Make the pie bigger

Photo courtesy of Yesica on Flickr

Listen to the needs and experiences of your super-consumers.

How are they using your product differently? What would they love your product to do?

Use them as a way to understand how to improve sales to all your consumers. Find out who in your company is a super consumer of your products. Ask them to help you convert the unconverted. 

 

And get them to tell you what you would need to change to enable you to charge more for your products or services.

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Inspired by HBR ideacast 555 'What superconsumers can teach you'

Is that your experience?

You can find information to support any argument.

But have you actually experienced the situation you're interested in?

White papers, reports, research, blog posts all contain useful information. But they provide you with second hand information which may not be relevant to your specific context.

Your perspective is unique, and your context is different. Your experience is therefore invaluable, as it provides a way to filter all of this information for your specific situation.

Businesses now have access to more data than they know what to do with. But unless this data is contextualised with the experiences of their employees and customers, there is a danger of responding in a manner that does not reflect their specific needs.

Your experience must be taken into account.

Keep your students active

Photo courtesy of Julochka on Flickr

We are fortunate in art and design. The nature of teaching and learning in the creative arts lends itself to active learning, in which students have the opportunity to participate actively in the classroom. While we do give the odd lecture, this tends to be only one of a range of teaching and learning approaches at our disposal.

But As Dr. Adam Longcroft points out in this SEDA blog post, it’s all too easy to retreat to the safety of the lecture. In particular, he argues, when we are pushed for time sometimes the least challenging option is to just lecture at our students.

But by focusing on active learning strategies, rather than active teaching strategies, our students will have a better learning experience. By focusing on what and how students want to learn, rather than on what we want to teach, our role shifts from teacher to facilitator and we enable students to become active participants in their learning.

Read the full article on the SEDA blog. And you might also like the following:

Sharon Cox’s HEA guide to Active Learning

How Confucius can help us liberate organisations

Photo courtsey of Steve Webel on Flickr

Confucius dedicated his life to convincing Chinese leaders that they must act virtuously. But as modern organisations struggle to deal with the increased complexity of the network era, Confucian thinking provides a valuable reminder that we as individuals must strive to transcend the cultures of the organisations in which we find ourselves. Let me explain.

More than ever before, organisations are shaping the human condition by determining how we live and work. To improve the human condition, we therefore have to ensure that we are consciously shaping our organisations, and not simply being subservient to their cultures and values.

Culture and tradition have historically been the way in which stories are passed on, and the way in which the human species remembers. But the networked era gives us access to so much information that we are able to construct a much more personal, individual understanding of the human condition.

The networked era makes it possible for us to realise our individuality within a community. In fact, the network era demands that we do so - this is what is driving the demand for authenticity. The opportunity of the networked era is that we no longer have to hide behind organisational culture - each person can create their own culture, their own unique set of beliefs and values.

This is what it means to be enlightened: to be free of the passive conditioning of culture and to actively shape your beliefs and values. And it is this enlightenment that drives engagement.

But isn't this dangerous? What sets our moral compass if we free ourselves from the tyranny of culture? Is it the transparency and authenticity that the network era brings? If we are fully exposed, we cannot hide behind cultural practices - it is the radical transparency of the network that makes us accountable, the fact that we are fully visible to others. This is where Confucian thinking is invaluable: if we abuse this new-found power and act without virtue, we risk being publicly shamed and losing our credibility.

Organisations are sub-cultures. But while the network era demands that we realise our individuality, the hierarchical power structures of our organisations make it almost impossible for individuals to challenge the dominant culture. It is unsurprising that employees become disengaged when confronted with the colossal walls of organisational culture.

A core function of leaders then is to transform the lives of the people they lead. But in the capitalist era, leadership has become too focused on making money. The capitalist culture of shareholders has made business leaders beholden to the profit-driven demands of people external to the organisation, rather than to improving the lives of those working within the organisation. This results in many leaders breaking Confucius' Golden Rule: "Do not impose on others what you do not wish for yourself".

In the network era, the challenge is for every employee to create and adhere to their own set of beliefs and values. The radical transparency of the network age demands authenticity, and enables us to challenge those leaders and organisations who act without virtue. If we are to reinvent organisations for the benefit of society and humanity, we must strive us to remain autonomous in the face of the dominant organisational culture, and consciously choose to act according to our own personal set of beliefs and values.

