by Jon Husband
February 11, 2010 at 2:25 pm · Filed under
FASTforward'09
For the purposes of this post, let’s call Enterprise 2.0 the networked organization. OK ?
(And I will put this caveat up front .. I do not know the answers to the issues I pose in this post, but I am willing to bet that as we progress further into the networked world and workplace, the issues regarding designing work – and the accompanying changes to practices such as compensation and performance management – will have to addressed).
I do have some ideas .. such as updating for networks some of the core principle in Elliott Jaques’ Requisite Organization theory. I can imagine that someone eventually will come up with a new methodology (a set of ‘recipes’ ?) that can be followed to design work (and the derivatives such as competency profiles, compensation philosophy and practices, and performance management approaches) but I am not aware that any such coherent framework yet exists.
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Today, there’s a lot of chatter about bottom-up versus top-down, the collective wisdom of the organizational crowd, and various related themes. However, there’s also ongoing dissonance or competition between the methods behind structured and defined organizational forms and activities, and the growing world of hyperlinked flows in which knowledge and meaning are built layer by layer, exchange by exchange (all those hyperlinked interactions that increasingly make up what we call “knowledge work”) as enabled by social computing.
At the heart of the issue is the way work is designed and an organization develops its structure. A primary tool in designing work and structure is job evaluation (and derivatives like accountability mapping and redundancy analysis).
I don’t mean job evaluation as in assessing job performance – I mean what many HR professionals call work or job measurement – the function that assigns jobs to levels and pay grades based on job “weight” with respect to skill, effort, responsibility and working conditions (the legal criteria for assessing what a job worth, and what is used to assess “equal pay for work of equal value). These methods and their underlying assumptions are used to create the skeletal architecture of organizations … the hierarchical pyramid we all know very well and in which many people work.
Dissonance in job requirements
The methodology of job evaluation is, in my opinion, a very useful place to look at some of the reasons for the ongoing dissonance and resistance to change that I suggest we are seeing and will continue to experience. Job evaluation is what creates pay grades, pay practices, thresholds for entry into bonus schemes, sometimes the criteria for distinguishing between management and non-management jobs, and so on.
Fundamentally, job evaluation (or work measurement in the professional jargon) relies very heavily on the assumption that knowledge is hierarchically structured and put to use. It follows that the job requirements which have requirements for more knowledge —on paper—is the job that deserves to be “higher up” in the organization.
There are four or five major, well-known methodologies for measuring work. They all use very similar factors (sometimes described a bit differently semantically, with a couple more or less factors or sub-factors) and they all essentially measure the same thing.
Redesigning work requirements
These fundamental principles of work design need to be examined and re-conceived if the significant power of social computing is ever to be realized.
As an example I will use the Hay Guide Chart Method’s factors, as I know them the best, but I have also worked with the Aiken Plan and the Towers Perrin and Watson Wyatt (the two merged recently and the firm is now known as Towers Watson) job evaluation methodologies in the past.
The Hay Method uses the model that all work has three phases—input, throughput and output—and employs three core factors to measure that work:
1. Know-how – knowledge and skills acquired through education and experience.
2. Problem-solving - the application of the said knowledge to problems encountered in the process of doing the work.
3. Accountability – the level and type of responsibility a given job has for coordinating, managing or otherwise having impact on an organization’s objectives.
There is a fourth factor called working conditions, but in many cases this is treated almost as a throw-away factor, especially when it comes to knowledge work, as it relates to fumes, chemicals, outdoor exposure, dangerous physical conditions, unusual exogenous stress, etc.
On the face of it, these factors seem eminently reasonable and the method (and the related ones cited above) have, since the early 1950’s, largely served organizations well for designing one or another particular pyramid,. These methods are put into practice along with other key assumptions from the era when today’s large organizations began to grow and prosper. The assumptions as articulated are derived from the philosophy of Taylorism (aka scientific management) and the divisions of labour and packaging of tasks that have underpinned the search for efficiency and scale ever since the beginning of the 20th century.
Changing assumptions about knowledge
Just as important is the underlying assumption of these methods about the fundamental nature of knowledge. It assumes that the acquisition, development and use of knowledge proceeds slowly and carefully and is based on an official taxonomy of knowledge in a given domain, a vertical arrangement of information and skills that are derived from the official institutions of our society (Jane Jacobs has a fair bit to say about this in Chapter 3 titled Credentialing vs. Educating in her last book Dark Age Ahead, as do others like John Taylor Gatto and Alfie Kohn (Punished By Rewards – the Trouble With Gold Stars, Incentive Plans, A’s, Praise and Other Bribes) as does David Weinberger’s Everything Is Miscellaneous – the power of digital disorder) … an important book in my opinion.
