Herding Cats at Work

I was reviewing Ram Charan's book titled Know-How, The 8 Skills That Separate People Who Perform from Those Who Don't, and came to the chapter titled Herding Cats - Getting People to Work Together by Managing the Social system of Your Business.

Pretty kitchy title, but it sure got my attention. As did the key concepts in it. If you get the chance to read it, you'll find it outlines a very practical approach to creating an environment that enables people to work together effectively in a business context.

He begins the chapter with the following:

"Perhaps the biggest untapped opportunity for your success as a leader is shaping the way people work together to deliver the numbers. Your own performance depends on your ability to get other people to commit to and deliver their common goals."

Charan defines a social system generally as the interaction between people, the information flows and how decisions are made, and advocates examining and engineering the business social system to maximize effectiveness and results.

As he mentions in the chapter, and I'm sure many of you have found, work environments are often filled with endless / pointless meetings with no real outcomes, conflicts are hidden below the surface and rarely resolved, information is disconnected from decision making, and decision making processes are often unclear and ineffective.

These conditions exist, according to Charam, because "... most companies' social systems are a mishmash of operational mechanisms (meetings etc.) that are poorly designed and disconnected from each other... and behaviour in them is left to chance.."

He advocates that leaders develop the capability and explicitly design the specific, critical points when people must come together to share information, resolve conflicts, solve problems and make decisions. He empahsizes acting along two perspectives; the process side and the people side.

On the process side, each get-together should be focused on the right issue, has clear purpose and focus, and the right information is avaible at the right time.

On the peope side, Charan talks about how people interactions are complex, that people influence each other, build relationships, develop perceptions and feelings (right or wrong) about each other, and share vital information for decision making in the context of those relationships, perceptions and feelings. He suggests that leaders repeatedly, and with courage and discipline, actively shape people's behavours to align with good social process, through effective dialog.

Charan breaks down the process of managing the social system into the following steps:

1. determining when important decisions and trade-offs have to be made and by whom
2. designing regularly scheduled meetings with the right people, the right information
3. actively shape behaviours that are displayed in making those decisions (to minimize information hoarding, going off on tangents, not getting to root of issues, driving to individual agendas, not surfacing conflicts and not reaching clear resolutions etc.)

When I reflect on the fundamentals of what Charan proposes, I see a very strong case for facilitation as a core competency among managers and leaders, implementing facilitative leadership, and a case for the type of work that Farm Credit Canada did to define and cascade their cultural practices.

Acronyms are Better for Senders Than Receivers

Have you ever been in a meeting where a participant, conveying, or perhaps trying to "market", some business idea, excitedly tables a "cool" acronym that they have come up with?

Or how about meetings where the only thing more frequent that the use of acronyms is the question "Wait, before we go any further, what does THAT mean?

In The Neglected Receiver of Knowledge Sharing, which appeared in Ivy Business Journal March / April 2002, Nancy Dixon shares a very important but over looked notion of focusing on the receiver in knowledge sharing, not the sender.

One quote in particular stands out for me: "The sharing of ideas with others is one of the most profound and difficult things we do. We have only to look at our own missed understanding and misunderstandings that result from attempts to share our ideas."

No truer words have been said!

Acronyms are good efficient, short forms of communication in specific circumstances where a group of people share the same contexts and background, and where the acronym use has been well communicated and socialized. But in generally, they block or slow down communication, in particular when people stop asking for definitions in the interest of moving a meeting or conversation forward.

Want to improve knowledge sharing - stop depending on acronyms.

Facilitation - The Cornerstone of Successful Project Management ??

Two of the blogs I track are PM related - PMThink by Jerry Manas and a number of his colleagues, and Reforming Project Management by Hal Macomber. To pursue an idea I was considering for a blog entry (this one) I searched both blogs for for "facilitation" and, as I suspected, it's not a hugely popular word in the context of project management, but a couple of very interesting things popped out:

On PMthink, an entry titled Scheduling is Dead, Bring on Chaos; So Says A Foremost Scheduling Expert, which referenced an article on the PM Forum web site by Murray B. Woolf, PMP, Managing Director of the PMI College of Scheduling’s Scheduling Excellence Initiative, titled The Future of Scheduling? Scheduling Has No Future!

It contained a rather provocative quote .. " My prophecy is that the progeny of today’s schedulers will be called Project Facilitators and the broader discipline will be called Project Facilitation. The overall role will still be as it is now, to assist project management, but they will do so by providing products and services that facilitate project performance. Those products and services may well include planning, scheduling, analyzing, monitoring, reporting, forecasting, and -- facilitating itself."