And, as Confucius says, to conduct ourselves with virtue.

It's time to liberate experience

Everybody's experience is valid. But all too often we are required to limit our experience to conform to the will of others.

Nowhere is this more true than in organisations. Every organisation has a shared system of beliefs and behaviours, which can be understood as its culture. Cultures emerge from the constant interaction of people with each other and their environment.

But the unpredictable, non-linear nature of these interactions is a primary reason why organisations find it so hard to change a culture. The principle of cause and effect that guided approaches to leadership in the industrial era is no longer suited to the complexity of the knowledge era.


Liberating experiences

So what can we do? Well, one powerful solution to this problem is to harness the power of experiences.

A key value of experiences is that they are neither right nor wrong, they just are. You may think you know what is happening in your organisation, but unless you are making a conscious effort to listen to the full range of customer and employee experiences your understanding will be limited.

The digital age has made it possible to liberate, access and search the constantly shifting landscape of experiences happening within and beyond an organisation. But we are only just beginning to see a corresponding shift in the willingness to use these experiences to guide decision-making.


Legitimation by experience

Every experience is legitimate. If you have an organisation of 1,000 employees, you have 1,000 pairs of ears and eyes that can help you build a picture of what is actually happening. If you widen the net to include customers' experiences, this number increases exponentially.

Using these experiences to guide the activity of employees makes an organisation significantly more responsive to its environment. But while digital tools have shown us 'how' to do this, many organisations are still struggling with the 'why'.

As we move further into the knowledge era, it is no longer effective to expect leaders and executives to have all the answers to complex problems. The answers lie in the crowd, in the employees and customers who make up the organisation and its ecosystem. Their real-world, real-time experiences are an invaluable resource of information that shows what is actually happening, and not what the 'organisation' thinks is happening.

Every organisation has an army of potentially willing helpers who want to share their experiences. Why wouldn't you want to liberate this power?

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The QoE use the Perpetual Experience methodology to help businesses become more responsive, more innovative, more authentic, and more efficient. If you're interested in harnessing customer experience to transform your business, you might also like:

• Why Perpetual Experience matters
• Why take the customer out of customer experience?
• Digital is changing human experience, not just customer experience

Thank you to Philippe Leroyer on Flickr for the use of his excellent photo.

The fulfilment potential of professional networking

Many of us, myself included, probably spend a bit too much time on social media. Why? Because it provides a way for us to find and consume relevant knowledge recommended by professionals in our network.

But there is a more important reason why engaging in professional networking is valuable to us: it increases our potential for fulfilment. How? Because it enables us to give the most valuable things we have: our time and our attention.

Motivational guru and life coach Tony Robbins believes that we can only achieve real fulfilment if we are

• growing, and
• giving beyond ourselves

Sharing information with your professional network can be viewed as a way to grow. Identifying and sharing relevant information requires us to empathise with the needs of those in our network, and think critically about the information they are likely to find useful. But if we go beyond sharing and take the time to comment on other people's ideas, we become more fulfilled as we our giving our time and our energy to formulate meaningful responses to their activity.

You don't have to do it, you can just read what they wrote. But taking the time to consider their idea and formulate a useful response is a way to give beyond ourselves, and empower that person further through dialogue.

Our lives are becoming increasingly distracted. A recent Microsoft report found that the average attention span is now 8 seconds, down from 12 seconds in 2000. That's less than a goldfish. As we are able to consume more information on more platforms than ever before, our attention is rapidly becoming the most valuable commodity that we possess - and everybody wants a piece of it. If attention is the new currency of the internet, then the concept of 'paying attention' is increasingly likely to assume the financial value it implies.

Learning how to pay attention in a world of distraction is becoming a critical skill. Understanding the mechanisms through which social networking can lead to growth and fulfilment is vital if we are to prevent technology from determining both our future happiness and our productivity.

Humans are social creatures, and words are one of the primary tools we use to construct our reality. The Internet, and in particular social networking, provide us with a powerful means of growing and giving beyond ourselves, helping us to become more fulfilled in the process.

