This was originally intended to be one of my Learning Solutions Mag columns (Quinnsights). Sadly, that platform is no longer an option. Guess this  is part of the extreme times! It’s a bit long for my usual posts, but I didn’t want it to go to waste.  

In 2004, I co-wrote a chapter with Eileen Clegg for Marcia Conner & James G. Clawson‘s Creating a Learning Culture book to accompany the event they held on the topic. Eileen‘s husband was doing research on ‘extremophiles‘, organisms that survive in extreme conditions, and we were looking at biomimetic inspiration from those mechanisms. Titled The Agility Factor, I think the lessons we wrote about are all the more important now in these extreme times.

Sure, at this point everyone is touting solutions for working and learning at home. With most of the population under some form of lockdown, there are a lot of prescriptions, to the extent there’s already a backlash! Even I‘ve been guilty. But here I want to talk a bigger scope than just learning. People are worried. Organizations are struggling.

At the time, our commentary was largely reacting to the crash of the internet bubble circa 2001. Times were tough, and organizations were wondering how to cope. Fast forward to 2020, and we‘re in even more dire circumstances. While then we had economic turmoil, now we‘re adding in a lethal disease. Uncertainly abounds. Our employees, our managers, our executives are all scrambling to make sense. And so, I thought it appropriate to revisit those lessons in this new era, and consider the technology/human intersection in these times.

Coping with Extreme Times

One of the main issues that contextualizes this conversation is that different organizations are at different places in their digital transformation. And, as I opined recently, it‘s about getting the culture right first.

It‘s easy to think of organizations that just haven‘t yet started using digital, and are faced with the need to change. They‘re going to struggle. There is a lot of guidance out there, but if you haven‘t got your mind around the technology, or what communication, collaboration, and learning are all about, there‘s more to it.

If you‘ve started with some experimentation, it should be easier. You‘ve tried out some things, and so you‘ve had some technology experience. You may well have tried and failed, but the knowledge from losses should be useful too! That‘s what a learning organization is all about.

Which means that another organization type that will struggle is the one that‘s rigidly hierarchical. One that‘s had all the thinking done up top, and filtered down. They may well have dictated technology practices, but they‘re likely more about making things more efficient. And so, trying to be effective at scale at distance is a different issue.

Instead, the organizations that thrive are those that are continually experimenting, learning, and moving forward. I reckon many folks are wishing they‘d tried out some things already, rather than scrambling. Of course, this is different not just quantitatively, but qualitatively, and that means we‘re going beyond just adaptation. We need to go big in extreme times!

Extremophiles

Across the globe, and presumably the universe, conditions vary from desiccating heat to crippling cold. Environments may have high toxicity owing to chemicals, salt, and more. And, as circumstances change, organisms need to adapt. And yet, life somehow exists in many of these circumstances. How? Through a variety of mechanisms. Not all are unique to extremophiles, but each is used and provides some insight. Here are the suite we talked about:

• Ionic bonds: while all organisms have proteins connected by ionic bonds, extremophile organisms have more and stronger bonds.
• Environmental monitoring: here, the organism is in tight coupling with the environment, the better to respond, though sometime the responses are unusual.
• Heat-shock proteins: special proteins are released under threat to help protect other proteins.
• Equilibrium: extremophiles can not only attempt to expel any toxicity, certain extremophiles work to neutralize the toxic element internally.
• Symbiosis: certain organisms create unique relationships that allow them to mutually coexist in extreme conditions.

For each of these there are organizational corollaries that we can consider, and then we can look at how technology and learning & development can help. We need to go beyond the usual and think about how to do these in a big way.

Organizational Equivalents

How do translate these? There are not direct transfers, but inferences we can make. Just as organizations been using inspirations from animals to guide new thinking in products, here we‘re looking at inspirations for how to work together better. What do organisms that adapt to environmental extremes mean for organizations coping in extreme times?

