Bridging Organizational Silos

Gems from Karl Albrecht's white paper titled Organizational Intelligence & Knowledge Management: Thinking Outside the Silos.

• Albrecht's Law: Intelligent people, when assembled into an organization, will tend toward collective stupidity. (Who hasn't experienced this one?)
• Intelligent organizations are those with Strategic Vision, Appetite for Change, (internal) Alignment & Congruence, “Heart”, Shared Fate, Free Flow of Knowledge, and Performance Pressure.
• Enablers of organizational intelligence are Thought Leaders, Communities of Interest, (judicial use) of task forces /ad-hoc teams, and knowledge platforms to support knowledge deployment.

One element I think is missing from Albrecht's list is rewards and recognition. A very smart colleague and friend once said that you can't expect an individual to be an effective team member if they are rewarded/recognized more for solo effort than team contributions and playing a role in team success. I think bridging silos is also about ensuring that implicit / explicit reward/recognition systems and actions do not reinforce a siloed model, despite our very human tendency to think of "me" and "we" before thinking about the broader "us."

Let's Acknowledge "Practices"

I was reviewing some documentation about Information Management governance today and came across that ubiquitous people-->process-->technology model again. When I see it, regardless of its flavour, I always reflect on the way we approach organizational change, in particular change driven / enabled by technology, with an underlying presumption of a completely "engineerable" end to end solution.

There seems to be a regular failure to acknowledge that "people exercise free will as they see fit, in all circumstances." Knowledge workers in particular make hundreds of micro-decisions on a daily basis. Their attention, time, support, contributions and even compliance with changes to how work is done, when there is latitude for discretion, can only be volunteered. This means clear direction, encouragement and support at a wide variety of levels are required vs. an expectation that either staff will "do what they are told" or that they simply need options other than compliance removed.

So let's start using a people-->practice-->process-->technology model so we can accomodate the human factor, and acknowledge that not all work can be reduced to a series of detailed "must do" steps in a process flow chart.

Social Media Increases User Information Management Burden

On Monday December 7th, Google began including real-time feeds from Twitter, Facebook and MySpace in search results, with more real-time feeds to be added in the future.

Certainly, the upside is the accessibility of a lot of outstanding content created/captured in these social applications. The downside is that it also increases the burden on each and every user to:

• pick the right (one or few) communications/ information sharing channel
• manage privacy settings/security in each channel to ensure that only the information we want broadly available is broadly available - in so much as the software enables you to control security
• be expremely dilligent about reading social networking sites privacy policies
• carefully consider the broader impact / implications of content contributed in one context to other contexts / channels through which you are known - for example, being consistent with ideas and perspectives across multiple channels to ensure that contradictions aren't surfaced and criticized in online discussions
• manage the connections / potential colisions between one or more "personal' presences and professional ones - it may be getting more and more difficult to separate the two
• be dilligent about the type and nature of information about themselves they expose on the internet as it is becoming easier all the time to aggregate, combine and analyze through advanced data mining techniques

Perhaps in the past siloing of information in the differernt Internet-based social media applications provided a certain degree of de-facto information security, but, based on the recent Google announcement, "times they are a changin'."

Respectful Practices in Social Media

A few years back, I had some great conversations with The Email Shrink, and a concept that he spoke of often was "respectful practices" in the use of email - one of them I'll paraphrase as don't flood your colleague's business email boxes with unnecessary junk - anything from a pointless "CC" to forwarding those intrnet chain messages containing jokes, photos or videos. The impact of doing this is pretty obvious - additional workload to deal with the unwanted emails. The point I take from this is consider the receiver before pushing Send.

So, I was looking at Facebook last night noticed that over 1/2 of the news feeds are generated from apps like Snowball Fight, Island Paradise, The Warlords, Tartan Treasures, Farmville, etc. etc. etc. which makes it difficult to identify (what for me is) more important updates and information provided by the friends network. I certainly respect and support people having the right to decide what they do (plus, "people will exercise free will as they see fit in all circumstances"), but I also think that social media, in particular as it is used in the workplace, will require additional considerations by everyone to ensure we all don't end up collapsing under the weight of having to deal with all the unwanted information. Plus, many of the min-apps available in social applications require that recipients take specific steps to block / opt-out of receiving information automatically generated. Again, more unnecessary work.

