Paul McKey - Synergistic Design

Every couple of years I get the honour of working with the ANZ Advisory Board for the New Media Consortium in developing the ANZ Horizon Report. This board provides vision and stimulus to the Horizon Project, and its work informs the annual Horizon Report. Each year, the Board, a small multi-disciplinary group of thinkers from both within and outside higher education, engages in dialog and discussions about potential collaborative, learning, or creative applications of emerging technologies — most of which may not be obvious.

So while ploughing through the multitude of ideas, technologies and applications I thought I would share one small insight. Why is collaboration more often called cheating in our education systems?

We were discussing online communications and collaboration technologies. I consider Collaboration as a skill and the related technologies as merely enabling. For instance replace simple collaboration with its more focussed cousin Action Learning/Research and we have a much richer learning environment. Then we would look for the best tools to enable this. The practice and research into this form of learning has been around for many years yet is still not made it to mainstream education. Why?

I suggest we are still conditioned by a singular competitive educational landscape where SAT scores and Tertiary Education Rankings etc. dominate and kill the teaching of quality collaboration as a desired skill. We have to unlearn this. When we see the sharing of information as not cheating but collaborating we will have started. When we see Action Learning as the norm we will have turned the corner. If we utilised more action learning/research we would be discovering/developing more new knowledge than rehashing old knowledge and this is a scary notion for many educators since new knowledge is typically boundless.

But don’t panic. I also suspect it will take a generation or two to develop the core skills of quality collaboration in our education system along with the application of Action Learning to everyday problems. Yet the corporate world is demanding these skills now. They are not interested in the narrow-minded competitive games that education plays around rankings based on regurgitated knowledge. They need people who can work together to solve unforeseen problems in critical areas such as health and the environment. They need that new knowledge to counter new problems. The sort of problems the text book hasn’t been written for.

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Redbean - I know many of you spend your days pacing the floor, and tossing and turning at night, wondering where your next survey is coming from. Unsatisfied by the quick and dirty quizzes on Facebook and those News sites, where you get no respect, you long for something more authentic, more compelling. I can help.

Below is a link to a genuine PhD Questionnaire that will provide the rich and rewarding experience you desire from a survey. And anybody who has ever worked in a legitimate organization (this doesn’t include politicians) can complete it.

Now I know this won’t satisfy the deep craving some of you have since it only takes ten (10) minutes to complete. And its an interactive form so it is easy to download, complete and return via email. Just a few clicks and you’re done. So for the hardened veterans amongst you, seeking a challenge, you can also print it out and mail it back to me to retain your anonymity and your honour. And you have until the end of June 2010 to do so.

25 easy Likert Scale questions - Just tick the box!

No doing it twice though, as much as you want to. The document is a Microsoft Word interactive Form you can download, complete and return. Here is the link:

http://www.redbean.com.au/articles/files/PhD_Survey_20100505_digital.doc

The survey itself is seeking to understand the relationship between what Edgar Schein has called the three dominant sub-cultures of any organization - the executive, the operators and the engineers. ( Schein, E.H. (1985-2005) Organizational Culture and Leadership, 3rd Ed., Jossey-Bass ) For an easy overview of the Organizational Culture topic try this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organizational_culture

I see these three sub-cultures as almost tribal. And we all suffer when they don’t work together yet we know little of how to build synergy between these groups for the good of the whole organization. Schein says they are critical to an organization’s success or failure. My PhD uses Case Studies to understand and model their interactions. And this survey is an important part of the study.

I have other important questions like why do techos eat so much pizza? And how many pairs of slippers do academics really own? But they will have to wait for post-doctoral studies. For now I just want to understand how to get these sub-cultures working together in our organizations.

So if you can complete and return the survey by June 30 2010 that would be much appreciated.

http://www.redbean.com.au/articles/index.html

Redbean - Clark Quinn has just written a great article on “Rethinking e-Learning” which echoes my call for considering on-the-job learning as something other than a series of mind-numbing and morale-sapping courses. And as Clark points out, with the spread of mobile devices the opportunity to rethink the transaction and broadcast-based e-Learning of the past is an opportunity we can hardly miss.

As I have said here before the iPad is not a phone and it is not a laptop. It is a distribution channel. And that means it has the possibility to be the best education, learning and performance support channel the world has seen so far. But not if we see it only as a passive device receiving content but as an interactive device manipulating and partaking in content.