On Reforming Project Management, back in 2005, Hal posted a very thoughtful What is Project Management, which contains the following:

"I've taken a look at other models of project management recently and am coming to the conclusion that the (mechanistic) models are generally flawed because they concentrate not on the project, but on 'project management' as though this activity of bringing projects to fruition has an independent importance. They also neglect the fact, in my view, that projects are humanistic endeavors: done by and for people, and thus are constrained primarily socially."

"Like general management, project management is facilitation of communities of productive intent to achieve desired outcomes. With 'projects' noted as being more customised than routinised, relying on a temporary community for their realisation rather than an established or semi-permanent one."

I think there are many project managers who intuitively understand this. As an example, I've had the pleasure of meeting Mike Bogan a number of times in a work setting. He writes a blog titled I Think, does. Most recently Mike was offering his thoughts and experience in Planning and Estimating, and spent a lot of time talking about bringing different perspectives and types of expertise to the table since one person does not have all the answers, creating an environment / process to surface and leverage the different perspectives, collaboratively creating plans and estimates etc.

I think it's pretty clear that facilitation (diagnosing and intervening to increase group effectiveness through improved problem identification, resolution and decision making) & facilitative leadership, are core elements or competencies of good project management in today's complex and complicated work environments.

Therefore, should not project managers, and organizations who employee project managers, strive to explicitly assess, validate, and improve facilitation skills and capabilities?

Linking Facilitation and Experiential Learning

A colleague of mine recently attended a facilitation course I suggested to her, held by Institute of Cultural Affairs (ICA) Associates. She was talking about it, raving about it actually, and mentioned something she learned.

In the workshop, which is built on a foundation ICA calls the Focused Conversation Method, facilitators are coached through learning about and applying 4 important types of questions:

Objective - Begin with data, facts, external reality
Reflective - immediate personal reactions, internal responses, sometimes emotions or feelings, hidden images, and associations with the facts
Interpretive - meaning, values, significance, implications
Decisional - Bring the conversation to a close, eliciting resolution and enabling the group to make a decision about the future


I was coincidentally working on a document where I was linking experiential learning, (a feedback loop) to the using knowledge circle of learning before, while and after doing, as outlined in the Collison / Parcell book Learning to Fly.

So when I look at all three together, it strikes me that what Chris and Geoff were outlining was a practical approach to experiential learning in organizations. And when you look at both in the context of facilitation, blend in a bit of Ed Schein's Process Facilitation and Agyris' Double Loop Learning, it would appear that effective facilitation is the core competency / foundation for organizational learning and the creation of environments that support effective knowledge exchange. (Since they talk about the 4 stages of learning in the book - from unconscious incompetent to unconscious competent, maybe that's what Chris and Geoff were getting at in the book and I missed it - my bad.)

So what does this mean?

Make facilitation a core competency throughout the organization by:

• explicitly including the skill in corporate competency profiles and dictionaries
• providing the opportunities, and ensuring everyone has the basic skill set to participate effectively in facilitated sessions or participative / collaborative work
• training managers across the organization on facilitative leadership and equip them to coach others, and ensure performance agreements reinforce appropriate effort and behaviours
• have a core group of skilled facilitators who can conceive, design, and run workshops of all types, and who have good relations with external facilitators to broker services on those few occasions when a true outside perspective is required
• ensure the core group of facilitators have access to resources, external networks and experts to ensure their skills and knowledge are always evolving

Employee Recognition is About Encouraging Volunteerism

I attended a very well delivered workshop yesterday on Employee Recognition, facilitated by Suzanne Shell. Good insights, practical tips, free of what a colleague of mine calls "consultant gobledigook," and a genuine, enthusiastic approach.

This morning, as I reflected on the session, I began to sense, perhaps inaccurately, an implicit underlying assumption that "if you do this, you will get that." In essence, predictable cause and effect. At least, nothing explicit was said by anyone in the room to put forth an alternate view point. But as we all know, people are highly unpredictable, and often do surprising things, or take no action at all, in the face of overwhelming reasons to the contrary. (I have way too many examples of my own.)

Suzanne definitely made the point about ensuring that recognition is timely, specific, and most of all sincere. And I think she's absolutely correct. Recognition is another form of feedback, requiring all three to be effective. (More so if you recognize behaviour that will have future value as well.)

But I think an equally important mind set for effective recognition is to think about employees, in particular those who perform knowledge work, as volunteers. They have freedom of choice - from whether to work for a particular organization, to how much attention to devote to a situation or conversation, what is a priority for them, who to lend credence to, and what information is valid and useful.

A number of people I've spoken to lately have referenced a Gallup survey conducted in the US that uncovered that on average 27% of employees are engaged, 59% disengaged, and 14% are actively disengaged. I don't think that employee engagement can be conscripted, nor can it be gently manipulated into existence - perhaps over the short term, but it's not a sustainable.

