When learning is work and work is...

Harold Jarche has a great blog and shares a lot of his thinking on old HR and old learning and what social learning could bring to organizations. Recently he had a post titled 'Work is learning and learning it the work' that got me thinking.

He basically opposed against pulling learning and work out of each other, as it seems to be in many companies. This is shown by the fact that most companies have someone responsible for learning (HR manager or Learning & Development manager) and formal (online) training.

Learning should be the work. Maybe it's even stronger: Learning is the work. Harold challenges us to actively observe how people are learning to do their job right now.

But why is this so hard for companies? I've written about Peter Senge's book before. Hardly any companies I know can truly be called a learning organization. And Senge's book has been out for more than 20 years now...

As Harold proposes, a simple step could be to "provide time and space for reflection and reading". Some companies like Google explicitly give employees time to do something else. But most people are not given time to reflect. They have to take it themselves, because they themselves find it important to learn. What's wrong here?

Maybe the solution is to start at the personal level. Like Harold's focus on PKM (personal knowledge management), we should start with personal learning. We decide to want to learn and therefore need time to reflect and read. If your company doesn't give you that space, maybe you should move on. Is that it? Or are there other ways?

Also refer to this post by John Stepper about why managers do stupid things.

Mastering the Social Work Mindset - HR and Enterprise 2.0 #e20s

This breakout (track 3) at the Enterprise 2.0 Summit is about 'Mastering the social work mindset'. Breakout speakers are Anthony Poncier and Ellen Trude.

Anthony kicks off with a sort presentation about HR and Enterprise 2.0. (Last year there was only one participant from the HR department at this Summit. This year there are many more.) HR should be on the wagon because people are the core of organizations. McKinsey recently stressed that the role of HR in E2.0 is essential. Why? Because of the inter-generational cultures (millenials, etc.), new job descriptions (like the community manager), talent management, impact on visibility and mobility (career development, L&D), etc.
It's important to look at and change the tradition HR processes for E2.0 success.

Ellen doesn't like the word training relating to social media and enterprise 2.0. Training is too much a one-way lecture. At Ellen's company they developed a social learning environment. The courses are designed for the people and not the other way around. In the environment they start with suggestions for tasks not a prescriptive tasks. The trainers are facilitators and the participants train each other. The results surprised Ellen. There was huge amount of feedback between participants. It relates to workplace learning, instead of formal learning. Learning is more integrated into work. There was an immediate translation to their work.
Another interesting thing Ellen tells about is how the HR department goes out and listens to the organizational social networks to find out what is working well and how to improve social learning.
Ellen is convinced the Training department has to change their mindset. The Training department will not be needed in the future. It will have in the networks.

Are Millenials Really that Different? - My Review of Grown Up Digital

Are millennial really that different? Do they play, learn, communicate, work and create differently than their parents? Are they smarter or dumber? More or less social? And if so, what should we know about them? More importantly, what should management and companies know about them, because they are the future.
Lots has been written about the so called millennials or Generation Y. I've been following the news and research on them. When Don Tapscott wrote a book about being 'grown up digital' I thought I'd read it. At that time I was becoming more skeptical about the stories about Gen Y. In daily practice I was seeing older colleagues quickly picking up new ways of working, while young colleagues were very reluctant to use new media.

Technically I'm not a millennial. I don't belong to the 'Net Generation'. The generation that has been "bathed in bits". According to Tapscott someone's part of the Net Generation when you're born between 1977 and 1997.

Eight norms
The outline of the book is built around 8 characteristics of the typical Net Gener that differentiate them from their boomer parents. These are:

• They prize freedom and freedom of choice
• They want to customize things, make them their own
• They're natural collaborators, who enjoy conversation, not a lecture
• They scrutinize you and your organization
• They insist on integrity, openness
• They want to have fun
• Speed is normal
• Innovation is part of life.

Did you know?
There's lots of interesting information in this book. The data underlying this book is also shared broadly in colorful(!) tables and diagrams. For instance:

• did you know the center of the world is Asia, when you look at the Millennial population?
• did you know research is showing the Net Generation's brain is different from other generations (ch. 4)?
• did you know Gen Y is the smartest generation every (IQ scores are on the rise and they have better social skills)? (p. 110)
• did you know family is a big deal to them and they stay home longer?