First, strengthening the bonds is about building trust in the organization and believing in the organizational mission. First, of course, it‘s about connecting people, so that they care about one another. And having managers work as coaches, using data to improve folks, not censure them. Then, as Dan Pink, in Drive, helped us know, it‘s about connecting people to purpose. That means an organization has to have a meaningful purpose, one that people feel proud to align with. And everyone in the org needs to understand how their role contributes. Yes, this is all work, but the point is that these organisms invest extra effort to be able to withstand extraordinary conditions.

Environmental monitoring isn‘t new, as most organizations track market trends, competitive analysis, customer sentiment, and more. Here it means going further, with everyone being active in their community of practice and actively monitoring trends in related fields for implications to improve practice. The organization needs to be sensitive to what‘s happening in rich and deep ways. This has to not be done as a special operation, but permeate the organization.

Heat shock proteins suggest a proactive approach to trouble. One form is internal monitoring for problems. Health initiatives in the organization are not just promoting healthy behaviors, but also actively developing the skills to notice and watch out for your fellow employee. It‘s about caring enough to look for signs of struggle and reach out and try to help. In times like this, it‘s more, ensuring that as people face changes, they have support to understand, act differently, and persist until it becomes a new way of doing things.

Equilibrium is an interesting one that suggests taking in new ideas, trying them out, and seeing what they imply. Think “let‘s try it out and see how it‘s re-contextualized here and then what it might mean that we can do better”, not “that‘s not how we do it here”. It‘s about experimentation, and internalizing new ideas. It‘s got to be more than just copying (e.g. best practices), and going beyond to understand the underlying ideas and modifying them to work in this context (e.g. best principles).

Finally, symbiosis implies working with other organizations in a radically more integrated manner. Instead of just consuming things, you look at the practices that were instituted by Toyota. They looked at their supply chain partners and assisted them in becoming more effective and efficient. It‘s about radical cooperation.

L&D Technology Role

So, given that we‘re about eLearning, what‘s the role of technology here? At core, it‘s about communication. It‘s about moving to showing your work, including mistakes and lessons learned (always together).   And there are lots of ways to do this.

One of the most important steps is to have bosses, managers and executives, share their thinking. I know, it seems risky, but it builds trust. If ‘the boss‘ is willing to admit mistakes, it makes the environment feel safe. And that builds those bonds that will help an organization weather tough times.

It also means helping individuals develop active monitoring skills. There are tools that track outside news and filter it for particular interests. Everyone can tailor their own feed. And this is part of building your personal knowledge mastery. Everyone should be looking for new ideas to improve.

The new ideas need, of course, to be coupled with experimentation, such as equilibrium suggests. And this may involve collaboration to make it work. So collaborative tools are important to develop testing plans and evaluate outcomes. Building in an expectation of lessons learned, and having scheduled sharing events for these lessons, is a complement. And, if not digitally moderated, at least capturing and sharing the outcomes for others to learn from.

It‘s important also to support people in these new ways of working. Don‘t just expect them to get it, but build support into and/or around the tools. Don’t just train, but anticipate struggles and build support. And have support for unanticipated struggles! This also includes quick references about what to do when you‘re worried about someone or even yourself. This is the heat-shock approach of preventing breakdowns during the transitions.

And, of course, building a network that includes your partners along the supply chain is the symbiotic approach. It‘s about building a sharing community that can help them be better, and they can do the same for you. It‘s also about collaboration, working together on problems rather than casting blame. This builds bonds with them too!

The L&D role is to facilitate all this communication and collaboration. In extreme times, L&D is part of the solution. Continual learning is required, and building a strong framework for keeping people together to work and learn is critical. We’re increasingly learning that working together is better; bake that into your own operations!

More and more, we’re working from home. This has important implications for organizations figuring out how to make that time productive. What are the best source(s) for remote working expertise? Here’re my recommendations.