I believe that the recognition of alignment of specific behaviours with corporate mission, vision and values communicates and reinforces an explicit framework that provides information for individual, informed decision making. Armed with clear direction, and clear expectations as communicated by a small number of explicit examples of aligned behaviours - Suzanne correctly emphasizes the importance of transparency, communications, and "sharing the news" - employees can more effectively decide if they want to be part of the organization. If they do, then they can make better decisions about how to be effective in the organization.

Encouraging volunteerism is an important part of a manager's job, and employee recognition is no doubt an important element.

Organizational / Facilitation Nirvana

Perhaps that’s a bit strong, but let me relate a recent experience and you can tag it however you’d like.

In the corporate world, whether public or private sector, there is always much talk about the need for good corporate values, their relationship to achieving mission and vision, and the need for all staff to "live the values". Many organizations spend a lot of time developing the values (sometimes staff is even involved in their development, but not always), and communicating them throughout the organization through presentations, "fireside chats", printed material, posters in hallways and elevators, and other similar mechanisms.

From what I’ve experienced and read, the outcome more often than not falls short of expectation. "Stovepipes" remain, true collaboration is an exception and not the norm, highly competent people compete and pull the organization in different directions, and the majority of staff are disengaged from their work experience.

I recently had an opportunity to spend a bit of time with an organization I think may just have it right. I’m a member (and on the Advisory Council) of the Conference Board of Canada’s Knowledge Strategy Exchange Network (KSEN), a great group of people who are involved in knowledge management initiatives at a fairly senor level in their respective organizations. Our most recent face-to-face event was in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, hosted by our KSEN members from Farm Credit Canada (FCC). Farm Credit’s hospitality was without a doubt "second to none" and already has KSEN members scheduled to host upcoming event worried about responding in kind.

The key topic of the event was building and sustaining communities of practice, and FCC is clearly a leading practitioner. But what was even more compelling was the organization’s story of transformation into a high performance organization (which I’m sure positively affects their success with CoPs).

Louise Yates (V.P Strategy and Customer Experience) Rob Moss, and Katharine Patterson, supported by a wonderful group of Farm Credit employees, exposed KSEN members to the transformation that began around 2000 – and what a story it is!

I won’t go into details here, but imagine leading or working in an organization where over the last 5 years:

• portfolio size has grown from $7.7 billion to $13 billion, and generally, business outcomes exceed expectations consistently year over year, with record profitability in 2006
• employee engagement has increased from 68% to 82%
• percentage of staff who think senior management is open, honest and accessible increased from less than 60% to over 80%
• market share, customer loyalty and reputation indices have all increased

As well, recent surveys indicate that 82% of staff believe that senior management treat employees as the most valued asset, and 86% believe decisions made are consistent with organizational values.

Sounds a bit like nirvana, doesn’t it? (And for you facilitators out there, imagine helping an organization achieve this tremendous accomplishment. Sounds a bit like nirvana from that perspective as well, doesn’t it? According to FCC staff, Malandro Communications has been a very valued partner in the transformation process.)

Well, Farm Credit appears to have done it. How, you might ask?

• corporate values that are anchored in fundamental beliefs about the critical importance of people, and the need for creating an enabling work environment
• development and communication of simple, powerful cultural practices (otherwise known as a code of conduct) to guide behaviours and alignment with corporate values
• cultural practices that clearly dissuade "business results at all costs", and focus on joint accountability for overall business results through open, honest, transparent communication, productive feedback, partnership and mutual support - business reults AND positive impact on people are valued equally as linked outcomes
• sustained leadership by example by the CEO and senior management team, and strong socialization of the practices as behavioural norms
• building capability throughout the organization to act in line with defined cultural practices (extensive communications and marketing, 8-segment workshops for all 1200 FCC employees)
• facilitation and coaching developed as a core competency (110 FCC staff trained as facilitators, including Senior Management)
• cultural practices reinforced through formal recognition program, a new employee performance management program, and ongoing delivery of employee workshops

FCC is a top Canadian employer, ranking 12th on the most recent 50 Best Employers in Canada list, released in The Globe and Mail's Report on Business magazine.

Bravo Farm Credit Canada!

"Organizational Float" in a Knowledge Work Environment

"Organizational float" came to mind somewhat unbidden in a recent meeting. The term itself comes from an article or paper I read a while back, but unfortunately I don't recall the exact source. I think it may have been in the context of some writing by Leif Edvinsson, an article about Skandia, or a piece on intellectual capital.

