Off Course-On Target

Obviating the Org Chart

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Many of my audiences have asked me to comment  on my observation that we are seeing the obviation of the org chart in most organizations. Org charts and organizations are typically organized by grouping people by their common functional roles—accounting, engineering, marketing, sales, etc. but while I see continued relevance and value in these functions I don't see much value in grouping people this way. In fact, most of the time is seems that individuals and groups succeed in spite of the way they are organized, not because of it. Perhaps this is because in reality, almost all work is project-based and project teams are very multifunctional and made up of people with a very broad range of functional roles, skills, and expertise.   

How many times have you been shocked or surprised when you see the job titles and locations on the org chart where your fellow team members come from? How often have you found the most valuable members of a very successful project are the ones who were "accidentally" on the team or discovered by pure serendipity at the water cooler? Or how often have you been such a "surprising success" on a team? 

Over the past 10 years, as I travel to more and more locations around the world and have the privilege to be with more and more diverse groups, I've found this to be an increasing trend and pattern of success.  Similarly, when project teams are staffed according to the more "formal" type of classifications or "by the org chart", they are much less successful or at least rarely peak performers. 

But we still need some help in finding the right people, in being discovered ourselves and put on project teams where we can make significant contributions and truly realize our potential.  So if the org chart and other traditional methods are not working, what is? The social networking analysis that I noted, as well tapping into the "informal organization", are two areas that will help significantly. However, there is a way to apply these larger meta-trends to how we can be more effective in putting ourselves together for success as organizations, teams, or any other "assembly" of individuals.   

For example I've suggested that such collections of individuals are yet another form and a great application of the "mashup" models that are emerging (search "mashups" on OCOT for more details on this topic)  Successful teams and groups are also following some of the "un" trends such as unconferences and unlearning which are becoming more and more common and successful as they too focus on the informal aspects of these activities.   

I also see great promise in following the meta-trends of metadata and "getting small" as these apply to people. No, no, not smaller people <g> but smaller characterizations or categorizations of people—all of us. Recognizing each of us us as the unique "snowflakes" that we are. 

How?  By shrinking the organization from a set of boxes on an org chart to a collection of individuals, and "shrinking" individuals down into a long list of rich "metadata" that details all their skills, knowledge, experience, attitudes, aptitudes, abilities, etc. Each of these pieces needs to be as small (detailed) as possible.   

Yes, the length of this list would be huge—millions or more "lines" for each snowflake (person), multiplied by how many individuals are in the organization, and multiplied again by the relationships, past and present, and the "network paths" between them.

But so what if the size of this "database" is daunting? Storage availability is increasing exponentially, cost is on the asymptote to zero and computers love large, so let's take more advantage of all this.  Imagine if you could put together a detailed list of exactly the characteristics or skills or experience you were looking for, and launch this as a rich query into that equally rich database!  Imagine  pattern recognition and recommender tools could help you put together these queries based on the peak performance of individuals and teams that are similar to the one you are putting together. Now compare this to how things have been done to date with blunt instruments like org charts. No contest right?   

And yes, I also see this as another example of how pervasive the simple Lego block model is, not by treating people as blocks, but by enabling each of us to discover "just the right" people... or be discovered ourselves. This discovery model could not only be for full project teams, but for almost any combination of individuals for any purpose—finding the right person to ask a question, to add to an IM conversation, or to meet at a conference.   

This model also helps to show why I'm always advocating that we look way beyond our individual fields of interest and expertise when we are looking for tools, technology, techniques etc. We need to see through the specific context of those being used ,so we can see the underlying and even greater value, if it is there. For example, in the case of this topic of finding "just the right people", I'm hoping that we will start to see how something like the newly advanced forms of "dating technology" can be even more powerful just by changing the context from love to learning, or from romantic relationships to peak performers. 

Yes, dating technology and org charts seem a long way apart as do Lego blocks, snowflakes, and social networks, but hopefully you are finding your time here at Off Course - On Target to be worthwhile and that it is living up to the description of "Where unexpected paths lead to great discoveries".  Here's to more unexpected paths and more discoveries for all of us!

