back, the Molotov cocktail = Weak ties x complicated knowledge. I have pasted the quote below:

1. 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.  

2. 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.

From: Connected: The surprising power of our social networks and how they shape our lives by Brian Uzzi

I have split the quotation above into two parts (the numbers are my inserts and not a part of the original quote), which I have discussed below.

Part 1: My take

The first part talks about the difficulty of sharing with those with whom one has weak ties. This has been extensively discussed by Morten T. Hansen in his book Collaboration: How Leaders Avoid the Traps, Create Unity, and Reap Big Results. My Kindle highlights from the book are here. I have quoted some of these related to the topic at hand below:

• People find it hard to transfer knowledge when they don't know each other well (a weak tie). They need strong ties-relationships where people talk often and have a close working association.
• Weak ties create havoc when people need to transfer tacit knowledge.

This combination of weak ties with complicated, tacit knowledge is what Morten Hansen describes as the Molotov Cocktail, and this forms one of the 4 barriers to collaboration among decentralized units. Given that today’s workplaces have more and more decentralized units combined with a rapidly growing business need to share tacit, complex knowledge, knowledge management and social tools need to be built into the fabric and DNA of today’s organization such that weak ties can be converted into strong ones.

Part 2: My take

However, a team of closely knit individuals—dispersed or co-located—are likely to lack diversity of thought. This happens partly because of our tendency towards homophily, which leads to the “birds of a feather” syndrome. Therefore, in this case, although the ties are likely to be strong creating the necessary condition for tacit knowledge transfer, this sharing does not very often lead to innovative problem-solving. What is required is diversity! Scott E. Page in his book The Difference: How the Power of Diversity Creates Better Groups, Firms, Schools, and Societies talks about the importance of diversity extensively. You can see my Kindle highlights from the book here. I have quoted some of the more relevant passages below:

• Two fundamental changes have led to this directional shift: the business world has become more global (and therefore more aware of ethnic diversity) and the practice of work has become more team focused.
• Diversity is a property of a collection of people-a basket with many kinds of fruit.
• We should look at difference as something that can improve performance, not as something that we have to be concerned about so that we don't get sued.
• For diverse groups to function in practice, the people in them must get along. If not, the cognitive differences between then may be little more than disconnected silos of ideas and thoughts.
• By diversity, I mean cognitive differences.

How do the quotes from the two books tie in with what is required in the 21^st Century workplace?

Before that, we need to examine what are some of the characteristics of today’s workplace, especially those that depend on knowledge workers for success.

My understanding of today’s workplace:

1. Predictable, routine tasks are being either automated or outsourced, or soon will be.
2. Knowledge workers are increasingly taking more responsibility for their work as well as personal growth.
3. Hierarchy is being replaced by wirearchy.
4. Managers are being replaced by leaders, coaches, and facilitators, or will be.
5. The kinds of work being done are those that defy being codified into step-lists or guidelines.
6. The problems are complex—often chaotic—and resist solving using best practices of yore.
7. Ambiguity, complexity and chaos are replacing the predictable, known, and simple.
8. The competitive edge is the ability to problem solve quickly and innovatively.
9. The day of individual stars are past; it is time for collaborative team work.
10. Routine expertise, based on set skills and crystallized intelligence, is being superseded by a need for more adaptive expertise and fluid intelligence. 

  
Given this situation, it is clear that some of the following are needed to build a workplace that innovates—in other words—a learning organization:

1. An environment that fosters and facilitates collaboration
2. Safe setting that encourages exploration and learning from mistakes
3. An environment that supports questing dispositions and applauds risk taking
4. Opportunities for workers to connect with others from different departments and teams (which will bring in the much-needed cognitive diversity and build strong ties across diverse disciplines)
5. Implementation of social media and tools that will allow people to find relevant experts, connect with whoever they need to, and freely share knowledge, insights and information.

Gary Hamel summarizes it thus:

• Industrial Economy was based on physical capital
• Information Economy was based on information
• Creative Economy is based on ideas 

Employees with these traits are best positioned to help their companies – and themselves – in the Creative Economy:

·         Initiative: Seeing opportunities to try something new, and actually following up on them. This is a marked contrast to the obedience trait.