Though I'm sure the of the original definition and context, in my mind I've no doubt altered it a bit as follows. (I also forgot that I'd referenced it in a KnowledBoard discussion on KM Governance. )

There has been much press about the retiring baby boom generation, the war for top talent and so on. In a very real sense, many organizations challenged in finding, identifying and recruiting qualified candidates, are faced with bureaucratic staffing and security screening processes, and often burden already overworked staff with responsibilities for "onboarding" / training new employees or contractors at the least convenient of times - during a crisis need. And in this overall context, organizations are trying to innovate, improve processes and effectiveness, and become more agile. Not too stressful, is it?

Perhaps one strategy is to introduce some "organizational float". This can take the form of extra staff, with a variety of broadly relavent skills and experiences, that can step in and fill gaps left by temporary absences or unforseen workload spikes. It can take the form increasing staff compliments to distribute work such that every employee has a certain percentage of time, say 20% to step back and reflect, think strategically and innovatively, participate in change or performance improvement initiatives, develop professionally, and perhaps pick up on some of the work left undone by temporarily absent or departing employees.

There is no doubt many challenges to building organizational float. Gaining support and approval from the management hierarchy can be a challenge, unless a strategic, capability building mentality is prevalent. How about, in highly knowledge-intensive, non-transactional organizations or groups, the difficulty of putting a box around "work" so that it can be packaged and shipped to another worker. Or perhaps the hurdle created by the replacement mindset, that assumes that the unique thought processes, approaches to work, capability sets and experience bases that people carry can be transactionally replaced 1 for 1.

So I think the real strategy here is buying time and increasing available attention - organizational float.

Creating Conditions for...

Related somewhat to my blog entry The Value of Assessing Change Readiness in Change Efforts, is the concept of "creating conditions for... "

I was in a very interesting meeting today discussing the information management implications of wiki tools, in particular how to keep what is useful, and what is required by legislation and regulation, and how to get rid of the rest (some might call transitory records).

During the discussion, a comment triggered for me the notion of the value, in a collaborative work environment, of not simply erecting barriers, but instead working with others to create the conditions for success, whatever that needs to mean in a particular context. (It's the opposite, you could say, of setting someone up to take a fall.)

That would no doubt require a collaborative mind set, as I mentioned in Pinpointing Behaviour that Blocks Collaboration - appreciative inquiry, active listening and learning, balancing advocacy with inquiry, empowering others, etc.

I would also call creating conditions in this context to be very closely related to facilitative leadership.

The Value of Assessing Readiness in Change Efforts

First off, I have to say that I personally find the term "change management" irritating for some reason. I find myself shaking my head every time I see the term come up in plans or initiatives. Maybe it's because I'm reacting to underlying principles or philosophies of dealing with knowledge workers that are still overly rooted (implicitly or explicitly) in the scientific management method. Maybe it's a reaction to strategies and approaches that seem to draw way to heavily on Pavlov and Skinner to guide human behaviour in an organizational setting. Or maybe it's that the concept of control features prominently in definitions of management, and I wonder about the amount of control that can really be exercised in changing culture in complex, unordered systems that are today's organizations.

Nonetheless, I think there is much value in looking at the concept of change "readiness" at both the organizational and individual level.

To achieve an agreed upon end-state, does the organization have the right roles, responsibilities, policies, structure, processes and work flows, governance and accountabilities, and physical environment.

Do the individuals involved or implicated have the right awareness and understanding, capability, information and contextual knowledge and comfort level to perform effectively at the end-state.

(Reminds me of Situational Leadership in some ways.)

I was always impressed how JetForm (purchased a few years back by Adobe) had an Organizational Readiness Office with very talented, dedicated people, responsible for ensuring that the entire organization, and reseller channel, was ready to market, sell, distribute, consult on, and support JetForm products and related services.

In 2000, the Canadian Federal Government created the Organizational Readiness Office to build greater information management, information technology, and service delivery capabilities across government to better enable successful large-scale change and modernization initiatives.

Looking to manage change, start with readiness.

5 Blogs That Make Me Think

I was quickly reviewing blog entries in my reader this morning, and I came across an entry in Mark Blevis' blog nominating me for a Thinking Blogger Award - a very big surprise. Mark is well versed and traveled across the Internet, and is a leader in the realm of Podcasting, so his positive comments are very much appreciated.. thanks Mark!

For those of you interested in the origins (from what I understand) of this award, visit The Thinking Blog.

Now.. for my nominations. I have a very big problem. There are far MORE than 5 blogs that make me think. Of the ones that I track regularly, I can't even identify the top 5 that make me think the most, as they cover related topics from different, valuable perspectives. Despite the "official" title for the list below, please consider them "5 OF the MANY blogs that make me think."