All it takes is a little time and attention.

How 'community' can drive digital transformation

Two problematic areas for today's organisations are employee engagement and digital transformation.

Although organisations want employees to share knowledge, care about their work, and embrace digital ways of working, they often try to impose these desires on top of the existing culture of work. And attempts to impose culture change from above will always be met with resistance.

The problem is that we have two sets of forces pushing against each other: an outdated, hierarchical view of work based on a 20th century industrial model of organisation, and a 'socialised' view of work stemming from a desire to harness the power of online communities and networks.

These two opposing approaches to organisation are fundamentally incompatible, and this is a key reason why many organisations are struggling with digital transformation. Digital provides an entirely new way to approach work, collaboration, and organisation, but if transformation is undertaken with a 20th century industrial mindset then it will not reap the full benefits that digital offers. This is not a new problem, as Cham (2014) notes by referencing the argument made by Marshal McLuhan back in the 1960s:

"If we try to understand digital transformation with an industrial mindset we are 'walking backwards into the future'"

In the hyperconnected 21st century, we should be designing organisations around community, not work. Millenials have grown up in a hyperconnected age, they instinctively participate in a wide variety of communities, and they expect the modern workplace to function in the same way as their connected personal existence. So it is no surprise that they often become quickly disengaged when confronted with bureaucratic, hierarchical organisations using outdated technologies that bear little resemblance to the community-oriented tools to which they are accustomed.

So how can we design work around community?

If you look at start-ups, community happens automatically. Everyone knows everyone else, and has a good idea what they are working on. There are never enough people to do the work that needs to be done, so everyone has to help each other out on a daily basis. There is a strong sense of shared purpose, and an urgency that binds the team together. Each employee has to make important decisions under pressure, giving them a strong sense of connection to the vision and purpose of the start-up. Autonomy and initiative are essential.

And most of all, people talk to each other all the time. There is almost no hierarchy to quash the inherent creativity of the team. All ideas regarding how to improve the business are welcomed, discussed, adapted and implemented.

The challenge for larger organistions and businesses is how to reimagine their operational model around principles of community. If we designed our organisations around community, not just around work, things could be very different.

"Putting community at the centre of the organisation fundamentally changes the motivation to do work"

Communities develop around a clear purpose, and this purpose is what drives people to engage with the community. Establishing a clear purpose for an organisation (beyond simply making money for shareholders) is therefore a valuable way of tackling the problem of a disengaged workforce. Designing an organisation as a community turns it into a place where people are emotionally engaged, share knowledge instinctively, and collaborate on shared projects with a strong sense of purpose. And in a knowledge economy, these three factors are fundamental to an effective, engaged, and digitally literate workforce.

Digital transformation represents an attempt to harness the innate human desire to share useful information and participate in purposeful communities. But any digital transformation strategy that focuses on platforms instead of people is almost certain to fail - successful transformation is dependent on understanding what motivates people to participate in communities.

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References

2014  Cham, K.L. “"Virtually An Alternative ? The Medium, The Message and The User Experience; Collective Agency in Digital Spaces and Embodied Social Change", 5th LAEMOS Colloquium on Organization Studies Constructing Alternatives: How can we organize for alternative social, economic, and ecological balance?, Havana, Cuba http://laemos.com

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You might also like:

• Digital is changing human experience, not just customer experience 
• Creative, meaningful work is the goal for everyone
• The real difficulty is escaping from old ideas

Digital is changing human experience, not just customer experience

It's increasingly evident that digital disruption is wreaking havoc across many sectors. But to understand how digital technology is changing customer experience, it's useful to consider how digital is changing human experience in its entirety:

• 'Search' is rewiring our brains, and changing what we need to remember
• The cloud is changing our perception of ownership
• Hyperconnectivity has forever changed how we interact with each other
• Digital devices have transformed how, where and when we make purchases

And my personal favourite:

• It's now possible to make a good living by vlogging your life (I felt considerably older just watching this programme..)

I recently came across a story about gazeMetrix, an image recognition technology that scans photos online and uses social intelligence software to identify the context in which a particular product is most found. The implications of this are profound.

It is becoming possible to search human experience in ways that have have not been possible before.