·         Creativity: Designing something different than what exists currently, be it business, product or process. Contrast creativity with intellect. Creativity is less bound to the rigors of logic and proof, more responsive to our individual yearning for things that are new.

·         Passion: Our internal engines provide the fuel that spurs us to action. We pursue something because it answers an internal calling. Contrast this with diligence, which is the application of one’s mind and efforts to a task or project. Diligence is a more mechanical effort, passion is an emotional one.

Trust--The Cornerstone of Collaboration

This started with a conversation on Facebook, that went to Buzz and came back to FB again. This was a conversation between Paul (Twitter name: @simbeckhampson) and me. The conversation started with his comment to my link/post on Collaboration in a complex business environment, which incidentally I had put up on Amplify.

I will begin this post with Paul's comment on FB and then track the conversation we had. The post is an attempt to begin an analysis of what is required to build and maintain trust and thus facilitate collaboration.

Paul on FB: Just made a comment back on Buzz - interesting conversation developing about trust, collaboration et al... :-)

Paul on Buzz via Twitter: simbeckhampson: Question... What is the recipe for success when you need people to implicitly trust each other? #lrnchat #edchat #collaboration #trust

Me: This really is a difficult qs. Even as we talk of collaboration and sharing, trust is fast becoming a scarce "commodity". It seems to be vanishing. I would really like to know if there is a recipe for it.

I believe communication is the basis, cornerstone of building trust. But then, what makes for good communication? Listening skills, ability to ask the right questions...seems to be a spiraling set of needs...

Paul on Buzz: In order to face head-on the challenges of enterprise collaboration, informal learning and other change related terms, this question needs thoroughly investigating from a variety of perspectives with the desired outcome a mutual acceptance of the challenges that will invariably lie ahead.

I'm following the Dalai Lama on FB & Twitter and love reading his wisdom. In relation to this topic the phrase 'compassionate attitude' sprung to mind; these are the words of the Dalai Lama some six hours ago...

"If people have compassion, naturally that's something they can count on; even if they have economic problems and their fortune declines, they still have something to share with fellow human beings. World economies are always so tenuous and we are subject to so many losses in life, but a compassionate attitude is something that we can always carry with us."

A compassionate attitude helps to create the environment where trust can be nurtured.

At this point, I picked up the last line and posted it on Twitter because it resonated with what I believe too. This led to further conversation, this time on FB.

Me: Read the comment and picked up the quote on compassion and posted on Twitter. Compassion is so important in trust. There are so many emotions involved in the building of trust and trust itself is so important in collaboration...In the complex business environment today, collaboration i.e., trust becomes a necessary recipe for success. Don't you think so? No one can go all the way alone. But you cannot walk with someone w/o trust.

As the Cluetrain says quoting Elvis: "We can't go on together with suspicious minds..." Manifesto #29

Paul on FB: Love the Elvis quote... I often wonder how it would be if you could start a brand new company with 'like-minded' (@Scott Gould) people who understand instinctively what we are talking about here. Whether we were selling ice-cream or insurance policies I reckon we would be very successful and have a lot of fun along the way... something to bear in mind - at some point theory should enter the practice phase ;-) i.e. practice what you preach.

End of conversation yesterday...

But this set me thinking as usual about what is needed to facilitate Collaboration. And the tools come last in the list. Unless, to use the garden analogy from 5 Tips for Knowledge Gardeners: How to Grow a Collaborative Learning Community the garden is prepared lovingly and carefully, flowers won't bloom even when the season arrives.

And as I reflected on the conversation pasted above, a conversation started most randomly, I realized the importance of building TRUST.

Quoting from 5 Tips for Knowledge Gardeners: How to Grow a Collaborative Learning Community:

Imagine your workplace as an award-winning garden — a place where you nurture knowledge and success. A place where people grow and learn from one another by sharing best practices. A place where training content expands and improves through crowdsourcing. A place that’s self-sustaining, dynamic, and always fresh.