My nominations for 5 (of the) Blogs that Make Me Think (too much) are:

Anecdote by Shawn Callahan and Mark Schenk
Cognitive Edge by Dave Snowden
Green Chameleon - by Patrick Lambe
Everything Is Miscellaneous - by David Weinberger
How to Save the World - by Dave Pollard

Congratulations, you won a !


For my Honourable Mentions, check out Blog in Blogs that Rock, and Great Reading From Other Blogs on my blog.


Should you (the winners above) choose to participate in this meme, please make sure you pass this list of rules to the blogs you are tagging.

• If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to five blogs that make you think.
• Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
• Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award with a link to the post that you wrote (available in silver or gold version).

Context is Everything

This past Sunday I came across a reprint in a local paper of a Washington Post article titled Pearls Before Breakfast. (Well worth the read.) It described an experiment that involved virtuoso violist Joshua Bell posing as a busker in the D.C transit system (L'Enfant Plaza) and playing a number of notable classical pieces to see if anyone would notice. He made $32.17 for 43 minutes of playing, and only a few of the 1,097 passers-by took true notice, one of which recognized Bell from a past concert performance. An interesting, perhaps not unexpected result.

A number of the people who walked by were interviewed by the writer, and was seems to be relatively consistent is that people were more or less "tuned out" - they were focused on their journey, their personal challenges, their work challenges. Being a commuter, I can certainly understand.

But I think context plays into this story as well. No one was expecting to see a concert violinist who can earn up to $1000 a minute (and did the soundtrack for the Red Violin by the way) busk dressed in jeans, a t-shirt and ball cap.

That's completely out of context. Like meeting someone in a local shopping mall that you only see at the cottage. You either don't see them at all, or they look vaguely familiar but you can't place them.

To me, this certainly points (again) to the importance of context in information, learning and knowledge creation.

Escalator "Autopilot"

For some reason lately, I've been noticing an interesting phenomenon - people who stop walking once they are on an escalator.

I'm sure you've seen it before as well. People who are walking smartly by themselves towards an escalator will immediately stop once they are on it, even when it is completely empty. And some people get annoyed when others try to get past.

Admittedly, some days I too stop because I just "don't feel like walking down." Maybe I'm taking a breather or something. But I suspect the majority of people are not really aware of what they're doing and why. Maybe it's "autopilot", or just something they always do. I think I'm going to start asking a few people, if I can find a way to do it without annoying or scaring people. I can just hear the talk at the local Starbucks lineup - "Hey.. did you see that crazy guy asking people whey the stop walking on escalators... what a nut job!"

Thank god for autopilot though, or else how could we get through the day. Without those things we do and think automatically, every activity would be a chore and take way too much time. But some times we need to stop and ask ourselves questions like: "why do I think this way?" what am I doing?" "why am I doing it?" and "do I want to continue doing it?" Using a different pronoun (like we) it almost sounds a bit like performance improvement.

Perhaps one of the ways we can all better adapt to change is to stop every once and a while and ask ourselves these questions. I good facilitators must always be aware of their own biases and behaviours so that they can work to consciously neutralize them so they don't interfere with workshop / event objectives and skew the environment for participants. I also know that asking these types of questions are closely linked to leadership development and Goldman's Emotional Intelligence. But I see a very close link to facilitating personal change.

Rather than just reacting to what is happening, taking a few minutes to question reactions, to know yourself better, sounds to me like a good change strategy.

So how did I get from escalator autopilot to personal change. Not sure, but it seems to make some sense.

Pinpointing Behavour that Blocks Collaboration

We've all see it or experienced it - sarcasm, negative / destructive humour, belittling, and a whole host of things people do, for any number of reasons, to block collaboration.

Collaboration, which in many respects amounts to co-creation, requires a trusting environment where people involved feel free to generate and share ideas, give each other useful feedback, and make decisions that move towards shared outcomes. The early stages of the collaborative process involve a certain degree of personal vulnerability, when the people involved are generating, tabling and discussing "half baked" ideas. I've seen many people disengage in meetings and workshops when their contributions are criticized, or using destructive humour, ridiculed without ever exploring the possibilities inherent in those ideas.

Robert Hargrove wrote a very useful and readable exploration of collaboration in Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration. On Page 67 he maps out the behavioural/attitudinal differences between what he calls the "collaborative model" (appreciative, active listening and learning, balancing advocacy with inquiry, empowering) and the "self-oriented" model (pursues own agenda, seeks to win and control others, a "know-it-all").

This I find is very closely linked to relationship intelligence and facilitative leadership.

So, besides the obvious, how do you know when you are faced with someone who is engaging in very uncollaborative behaviours? I think Bob Sutton's Blog entry on Rob Cross on Energizers vs. De-energizers has it nicely pegged - basically, ask yourself how you feel after the interaction. It could also be a good question to ask of ourselves as well.

