Eat the cookie dough! Half-baked ideas are welcome.

17 Mar

My friend David and I took an epic road trip many years ago, the kind that can only be made by the young and foolish: Chicago to New York to surprise a friend. With no more than $20 in our pockets and his grandfather’s gas card to cover expenses, we set out to the east with the sun at our backs. Oh, to be 19 again.

Food? We had the gas card. Hotels? I don’t think it ever occurred to us. It was only a 12-hour drive, after all. At a truck stop convenience store around South Bend, Indiana, we gassed up the tank and stocked up on provisions. Jerky. Chips. Water. Nuts. And, as a last impulse that can only be ascribed to … could there be an adequate explanation? … a roll of bake-at-home cookie dough.

The Ohio & Penn Turnpikes, a roll of cookie dough, and the night. What could go wrong.

The Ohio & Penn Turnpikes, a roll of cookie dough, and the night. What could go wrong?

Raw cookie dough. Delicious, filling and funny—it seemed like a great idea. Bake, schmake! So as we drove we passed the plastic tube to take bites of dough. By the time we hit Youngstown, Ohio, neither of us felt so well. By the State College, Pennsylvania, cutoff, our bellies were aching like we had eaten billiard balls. Now I realize there was a lesson for today.

With the memory of that gut pain as my guide, I say we need to find a new place to share half-baked ideas and raw notions. In the spirit of show your work and working out loud (#WOL), we need a renewed sense that there is value in sharing the half-baked, ill-formed and in-progress stages of our work.

Just as luck finds those who prepare, serendipity of ideas and connectcookie doughing disparate dots into new insights come to those who are willing to share not only products but process; not only results but notions, hunches and hypotheses.

The reason why many “digital age” companies try so hard to create open spaces for folks to bump into each other—think Google’s cafeteria, Nike’s athletic facilities, cubeless open workstations and Yahoo!’s effort to curb its remote workforce—is to create the conditions for serendipity to occur.

Even when we are not actively collaborating with each other, we should certainly be cooperating with each other, dovetailing our efforts and forming brief spats of collaboration toward the same goals.

Short of the Google cafeteria (or, in addition to it), what this calls for is a more transparent, open spirit of sharing and learning. When you wait until your work is fully baked, with all the icing applied, you’ve waited too long. The learning, the idea development, the benefit to others from your work are revealed in your process, not your product. Mistakes and wrong paths are the quintessential learning moments.

Don’t wait to share your plate of beautiful cookies. Show us your ingredients—how you crack the eggs, the messes on the counter, why you chose your bowl and tools—and let us decide what to do with the dough. Some of us will bake it; others prefer it raw. That’s where the learning happens.
#WOL #LOL #ShowYourWork

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Mind Maps, Mental Geography, and a New Compass

4 Mar

https://twitter.com/elsua/status/572882250687102976

Whether we are aware of it or not, we all carry a sense of place for ourselves and how/where we fit in to our workplace, professional networks of colleagues, and social circles. Most of us move through our careers making decisions big and small based on how we perceive that mental geography.

For most of us, the traditional map is some variation of hierarchy, departmentalization, and areas of influence. I manage this project, those people; I am managed by her and I belong to that department; I provide service for them but have little influence over what they do and how they do it. As with all creations of our mind, the reality of that geography may have never reflected what could or should be, but hierarchy and silos made sense in a world of traditional leadership and departmentalization.

That world is shifting digital sand under our feet. With the advent of digital communication and open networks, our ability to lead, follow, influence, and be influenced has never been more fluid. The anxiety that individuals and organizations feel over the last several years reflects the loss of the map that has served us, and with it our understanding of our place.

Each node can find each other, be it person, data, server; internal or external to an organization.

Each node can find each other, be it person, data, server; internal or external to an organization.

We now live in a networked age. We are all increasingly interconnected with, by, and through each other and with information that ricochets around us at nearly imperceptible speeds. Hierarchy is giving way to wireachy. A new mental map forms, where people, data, and ideas are all vectors that connect or deflect in reaction to each other. The hierarchy that was so effective in amassing the troops and directing activities is giving way to something quite different.

Once we grok this new geography of the digital age, our anxiety (hopefully) gives way to a world of possibility. “Leaders” (C-levels, principals, independent consultants/contractors) begin to realize that they cannot and should not attempt to oversee actions, and “workers” understand that theirs is not to wait to act on orders but rather to discover, filter, learn, synthesize, and share by what becomes a Personal Knowledge Mastery (PKM) practice . We are level on the flat plane of the network age. (Read a terrific background and personal discovery story of PKM by Harold Jarche.)

Our primary activity is to learn. Whatever our job is today will be different tomorrow. Those who cling to “this is how we do it here” will be increasingly isolated and frustrated. Those who become continuous learners and flexible actors will be in position to thrive.