I’ll offer an example below (the paraphrasing of the Hay Method’s semantic scales for measuring a job’s knowledge). This vertical arrangement of Know-How (knowledge) is basically what supports and sustains vertical reporting relationships. The other two factors (Problem-solving and Accountability) derive from and reinforce the Know-how factor. For example, the rules of job evaluation are such that you cannot have a problem-solving or accountability factor assessment that is of a higher order than the Know-how slotting.
The definitions of the know-how (knowledge and skills ) factor levels are paraphrased from the semantic definitions on the actual Hay Guide Chart.
A – Unschooled and unskilled
B – Some school, some skill
C – Basic high school, routine work
D – Vocational school, community college, trades, senior administrative
E – University graduation, senior trades, managerial (reads the books)
F – University plus 10 years experience, grad school (puts the books to use)
G – Deep knowledge and expertise (writes the books)
H – God (has others write the books)
BUT … these methods come from the 50’s and early 60’s and did not envision or foresee the Web, hyperlinks and the exchanges of information, and the bit-by-bit layering and assembly of knowledge and peer-to-peer negotiation of results and responsibilities we are seeing emerge with greater frequency in this new networked world.
Multiple ways to structure knowledge
We are beginning to understand that the main way we have structured knowledge is only one way, and that this way is captive to core assumptions about the ordering and classification of information as created by some of the great thinkers, organizers and classifiers of information and knowledge who helped build up our growing understanding of the world around us (Linnaeus, Darwin, Dewey, etc.).
What we have developed into solid and maybe seemingly unassailable beliefs about knowledge are built upon the principles we have inherited from a time when human progress benefited greatly from regular and related discoveries about the world around us, both natural and man-made.
For example, it’s clear that there was a proliferation of written / printed material from the 1600’s through the 1900’s, containing amongst other things much codification of discoveries of the knowledge we use today in a wide range of domains and disciplines. More and more (too much ?) of this knowledge is accessible very rapidly on today’s Web in ‘fragments of one’ (nod to Dave Snowden’s assertion that the brain works most effectively with fragments of information) connected by search engines, hyperlinks and a range of easily used publishing platforms.
So … now let’s look at how information is shared and exchanged in order to build and use knowledge amongst networked individuals or groups. The use of knowledge in a networked context is very often much more horizontal, sideways and based on accessibility and collaboration. Much more so than is the use of knowledge in formally structured hierarchies.
Linked knowledge
What we know today is that people with vastly different types and forms of knowledge can be or are linked together for a wide (and potentially limitless) range of purposes (though clearly we are learning quickly about the limits to cognitive attention as lessons in social surplus are offered up to us almost every day).
Addressing Purpose A connects individuals with Skills and Knowledge Set B, Interests and Knowledge Set B, and Connections and Knowledge Set C (and of course the second-order concentric ring of connections each of them brings to any given network in which any of them participate). Each of them subscribes to different sets of feeds and has is networked into different flows and sources of information than each of the others, but can forward to all those in the on-purpose network anything that comes across their attention that may be pertinent to the purpose at hand. Then, they can (and sometimes do) get together to discuss, use and make operational the combination(s).
Using the knowledge described in the scenario above involves navigating the dynamics of attention and flow created by a continuous circulation of pertinent and relevant information. Therein lie the roots of the power of social computing that KM practitioners have been noticing as Web 2.0 tools, service and capabilities become more firmly ensconced in knowledge work, in the guise of platforms for collaboration—and the domain increasingly called Enterprise 2.0.
I think it is (very) safe to say that problem-solving or accountability is assigned or accepted in that situation based on negotiation of ‘who knows what’ or ‘how to get something done’, and often a call (Tweet, blog post, Skype chat, email) is put out to find and access some additional skill or knowledge that is required, and accountability is negotiated based on the constraints of the purposeful activity at hand.
Any of us familiar with medium to large sized organizations can begin to see, I believe, that the fundamental Taylorist assumption that knowledge is structured vertically and put to use in siloed pyramidic structures and cascaded down to the execution level must be straining at the seams in the increasingly highly-connected social networks in which many people work today.
Social computing – first dissonance, then participative flow ?
Thus, it seems clear that the introduction of wikis, blogs and RSS feeds (and now micro-blogging a la Twitter) for project work, for analysis and planning, for research and development and for other knowledge-intensive work is likely to introduce some reasonable levels of dissonance into the common and accepted organizational dynamics (or “organizational sociology”) of formal, traditionally structured organizations.
Hey out there .. anyone know exactly what to do about this ?