Bob Sutton has also explored the topic of collaboration in the context of Building the Civilized Workplace, and his somewhat "pithy" book The No Asshole Rule. Check out his short video lesson at http://www.50lessons.com/viewlesson.asp?l=392

Social Media - Return on Investment or Return on Influence

A friend and former colleague Mark Blevis has gone through an interesting personal transformation over the last four years or so. I've always known him to be a thoughtful, bright, intellectually curious, outgoing individual, and a perpetual, lifelong learner. In about 2003 or so, he started experimenting with social media in general, and podcasting in particular, and his development into what I'd call an "expert" has been outstanding.

I encourage you to visit his site at http://www.markblevis.com/about/

Which takes me to "Return on Influence" I was looking through Mark's list of accomplishments, and came across reference to a conversation he's started on a new web site (http://www.returnoninfluence.com/index.php) with Steve Hardiman. They briefly touch on topics like shared potential by producers and consumers, abandoning traditional return on investment metrics, and that social "currency" can't be treated like, or thought of like cash.

Interesting.... I hope they continue the line of thinking.

On the topic, I came across Joe Marchese's blog post titled ROI Is Social Media’s New ROI. Although written with the marketing/advertising space in mind, he does talk about return on influencing requiring more investment in the creative side v.s. the production / distribution side.

Joe's last paragraph in the blog states: "The takeaway is this: if all advertisers are looking at is immediate return on investment, there is a good chance they are missing the real potential for maximizing their investment in social media — and probably spending way too much in the process. But it’s not the advertiser’s fault entirely; the platform hasn’t been built that efficiently facilitates accessing the type of brand-building influence offered by social media … yet."

Obviously, the same is true for private and public sector organizations. And like any good discussion, good answers create more good questions.

Facilitation - At The Root of it All

I've been thinking about the concept of "knowledge-conscious managers" for a while, though I don't recall exactly what triggered the line of thinking.

It could be an article I read on the Mospos blog titled The 18 commandments of Knowledge-conscious managers http://blog.mopsos.com/archives/000188.html.

It could be an Inside Knowledge Magazine piece titled A Knowledge Conscious Curriculum.

Perhaps it was a Knowledgeboard discussion I participated in titled Exact role of Knowledge Manager and some very thoughtful comments by Frank Guerino, CEO & Founder TraverseIT.

Nonetheless, if you subscribe to the notion that knowledge management is just good management, then the perspectives and behaviours suggested in discussions and articles about knowledge conscious managers resembles to me what I've read about facilitative leadership.

For example, in The Art of Facilitative Leadership: Maximizing Others’ Contributions by Jeffrey Cufaude, facilitative leadership is described as:

• making connections and helping others make meaning
• providing direction without totally taking the reins
• managing content and process
• inviting disclosure and feedback to help surface unacknowledged or invisible beliefs, thoughts, and patterns
• focusing on building the capacity of individuals and groups to accomplish more on their own, now and in the future

I see strong similarities and connections with many of the concepts of knowledge-conscious management, and ultimately I think it all boils down to managers doing whatever is required to facilitate effective knowledge work, as defined by roles and responsibilities in organizational context. This strikes me as being a very inclusive approach covering everything from making information easier to create, capture and access, to improving group and team interpersonal effectiveness and collaboration though the explicit, systematic facilitation of group processes.

Therefore, if you subscribe to the notion that a manager's role is to facilitate knowledge work, than facilitation as a fundamental mind set, and a key core competency, has even greater importance in today's knowledge based organizations than even the facilitation community has been promoting well over the last fifteen years. Perhaps organizational management and leadership development programs need to explicitly identify, bundle, include and emphasize facilitation and other knowledge-conscious/facilitative leadership capability development opportunities.

Nuturing Communities of Practice - Adult Learning Applies

I was in a meeting with colleagues recently discussing the lack of participation in a community of practice. At one point I asked "Given that the community presents a tremendous opportunity for people to tap into collective intelligence to solve problems and overcome challenges, how come no one is tabling issues and asking for assistance?"

One of the answers I got was was that "people afraid to admit mistakes, and be perceived as anything but competent." Which tells me that the community space/conversations are not perceived as safe/healthy learning space. It could also be that members are used to working in a [perceived] fault intolerant cultural environment, and think it extends to the community space as well.