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The Hidden Workforce

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I am overdue for several notes about "org charts" so will try to catch up with this post and the next. I'm also behind in my reading (is there any such thing as being caught up?) but wanted to bring your attention to a recent article in Fortune magazine on "The Hidden Workforce".   

"Hidden" in this case refers to the more informal organization and the way things really work. Most who have worked in any kind of large organization know that to successfully work within an organization, you need to figure out who the "go to" people are for given issues, topics, and expertise as well as who to avoid. The opening of the article sums it up very well: 

"Anyone who has ever worked knows that the org chart, no matter how meticulously rendered, doesn't come close to describing the facts of office life. All those lines and boxes don't tell you, for example, that smokers tend to have the best information, since they bond with people from every level and department when they head outside for a puff. The org chart doesn't tell you that people go to Janice, a long-time middle manager, rather than their bosses to get projects through. It doesn't tell you that the Canadian and Japanese sales forces don't interact because the two points of contact can't stand each other." 

What's your OQ? Take our quiz. 

In every company there is a parallel power structure that can be just as important as the one everyone spends stressful days trying to master.......successful managers must understand this "constellation of collaborations, relationships, and networks," particularly in times of stress and transition. "We're not saying you can formalize the informal," says Katzenbach. "We're saying you can influence it more than you do."

Ahead of me as usual, a long time colleague Jay Cross also noticed this Fortune article in his "Kindred Spirits" posting last week. I suspect that Jay was interested in this article because of the study called "The Informal Organization" which spurred the Fortune article and because Jay has been bringing some much needed attention to the issue of "informal learning" on his blog and book by the same name.  Both of them are worth your time.

Jay and the Fortune article provide some additional links that are worth looking at such as the New Roundtable site by Rob Cross who recently published the book "The Hidden Power of Social Networks" and Orgnet.com which are both focused on the details of social networks and how to bring these otherwise invisible patterns into focus. 

This type of work is the crux of the Fortune article, and it outlines the work being done with Social Network Analysis (SNA).  The article has some very illustrative examples of how some diverse organizations have tackled problems such as energizing a sluggish culture, grooming leadership, keeping the talent happy, and improving collaboration. This has been an area of study for many years and I've always been fascinated with how social networks and technical networks are so amazingly similar. For example, in both cases the analysis of network "traffic" is able to clearly show the "hubs and spokes" of a network—be it a data network or a human network. In one of the cases outlined in the "Hidden Workplace" article, 300 peak performing executives and senior managers from Lehman Brothers, a large investment bank, worked with Rob Cross and Network Roundtable and:

"..... generated a graphic for everyone, a web of nodes and networks that allowed each executive to see who is connected to whom. The analysis assessed the strength of each person's network relative to others in Cross's database. It also mapped information flows. Several types emerged, including "connectors," who had the most extensive direct ties, and "brokers," who had the most diverse networks and who were key to getting things done. Then there were the 'bottlenecks,' who— either because they were overworked or because they hoarded information—kept things from happening. All the employees were able to see if they were on the periphery of networks or in the middle of them."

It's definitely worth your time to read this article and related links. Next post I'll talk about the trend toward obviating the org chart. Stay tuned!

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Brazil or Bust! (Part 2 of 2)

In my previous post, I told you about my adventure getting to this year's eLearning Brasil 2007 conference in São Paulo. The theme of this year’s event was The Influence of Leadership and Technology on Organizational Learning and Performance.

The conference itself was (and always is) very interesting for me and for all the attendees, based on past and present conversations and comments I have received. Obviously the majority of the attendees are from Brazil, but a growing and significant percentage of attendees are from other South American countries, such as Argentina, Chile, and Ecuador, as well as from Europe and North America. A full range of academia, especially universities and trade schools, commercial businesses, government personnel, and technology vendors are also well represented and are similarly diverse geographically.

Along with the eLearning conference, there is an awards ceremony for an annual competition t on technology that supports the visually impaired. The results are always amazing, and this year was no exception. So you can see why this is one of the only events that I regularly attend and why I get so much out of it.

As I mentioned earlier, Elliott Masie came to the conference via Internet-based video from his home in Saratoga Springs, New York, which worked extremely well. Elliott covered a range of key issues that he sees coming up over the next few years as well as some that are appearing now.