I believe that applying the principles of cognitive science to how we think, work, and learn, is a good guide. There is lots known about how people are able to bring their best, alone and together. And, when that intersects with technology, we can find ways to equal, or surpass, existing workplace practices. We already know that many existing practices are contrary to the best outcomes, so this can be an inflection point. And, well, this is where I work and play. And yet, I’m certainly not the only; here are some more resources.

Two of my colleagues in the Internet Time Alliance (ITA) have expertise in working effectively. Jane Hart’s modern workplace learning, in particular, has useful guidance. While not specific to remote working, the principles generalize there very well. And Harold Jarche is one of the top thinkers about the intersection of work and learning. Increasingly work  is learning, and his frameworks including Seek-Sense-Share are apt. Particularly when you’re working more alone. Both have worked with organizations to improve outcomes. Charles Jennings does as well, personally, but a lot of his work currently is more on design methodologies and corporate strategy.

I’m also a fan of Mark Britz and his work in thinking through the social aspects of learning (he’s an ITA Jay Cross Memorial Award winner). He looks at how to build a meaningful community within organizations, and that’s a critical part of being able to maintain cohesiveness when you are not together all the time. Jane Bozarth’s work on social, as embodied in her book Show Your Work, is a great guide to some of the core principles to enable more effective working.

Then there’s the whole collection of independents at Change Agents Worldwide. With folks like Simon Terry, Helen Blunden, Marcia Conner, and more, all are folks who collaborate with organizations to work more effectively. (Helen and Marcia are recipients of the ITA Jay Cross Memorial Award as well.) The Change Agents mantra: “We believe the Future of Work will involve: working like a network, organizing like a network, leading like a network, and learning like a network.”

Then there are frameworks that make sense in this era of crisis. I’m a fan of Dave Snowden’s Cynefin framework talks about how to deal with different states of order. (Harold uses it a lot too.) The Community Maturity Model also can provide guidance about building effective work relationships. I immodestly like our ITA Coherent Organization framework as well.

I’m sure there are more good resources, but these are some ways to think about remote working expertise that I think stand up to scrutiny. I welcome your suggestions.

My post last week was on trust, and it triggered a question on LinkedIn: “Do you have any tips, processes, models, suggestions, etc. for building trust within a team?”  And while I wrote a short response there, I thought it would be worth it to expand on it.  So here’re some thoughts on building trust.

First, there was a further question: “You mentioned that it started with credentials. For example, did you all take turns going around and introducing yourselves?” No, it wasn’t introducing ourselves. Potential new candidates are scrutinized in a call, so existing members are aware of new members’ capabilities. In my case, I looked them up, or more usually their activities emerged in conversation. It develops authentically.

The most important thing was that there were activities underway, and people were contributing in an open, constructive, non-personal way.  There’s a focus on reinventing the organization, and an important activity underway was using the Business Model Canvas as a framework to explore opportunities. The activity was led by one of the team whose experience became abundantly clear, for example.

There also was acknowledgement of others’ contributions. Conversations would reference and build upon what others said. It was an implicit ‘yes and’, but also an occasional ‘but what about’.  That is, we were free to present alternative viewpoints. Sometimes they resolve and other times it’s ok to leave them hanging in the moment. The only agenda is the common good.

One critical element is that the leaders are very unassuming and solicitous of input, as well as sharing lessons learned. There is a lot of sharing of experience, connections, and more. There’re also personal notes about travel, concerns, and more. It’s very ‘human’.

It quickly was obvious that the group was a safe place where people had a shared goal but were also diverse. We’re diverse in geography, race, gender, and role, which forms a strong basis for good outcomes.  The culture’s established, and we naturally align. As Mark Britz says, we follow the systems, but they’re right from the start.

It goes back to the learning organization dimensions, particularly the environment: open mind, valuing diversity, time for reflection, and psychological safety. When it’s lived, it works. And that’s what’s happening. When you’re focused on building trust, get the culture right, and the rest follows.