It goes without saying that a fault tolerant, collaborative environment is required for learning and innovation. In their 2002 HBR article titled "The Failure Tolerant Leader",
Richard Farson and Ralph Keyes mention that this type of leader is someone ".. who, through their words and actions, help people overcome their fear of failure and, in the process, create a culture of intelligent risk taking that leads to sustained innovation. These leaders don’t just accept failure; they encourage it. They try to break down the social and bureaucratic barriers that separate them from their followers. They engage at a personal level with the people they lead. They avoid giving either praise or criticism, preferring to take a nonjudgmental, analytical posture as they interact with staff. They openly admit their own mistakes rather than covering
them up or shifting the blame.And they try to root out the destructive competitiveness built into most organizations."

A very clear connection here between the way community leaders need to be in order to lead communities, and the level of of community participation.

The other thing that struck me for some reason, and I'm not sure why it took so long, was the connection between communities and adult learning as I was introduced to by former colleague and friend Brian Keane back in the mid '80s.

If we look at some of the key characteristics of adult learners, referring to Malcolm Knowles work on andragogy, they certainly apply to communities as learning opportunities.

• Adult learners are experienced, and use experiences as an anchor point for new learning. Experiences can also be a barrier to learning something completely new and different.
• Adults are generally autonomous and self-directed - they want relevant learning (it's got to meet their needs), and want to have a certain amount of influence or control over the learning content, approach, and evaluation.
• When they provide feedback on learning programs (or even work environment topics in the workplace) they expect some form of action / result.
• While adult learners may comply with "Mandatory" training, enthusiasm is seen when they choose their own topics / learning.
• Adults are reluctant to be vulnerable in group settings, and often fear that their reputation, ego and self-esteem can be at risk if they admit to learning needs unless the learning environment is very safe.

So, it would appear that community facilitators should keep adult learning in mind when designing community structure / process/ environments that support and encourage learning.

"Initiative" Maybe Equals "Influence Without Authority"

I was on my way in to work this morning and thinking about what I'd posted yesterday about initiative when, all of a sudden, and interesting connection came to me.

In his book titled Social Intelligence, Karl Albrecht talks about power, influence, and leading when you're not in charge in Chapter 9.

Specifically, he presents a simple general formula for earning influence in unstructured situations:

1. contributing special / unique skills linked to the group outcomes
2. help the group improve process and procedures (facilitate.. "take the pen and the flip chart")
3. having the right information and / or help the group use it effectively
4. build consensus through summarizing group discussions, propose or confirm next steps, and help the group navigate to a conclusion or decision
5. helping a group maintain a positive and constructive climate and maintain it's empathy, so healthy debate does not descend into personal rancour

It strikes me that leading with these behaviours that Karl has outlined would serve everyone well in a social / networked workplace.

It also strikes me that these behaviours, in different contexts, would be called facilitation skills. And I've always been a big proponent of these skills being a core competency in knowledge organizations.

And, as a facilitator, and facilitation instructor, I know from experience that these skills can be developed to some degree in everyone.

Perhaps facilitation is the key for helping all generations adapt and be effective in the future.

Personal Change for the Networked World

I was at a recent meeting with the Conference Board of Canada's Knowledge Strategy Exchange Network (I'm privileged to be a member, and on the Advisory Council) and, as I'm sure you'd expect, the conversation turned to blogs, wikis, and other social / Enterprise 2.0 stuff. Part of that conversation was to talk about characteristics of the demographic called "e-born" / "net generation." Coincidentally I'm currently reading Don Tapscott's book Wikinomics, which is a deep exploration of this and other related topics.

Prevalent themes in all social computing topics and sub topics include networks and communities, co-creation, collaboration, hierarchy based on contribution not position, common objectives, transparency, open / honest communication, engagement, speed, access, active participants / actors, and taking personal risks.

Do you remember hearing the term "self-directed learning" going back 10 years or so, coincidentally around the same time interest in computer based / e-learning was on the rise?

I think the new work world heading our way is the next generation self-direction - active initiative.

Its pretty clear to me that to really derive personal value from these new technologies and new ways of working, we all have to take initiative and be active contributors in a contextual/situation specific meaningful way. "The more you put in, the more you get out" certainly applies.

So a couple of thoughts popped into my mind during our Knowledge Strategy Executive Network conversation about social computing. Traditional command/control environments often stifle initiative and innovation. I can even recall a few circumstances where I've thought to myself "if he's going to do all my thinking for me, why should I bother?" or " why should I bother contributing if it has no value?" And obviously, people who have spent years / decades working under tightly controlled environments can easily loose the desire, and even capability, to take initiative. They just trudge to work, put their heads down, do "their job", hope the heck no one "shines a light on them", and trudge home.

Under these circumstances how equipped are older generations of workers, who have been raised in a command and controlled environment, to deal with a horizontal, social, networked, community based work environment? I suspect in quite a few cases they are not.