Trust is the bedrock of such a garden, the fertile soil needed to make it grow. How do we ensure we build it, retain it, grow it, nurture it? How can we make people think in terms of WE and not ME? How do eliminate the weeds? How do we remove the insecurities that beset people in this crazy rat-race age where everyone is trying to climb up the corporate ladder? How can we show that no one can go all the way alone? How do we make people realize it is ok to ask for help, to not know, to learn, to feel like an expert at one point and like a novice at another, to alternate between being a teacher and a learner?

And the solution is definitely not only tools. Collaboration tools come last in the list. Tools are the ship that will facilitate the sailing but the desire to set sail must already have been born...

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

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…

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.

In Response: Innovation in Indian Learning Industry

Preamble:
This is going to be a bit of a rambling blog post. One of those where I am seeking internal clarity and "talking" to myself...
 
The last week has seen me completely mired in work. While physically tired, I however enjoy it because of the challenges, the interaction with team members (I work with a great team I can laugh with, work with, chat with), and the need to be on my "mental toes" all the time. All of these provide me with invaluable opportunities to learn.

But pressure of work has also kept me away from reading blog posts, articles, Twitter updates...all great sources of learning for me, and I was beginning to feel this by the end of the week. So, this morning when I logged in and saw the following tweet from @followVasan: Innovation in Indian Learning Industry (Learn+and+Lead) |Liked it!, I immediately opened the link.

I have great respect for Manish Mohan and have been following his blog for a long time. This post did not fail me either. He captures the Indian Learning Industry scenario in a single post and the links build up a holistic picture. While we all know the bits and pieces of what is happening here, the coming together of the information in a single post definitely created a greater impact. This is a post I would want all my Twitter and #lrnchat friends in the US to read. When I was there, many of them had asked me about the scenario here, and I couldn't express it as effectively as Manish Mohan has done. 

The post also came at a point when I have been thinking about the Winners of the 2009 Brandon Hall Excellence in Learning Awards. Vasan has put up the list and I have found myself walking up and reading the names and the categories often and wondering about the innovation happening in these companies. Therefore, I fully agree with the sentiment expressed in the Manish Mohan's post.

Thoughts:
I would like to delve a little deeper into the points he has expressed--especially, bullet points # 5 and 6. I have pasted these here for quick reference with my comments inline.

• We aren’t really focused on academic research (at least I am not aware of it). There is very little connect between academic research and workplace implementation, though I suspect that’s the case in most other countries too.

Comment: I agree! There may be individuals we are not aware of. By virtue of not being "visible" enough, we give the impression of not being involved in research. This can be detrimental to our personal growth as well as the growth of the Learning industry in India. Moreover, e-learning as an industry is still nascent here in spite of the great work companies like TIS and NIIT are doing. It has yet to gain recognition as a profession that demands specific, specialized skill sets, extensive reading and a sound knowledge base, awareness of the latest trends, and continuous learning. We, as learning professionals, have to set up this trend. And I agree with Prof. Karl Kapp here when he says that it is important to have a professional "degree". While a degree does not an ID make, the pursuers of a degree are typically those who take continuous learning seriously and will be the ones to move into research. Without a strong foundation in academic research, we are not going to be able to prove that the industry that is growing so rapidly here is also based on sound knowledge and theory, and we are at par with the best.

• We don’t know how to sell consulting, research and innovation well. We also don’t have high profile visible individual consultants/experts. I guess Thiagi and CK Prahalad are
  Indians innovating but don’t quite count as India innovating. It may be some time before an Indian from India is awarded the CLO of the year award.

Comment: Very true! And I have Vasan to thank for pointing this out to me. I remember a discussion I had had when I insisted that the work we do is not Consulting but design and development. He had very patiently explained to me what consulting means...

I now realize that we do "practice" consulting, but we don't know how to package it. And packaging is the visible evidence of what we do. Since we don't sell it right, the consulting part of our work gets conflated with the design thinking and development phase. The client goes to someone else for the same piece of work and pays a higher price because they know how to pitch it.

I am still thinking...and look forward to your thoughts too...

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