This new Learning Age perhaps requires not a map at all, but a compass. In a flat landscape without rivers to cross and mountains to climb, we need a direction in which to head and the agency and autonomy to find our own ways. Leaders will still set the necessary vectors and create a compass for all in an organization to follow, but individuals are free to explore, fail, succeed, and learn with shifting collaboration and cooperation as the moment warrants.

Learning professionals have an essential role to play. While a small percentage of people are already setting their compass and navigating the network, most don’t have the mental geography or digital skills to learn, influence, and make sense of the new reality. Learning is not only essential, but so too is learning to learn—and relearn—the recursions of modern digital work. We need to step up and show people how navigate.

Knowledge led people to change from reading the stars for fate to instead use them for navigation. Hmmm … nodes in the network resemble stars in the sky. Yes, recursion.

“Technology” does not have a multitasking problem. Multitasking has a multitasking problem.

20 Feb

Any tool is a weapon — if you hold it right. Ani DiFranco

The problem with our always-on digital world is that everyone is trying to multitask. The less technology you use, the less that will be a problem. Or, so many people will tell you.

Rubbish.

Technology has nothing, or at least very little, to do with it. Don’t blame the sunset for distracting you from your work. Anyone who does good productive, creative, inventive, inspirational work is able to solve this problem. By scientific definition, the executive function to focus on completing a task successfully precludes multitasking (from technology, or any other source). Executive function can only handle one problem at a time. (Oh, but were we wired otherwise!) So, the issue is not multitasking, but distraction.

Those who are easily distracted today by Twitter and Angry Birds and Facebook and Game of War are easily distractible. That is not a technology issue. (I freely admit I am easily distractible, too!) We all had friends in school who would suddenly fall behind the group, having stopped to observe an ant hill or sunlight through leaves or a pretty attraction, some object of desire. Same as it ever was.

What has changed is the manifestation of our distraction, in plain sight for all to see: those darn phones! When I am with my wife at a restaurant, she can (usually!) tell if my mind is off somewhere else, undeterred that she is trying to have a conversation. This is human nature. However, if I am equally (or even less!) distracted by looking at my phone, be it a text message or solitaire, she is all the more annoyed and lets me know in no uncertain terms. I can’t say I blame her—I feel the same way.

So, it is more the case that phones signal to others that we are not on the task we are supposed to be on, be it work or socializing. Ah, but the temptation is always there, that constant siren song of distraction. Can’t that be dumbing us down into mere entertainment consumers when we could have be having deep thoughts? As a recent New York Times op-ed column highlights:

The direst prediction offered by digital critics—our phones are really pocket-size deep fryers for the mind—may be untrue, but the alternative I’ve suggested sounds nearly as bad. The appetite for endless entertainment suggests that worthier activities will be shoved aside. We may buy Salman Rushdie’s book, but we’ll end up sucked in by Flappy Bird.

However, it goes on:

That doesn’t quite seem to be the case, either. Research shows, for example, that the amount of leisure reading hasn’t changed with the advent of the digital age. Before we congratulate ourselves, though, let’s acknowledge that brainier hobbies have never been that popular. There have always been ways to kill time.

And so we arrive at the point of interest. Our devices are not going away, nor all the “unproductive” ways we use them. Their ability to distract us seems limitless.

Woody Guthrie understood that an instrument or tool's power lay in the hands of the user.

Woody Guthrie understood that an instrument or tool’s power lay in the hands of the user.

However, their ability to engage us is equally limitless!

They can take our notes, capture our thoughts, connect to people and ideas, and answer our pressing questions, large and small. As with any tool that we have ever made for ourselves, from the wheel to the PC, it is only as productive as the person using it.

Productivity, creativity and motivation (or lack thereof) remain the essence of human action. I argue that as many people may be turned into entertainment-distraction zombies, an even greater number of us have been hooked into networks, hobbies, niches and communities through digital portals. I can tell you this: The hours I spent in front of the Gilligan’s Island and Hogan’s Heroes when I was a child would have been much better spent on Facebook and Twitter.

As a learning professional, I say rather than battle our little distraction machines, let’s redirect to make them little engagement machines instead. When I plan a learning experience now, I find a way to incorporate mobile devices into the flow of the activity (synchronously or asynchronously). People need to learn how to how to hold it right to make it useful for productive purposes.

Words With Friends will always be there when we need a distraction—but you can’t multitask that game, either.

Networks of Influence: Borderless organizations and Southeast Asian kingdoms

12 Feb

This is what I love about writing in this space!

It allows me to make sense of seemingly unrelated ideas that suddenly burst through, like a magic eye picture. The act of writing helps me form ideas, and the act of sharing helps me find/refer to others that will enhance or redirect those notions. (Sharing publicly is also a lesson in personal bravery for me, telling the world, “This is my idea today, which I concede I may contradict tomorrow.” I like that, too.)