So, I think this is a big challenge facing organizations, leaders and managers - facilitating the personal change required to equip and enable older generations of workers to work effectively with younger ones, having the patience to do so, and in the interim, not disenfranchising them by forcing them too quickly to work differently. The same thing could also apply to re-engaging retired workers in some capacity.

I think the other part of the challenge in creating an effective cross-generational work environment is truly understanding how work is performed from both boom and net-generation perspective, and supporting it effectively from a business and technoloy perspective. I heard the word "ecosystem" mentioned by Jerome Nadel of Human Factors International, and thought that a good metaphor. Let's create an ecosystem that enables effective contributions and interactions through multiple means, selectable by the contributor.

The Role of "Invitation" in Collaboration

"Collaboration." Now, there's a word that can mean different things to different people!

"Hey Joe.. can I get your take on this?"
"Sandra, can you give this the "once over" before I give it to the Board?"
"Petra, how would you change /improve this if you were in my shoes?"
"Hulin, I'd like your input before Friday"

Are these likely examples of collaboration? "Of course not." you're probably saying, because we've all been exposed to some definition of collaboration that involves shared ownership and objectives. And yet, these and other situations and conversations where there is not shared ownership and shared objective are often pointed to as collaborative behaviour - "yep.. we're collaborating... done.. let's "check the box.""

Robert Hargrove, in his book titled Mastering the Art of Creative Collaboration, describes a collaborative model as:

• designates new possibilities; shared understood goals; seeks creative, entrepreneurial results
• builds collaborative networks and new patterns of relationships and interactions; shows authenticity and vulnerability
• attitude of learning; is a specialist and a generalist; equates success with questions
• balances advocacy of views with inquiry into own and others' thinking; listens to deeply understand others
• empowers others on the job by acknowledging talents and gifts; provides an enabling environment

Overall, a pretty good example of collaborative characteristics, which coincidentally share much in common with facilitative leadership, and effective qualities for managers in this "knowledge era".

There is one thing implicit in Hargrove's exploration of collaboration, and most others as well, that bears discussion - the concept of invitation.

To designate new possibilities, build collaborative networks, have an attitude of learning, balance advocacy of views with inquiry, provide an enabling environment and engage in all of the other collaborative behaviours, other participants must be:

• invited to the "party"
• invited to the conversation
• invited to discuss objectives, outcomes, action plans
• invited to receive information that may be of value to your objectives
• invited to picture a mutually beneficial future
• invited to discuss mutually beneficial actions, and participate in difficult in trade off discussions as an EQUAL partner
• invited to hear the other's agenda, and transparently disclose yours

Invited.

It's hard to collaborate unless you are.

The Role of Project Management Communities in Organizations

In life, there is rarely a "single version of the truth". I think the same can be said in the context of project management.

Yes, there are tools, templates, methodologies, "best practices", often promoted by broad PM communities, vendors with a product to sell, and often by consulting organizations brought in to salvage run away projects. They come in, "quick fix" and leave once the contract objectives are met. Often their expertise is never really leveraged for the longer term benefit of the organization.

But where the more significant challenges occur is investigating, deciding on, and applying these practices in complex organizations and shifting contexts / unanticipated organizational change, bringing multiple perspectives to bear on complex issues, and acting on lessons learned from previous successes and "not so successes".
I think this is where a strong community of internal project / initiative managers can be of tremendous benefit.

An internal PM community can play a large, effective role in evolving practices that work in the the organization's complex environment, and ensuring the transfer of important context, information, and knowledge across succeeding generations.

I suspect that one of the important challenges many internal PM communities face is that they are very appealing vehicle for beginning to intermediate project managers, but fail to attract more senior / experienced / seasoned project managers. I've heard of situations where they are actually discouraged from participating by their supervisors in favour of "real work".

And it would appear that experienced PMs are also good at surveying the landscape and building their own small personal networks in order to get their job done. That's fine for achieving personal effectiveness, but what about the "greater good" of the organization and of their fellow PMs? How can this expertise be diffused / broadly shared for the benefit of the organization as a whole?

Imagine an organization where senior project managers were expected ... or should I say required .. through their performance (or contract) agreements, to play a leadership role in the project management community in developing and stewarding the community's PM knowledge development activities, and building capability among more junior project managers.

Imagine these senior project managers bringing their techniques, approaches, mental models, expertise in the organization's context to the community to be reviewed, synthesized, evolved, and yes, even critiqued, by the more junior members who are perhaps less experienced in PM, but no less adept at analytical and critical thinking. They may even have their own related experiences about the nuances of the organization to contribute.

A PM community of practice can be a part of "the solution" of sustainable project success over the longer term. If the community is infused with the learning and expertise of all the organization's senior project managers, and even external experts who come in on major initiatives, the organization will be better off for it.