One of the things to do with models is use them as the basis to explain and predict.  And right now I’m working with the Coherent Organization model (which emerged from the work of the ITA) and looking at the implications for decisions.  How does this model map to choices you make in the organization?

There are three layers: work teams composed of members from different communities of practice, that are connected outward to broader social networks.  An important element is the flow of information within the model; ensuring that there are no barriers to making effective choices.

At the work team level, you want people to be able to communicate with one another effectively, and collaborate to find answers.  While this can occur face to face, you don’t want geography or chronology to be a barrier. So  you want good tools that can represent and support shared understandings. You might also want ways for the team members to find out more about each other, via profiles.  The members of the teams should be bringing in their understandings from their communities, but also be free to ask questions of their community in case their understandings aren’t sufficient. And of course they should share their learnings back with the community.

This latter naturally implies good communication and collaboration tools as well, but here the community is not only within the organization, but outside as well.  There certainly will be internal sites for the community with proprietary information and tools, but there also needs to be participation in the broader discussion. Just as you (should) go to conferences to share with colleagues not in your workplace, so too should you be participating in online communities. The learning should be ongoing.  This also implies that there needs to be an effective way to go beyond the intranet. You get security concerns here, but you need to find a balance, or you’re cutting off half of the organizational brain!  Team members should be asking questions of the internal and external communities (as appropriate, and policies about what’s allowed to be discussed, even if it’s just “don’t be an idiot”are fair enough), and answering them in turn.

And, of course, the community should be observing related communities of practice inside and out, and sharing their own learnings.  For example for learning design there’s a need to track developments in fields like software engineering (e.g. ‘agile methods’), design in general and specific design like game, graphic, interface, etc, sociology, anthropology, psychology, neuroscience, and more.

Decisions, then, are about how to facilitate the most optimal flow of information without compromising organizational integrity.  Realize, of course, that except in extreme cases, these folks will have mobile devices, so in some sense you can’t really block their queries, but you really don’t want to anyway.  Yes, you lock up the data you have to protect, by law or  responsibility, but other than that you try to support communication that can advance the organization.  It’s about policies and technologies  (and of course culture, but that’s another story).

As always, so what am I forgetting?

#itashare

A recent post by my colleague in the Internet Time Alliance, Jane Hart, has created quite the stir. In it, she talks about two worlds: an old world and a new world of workplace learning.  And another colleague from the Serious eLearning Manifesto, Will Thalheimer, wrote a rather ‘spirited’ response.  I know, respect, and like both these folks, so I’m wrestling with trying to reconcile these seemingly opposite viewpoints.  I tried  to point out why I think the new perspective makes sense, but I want to go deeper.

Jane was talking about how there’s a split emerging between old-school L&D and new directions.  This is essentially the premise of the Revolution, so I’m sympathetic. She characterized each, admittedly in somewhat stark contrast, representing the past with a straw man portrait  of an industrial era, and a similar  version of a new and modern approach much more flexible and focused on outcomes, not on the learning event.  And I’ve experienced much of the former, and recognize the value of the latter.  It’s of course not quite as cut-and-dried, but Jane was making the case for change and using a stark contrast as a motivator.

Will responded to Jane with some pretty strong language.  He  acknowledged her points in a section where he talks about points of agreement, but then after accusing her of being too broad brush, he commits the same in his section on  Oversimplifications.  Here he  points out extreme views that he implies are the views being painted, but are overly stated as “always” and “never”.

Look, Will fights for the right things when he talks about how formal learning could be better. And Jane does too, when she looks to a more enlightened approach.  So let’s state some more reasonable claims that I hope both can agree with. Here I’m using Will’s ‘oversimplifications’  and infusing them with the viewpoints  I believe in:

1. Learners increasingly need to take responsibility for their learning,  and we should facilitate and develop it instead of leaving it to chance
2. Learning can frequently be trimmed (and more frequently needs to change the content/practice ratio), and we should substitute performance support for learning when possible
3. Much of  training and elearning is boring and we can and should do better making it meaningful
4. That people can be a great source  of content, but they sometimes  need facilitation
5. That using some sort of enterprise social platform can be a powerful source for learning, with facilitation and the right culture, but isn’t necessarily a substitute when formal learning is required
6. That on-the-job learning isn’t necessarily easy to leverage but should be a focus for better outcomes in many cases
7. Crowds of people  have more wisdom than single individuals,  when you  facilitate the process appropriately
8. Traditional learning professionals have  an opportunity to contribute to an information age approach, with an awareness of the bigger picture

I do like that Will, at the end, argues that we need to be less divisive and I agree. I think Jane was trying to point in new directions, and I think the evidence is clear that L&D needs to change. I think healthy debate helps, we need to have opinions, even strong ones, hopefully without rancor or aspersions.  I don’t know quite why Jane’s post triggered such a backlash, but I hope we can come together to advance the field.

Charles, in an engaging story, set the changes in work and the world as a basis for the 70:20:10 framework as a way to think about supporting learning going forward.  He elaborated the elements and the value to be uncovered via examples.

Abhijit used an unusual presentation deck of 2 sketch notes to present his very interesting thoughts and examples of living in perpetual beta, concluding that if L&D changes, it could be a catalyst for change.  A message very synergistic with the Revolution ;).

As I read more about how to create organizations that are resilient and adaptable, there’s an interesting emergent characteristic. What I’m seeing is a particular pattern of structure that has arisen out of totally disparate areas, yet keeps repeating.  While I haven’t had a chance to think about it at scale, like how it would manifest in a large organization, it certainly bears some strengths.

Dave Grey, in his recent book The Connected Company  that I reviewed, has argued for a ‘podular’ structure, where small groups of people are connected in larger aggregations, but work largely independently.  He argues that each pod is a small business within the larger business, which gives flexibility and adaptiveness. Innovation, which tends to get stifled in a hierarchical structure, can flourish in this more flexible structure.

More recently, on Harold Jarche‘s recommendation, I read Niels Pflaeging’s  Organize for Complexity, a book also on how to create organizations that are high performance.  While I think the argument was a bit sketchy  (to be fair, it’s deliberately graphic and lean), I was sold on the outcomes, and one of them is ‘cells’ composed of a small group of diverse individuals accomplishing a business outcome.  He makes clear that this is not departments in a hierarchy, but  flat communication between cross-functional teams.

And, finally, Stan McChrystal has a book out called Team of Teams,  that builds upon the concepts he presented as a keynote I mindmapped previously. This emerged from  how the military had to learn to cope with rapid changes in tactics.  Here again, the same concept of small groups working with a clear mission and freedom to pursue emerges.

This also aligns  well with the results implied by Dan Pink’s Drive, where he suggests that the three critical elements for performance are to provide people with important goals, the freedom to pursue them, and support to succeed. Small teams fit well within what’s known about the best in getting the best ideas and solutions out of people, such as brainstorming.

These are nuances on top of Jon Husband’s Wirearchy, where we have some proposed structure around the connections.  It’s clear that to become adaptive, we need to strengthen connections and decrease structure (interestingly, this also reflects the organizational equivalents of nature’s extremophiles).  It’s about trust and purpose and collaboration and more.  And, of course, to create a culture where learning is truly welcomed.

Interesting that out of responding to societal changes, organizational work, and military needs, we see a repeated pattern.  As such, I think it’s worth taking notice.   And there are clear L&D implications, I reckon. What say you?

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