For example, he noted how people worldwide are feeling overwhelmed and distracted and the impact this is having on learning and performance. In this context, Elliott posed the question of whether good learning can take place at your desk and particularly, at work or on the job.

Next we discussed with the audience how there are similarities between cooking and eating, and learning and training, a comparison Elliott and I have found fascinating and valuable for several years. We reached a consensus that there are deep similarities between these two very human practices, so much can be learned from comparing them. The connection between learning and the world of food and eating appears to be so strong that Elliott is having master chef Bobby Flay join him at Learning 2007, where he will be cooking while Elliott is interviewing him about the design, innovation, and evolution of cooking, and how it relates to our world of learning. Best of all, we will get to sample some of what Bobby has cooked up. Now THAT is performance and learning at their best, don’t you think? ?

Next, we kept Elliott on line and on the screen and brought two other global leaders—Dr. Alistair Benson, Academic Director of Manchester Business School Worldwide, and Eric Shepherd, President, Question Mark Corporation—onto the stage for a Socratic Dialogue on “The Influence of Leadership and Technologies in Organizational Learning and Corporate Performance”. In a wide-ranging discussion, we covered observations such as:

• Contrary to the rhetoric that large numbers of workers are retiring and so we should be concerned about the “brain drain” that this would produce, we are seeing the opposite happening in several ways. First, just because people are eligible to retire based on age and years of employment, doesn’t mean they will, and indeed many are choosing not to. While in many cases, this change in the age of the population may involve a change in the kind of work and conditions, such as shorter work days or weeks, more flexibility, different roles, or more of a facilitative and consultative role, the real change is that people are living longer and working longer…A LOT longer.

Secondly we noted that this change would produce a broader range of chronological age among individuals on a team and in an organization. In many places, for example, we are seeing people enter the workforce earlier, sometimes because they are sought out by employers and are convinced to leave their education and training programs earlier because they already have sufficient skills and the knowledge that is so badly needed. Combined with the people from other end of the age spectrum, we can expect teams whose membership spans teenagers to centenarians. A good discussion ensued on what this means for learning and for working.

• An audience member from the São Paulo area talked about the challenge his company is facing from the lack of people with engineering talent and what should be done about this. The ensuing discussion found that this phenomenon is broad-based in most countries in the Americas and Europe and quite the opposite in developing regions, such as India and Asia.

The discussion included the trend of “mass contribution” by increasing numbers of people. Knowledge and expertise is now being captured through e-mail and instant messaging to blogs and wikis. There is, however, a missed opportunity to “mine” the growing repositories of such communications for the nuggets of knowledge, patterns, and other value within.

After a short break, I had the audience to myself—a wonderful opportunity. Beforehand, I had them choose one of several themes that they’d like me to talk about and to my delight, they chose “The Snowflake Effect”. We took a fun hour or so going through what is currently my favorite topic: uniqueness and the Snowflake Effect. Here are the slides from my talk:

One of the things I value about the support I’m afforded from Autodesk is being able to spend time with bright. eclectic people in different locations on this planet every day.  This gives me the chance to test just how broad and applicable are the trends that I see. This diverse range of people from Brazil and South America confirmed once again just how powerful these notions of mass personalization, mass contribution, and the Snowflake Effect really are and how well these translate into their context. 

Given this tremendous validation and confirmation from so many locations and so many contexts, my close colleague and friend Erik Duval and I are hard at work developing the Snowflake Effect into a full conceptual model and articulating this in much greater detail. Please stay tuned for upcoming announcements when we will have a site dedicated to the Snowflake Effect where we will be asking for your input, reactions and critiques.

For now, I hope you find some good value from my most recent experience in the great metropolis of São Paulo. And my sincere thanks to Francisco and the super staff of MicroPower for the great job you do of making eLearning Brasil somehow better every year. It’s an honor and a privilege to be a part of the whole experience.

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Melting your way to creative thinking

In my last post “Building teams with tires?”, I introduced you to PIT Instruction & Training's award-winning program "Inside the Box” where two teams compete against each other to successfully change all four tires on a real NASCAR race car. The program teaches participants about critical elements such as feedback, process improvement, and breaking everything down to small steps—all  to improve the process and the team. How might you use this information to do some “outside the box” thinking to come up with similarly effective forms of learning and performance? 