What should companies do?
This book also addresses what companies and institutions should do to meet Millennials needs and norms. Performance feedback, for instance, is extremely important. It increases their loyalty (to a career path, not an employer). Learning should be seen as something you do all your life, not just in school. Companies should decentralize their decision making and embrace new technologies that link employees in teams around the world. Young employees want to add value, make a difference, challenge the status quo, and understand how their work contributes to organizational success. Companies should define policies on using tech in companies to encourage sharing (in the right way). Also relating to Tapscott's biggest concern about Gen. Y: privacy. (p 294, 304) He finds millennials really need help with understanding privacy and how being too open about certain things can thwart their future goals.

The bottom line of the book is: "if you understand the Net Generation, you will understand the future. You will also understand how our institutions and society need to change today." I definitely think that non-Millennial managers and leaders should read this book.

Some interesting quotes
Tapscott shared and interesitng quotes I'd like to share with you (both from page 292):
Samuel Johnson: "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."
Rob Cross: "[Who] you know has a significant impact on what you come to know, because relationships are critical for obtaining information, solving problems, and learning how to do your work."
And two of his own:

"It's all about word of mouth - but the word traveled at the speed of atoms, not bits." (p. 274)
"General online activity - hunting for information, reading, and responding - is far from mindless." (p. 290)

Good food for thought!

Only the rich?
One thing that struck me in the book was the fact that Tapscott points to many Net Geners who seem to have everything they want (including his own kids). I was wondering if this story about millennials also applies to the less-privileged youth. Can they also be characterized in the same way? In other words: is the difference between the boomers and the net generation their access to technology or is it more philosophically-oriented?

Well-balanced
I enjoyed reading this book. The book is well-balanced and convincing. Tapscott addressed the concerns about the new generation, but also underlines their potential. I loved the layout of the book and the use of color (in the diagrams). All-in-all a book I'd recommend you to read.

UPDATE: Here's an interesting different perspective.

Where imaginations play, learning happens - A Great Interview

I've always been intrigued by the concept of learning. It's one of the reason I like blogging so much and social media in general. It's a great way to learn!

Every now and then I bump into a great post or interview about this topic. Just recently I read a great interview with John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas about their new book 'A New Culture of Learning' (part 1 and part 2). I was planning to read the book. After reading this interview I'm going to push it up on my to-read list. Thanks Henry Jenkins for sharing this interview with us.

I'll share some interesting statements from the interview with you here:

• One of the key arguments we are making is that the role of educators needs to shift away from being expert in a particular area of knowledge, to becoming expert in the ability to create and shape new learning environments.
• Our argument brings to the fore the old aphorism "imagination is more important than knowledge." In a networked world, information is always available and getting easier and easier to access. Imagination, what you actually do with that information, is the new challenge.
• The force that seems to be pushing the knowledge curve forward at an exponential rate is two fold. First, it is the generation of new content and knowledge that is the result of simply participating in any knowledge economy. This leads to a second related dimension: while content may remain stable at some abstract level, the context in which it has meaning (and therefore its meaning) is open to near constant change.
• Learning is not a binary construction which pits how against what. In fact, throughout the book, we stress that knowledge, now more than ever, is becoming a where rather than a what or how.
• In our framework, we stress that every piece of knowledge has both an explicit and a tacit dimension. The explicit is only one kind of content, which tells you what something means. The tacit has its own layer of meaning. It tells why something is important to you, how it relates to your life and social practices. It is the dimension where the context and content interact. Our teaching institutions have paid almost no attention to the tacit and we believe that it is the tacit dimension that allows us to navigate meaning in a changing world.
• The key difference for us is that in the new culture of learning mentors are very likely to be peers who may have picked up something a little ahead of the curve or who may have more experience in something than their peers. Mentorship is a much more flexible concept and one which is tied less tightly to authority. Since so much of what we see as the key to future learning is passion-based, we think it makes more sense to understand the process of learning as something that can be guided by a mentor, as opposed to being taught by a teacher. No one can teach you to follow your passions, but they can help guide you once you discover what motivates you.
• What we were able to identify were two radically different learning environments, one which was overly structured (such as the contemporary classroom) where boundaries are put in place to actually discourage play, experimentation and real inquiry based learning. The other environment is completely unbounded and unlimited, best represented by the information explosion on the Internet. Absent some sort of structure or boundaries, learning is not any more likely to happen in an unrestricted space than it is in a tightly controlled one.
• Where imaginations play, learning happens.
• What no one seems to pick up on is that innovation by its very nature runs counter to the idea of standardization.
• Another key distinction we are trying to make is to understand the difference between creativity and imagination, two terms that are often used interchangeably. Creativity is a much later stage and something that can not be taught. It is the product of a fertile imagination.
• Inquiry as a core principle of the new culture of learning
• In large part, the role of the teacher needs to shift from transferring information to shaping, constructing, and overseeing learning environments.
• You don't teach imagination; you create an environment in which it can take root, grow and flourish.
• This new culture of learning only works if it can be fed by an enormous influx of constantly updated information.
• We talk repeatedly about the questions being more important than the answers and the idea that solutions to one problem are gateways to dealing with increasingly more sophisticated problems and deeper questions.
• First, play is not trivial, frivolous or non-serious, in fact, quite the opposite. Play can be the place where we do our most serious learning. And second, it is something we do all the time. When we explore, we play. When we experiment, we play. When we tinker or fiddle, we play. Science is play. Art is play. Life, to a great extent, is play.