So, to all social media users out there, consider for a moment the impact of your choices on the members of your "network".

For business looking to leverage social media inside the enterprise, it might be advantageous to consider limiting the number of non-work related apps that can be installed on your social media platform. The risk of unnecessary distractions and productivity loss is significant, as is the impact of having this type of content around the organization in scope for any form of legal discovery.

Rewarding Employee Engagement

The November/December 2009 edition of Ivy  Business Journal features The Four Intrinsic Rewards That Drive Employee Engagement by Kenneth W. Thomas.  Unlike many other discussions abour rewarding employees that are rooted in industrial age "carrot and stick" thinking, the author offers a far more realistic approach, and some great tips for taking action.

 

Thomas identifies the key rewards highly relevant, from my perspective, to knowledge workers in all generations:

• meaningful work
• control over how work is performed
• sense of competence, pride and satisfaction in the work
• sense of progress

Later in the article he further defines the rewards and what is required to implement/changes in an organizational context.

He concludes with a point that resonates a lot for me. Thomas advocates not using a traditional top down method for building the rewards, but a participatory one, where employees themselves analyze situations and suggest solutions.  This approach, the author claims, will foster the high levels of engagement and excitement that will enable the organization and its people to better adapt to the changes.

Given what I'm reading and experiencing with multiple generations at work I think Thomas provides an excellent framework and approach that will be useful in many different contexts.

8 Things You Need to Know About Collaboration

IMHO:

1.  Collaboration is over used and mis-used and is becoming a buzzword for business people and technologists alike
2. Collaboration isn’t the same as cooperation or coordination - each have different processes, practices and depth of engagement
3. Collaboration is a human process – throwing technology at people won’t magically/automatically create collaboration
4. Meaningful, productive collaboration won’t happen without mutuality of desired outcomes, shared values of transparency and information sharing, compassion, compromise
5. Collaboration implies that "the needs of the many, outweigh the needs of the few or the needs of the one" and sometimes people aren’t really interested in living by that principle
6. Collaboration isn’t always the best process
7. Collaboration is not equal to Web 2.0
8. Collaboration can be a source of real value in the face of complex environments and situations where no single person has the right answer

Important Things Facilitators Should Know About Adults in a Group Settng

Does anyone doubt that a facilitated workshop of virtually any type involves learning? Hopefully not. So if you have a room full of adults who are learning as part of achiving a shared outcome, it is a good idea to have an understanding of the adult as a learner.

In the mid '80s when I joined a training company, the VP Education made it a point of ensuring that I had a good grounding in andragogy and adult education popularized by Malcom Knowles in the 1970s. Since then, and in a number of roles throughout my career, including management consulting, change management, facilitation training, developing e-learning strategies, marketing and communications, I've always tried to keep adult learning in mind, and have regularly refered back to 30 Things We Know for Sure About Adult Learning, written by Ron and Suzan Zemke, and publised in a number of trainining related magazines.

Many of these "things" should have a direct bearning on workshop design and the presentation of new learning content leading up to any analysis, cause analysis, decision making and planning etc..

Another good reference is The Adult Learner, Some Things We Know by Robin Fogharty and Brian M. Pete. They explore the adult learner in a change context.

I was listening to Stefana Broadbent's Ted talk this morning titled How the Internet enables intimacy and was intregaued by a couple of her key points.  The first is that despite the possibilities social media provides for connection and communication, despite having hundreds of "friends" in Facebook, MySpace or IM, people are truly intimate with less than 5 on a regular basis. The second is that "institutions" as weve come to know them over the last 150 years or so, have implicitly and explicitly enforced and encouraged social isolation and continue to do so via means that include blocking access to various communications channels, and training people in how to work in teams of strangers. Yet people can often find innovative ways to overcome the isolation and connect with close friends and family, further enabled by emerging technologies.   

A very interesting talk.
(The Economist has an article about her work titled Home Truths About Telecoms.)

No More Consultants! According to Collison and Parcell

Not sure how I missed it, but just came across a reference on Chris Collison's blog for No More Consultants, co-authored with Geoff Parcell.

