I’ve been a wee bit busy this week, engaged on two different initiatives involved in improving what the organizations are doing. The interesting bit was that there were two widely different cultures, and yet each was successful.   How could that be?

Normally, we look at the elements of successful learning cultures as providing safety and reward for contributing, acceptance of diversity, and other dimensions.   It’s easy to imagine that this results in a relatively homogeneous outcome, which, while certainly desirable, might seem bland.   However, the two juxtaposed experiences demonstrated that this is definitely not the case.

In one, there’s definitely a feeling of responsible progress, but it’s a very supportive environment, and while there’s gentle teasing, it’s a very warm and fuzzy place, self-described by the leader.   This leader has some clear ideas, but is very collaborative in getting input in what goals to choose and more so in how to get there.   It’s necessary in the community in which they play, but it works.   People are clear about where they’re going, and feel supported in getting there in reasonable steps.

The other culture is similarly committed to quality, but the leader has a much different personality. Instead of warm and fuzzy, there’s much more attitude and edge.   The comments are more pointed, but it’s even more self-directed than other directed, and is taken as well as given. It’s more lively, probably not quite as ‘safe’, but also probably a bit more fun.   It’s probably more suited to the entrepreneurial nature of the organization than the previous more institutional approach.

Yet both are in continual processes of improvement; in both cases my role was to add the outside knowledge of learning and technology in their self-evaluation.   It’s a pleasure to work with organizations that are serious about improvement, and eager to include the necessary input to get there.

My take-home is that there are lots of different ways organizations can be functional, as well as dysfunctional.   It doesn’t take much more than commitment to move from the latter to the former, and the leader’s style can be different, as long as it’s consistent, appropriate, and successful.   Definitely a nice thing to learn.

Harold Jarche and Jay Cross have been talking about rethinking the training department, and I have to agree.   In principle, if there is a ‘training‘ department, it needs to be coupled with a ‘performance‘ department and a ‘social learning‘ department, all under an organizational learning & performance umbrella.

What‘s wrong with a training department?   Several things you‘ll probably recognize: all problems have one answer – ‘a course‘; no relationships to the groups providing the myriad of portals, no relationship to anyone doing any sort of social learning, no ‘big picture‘ comprehension of the organization‘s needs, and typically the courses aren‘t that great either!

To put it another way, it‘s not working for the organizational constituencies.   The novices aren‘t being served because the courses are too focused on knowledge and not skills, aren‘t sufficiently motivating to engage them, and use courses even when job aids would do.   The practitioners are not getting or able to find the information they need, and have trouble getting access to expert knowledge.   And experts aren‘t able to collaborate with each other, and to work effectively with practitioners to solve problems.   Epic fail, as they say.   OK, so that‘s a ‘straw man‘, but I‘ll suggest that it‘s all too frequent.

The goal is a team serving the entire learnscape: looking at it holistically, matching needs to tools, nurturing communities, leveraging content overlap, and creating a performance-focused ecosystem.   I‘ve argued before that such an approach is really the only sustainable way to support an organization.   However, that‘s typically not what we see.

Instead, we tend to see different training groups making courses in their silos, with no links between their content (despite the natural relationships), often no link to content in portals, no systematic support for collaboration, and overall no focus on long-term development of individuals and capabilities.

So, how do we get there from here?   That‘s not an easy answer, because (and this isn‘t just consultant-speak) it depends on where the particular organization is at, and what makes sense as a particular end version, and what metrics are meaningful to the organization.   There are systematic ways to assess an organization (Jay, Harold, and I‘ve drafted just such an instrument), and processes to follow to come up with recommendations for what you do tomorrow, next month, and next year.

The goal should be a plan, a strategy, to move towards the goal.   The path differs, as the starting points are organization-specific. One way to do it is DIY, if you‘ve got the time; it‘s cheaper, but more error-prone.   The fast track is to bring in assistance and take advantage of a high-value, lightweight infusion of the best thinking to set the course.   No points for guessing my recommendation.   But with the economic crisis and organizational ‘efficiencies‘, can you afford to stick to the old ineffective path?

(No, I’m not talking about weapons, or anthropological determination, sorry :).

Organizations have to be nimble; the environment we face is more like sitting in the ocean waiting to ride the ever-changing waves than it is striding down a concrete road.   Increasingly, in these chaotic times, changes are unpredictable.   There are changing tides, swells, weather, and the resulting waves.   You’d rather ride them than be tossed by them, but what do you do?   When it comes to waves, how do surfers cope, and what are the implications?

Beginning surfers typically have a board, a solution for riding waves.   And that’s ok, because there’re a limited number of wave conditions they should go out in.   Sometimes they get a good board for general small wave conditions, but sometimes for a variety of mistaken reasons they get something like a gun.   A gun is a board specifically for big fast waves.   It’s a board if you’re surfing on the North Shore of Oahu in winter. Not for beginners.