I am finishing up Harold Jarche’s latest book, Finding Perpetual Beta. If you’re interested in organizational growth, knowledge management, technology and change management, I highly recommend that you obtain, read, mark up and share it. One of the ideas that struck me was the importance of exploration at the soft edges of the organization.

In many organizations the outside world is better connected than inside the workplace. This makes it difficult to connect at the boundaries, which is where we have the best opportunities for serendipity and potential innovation.

At the edge of the organization, where there are few rules and everything is a blur… opportunities are found in chaos. In such a changing environment, failure has to be tolerated. Value emerges from forays into the chaos. (pp. 26–7)

This sounded so familiar to me, but it took me a while to place where the same idea applies in a very different context: traditional Southeast Asian kingdoms. Wait, what?!

When I was in graduate school, I studied Southeast Asia and political science. I remember sitting in a class led by the brilliant Al McCoy, as he discussed the structures of authority in traditional kingdoms and sultanates in the islands of what

Borders are hard to draw on waterways. Power was distributed in spheres of influence radiating out from the thrown.

Borders are hard to draw on waterways. Power was distributed in spheres of influence radiating out from the throne.

are now Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, etc. I remember him describing how these were influenced-based networks of rule without formal borders. The king sat on his throne at the divinely placed epicenter of authority, while the edges of his influence—where his network brushed up against others—was where trade, creativity, artistry and knowledge were most active.

As I read Jarche, among others, I see the same things: Organizational walls are becoming porous and unguardable. Hierarchal structures are being transformed into networks and what John Husband has termed wirearchy. I could barely wrap my young mind around the notion of authority without borders and kingdoms without armies to guard them. But great trading post cultures—from Singapore to Samarkand to Timbuktu (to New York?)—grew and their culture thrived precisely because they lay at places where authority dissipated and cultures combined in new ways.

Jarche is quite right to say that there is nothing natural or traditional about hierarchy as an organizing principle. It emerged with modern military and manufacturing. As the social learning age replaces command-and-control, and the notion of the loyal “company man” disappears, organizations and individuals that thrive will develop new ways to find and create value.

As Joi Ito rightly points out, we now inhabit a chaotic, democratic, crowd-sourced world. Finding new ways to develop PKM and ongoing organizational adaptations (“perpetual beta”) are the ways forward.

Reaching out a helping hand to a “lost” coworker

5 Feb

I had a productive and far-reaching conversation recently with a Signe Bishop, a whip-smart colleague in my professional network. She leads management training, both for new managers and (later) experienced ones to deepen their practice, for a large teaching hospital. She sparked me to return to an idea I’ve been marinating for a while.

We agreed that it’s fun, rewarding and often easy to manage engaged, curious, creative employees.

The challenge is to get managers to do the hard work of reaching out to employees who have lost (or never had) that zeal. When our colleagues and those we are meant to manage seem adrift in the flotsam of daily routine and a less-than-inspired workplace culture, we owe it to them—and to ourselves—to reach out with specific tactics to change things.

Our workplaces are only as good as our culture, and a lackluster culture should be addressed head on, with positivity and passion,* but also with techniques that engage. I have always felt that it is my responsibility to create the kind of place where I want to work wherever I happen to draw a paycheck. (Perhaps that comes from the experience that there never really is The Perfect Job.) It rubs some people wrong, but in the long run I’ve won over more than I’ve lost.

When addressing workplace culture, it is akin to… check that!… It IS a matter of change/learning management. In order to change attitudes and, ultimately, performance, a manager (or concerned coworker) needs to create:

  1. Vision: Habits are tough to break. Attitudes and culture that are vibrant continually renew and grow, while their opposite is built on thoughtless habit. The first effort is to build a vision for work that doesn’t feel habitual, but creative and verdant with opportunity. (This might be the hardest of the four, and may follow from the others organically.)
  2. Plan: What would the person like to do? Where do they see their career going in 1 year? 3 years? 5 years? Sometimes folks are not even aware that we have path to choose. I had the benefit of a great manager years ago who pushed me to think big and specific, and it made a world of difference to me years after we parted (she remains a friend). Help people see that getting their current position is just a step, maybe the first step. Crautonomyeate specific plans to track movement, with knowledge that it will be ever-shifting as you travel.
  3. Skills: This is where managers tend to concentrate first (and sometimes, the only area they focus on). Yes, it’s important to develop skills in the context of performance improvement and professional development. We often ask for skill development without reference to the purpose or larger context (plan and vision). WIIFM remains the heart of any learning activity. Skills, and how a person should learn and apply them, need to be explicit and relevant.
  4. Autonomy: This is the flip side of trust. Grant as much autonomy as you can, and trust that people will find their productive way. (If they don’t, they’re not the kind of people you want.) All the planning and skills in the world will not set folks free to find better practices, innovative ideas and happen on new insights.

* For those of you who know me, this will seem really weird. I’m so not the rah-rah, hug-it-out type.

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