Interesting premise.. why spend money hiring external consultants without (perhaps first) tapping into the knowledge and experience of staff / employees? Great question. 

There are lots of good resons to hire consultants; validation, "sober second thought," expertise etc. But certainly this should go hand in hand with tapping into the experience and knowledge of the people inside an organization.

The book, and the Ning site, look like excellent resources. Learning to Fly certainly "set the bar pretty high."  I'm looking forward to seeing how much higher No More Consultants takes it.

The Magic of 8 in the ECM World

AIIM President John Mancini has a very interesting initiative going that is yielding some ideas in the broad realm of Enterprise Content Management. Through his Digital Landfill blog, John is inviting people to become an "8 things" author, and ultimately be published in one of AIIM's e-books.

Interesting concept ... and already a number of good guest blog posts on managing your inbox, building an ECM strateg etc. and AIIM has released full e-books titled "8 reasons you need a strategy for managing information — before it's too late", and 8 secrets of an effective content or records management implemementation."

Google 3D Warehouse

I just stumbled across Google's 3D Warehouse - with links for Google SketchUp, free 3D modelling software. Looks like 3D models that meet selection criteria can be uploaded to Google Earth.  Very cool!

Where We Are and Where We're Going

An updated to XPLANE's 2007 "Did You Know? 2.0", this video was again developed by XPLANE, in partnership The Economist, Scott McLeod, Karl Fisch and Laura Bestler.  I find the amount of change outlined is amazing, and the impact of technology and the web profound and fundamental.  Have societal values kept pace?

Implementing Enterprise 2.0

Highly recommended: Ross Dawson's Implementing Enterprise 2.0. I find it an excellent strategic overview of the concept, components, key issues and implementation strategies from the business/organizational/people perspective. Sample chapters are available for download on the web site. On the site as well are discusssion forums for the different chapters, and a forum for offering suggestions for "Release 2.0" of the guide.

I see this as a highly useful key resource for building common language/understanding and engaging key stakeholders on building Enterprise 2.0 strategies.

Magic of the Internet

Yet another example... a reference to "Informing Oursleves to Death" on an Information Zen Enterprise 2.0 discussion post let me to a thought provoking speech by the aforementioned title given by Neil Postman to the German Informatics Society, 11 Oct 90, Stuttgart sponsored by IBM-Germany, which led me to the Neil Postman information page, which kindled my interest in reading his book Amusing Ourselves to Death as well as pointing me to Joshua Sowin's thoughtful Fire and Knowledge blog, and a post that references an interesting cartoon, based on the forward in Amusing Ourselves to Death, that compares/contrasts the future created by Huxley and Orwell. 

The links/relationships created between information can be as valuable as the information itself.

A Solution to the Attention Economy Challenges

(tongue in cheek)
In his book the Attention Economy, Tom Davenport discusses how attention is the scarecest organizational / individual resource, and how difficult it is to attract it.

I think the folks at Air New Zealand have found the solution.

A Living Library

Stumbled across an interesting story on CBC News about The Living Library - "an innovative method designed to promote dialogue, reduce prejudices and encourage understanding." - where people can check out "living books" (other people) that are representative of and have experienced specific stereotyping / common prejudices. A great concept / approach, and I wonder if it can be implemented inside an organization.  It does have much in common with mentoring, but I can also see it as a possible extension of Library services - connecting the right people with each other about a topic. (Though maybe I'm being seduced somewhat by what the above initiative is titled.)

Value of Facilitation in Emergent Collaboration / Crowdsourcing

In The Crowd Is Wise (When It’s Focused), a NY Times article by Steve Lohr, the author makes a pretty good point: "Evidence suggests that crowdsourcing succeeds when it’s designed for specific tasks — and when the incentives attract the most effective collaborators."

Would indicate to me that even in the brave new world of Enterprise 2.0, some form of facilitator  is required ensure that great ideas are generated, and that the right ideas are acted upon to yield meaningful results, all within a resontable timeframe.

(Thanks to Peter Z at Cognitive Potential for pointing me to the article.)