This opens up a whole new frontier for our ability to understand how (and where) customers actually use products and services, and to engage with them in new and innovative ways. More importantly, it highlights how we need to think differently in response to the affordances of digital technologies. This is why digital has to be at the heart of every customer engagement strategy, and increasingly every business model. If people are already talking about the 'post-digital age' in which digital technologies will become absorbed into the very fabric of our everyday lives, then the digital age is already firmly established.
 
Industrial Age vs Information Age mindset
 
But despite the rapid, radical digital transformation of human experience in the last ten years, many organisations remain stuck in an Industrial Age mindset. Gerry McGovern recently went as far as to say that the traditional organisation is not fit for purpose anymore, and that achieving a seamless customer experience is not possible without seamless organisations. Arguing that organisational models that encourage internal competition are no longer appropriate, McGovern highlights how internal silos create a disjointed customer experience that does not reflect the hyperconnected reality outside the organisation.
 
As far back as 2010 (remember then?), Harvard Professor Bill George highlighted that the challenges facing businesses today are "too complex to be solved by individuals or even single organizations". George argues that "collaboration — within the organization and with customers, suppliers, and even competitors — is required to achieve lasting solutions".
 
Digital has transformed human experience forever. Surviving the disruption of the Information Age requires a mindset that puts digital at the core of human - and customer - experience.
Thanks for reading - if you like it, please share it :-)

You might also like:

• Should we be educating our customers?
• Creative, meaningful work is the goal. For everyone.
• Why take the customer out of Customer Experience?

How do knowledge, power, and influence affect customer experience?

 This post was written in conjunction with Carl Lyon for The QoE and was first published on The QoE blog

Our first topic of 2016 explored knowledge, power and influence in organisations. Or to be more specific, where is the knowledge, who has the power, and how is this affecting the ability to influence behaviour?

Searching for trust
 
To understand this topic, it’s useful to use the metaphor of going to the doctor. In the
industrial age, we went to the doctor to seek their professional opinion on a particular
ailment. The doctor was the ultimate source of knowledge about our issue. We had
little alternative than to have blind trust in him/her, and as such they held almost
all the power to influence our behaviour.
 
Fast forward to the information age. What do the majority of us now do before going
to the doctor? We Google our symptoms. The ability to search online has dramatically
shifted power away from the doctor to such an extent that the best question a doctor
can now ask us is ‘what have you Googled?’
 
This has a dramatic effect on trust. If the doctor fails to address our concerns arising
from our Google search, our trust in them falls to a new low. But if the doctor asks
us if we have any concerns, listens to the knowledge we have obtained from our Google
search into account, addresses our issues, our trust in the doctor then increases
to an all time high.

The power of context
 
Search has significantly shifted power away from organisations by putting information
and opinion in the hands of the customer. It is highly likely that customers will Google
a problem before calling a call centre. And in some cases, it is likely that the information
they find online will be more up-to-date than the information available inside the
organisation itself.
 
This is why many call centre employees increasingly resort to Google searching in order
to resolve customer queries. The most up-to-date information lies within the customer
community, not within the official knowledge management system. The knowledge of
the community is being updated in real time, whereas it can take weeks (if not months)
for official sources of information to be updated.
 
But more importantly, the knowledge of the community is contextual. Whether customers
realise it or not, their query will arise from their specific context. Answering their query
effectively will therefore require an understanding of this context.
 
We instinctively seek answers to our questions from people who understand our
context, whether this be our friends, work colleagues, or our online network. And we
are more likely to trust the answers we receive from people who understand that
context. So how can organisations tap into the deep ocean of contextual information
that surrounds its customers, and use it to improve customer experience?

Organisations as dynamic, omni-channel communities
 
To tackle this growing problem, we need to re-imagine the organisation as a dynamic,
omni-channel community made up of both customers and employees. The community
has the knowledge and power to influence the behaviour of the organisation and help
it adapt to the rapidly changing demands of its customers. And the community may
well be made up of both customers, employees, and general observers.
 
This transformation has been given many names, including open innovation, bringing the
outside in, or even simply customer/employee engagement. The music service Spotify
is a great example, as is the Chinese Telecom giant Xiaomi who release a new version
of their operating system every week in response to user feedback.
 