CLick to view the Redbean Learning Environment Maturity Model Image

As the above model shows as we progress beyond asynchronous transaction-based learning (ie courses) we enter a whole new realm of synchronous learning that is usually restricted to expensive ‘lab’ type environments and content development. Using social media and ubiquitous iPad style devices the cost of entry into this realm is much reduced and, as a benefit, more anarchic which, I think, makes it more engaging.

So instead of taking our employee/student away from their task to get some ‘training’ we can integrate it and support their performance when and where they need it most.

Your thoughts?

Redbean - I am being lured back to the world of Learning and Development. Not against my wishes but possibly against my better judgement. Two reasons why that is:

1. learning and development is stuck in a rut…

regardless of the problem, the need, the capability, the possible solutions all learning and development implementations invariably end up in some form of stand and deliver training event. There are notable exceptions of performance -based learning, experiential activities and action learning or brilliant use of interactive-technology and learning support. But mainly most organisations have little imagination when it comes to learning so they just roll out another training program. And apart from the minor innovation of eLearning ten years ago there has been little innovation. And I say minor because most eLearning is really just digital publishing.

We are obsessed with training. Why? Because it comes from a long history of authoritive teaching that we and our ancestors have been subjected to, all our lives. Teacher knows best! Alternatives where the learner takes control are viewed with suspicion. Yet autonomous learners, not sponges, are what good organisations strive for. (See my article on the - Corporate Learning Maturity Model - ( Download the PDF -
http://www.redbean.com.au/articles/files/articles/Redbean_Maturity_Model.pdf )

2. learning and development has little respect and hence ‘voice’ in the business.

Lately where I have been working is more in the area of Organisational Learning and Business Improvement/Transformation and not so much in Learning and Development per se. What’s the difference? Well the former works ON the business while the latter works IN the business. Hence L&D is seen as a service and necessary cost. In the mediocre organisations it fulfils a need and satisfies, what I argue, are the low expectations of the shareholders and management.

Few managers that I have spoken to really believe that better/more training will contribute to the bottom line. It may improve customer satisfaction and it certainly reduces risk and satisfies compliance needs, but training comes well behind raising prices, cutting costs or product/sales/marketing improvement when it comes to improving the business.

And it is hard to argue with the bean counters but I do believe that quality learning can contribute to the competitive advantage of an organisation in ways that the above, mainly financial, factors can not. Competitive advantage is more than just running a smart business model with lowest cost resources/people. Good companies have an intangible advantage, that je ne sais quoi, that only comes from having a switched on, learned and engaged workforce.

So trying to convince organisations to stop seeing training as a cost and instead see learning as an investment has been one of my mantras for some time. How am I going? Don’t ask…

The problem I have is that it is hard to shift the mindset of an organisation if all they’re going to end up doing is unconfidently running yet another under-resourced training program and hoping for the best. That will not improve the business and the prophecy that training makes little difference, is therefore self-fulfilling. True organisational learning and a culture of innovation (which most organisations will swear they want) requires investment, not lower cost and mediocre services.

The L&D function and HR are responsible for this situation but only partly. They let themselves get kicked around by the business managers and change managers who use them as a cheap internal resource. Yet these same managers are also to blame for not educating themselves on what is possible, and hence demanding, superior learning and development services and outcomes. Their ignorance just sees them asking for yet another training program and they lack the insight and guts to try something different. So with no change in the demand the supply remains the same!

In my experience the organisations who can break this cycle are typically sector leaders. So, ironically, to improve organisational effectiveness, and if you want your organisation to be competitive, innovative and a place where people are lining up to work for you, then I have one bit of advice:

STOP TRAINING!

And start providing Learning and Performance Support.

This requires a 180 degree shift in your mindset about how to improve people’s capability, skills and response to change. Here are three steps required to transform and revitalise your organisational learning:

1. STOP Training and shift responsibility for learning to the learner/team;
2. provide the requisite tools and resources that support learning and performance;
3. get out of the way (but stay close enough to nurture, support and reward).

It is well researched that to develop organisational learning we need to develop organisational learners. That means helping them break the years of education system conditioning which has turned them into passive sponges and help them develop and mature as autonomous learners who take responsibility for their own learning outcomes that contribute to the organisational effectiveness.

John Seely Brown describes the existing model as the Cartesian View of learning which is based upon knowledge as a substance and pedagogy as knowledge transfer. He, and I, consider we have to develop the Social View of learning which is based upon a socially constructed understanding and shifts our focus from content to activities and interactions.
http://www.johnseelybrown.com/mindsonfire.pdf

Obviously there is a lot more to this than simply giving the learners the keys to the library and a blog. All learners require guidance on what the organisation needs, how they can best contribute and which are the priorities. And ‘training’ services don’t need to be withdrawn totally or immediately. But by developing alternatives you will be developing the organisation’s capability, intelligence and resilience.