Good stuff eh?! There's much more in the interviews. And surely even more in the book.

An HR 2.0 Fail

I thought I'd wait a bit before posting this...
As you know I changed jobs not too long ago. During the last year I applied for several jobs and was asked to apply for jobs. One of those jobs was interesting for the fact that they had a 2.0 approach to recruiting. This company is trying to reach out to potential new employees in new ways. They also want to be more open about themselves by using social media. Their recruiting website clearly showed their (HR) employees were on Twitter, they used Youtube to tell more about working for their company, etc. I was impressed by it. And I also thought: hey, it looks like this company really understands 'the new way of recruiting/working'.
So, I applied for the job. I could upload my resume and other info to their site. Things went downhill from there...

Of course I got the automatic email saying they would get back to me within two weeks. After 3,5 weeks I thought I'd ask them how things were going. It took another week for them to reply to that email. Then, finally, after about 5-6 weeks they told me I didn't fit well with what they were looking for.
OK, no hard feelings. Really. Maybe I understood the job description incorrectly. Or maybe my resume isn't clear enough. So, I sent an email back asking them to clarify their decision. I asked for feedback, because they only sent me one line telling me I wasn't eligible. Another week passed by. I sent them another email. No response...

I'm not writing this to pick on them (and I'm not mentioning the company's name either). I think there's an important lesson to be learned here. The lesson is: If you says you want to go 2.0, you have to go full-circle.

Social media is not about pushing more information about your company, department or person via even more (new) channels. It starts with listening. Then start commenting and giving feedback. Listen some more and give feedback. Etc. Social media is about having a true conversation with a person (using technology). But if social media is the only thing you're focused on and you forget that good conversation can (and should) continue via 'old' media like the telephone or email due to confidentiality, people will notice and move away from you and/or your company.

What are your experiences with HR 2.0? Please share them with us!

Building a Company on Happiness

Zappos is a bit far away from a Dutchman. We don't have it here, yet. But of course you hear a lot about them. Zappos is praised for its culture, very engaged workforce, use of social media in business, great profit, etc.

Recently I wrote a post about 'Organizing on Passion'. Frederik Vieten, a student doing research at Océ, pointed me to Tony Hsieh's new book, Delivering Happiness. I hadn't heard of it yet, so that was a great pointer. I'm going to order and read it. But I also browsed the site and found a recent talk by Hsieh at Google.

Man, I watched it this talk this evening. And it's absolutely great. If you have an hour, just sit down, watch it and be inspired. What a great company and what a great leader Tony is. Here's the video:

I really liked the way the importance of company culture is stressed and how it can be crafted. I also love the way they select new employees based on questions linked to their core values. One of the most important Zappos values is 'be humble'. Wow! Tony says a company doesn't have to have the same values as Zappos, but if you have them it is key to really commit to them. To prove they are committed to their values they offer $2.000 to every new employee who wants to leave the company.

A neat thing is Zappos trains their employees to use Twitter (to express themselves, for customer contact, colleague connections, etc)

Another wow-moment was about their library. They have an open and free library for their employees and guest. Two key book in their to which Zappos relates deeply are: Jim Collins, Good to great and Dave Logan a.o., Tribal Leadership. Both books are great. And I've always wondered which high-level managers would take G2G and use it as a mirror for themselves as a leader and for the company. Hsieh is doing just that.

Thanks a lot Frederik for pointing to the book, that led to me finding this video!

Organizing on Passion

It's been a while ago since I read the great Shift Index 2009 report. I've been wanting to blog about it, but haven't had time yet. It's loaded with interesting insights. One big question I had is: This report is focused on the USA; how does this compare to Europe or Asia?