In a former life I was an Industrial Technology instructor. One of my favorite areas to teach was metalworking, and specifically the foundry where you learn how to create hollow molds into which you pour molten cast iron, aluminum, bronze, and other metals to create any forms or shapes you want. Similar methods are also used to create jewelry using gold and silver or creating toys and kitchen goods with plastic.

What’s my point?  I learned that there seems to be a real difference between people who have this experience and those who don't—differences in how they THINK and their degrees of imagination and creativity. I don’t have any scientific proof but there seems to be something quite profound about realizing that something most people assume to be  “solid” and something you can only change or shape by cutting or gluing or welding, can actually be temporarily turned back to a liquid and then suddenly almost ANY shape or form becomes possible! This seems to have a deep effect on most people as far as their ability to be more creative in solving problems and in their ability to “design” simple and complex things.

Many seem to transfer this experience out of the physical realm and use it, often unknowingly, in a conceptual sense to help them create solutions to social issues, teams, and other applications. So just as the PIT group has come up with this very effective way of building more effective teams and learning six sigma concepts, I think it would be a great idea to offer similar short programs in foundry or jewelry-making as management and leadership or as creative thinking and problem-solving courses.

Think about it and see what you can come up with for other novel approaches. Send me your great examples of being “Off Course and On Target”. Post your ideas here in the comments field and let’s see what kinds of fun and effective learning approaches we can come up with. Or perhaps you know of other examples you can post as links or provide information about? 

Thanks for tuning in. More to follow.

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Building teams with tires?

Recently, at the Learning 2006 conference in Orlando, Florida, Elliott Masie presented several awards for the most outstanding examples of learning and performance improvement. One award, which went to PIT Instruction & Training  is particularly interesting because this team-building component is a relatively small program within a much larger set of training for the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR). If you’re curious about it, read the New York Times article on the full PIT school.

Along with full programs for NASCAR pit crews, PIT offers these shorter team-building programs for individuals who want to improve their management and leadership skills. These "Think Inside the Box" programs are based on desired outcomes and goals, where groups participate in a fun and interactive pit crew Entertainment Program or benefit from a custom-designed program to address specific challenges within their organization.

The phrase “inside the box” refers to the pit box area in which motor sports pit crews change tires and fuel the race car in under 13 seconds. These programs can last for a few hours or for several days and is “based on the theories and concepts utilized by today's most successful pit crews...preparation, specificity, communication, efficiency, accuracy, performance, outcome...and the list goes on.” "Inside the box” is also a call for businesses and organization to creatively refocus and control normal operations that influence business outcomes rather than more nebulous “outside the box” thinking, such as strategic planning. 

One example pits (sorry, couldn’t help it) two teams against each other with the task of successfully changing all four tires on a real NASCAR race car. Elliott personally attended one of these team building sessions at the PIT facility in South Carolina. He was amazed at how effective of this form of “visceral learning” is. Professional NASCAR teams can change all four tires in at about 12 seconds. At first, Elliott’s team took over 3 minutes, but dropped to around 30 seconds. This task involved critical elements such as feedback, process improvement, breaking everything down to small steps—all  to improve the process and the team.

Even more interesting to me is how this program teaches such things as six sigma concepts! For example, each pit stop presents a different scenario and challenge that the Team must resolve. These situations may include:

• Performance Expectations
• Performance Feedback
• Exchanging Team Members
• Exchanging Team Member Duties
• Loss of a Team Member
• Equipment Failure

To add some fun to the Learning 2006 conference, PIT brought a NASCAR to Orlando along with a full setup—the tools, jacks, and blue team/red team uniforms. Anyone could sign up for an hour’s worth of instruction and then get timed to see which team successfully changed all four tires the fastest. Thanks to Mike Parmentier from Booze Allen Hamilton, I was able to get some pictures for you of some fellow Autodesk employees who took the challenge!

There's more to say about this topic and how you too might be able to come up with similarly effective forms of learning and performance, so I'll talk more about it next time.

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