The other meme from the retreat event  last weekend was the notion of leadership for complexity.   A few of us decided to workshop a topic around performance, leadership, and technology.   We realized technology was only a means to an end, and the real issue was how to move organizations to optimal performance (e.g. the Coherent Organization).

We talked through how things are moving from complicated to complex (and how important it is to recognize the difference), and that organizations need to receive the wake-up call and start moving forward.   Using the Cynefin model, the value will not come from the simple (which should be automated) nor the complicated (which can be outsourced), but from dealing with the complex (and chaotic).   This won’t come from training and top down management. As I’ve said before, optimal execution will only be the cost of entry, and the differentiator (and hence the value) will be continual evaluation. And that comes from a creative and collaborative workforce.   The issue really is to recognize the need to seize new directions, and then execute the change.

One concern was whether we were talking evolution or revolution.   Rather than taking an either or, I was inclined to think that you needed revolutionary thinking (I like Kathy Sierra’s  take on this), but that you fundamentally can’t revolutionize an organization short of total replacement (“blood on the streets” as one colleague gleefully put it :).   I reckoned a committed change initiative to the place the revolutionary thinking pointed was what was needed.

The issue, then, is the vision and guidance to get there.   What’s needed is leadership that can lead the organization to be able to leverage complexity for success.   This will be about equipping and empowering people to work together on shared goals: sharing, commenting, contributing, collaborating, and more.   It will be inherently experimental in an ongoing way.

What that means practically is an exercise I (and we) are continually working on, but we’ve coalesced on the top-level frameworks to form the basis of tools, and what’s needed are some organizations to co-develop the solutions.   Design-based research] if you will. So who’s up for working on the path to the future?

#itashare

My ITA Colleague Jay Cross had a hangout over the weekend and the conversation rolled around to the role of L&D in the new era (related to yesterday’s post). I’ve previously  addressed  how we can now be using tech for more of the full suite of performance, but  it occurred to me that there are some ways we could and should be thinking differently about the ways in which performance can be supported.  And while these old:new lists are fun and sometimes overdone, and these may have been covered elsewhere by others, it seemed reasonable to go through a few that occurred to me.

Courses -> Search

The first is that too often we think of courses, but what’s happening these days is that people are increasingly self-helping.  Rather than take a course ‘just in case’, they’re getting the help they  need ‘just in time’.  It seems to me that we should be focusing on making sure that learners have good search skills, and searchable and well-organized portals, to ensure searching success.  Whether you view it as performance support or a ‘teachable’ moment, the fact is that learners are self-serving, going for pull solutions more.  The goal is to support performers how they want to, and are learning, rather than trying to force them into our models.

Instruction -> Coaching

As social media is more available, people are more available, and people are often reaching out to others for support rather than courses.  Whether it’s a quick query through a microblog or a full blown video chat, people are increasingly reaching out to folks for help. This is similar to the courses/search above, but sometimes they go for content and sometimes for people.  Are you making it easy to reach out to people?

Development -> Mentoring

Rather than developing people through programs, increasingly people are looking for mentoring. Programmed development is like taking the bus, when mentoring is like having a chauffeur.  It may seem extravagant, but folks like to help, and increasingly having a program of ‘each one teach one’, where those who’ve benefitted from mentoring pass it on, is workable. With digital support, this becomes both a more momentary, and longer term activity.  It’s increasingly viable, so it should be on your radar.

Read -> Watch

It used to be that to the only way to find things out was to read the manual, or a step-by-step job aid. That’s no longer true, and increasingly it’s easy to create videos that show how to do things.  So, for example, it’s now easy to create software ‘walkthrus’, and it’s not just the L&D department that are creating them.  Learners are getting them through services like Lynda.com, and creating their own with screen casting software.  Not to say reading won’t continue to play a role for concepts, but for procedures, the context and dynamism makes videos powerful.  Are you supporting video/screen cast creation, hosting, and searching?

Test -> Simulation  

The pragmatic barriers to creating simulations are falling down, and we now know that knowledge test isn’t an adequate assessment of ability to apply. We no longer have to have separate summative assessments, as digital environments can store performance as part of a portfolio of ability.  Most importantly, we can make the practice environment much closer to the performance environment.  When we’ve determined a real skill needs to be developed, we can and should be looking at rich assessments of ability.