The ability to listen and adapt has been key to the success of these information age
organisations. By minimising the effort required to engage with their community,
organisations can gain access to a wealth of untapped insight that can be used to
improve the business. And crucially, making the pockets of specialist information held
by customers, employees and departments more searchable by the community,
allows this contextual knowledge to be shared and leveraged in new and valuable ways.
 
Organisations that can listen, think, adapt and act in response to their community are
those that will successfully evolve and ride the wave of digital transformation. But while
a community can be grown inside any organisation, a common barrier is the tendency
for the organisation to act without listening, or worse, continue to believe that
‘it knows best’.
 
Many businesses still behave like an industrial age doctor by assuming that customers
haven’t searched online before calling. But if a business is engaging with the contextual
knowledge being co-created by its community, it will be perpetually evolving in response
to customer needs.
 
And that, surely, is just what the doctor ordered.

Should we be educating our customers?

This post was written in conjunction with Carl Lyon for The QoE

To what extent should a business attempt to educate its customers?
 
Historically, many businesses have taken it upon themselves to try and educate their customers about their products and services. From pensions to paracetamol, most products come with some form of impenetrable instruction manual that customers are expected to read in order to understand what they have purchased.
 
Attempts to educate customers often stem from a desire to minimise complaints and bad press by managing their expectations. Sometimes a business needs to educate customers about why their request might not be in their best interest – particularly in an increasingly high tech environment. Those 100-page policy documents might make sense to the underwriters, but they will mean very little to the customer who needs a 1-page summary in jargon-free language.
 
But do these attempts to educate customers work in an era where the customer resorts to an internet search as soon as they have a problem or query? Prior to the Internet (remember that?), the business was the trusted source of knowledge. But the speed at which knowledge is now created and shared makes it increasingly difficult for a business to manage its knowledge effectively.
The employee responsible for doing the educating may themselves never have experienced the problem that a customer is facing, leading to a perceived lack of authenticity. And, rightly or wrongly, the customer often believes that the best person to ask for advice is another customer rather than a representative of the company.
 
The problem of educating customers is just as difficult for B-2-B as for B-2-C. For example, business A may procure a new product from business B, but there is a significant danger that the former can overload the latter with too much training and documentation. However, if business A holds back on educating business B about the full range of options afforded by its new purchase, it may be accused of not delivering value for money.
 
Changes made by third-parties also cause a headache, as Facebook’s decision to start auto-playing videos demonstrated. When a large number of mobile customers found they were suddenly consuming more of their data allowance, they accused their mobile providers of over-charging them. And in some cases, it was the customers who first informed the mobile operators of the problem – the customers were ‘educating’ the business.
 
So do businesses have a responsibility to push information to customers to inform them of such changes? Should customers have to opt in to or opt out of these ‘helpful’, paternalistic communications?
 
Who should be educating whom? How? And for what purpose?
 
In a hyperconnected era, the flow of information between company and customer is dynamic. Knowledge is no longer the exclusive possession of the company: the customer can – and should - educate the company just as much as the company educates the customer.
 
How? This mutually beneficial relationship can be developed by making customer communities as integral to a business as the board, the finance department, and the sales team. Customer communities and forums are a largely untapped resource, and businesses should be employing more open business models to co-evolve with their customer communities - incorporating their feedback and insights into both problem-solving and product development.
 
For what purpose? The answer is: to build confidence. We attempt to educate customers to give them the confidence to make better decisions about our products and services. Our customers can do the same for us - their feedback gives the company the confidence that everything is aligned and working as it should be.
 
The networked era is changing the role of the organisation from an ‘all-knowing parent’ to a ‘trusted advisor’. Trust and confidence are increasingly integral to brand value, and there is great value for organisations in making this transition. But navigating this change requires businesses to treat customers as adults, and be prepared to demonstrate greater trust, openness and authenticity.
Our customers can help to educate us and are prepared to do so, but only if we are prepared to listen and respond with the same objective: to increase understanding and build confidence.
 
Source : The QoE discussions November 2016 Written by Tony Reeves

What do your brand advocates look like?

How is a brand advocate different from a satisfied customer?