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by Jon Husband
February 9, 2010 at 4:43 pm · Filed under
FASTforward'09
They will be a LOT cheaper, of course
Ross Dawson discusses a Gartner report on social software, looking at some particular forecasts for the next three to five years out:
20% of businesses using social media instead of e-mail by 2014
50% of businesses using activity streams, such as micro-blogging, by 2012
20% of businesses will use social network analysis by 2015
70-95% of IT dominated social media initiatives will fail through to 2012
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(UPDATE: For additional clarity, Ross Dawson pinged me on Twitter to point out that “Actually that’s 95% of *IT-driven* social software initiatives – many will succeed but not those that come from IT perspective” … that’s as opposed to IT-dominated; small but oh-so-important point)
I’ve highlighted the last point because it’s time to look at social media and social computing as a connecting force in the enterprise. (This still applies in light of Ross’ clarification, but in my opinion the larger issue still stands. He may well differ.)
For me, yesterday and today have been a stream of pretty intense conversations (via email and Twitter .. maybe soon to include Google Buzz and/or Wave ?) about the bluring-of-the-boundaries between Learning / Training & Development, KM, work design & HR, OD (organizational development), strategic decisions by the IT department, and probably core elements of leadership and management development.
The lines are blurring are between these more-or-les silo’ed organizational domains, just as they are between marketing and training and between learning and working. The connectivity enabled by social computing gives us an opportunity to identify overlapping areas and redundancies in organizational human performance support. A unified support function, focused on really serving workers and helping them grow, could significantly reduce the 77% of CLO Magazine survey respondents who feel that people in their organization are not growing fast enough to keep up with the business.
Every department in the enterprise is part of the problem:
IT: for locking down computers and treating all employees like children, closing off a wealth of information, knowledge and connections outside the artificial firewall.
Communications: for forcing employees to use approved messages that do not even sound human.
Training: for separating learning from work.
HR: for forcing people into standardized jobs and competency models that do not reflect the person.
It’s time for all departments to become part of the solution.
Myself and a network of interested friends and colleagues (I consider anyone with whom I exchange on the purposeful issues I pay attention to and work on a “colleague”) have been discussing the blurring of lines between traditional organizational departments. I believe that the general consensus is that any organizational change, especially using social computing, needs to look at the whole of the organization and not just the parts.
Organizational culture, or its DNA, is an emergent property of the various components working, hopefully, in concert. Enabling only one department to initiate the change to a more cooperative and networked organization, may be a recipe for failure (70-95% of the time).
Of course, as always we’ll see what happens as the future unfolds.
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by Rob Paterson
February 8, 2010 at 3:53 pm · Filed under
2.0 Business Model, 2.0 Design Thinking
Jon and I hope to reveal to you why it is so hard to get performance from a conventional organization today? Why do they find change so hard? Why is cooperation all but impossible? Why are people so unhappy?
Why is HR and all it stands for in the way?
The simple answer is that the simple idea of a “Job” – really a new idea since 1905 and the advent of the Ford Motor Company – no longer works but all the rules insist that it does. HR is all about the Job.
But the Job is going away – even without my polemic. It is dying quietly. Maybe we could hurry it along?
Organizations are being de-capitalized and networked.
After I left CIBC, most of the operational aspects of the bank’s HR department were outsourced. The same for IT. Much of the data processing had preceded that and now lives in a utility coop with some other banks and IBM I believe.
Today large chunks of any large organization that would have been inside are now supplied as services from the outside. The monolith is looking more like an eco system than a machine.
Back in the day, 1994, there were part time employees but they were somehow seen as an exception. Most were in junior roles. They were landless serfs. The lowest of the low and there are even more of these roles now.
But now at the high end and at the skill end this is changing. No longer landless serfs, the new contrator is the Knight for hire – The White Company of our time.
Today, especially in smaller firms, many key roles are played by long term outsiders. I am involved in such a start up today where all the key roles such as accounting, HR, legal etc will be rented from people that will be working under a retainer. These will not just be “consultants” but high level people who will have long term relationships. I play this role with several clients already. This enables, smaller firms to have national or global capability at a price that they can afford.
There are Men at Arms for hire as well. People with important skills that everyone needs
All over North America, networks of book keepers are emerging. The ones that I know of have a roster of about 6 -12 clients each and back each other up. Such an arrangement is ideal for both sides. The firm gets consistency and security while not paying for full time staff – the book keeper has the security of having say 10 clients and with that she can lose some or break up with those that she does not like,
If the Contractor CFO is the Knight for Hire, these are the “Men at Arms”. I use these terms because I think what we are seeing has happened before.
In the middle ages, the main occupation was war. But there was a revolution in the 15th century. Until then your birth determined your rank in the hierarchy. It mattered not much if you were any good, if you were born a noble or a knight (JOB) you were that. But after the Black Death, people were scarce. If you were a king, you wanted to have an army that was good. You paid for real skill and not for position. War became a profession where real accomplishment and the ability to attract good people to you became the new norm.
The centre of the problem is the whole idea of a job. I think it is a relic of the early industrial past ad has no place in the world we live in. It is bad for us as people and it is bad for organizations. It is all about the infantilism of the work place.