A Market for Ideas and Innovation

Jen Hunter over at Learning Catalyst recently made reference to Ideaconnection.com, a very interesting online market connecting people with ideas to people with challenges. It is a very interesting site, with contests, shared collaborative spaces, access to experts, related markets for technolgy licenses, and a whole lot more. A very well thought out space, with some interesting potential inside organizations.

Journal of Knowledge Management Ranked Number One

Nick Bontis and Alexander Serenko have recently authored A follow-up ranking of academic journals that identifies Journal of Knowledge Management as the top ranked knowledge management and intellectual capital academic journal.  This is a follow- up to their earlier Global ranking of knowledge management
and intellectual capital academic journals.

Is the Time Finally Right for a Knowledge Market Model?

I was just reading Leon Benjamin's KnowledgeBoard article titled Social media on the inside in which he writes about the transformative nature of social media platforms, the value of "flat" communities and networks as structures for building and maintaining intangible assets and getting work done, and the conflicts between these and traditional management approaches - a good, pithy article.

One phrase in Leon's article jumped out at me - "markets are conversations."

In 2002 I was fortunate to have had a number of great conversations about knowledge management with Leigh Weiss and Tim Shavers from McKinsey. Many of the conversations revolved around the concept and applicability of a market model for knowledge. This concept was succinctly described in Making a Market in Knowledge written by Lowell Bryan, McKinsey Quarterly 2004.

In a preamble to describing the concept, Bryan explores a number of "KM" approaches that have failed to generate the required returns, including:

• big investments in document-management systems, shared servers, and other technology solutions that most often result in large volumes of outdated documents, making it difficult for users to locate the best few "just in time" relevant, quality and timely documents
• "push" strategies where centralized staff provide knowledge to users that does not meet user needs
• letting organizational units solve their own knowledge problems, which often results in knowledge silos and solutions that are non-scalable across the organization

I think most medium to large organizations have felt at least some of this pain. Though I don't whole heartedly agree with Leon's assertion in the KnowledgeBoard article that "It should be obvious by now to most people that social software changes people’s behaviour," I do think that social technologies, if fluidly interconnected and highly customizable, can create a "knowledge platform" that will allow natural human behaviour to emerge - productive conversations and knowledge markets.

Critical, though is the need to build a true learning and collaboration culture, else these markets / platforms will remain underutilized.. Many knowledge and information initiatives I've heard about focus on enabling the knowledge / information owner capturing and making their "stuff" available, or pushing it on overworked knowledge workers. The focus needs to be more on the learner / consumer. (Nancy Dixon wrote a great article titled The Neglected Receiver of Knowledge Sharing a while back - one of the few on the topic.)

We all learn before doing (from information content, friends, colleagues, experts etc.) as part of doing knowledge work, and as a result, often create new / improved /evolved knowledge and information. We need to remove the many organizational and social barriers to learning and knowledge seeking, recognize and reinforce these forms of behaviour in ourselves and our colleagues, and create a demand for knowledge and information in all its forms.

That demand, the learning needs, will create the context and the markets that are critically important for learning from and benefiting from the experiences of others. Learning is evidenced in changes in thinking and behaviour. And the change comes from the learner (demand side of the market) not the knowledge / information transmitter (supply side).

Nurturing the evolution of this type of learning and collaboration culture is not an easy task, given the power of the human ego - "I'm different".. "my agenda above all else".. "I can do it better".. "I'm afraid to let others know I don't know something" - or the time pressures we're all under - "it's too hard to find what/ who I'm looking for.. so I'll just recreate it.." Nonetheless, a culture that values experential and serendipitous learning is a critical success factor for knowledge markets and platforms.

I'm beginning to think that the evolution of knowledge management thinking, the growing promise and potential of emerging social technologies, demographic shifts in organizations, behaviours of newer generations of techno-savy employees, and the growing acknowledgement of the need to systematically go about connecting people to each other and to information, may be creating a more generalized readiness for "knowledge markets" of the type McKinsey was writing about earlier in this decade.

As I mentioned above, Leon writes "markets are conversations." I'd like to flip that and say "conversations are markets." Thinking back many of my conversations, they are often highly dynamic markets where knowledge and information are exchanged in a complex web of interactions across multiple communications channels, with each participant assessing value of the exchange based on their own criteria.

Imagine elevating the level of conversation at an organizational level.