More experienced surfers start accumulating a quiver of boards for different conditions. Short boards, long boards, and a gun, etc.   Depending on their budget, storage space, and commitment to surfing, they could have two to as many as 8.   The pros have quivers in the teens, but they get them free and on-demand.   They’ll check the conditions, and then choose the appropriate board.

The analogy is that when you’re moving from just beginning to being able to adapt to a changing environment, you   need to have a suite of tools that provide the flexibility you need.   There isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, just as there isn’t the perfect board.   There are boards that suit a wide variety of conditions, and if you’re small, cash-strapped, or whatever you may have to make do with one tool with most of the necessary capabilities, but when you’re serious, you need industrial-strength tools.

With my TogetherLearn colleagues, we’ve been evaluating tools for a while, and we’re not happy with any one. Consequently, we’ve a quiver of tools we use for different purposes, and we’re continually scanning for one that feature either better integration, or a more elegant delivery of capabilities.

There’s more, of course.   Experienced surfers sit and watch the waves for a while, choose a board, and then when they’re out they’re scanning the horizon for swells, and moving to get optimal position.   Once they’re riding, they’re watching how the wave changes and making spontaneous decisions.   Sometimes they come in and pick a different board before going back out.

And that’s before you figure out how to choose tools that suit your organization, proactively adapt your culture, and align with your business goals.   Surfers who want to get better get out in the water more, get more experience, and experiment.   Surfers who want to get better quickly get coaching.

I reckon the business environment is going to get more turbulent, and organizations are going to have to be more flexible, more nimble, be able to adapt and move faster.   That requires faster and more effective problem-solving.   We know that innovation isn’t the product of one person, but of collaboration and ongoing work, by people who are motivated and supported.   You need the right culture and the right infrastructure   to support that collaboration.   What’s your strategy?

I’m finding it hard today to be positive after listening to a couple of well-reasoned analyses of our economic crisis.   One analyzes the current economic crisis, explaining the complex economic structures created and unregulated (admittedly a US perspective).   The other is an “Inconvenient Truth” on the larger economic picture here in the US.   If you have to watch one, however, I’ll recommend the latter as more important.   Our childrens’, and our country’s future are at stake.   So let’s see if I can spin some gold out of this mess.

I’ve already talked about investing in culture, and I want to reiterate and elaborate on that message.   I listened to a free webinar the other day via the Institute for Corporate Productivity, where they’d done a survey on companies and asked about their culture. There was good news in their results: there was a significant correlation between the assessment of cultural elements surveyed and the success of the company.   And bad: not many companies scored highly on all eight.   A couple of factors stood out; areas for improvement included: generating trust among employees, encouraging innovation, nimbleness of the organization, and empowering workers to do their best.

Actually, I take it as good news; first that culture matters, as it’s an area a learning person can have a role in, and second that there is room for improvement, so you can have an impact.   The important issue is to become aware that culture matters, and take positive steps to improve the situation.

And there are concrete steps you can take.   You need to identify what your culture should be, and currently is, and address the delta.   In this post about making an innovative ecosystem (part of a performance ecosystem; pointed to on Twitter, btw I’m @Quinnovator), there are a number of prescriptions.   Diversity is to be supported, small experiments are valuable, nimbleness rules.   In support of that you need people to feel safe to experiment, collaborate to success (innovations typically are not the output of an individual but of a group, as Keith Sawyer tells us), etc.

So, organizations that focus on positive cultures succeed better.   I reckon that’s going to be even more true in truly rough times.   What are you doing to increase your contribution to organizational success?

After my post on Improving Organizational Learning Infrastructure, Daan Assen suggested that it was too limited in reference to the broader Learning Organization picture.   That’s valuable feedback, because I really mean it to be the learning organization culture and the technology infrastructure, the latter of which isn’t included traditionally in the learning organization work.   Clearly the label has some issues, as Stacy Doolittle also opined, suggesting architecture may be a better word than infrastructure.   Still, I’m not convinced that infrastructure isn’t the most inclusive term. Anyone have an opinion?

The reason I mention this, however, is that Daan pointed me to some work by Garvin & Edmondson that provides some nice characteristics of a learning organization.   It starts with three factors, a supportive environment, concrete processes and practices, and a leadership that reinforces learning.   I think this is a nice breakdown.

These components break up further, so for instance, a supportive learning environment is composed of: psychological safety, openness to new ideas, appreciation of differences, and time for reflection.   That latter one really strikes a chord with me, as that was a major barrier back when we were trying to get traction on meta-learning (and we’re not giving up!).

Concrete processes and practices breaks up into experimentation, information collection and analysis, and education and training.   I note that it doesn’t seem to capture more about informal learning than just providing the environment, and no mention is made of tools or infrastructure.   They may well have reasons for that, but it’s important to me to consider not only the environment, policies, and leadership, but also the channels.

Still, the particular focus on the supportive learning environment is a nice characterization.   You need safety, openness, appreciation, and reflection.   And your social networking tools will make very concrete any gaps in those.   When you see folks not sharing, not tolerating, and not having time, you know you’ve got a barrier.   It’s a mirror to see your organization.   So, what do you see looking back at you?