And the only thing you need to change is your mindset! How easy is that?

This is a big topic and I look forward to your comments to continue the discussion. But the STOP Training campaign starts here!

Redbean - If you have ever been involved in a Change Management program - as a buyer, practitioner or participant - and wondered what that term means, you are not alone.

In the past few years this term seems to have blossomed into a catchall phrase to describe everything from a new ICT system rollout to a complete organisational transformation.

The Organisational Development and Learning types (they’re the ones in pure wool cardigans and slip-on business shoes and using iPhones) suggest only people change not companies so we need to nurture that personal transition, not force it, while the ICT and Project Management junkies (they’re the ones in wrinkle-free white shirts and polyester ties and using a Blackberry) argue that in any change program process, time, resources and money are king.

The question is which one of these ‘types’ do you hire to implement change in your organisation? Or do you hire both of them?

Organisational change comes in several forms. What’s motivating the change? Is it anticipatory or reactive? How do you want to proceed? Incrementally or in a discontinuous mode? Nadler and others* suggest these questions can lead to anything between tuning the organisation to completely re-creating it. And all this falls under one term - change management. Or does it?

When the HR types owned the process it was slower and called Organisational Change. In the past few years more radical change required by mergers and reconfiguration of businesses (from private capital influence in particular) has seen the business get involved and demand faster and more predictable results.

To say the former is people-centric while the latter method is process-centric is simplistic but no less correct. And it is obvious we need both. But are we getting that? I would say not.

Unfortunately while the people people were away facilitating change workshops and consuming reams of newsprint, blu-tac and wall space the process mechanics were engineering software that virtually ran the whole change management process for you. You just had to fill in the blanks of the latest prescriptive process such as Prince2, ADKAR or PMBoK and voila! - you had a change program.

Well sort of. What you had was half a change program. The process half. I would suggest that none of these processes properly address the other half of the change, the people.

No matter how tight the timeline and fiscally brilliant the Gant chart your internal people and external forces are not going to give two hoots about it, unless they want to. Real organisational change requires managing, or at least understanding, all the forces acting upon your organisation and its people - staff, shareholders and customers.

Driving change by just managing the low hanging fruit you ‘appear’ to have control over - time, resources and costs - may deliver a successful project but will it deliver the change desired/required? At least developments like Benefits Management coming out of the UK are focussing change managers on the outcomes.

So who do you hire? The soft change people or the hard change people? One of the best descriptions of the competencies a successful change manager should have has been developed by the Australian Change Management Institute. It sets out in clear language both the hard and soft skills, and the personal attributes required. Change Management Practitioner Competency Model - PDF

So who do you hire? As the iconic Indie band The Go-Betweens once said “Sometimes I need two heads“.

* Discontinuous Change. Leading Organizational Transformation by David Nadler, Robert Shaw and Elise Walton. Jossey-Bass Inc.

Redbean - It has been interesting listening to people discussing the iPad in the past week or so with the conversation revolving around “would you buy one?”. One group mockingly think of it as a large phone and mime putting this large device up to their ear which always gets a good laugh. The other group tries to extrapolate down from what they do on their laptop today and wonder what it will be like to use a screen keyboard and where will I save my documents? etc.

Both are genuine concerns of course but both have missed the point of the iPad. I first spoke in public of this device when working with Apple in 1992 and have been anticipating its release ever since. And amazingly the form factor and functionality is not far from what we imagined in those early days at Apple. Yet the technology and market was way behind the concept.

One of the only ways we can understand new technology or a new paradigm is to extrapolate from our existing knowledge and behaviour. We change in step fashion. People need examples to build upon. That’s why truly revolutionary products fail. People just can’t get it.

Now both of the examples above come from the same paradigm which is the production paradigm. Or what we have mostly been doing with computers to date. One uses a laptop to produce (music, movies, stories) and even an iPhone has a particular purpose - to produce communications.

The iPad comes from a new and growing paradigm which is to consume. It won’t compete with previous devices because it is for a whole new growth market - low cost subscription consumption of digital media. This is an enter/info/edutainment device beyond compare. Rich interactive media connected to the ether to browse, find and consume content like never before possible in one device.

Most current web content is texty, 2D, and non-interactive and this will shift to rich graphical, 3D and highly interactive, but also highly connected, content. The days of pulling out of an application to go to Google to search for a related piece of information will largely disappear as these connections are made seamlessly behind the scenes. The concept of Find will replace Search.