One thing from the report that stuck with me, was the importance of 'creative talent' and getting them to engage in 'creative problem solving, often by connecting with peers inside and outside the firm' (p. 11). On page 70 the report goes on to talk about 'worker passion'. The findings are pretty saddening. Lots of workers are not passionate about their work and self-employed workers are much more passionate than the firm-employed. The larger the size of the firm the less passionate workers get...

I went back to the Shift Index after reading a couple of things:

1. Steve Denning's post about the H in HR, which also points to the Shift Index and the importance of engaged workers delighting clients and stakeholders in self-organizing teams.
2. IBM's Capitalizing on Complexity study (to which ReadWriteWeb also recently referred) which stresses (cultivating) creativity is/will be key to thrive in a complex (business) world of the future.
3. Gartner's post about '10 Changes During the Next 10 Years'. Pointing to businesses working in work swarms. These are like teams, but have more emerging properties. They assemble and disassemble when needed. They are based on the spontaneity of workers

Maybe this is the difference millenials will make in the future, as prof. Andrew McAfee and Luis Suarez (a.o.) were debating.

All this got me thinking. As I commented on Denning's post: If this is so important, what would happen if we organized a company (even a large company!) on passion? Of course start-ups work in this way, if they're doing things well. So all workers could bail-out of their current projects, set up new ones, work on stuff (not) related to the company's mission statement, etc. What would happen? Would this work or will the un-interesting work (whatever that may be) be left undone? Or will this just lead to chaos?

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic! And I'd also be interested to hear of companies that are organized based on the passions of their employees.

Recruiting New Style

Thomas Friedman in The World is Flat and Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams in Wikinomics have predicted that the way companies will recruit people will be fundamentally different in the future.

In the past the model was easy: Get the best and brightest people to work for you. Of course these new employees would move close to your company and work inside the firewall as much as possible.

Of course we've seen some movement in this area. Outsourcing of jobs to India or China. Tele-commuting, working-more-from-home, etc.

At first I thought it looked like Google has taken this a step further. But this is fake (Twitter spam...). But the idea is great and got me thinking. In short the site said: Everyone with a computer and a broadband connection can work for us right from their homes. (And aren't we already, but clicking on links!? ;-)) Seriously, this could be interesting and big in my opinion. This 'offer' is 'only' focused on the US and Canada. But what if - and I'm sure they will - they would extend this to the world?

I told my wife about this as if it were real. She's not working (a paid job at least...) at the moment and taking care of this kids. But she responded right away: Great, I'd like to work for them!

Tags van Technorati: google,work,knowledge work,recruiting,HR

AegonNet and Self Service (Intranet 2009)

Breakout session at Intranet 2009 on 'AEGONNet and self service' by Paulien van der Lee (Online Communications Manager).

Gives overview of the development of their intranet (focus Aegon The Netherlands) and what they're doing on employee self service using intranet.

AegonNet consists of 3 parts: eHRM manager, eHRM employee and eHRM worker.

Introduced first self service modules some time ago: vacation planning. Plan your vacation removing the role of HR.

Did intranet redesign by learning from old one. Brought the amount of page types back to a minimum.

Now they have more self service modules. For employees:

1. Vacation planning,
2. My education (no education outside this module!),
3. HR cycle (manager-employee talks, appraisal, etc.
4. Employee benefits choice system,
5. My facility services (meeting reservation system, etc)

For managers:

1. View your department
2. Salary change procedure
3. Central account administration (role administration)
4. Central invoice management

They are working on modules for 'Aegon Flexshop' and 'Declarations/Expenses'.

Paulien shows a screenshot of their intranet (HR part). Looks nice, not too crowded homepage. Also shows plans for new/updated homepage. New design is focused on unification of intranets. Used 'card sorting' to find out what the design should be and the names/titles of the parts. They have two profiles for managers, because a manager is also an employee.

Redesigning their intranet will take years, Paulien thinks.

The screenshot she showed focused on the HR part of the intranet. Corporate news can be found on their intranet homepage.

The governance of their intranet is divided into editorial offices (80 in total!).

They're thinking about global people finder to work on one global intranet (- this presentation is about Aegon NL's intranet).

They are working on 'fun and intranet'. But priorities are elsewhere at the moment.

They have one HR system: Peoplesoft. The platform for their intranet is Morello (version 5.7).

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Tags van Technorati: intranet,knowledge management,HR