Strong words! OK lets look at the Job and what it means and then at the alternative.
- The Employee has a “Job”. This is an artifact that has skill boundaries and skill demands. Recruitment is an impersonal process based on the idea that the job has defined tick boxes and we are all ciphers. “Must have 4 years experience as a ********* Plus an education *******” Few interviews or jobs demand any behavioural attributes. It is seen as bad form to hire people you know. So you can be a psychopath and that is OK because the skills on the table are instrumental. Nor does a job imply what performance is. Somehow the work continues as defined for ever??? The employee is also assumed to be a child who needs to be supervised. The reason is that the outcome of what she does is never on the table. She is assumed to need training, for she could never get skills herself. Her #1 real job is pleasing her boss. The #1 career path is to get into management, for that is where the money is. The #1 aim is to have the largest budget for that drives the biggest pay check. None of any of this has much to do with the work at hand or the goals of the organization. The #1 process is the budget! This is why cooperation and collaboration are no no’s. The only route is up or out or burn out. It is every man for himself. There is no friendship in the executive ranks. The competition are people you understand and who know what you face. Your colleagues are the real foe. Sound familiar?
- So let’s look at the evolving alternative. The contractor has a “Gig” or a long term role to play. Central to the appointment is that there is an output, an impact and a result required. The real interview issue is, can you show that you can and have done this? Not only does the contractor have to prove that, but smart employers will find out what it is like to work with that person. Behavior is central. The hiring issue is reputation not resume. Not only should this person have skills but also a network. Much of what a contractor brings are others who can help in some way. If the contractor has a longer term connection it is because she can still add value to the ever changing work. The contractor gets more money by being more competent in fields that are of value. He stays as long as he is needed. He gets new work as a result of the good work he has done before. He looks after his own training. Most of his skill development comes from doing hard and new work not from taking courses.He needs next to no supervision, he is after all hired because he is competent. The focus is on the work. His security is his field and his good name. Having more than one employer is better than only having one. He tends to own his own tools that tend to be better than his employers! He is no threat to his employer and can often become close. His best allies are his colleagues in his field. As teams they do better. They help each other. They routinely collaborate.
In looking at these two views of how work is done we see the heart of the HR and OD issue today.
Let’s explore this dissonance over the next few weeks. For we have two systems that are in the same space.
The whole social software field is behind the latter. The adoption issues are all related to the OD metaphor.
If we can see the role that our conventional thinking plays in harming the real needs of the organization and of the people in it, we might make some progress.
by Bill Ives
February 8, 2010 at 3:42 am · Filed under
Collaboration, Mobile
Forrester has issued a report, Collaboration Needs Will Fuel A Smartphone Surge, by Ted Schadler with Matthew Brown, Brownlee Thomas, Michele Pelino, and Peter Schmidt, with the subtitle: The Surge Can Be Funded Through A Bring-Your-Own Smartphone Strategy. I appreciate receiving a review copy. It predicts that 2010 will be the year of the smartphone surge.
The Forrester team surveyed 3,904 information workers nad found great excitement about about smartphones, “attracted by the ability to email, collaborate, and work with documents from anywhere.” While only 14% percent of information workers across the US, Canada, and UK already use smartphones, another 64% would like to. This compares with general consumers usage at 78% with mobile phones and 11% with smart phones. That yet to be fulfilled demand in information workers, along with some employers’ willingness to share monthly mobile costs, sets the stage for the surge. This calls for KM and other information professionals to determine a strategy for effective and coordinated usage. There is also the numbers to pressure mobile carriers to cut costs across plans.
I imagine that most smart users also use a fraction of the capability of their devices. I know I do. I see my colleagues using much more capability. The report provides along list of potential capabilities and their current usage from email (92%) to enterprise apps (7%). Some others include: personal contacts (84%), work calendar (83%), IM (48%), emergency response (17%), and team collaboration (12%). The last one should go up dramatically if the report is correct it its predictions.
Location flexibility is the top reason (60%) for using a smartphone over a laptop. The increased reach will provide the ROI for smartphone, according to Forrester report. While this seems obvious, there seem to be two reasons here: the portability of the device and the extended access, and these will continue to evolve. Having greater wifi access will mitigate one difference and such devices as the tablet might go into the other. However, I think the convergence of capabilities into a single type of device that takes two forms will balance that out.
In other words, content that used to come through many channels such as music, TV, Web, phone now comes through one device (see for example, TV Moving Closer to Mobile Phones and the Web and Who Will Win: TV Sets or Computers?. I now have all my music and photos on my iPhone, as well as my laptop and have stopped using separate devices for them. However, this device will take two forms, one that sits on a desk and perhaps even connects to a larger monitor and one that fits in your pocket. There will be an increased need to synch these devices and that needs to be part of the smartphone strategy.
There is much more in the report including suggestions on how to start your smartphone strategy.