So who is going to buy this thing? Mainly people you haven’t met yet. That is a whole new audience. The people that iPhone and laptop users don’t mix with. ie the other 80% of the population.

Apple is on a winner here but this time they will be sharing the spoils with Nokia, Sony and Panasonic and the like since now they are firmly in the mobile consumer market. And a very competitive market it is.

Redbean - My work is about helping organisations change - for the better. And when we embark on any change program, personal or organisational, one of the first issues we have to come to grips with is the possibility of failure. Failure in the sense that you didn’t meet expectations, or you couldn’t sustain the change, or you implemented poorly or you just made some errors of judgement. That is failure is relative. You might have got close. You could be way off.

Rarely do we meet or exceed all our expectations so failure is always present in some form. What I have found from recent research is that how we prepare for and deal with failure is a critical element of any change program’s success. And how we do that is primarily a cultural response to the word itself, how openly we can discuss the concept and what normally happens when failure occurs.

Some cultures and many people avoid using the word failure altogether, as if it has some power over them. Words don’t have power, only their meaning.

The literal meaning of failure is that one has not achieved a standard or goal, set by either themselves or others, for whatever reason. So the literal meaning of failure is fairly rational but the personal meaning is probably always disputable (as is success) and depends on who is setting the benchmark.

So word or the act of failure is an emotional trigger and those emotions are tied to the consequences any perceived failure might incur - including the denial of the benefits that would probably come with success. Humans love to strive and we don’t like to lose. That makes sense. But to change we must accept risk.

Yet it is those consequences of failure that will probably define your success. Entrepreneurs have a mantra to “fail early and fail often”. That’s how we learn and as long as we do learn this philosophy works. Ask any toddler.

How hard we strive then is defined by the risk where the excitement of the reward competes against the fear of the consequences of failure. So what if we started to remove the fear of the word, meaning and consequences of failure from our lives, organisations and culture?

A recent phenomena, at least in the western world, is the official apology. I am always impressed when a CEO, politician or public servant can stand up in public and say “I/we stuffed up”. This new trend is improving the world and our organisations. Yet many still see it as a sign of weakness.

All cultures differ in their response to failure yet generalising is dangerous.

Unfortunately the alternative to open acceptance of failure in our work and organisations is still too prevalent - arse-covering occurs all the time and is relative, from white lies to outright cover ups.

Transparency and open discussion is the first step towards successful change. My first hint that I am in an arse-covering culture is when people are reluctant to do that. Ongoing dialogue around targets and understanding how we can learn and improve when we reach/miss them is the oil that lubricates the process of healthy change.

So I apologise for the cheap psychology lesson but I know I am going to spend a lot more time discussing the meaning, measures and consequences of success and failure before I start new projects in the future. A lot of organisational change fails and I am trying to understand why. But I think most of it is in our heads…

If this article has failed to meet your expectations… well, it wasn’t my fault!

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Redbean - Hello. Heads are funny things. This post is coming to yours from deep inside my head. One of the most unmapped territories on earth!

I am in here rustling about in the archives as I do my PhD literature review. A sadistic process of elation, frustration and long lonely hours that for some reason becomes mildly addictive. And then you write blogs to break out…

I was sent this link from the shiny new blog of Christine Geith who is an advocate of open learning amongst other things.

Chris put me on to this blog by Umair Haque that rails against the dragging of 20th century business models into the 21st century. Music to my ears.

The example Haque is citing is one he has pursued before yet now seems to have come true. The article FaceBook Turns Evil shows how a seemingly 21C company is applying 20C tactics and thinking to monopolise a market while ignoring many of the very 21C privacy concerns of its users. Intriguing stuff.

So I am going back to the relative safety of my head but when I find out why organisations desire to be evil I will let you know. After careful elimination of many possible reasons including “doing good is boring” and “evil just looks fantastic in the mission statement” I think I might be on to a strong lead. Money, power and access to Tiger Woods’ address book! Can’t confirm that yet but I’ll let you know what my research shows up…

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Redbean - Another of the social entrepreneurs at the Social Enterprise World Forum in Melbourne recently.

Bronwyn has plenty of energy to put into the dual problems of poverty and environmental degradation.

When was the last time you saw someone getting this passionate about the steel industry?

RiseUp Productions

SEWF09

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Redbean - Tamra Ryan, CEO, of the Women’s Bean Project, in Denver Colorado explains the beginnings of this unique social enterprise.
Women’s Bean Project

From the Social Enterprise World Forum 09