“’til they get it right” -> “’til they can’t get it wrong”

Coupled with the above is the notion that we can move from minimal practice that isn’t sufficient to develop capability and confidence, and start providing sufficient practice to ensure ability.  We need to be spacing it out over time, and ensuring real competence, not just until folks have had a taste of it, but inadequate to develop real capability.  If it matters, we need to match practice to task and learner, and we can.

Desktop -> Mobile

People are now going ‘mobile first’, as are companies like Google.  The reality is that the mobile devices are more familiar, and more available.  People are getting in the habit of getting their support through a mobile device.  And enterprise platforms are increasingly making that solution available.  Are you enabling your workers to meet their needs with mobile?

These are just a few ways we can, and should, be shifting our thinking.  I’m sure you’ve got more, and I look forward to hearing them.

#itashare

From a conversation with my ITA colleagues, talking about the (self-imposed) death of L&D that Charles wrote about, Jane wondered what we might do if we were starting from scratch.  I decided to take this on, thinking about an org that was already in operation, with it’s goals, processes, and practices, and what I might do if I were to come in and get it going (with the support of the executive team to do what I thought was right).

My initial step would be to establish a social media system, supporting conversations and collaboration on work teams and communities of practice.  I’d make sure that folks could establish dialogs, work together on documents, and share files, quick pointers, and more fully developed thoughts. They’d also be able to both create and share media, video, audio, and screencasts.  I’d want to have some folks supporting the development of the use of this capability, in a performance consulting  or performance strategist role.

Associated with this would be a big emphasis on transparency in communication, with the overall mission of the org percolating all the way through, and emphasizing the part each role plays in the overall picture.  Another emphasis would be on developing individual capability for self-learning.

My second step would be to set up a mechanism to support portals organized around work tasks (not by org silo), where media, files, and conversations around topics could happen.  The goal is to have tools ‘to hand’ as well as people.  Thus, any created job aids would be appropriately located. Again, with a performance strategy focus. This is related to the first point.

Finally, I’d consider formal learning to supplement the informal learning, in places where it demonstrably would add value, with a view to minimizing the use of this except where a sound business case could be made that the time spent was aligned to key business indicator, and that developing this skill was the necessary approach.  And, perhaps, on ways to effectively take advantage of the systems indicated above.  However, a longer term approach than the ‘event’ model would be used.  I’d want to track activity, not just content and assessment.  Compliance and onboarding, typically roles for formal learning, would have a different look than currently.

I’d supplement this with mobile access, and ultimately start looking for ways to add contextual support.  I’d be looking for  business impact across the board. I’d probably structure this as a performance unit, and ensure that the staff are trained to look at the full suite of opportunities to improve performance including social, and consider the emotional side – motivation, anxiety, and confidence – as well as the cognitive.

This is all hypothetical, of course, but I think it’s illustrative of a different way of approaching this.  I think that the way things are going: changing faster, dealing with more ambiguity ,and requiring more ingenuity and innovation, require a different approach than the assess, prepare, rollout model.    The focus increasingly is on supporting people meeting their needs, instead of attempting to meet their needs.   Organizations have to be more nimble, and this approach starts there and works back, instead of the other way around.

#itashare

At the ASTD Middle East North Africa event, Dr. Palan opened the second day by weaving a well-illustrated talk about how leadership is changing, moving from transactional to transformational.

 

The Principals of the  Internet Time Alliance  decided to take a collective look ahead to the new year, and share our predictions. You‘ll see overlap but also unique perspectives:

Charles Jennings

An increasing number of organisations, independent of size, nature or location, will acknowledge that their traditional training and development models and processes are failing to live up to the expectations of their leaders and workforce in a dynamic and global marketplace. Some will take steps to use their financial and people resources and exploit new ways of working and learning. Others will be hamstrung with outdated skills, tools and technologies, and will be too slow to adapt. A confluence of technology and improved connectivity, increasing pressures for rapid solutions and better customer service, and demands for higher performance, will force the hands of many HRDs and CLOs to refocus from models of ‘extended formal training‘ to place technology-enabled, workplace-focused and leader-led development approaches at the core of their provision. We will move a step or two closer to real-time performance support at the point of need.

 

Clark Quinn

We‘ll see an increasing use of mobile, and some organizations will recognize the platform that such devices provide to move the full suite of learning support (specifically performance support and informal learning) out to employees, dissolving the arbitrary boundaries between training and the full spectrum of possibilities. Others will try to cram courses onto phones, and continue to miss the bigger picture, increasing their irrelevance. Further, we‘ll see more examples of the notion of a ‘performance ecosystem‘ of resources aligned around individual needs and responsibilities, instead of organized around the providing silos. We‘ll also see more interactive and engaging examples of experience design, and yet such innovative approaches will continue to be reserved for the foresightful, while most will continue in the hidebound status quo.  Finally, we‘ll see small starts in thinking semantic use in technology coupled with sound ethnographic methods to start providing just such smart support, but the efforts will continue to be embryonic.

Harold Jarche

People who know nothing about connectivism or collaborative learning will profit from MOOC‘s. Academics and instructional designers will tell anyone who wants to listen just how important formal training is, as it fades in relevance to both learners and businesses.The ITA will keep on questioning the status quo and show how work is learning and learning is the work in the network era – some will listen, many will not.

 

 

 

Jane Hart

Many traditional-thinking organisations will waste a lot of time and energy trying to track social interventions in the hope that they can control and manage “social learning”. Whilst those organisations who appreciate that social learning is a natural and continuous part of working, will acknowledge that the most appropriate approach they can take is simply to support it in the workplace – both technologically and in terms of modelling new collaborative behaviours. Meanwhile, we will continue to see individuals and teams bypass IT and T&D departments and solve their learning and performance problems more quickly and easily using their own devices to access online resources, tools and networks.

 

 

Jay Cross

2013 will be a great year. As William Gibson wrote, “The future‘s already here. It‘s just not evenly distributed yet.” The business world will become a bit more complex — and therefore more chaotic and unpredictable. Moore‘s Law and exponential progress will continue to work their magic and speed things up. Learning will continue to converge with work. Increasingly, workers will learn their jobs by doing their jobs. The lessons of motivation (a la Dan Pink) and the importance of treating people like people will sink in. Smart companies will adopt radical management, putting the customer in charge and reorganizing work in small teams. Senior people will recognize that emotions drive people — and there are other emotions in addition to passion. Happy workers are more engaged, more productive, and more fulfilled. What‘s not to like?

 

 

 

 

 

This past weekend, we were doing some home work, and I had occasion to go to the hardware store. Several. Several times.  What’s interesting to me was two different interactions and the possible implications.

So, first I needed some paint.  The guy I worked with was quite helpful, asking questions. (Somehow, he always seemed to be up selling, but that’s beside the point.) Actually, we ended up short on the quantity of paint, but we got paint we liked.  What I didn’t get a sense of, however, was the underlying reasoning behind his questions.

In a non-comparable situation, we were having trouble installing some flooring.  The click and lock wasn’t going quite fine.  So, on the pursuit of a tool and some baseboards, I made an extra point of asking for help from the expert.  He asked some diagnostic questions, and proceeded to explain what he thought our problem had to be.  In this instance, I felt like I understood the process better.

So they’re not the same: in one case I’m buying product, and in another I’m troubleshooting. But what occurred to me is the opportunity here for thinking out loud to be a customer-benefit.  You’ve seen or can imagine the situation where the newer hardware store employee, stymied by the question, tracks down the ‘oldie’ who knows everything and gets the answer. It’s often very helpful to the customer to hear the oldie talk in a way that educates the youngster as well as the customer.

We’ve been advocating the Coherent Organization, and as Jay Cross rightly points out, this extends beyond the organization to the extended enterprise.  What struck me was what the opportunity might be if every consumer-facing  employee in an organization was coached in effective ‘thinking out loud’.  There’d be internal benefits, of course, in having the wisdom of the ‘oldies’ available to the newer members of the team.  But the real upside, it seems to me, is in the benefit to the customer.  For one, the trust that comes from a willingness to share.  It’d be hard to do if the major compensation is commission, as you wouldn’t want to be sharing those thoughts (cue the ClueTrain), but certainly you could be talking about tradeoffs between solutions and clue in the customer on what’s important in the evaluation.

I know I’d be more likely to return to a store that helps me learn about the products. Solution selling could be more than just a methodology, in this case it could be a significant upskilling of the customer base (and employee base).  It’s moving the social network back to conversation, away from the media channels, but it’s a significant augment.  What do you think would be the benefit of coaching on ‘thinking out loud’ to not only internal employees but customer-facing ones?6