• Satisfied = expectations met. Customer is able to understand the company's offer and easily find a product or service that satisfies their needs.

• Advocate = expectations exceeded. Customer is unexpectedly surprised by the excellent experience they have had which both satisfies their needs and surpasses their expectations. 

But what does this experience look like? How have we exceeded their expectations? What have we done to turn them from a satisfied customer into an advocate?
 
Jaguar recently provided a creative example of this. They set up a stand and invited people to experience a 'virtual reality test drive' in their F-Type car. But once the headset was on, they were in fact taken for a real high-speed test drive. The result? An experience that greatly exceeded expectations, and some new brand advocates.
 

If we have a clearer idea of what our brand advocates look like, we can work back from this and aim to create more of the experiences that transform satisfied customers into advocates.
 
What does exceeding your customers' expectations look like in your organisation? And how might you leverage this perspective?
 
Many thanks to Michael Sutton for sharing the link to the Jaguar video.

Creative, meaningful work is the goal. For everyone.

This post first appeared on the Creative Huddle blog.

If you didn't need to earn money, what would you do? You'd be on a permanent holiday, with all the free time in the world. It would be amazing for a while. Lots of travelling, seeing the world. But after a year or so you'd get bored. You'd have to find something to do to keep yourself busy, something to give your life meaning.

Meaningful work is our goal. When our work is meaningful, it doesn’t feel like work. When we are involved in a creative project that matters to us, we are completely engaged, we lose track of time, and we have a clear sense of purpose. So imagine if we could get paid for it as well. How amazing would that be?
 
In our recent Creativity at Work survey, we asked people to state how they felt when they were being creative. They said things like:

• Happy and sometimes exhausted
• Good. Fulfilled. Inspired. Motivated
• I get motivated, feel fully invested in wanting ideas to succeed and thoroughly enjoy it.
• It makes me feel an integral part of the success of the company.
• Empowered, challenged, free
• Free. capable. excited about possibilities. Energised.
• Keeps me motivated and keeps the fun in work. If you have the space and freedom to be creative it gets the mind going and makes you feel passionate.

As the modern workplace becomes increasingly complex, it can be harder for employees to feel a sense of purpose. The combination of multiple projects, distributed teams, online communications and shifting deadlines can often obscure the meaning of our work. It is easy to become disengaged as we become overwhelmed by the noise. And disengagement leads to lack of motivation, unhappiness, lower productivity, and ultimately lower profits.
 
So how do we help ourselves and our employees rediscover the meaning in work? Here are a few suggestions:

1. Take a moment to think about why you go to work. What makes you get out of bed? How do you feel as you walk out the front door each morning?
2. Make sure you’re absolutely clear about why you are doing the job that you do. Do you love the work? Does it provide you with a good work/life balance? Why do you keep showing up day after day? What are you looking forward to?
3. Take a step back and picture your role in the wider context of your organisation. Why does your job exist? And your department? Look at your organisation’s vision and mission statements – how does the work that you do help your organisation deliver its vision and mission?

Now, if you’re a leader or a manager, take a moment to think about how much input your employees have had in shaping the organisation’s vision and mission. Or their departmental strategy. Or even just the work that they do every day. How much autonomy do they have – and do you have – over your work? When was the last time they had the opportunity to be involved in a creative project that they cared about?
 
Here’s the thing: people are amazing. Full of creative potential. Even the most disengaged member of your organisation could be s potential leader – if you can encourage them to use their natural creativity and find meaning in their work.
 
We are all inherently creative, we just need a little time and autonomy to find our purpose. To find our ‘why’. So think twice before you send that employee on another training course to improve their performance, you may need to just allow them a little breathing space to be creative, and help them find out why their work matters to the organisation.
 
With the right questions and encouragement, we can find meaning in our work. And if we can’t, we should be doing a different job.

 

The real difficulty...is in escaping from old ideas

Or to give you the full quote: “The real difficulty in changing any enterprise lies not in developing new ideas, but in escaping from the old ones” (John Maynard Keynes)

If you have twenty minutes, make a cup of tea and take a peek into the future. In this short video, John Seely-Brown (JSB) - a futurist, formerly of the XEROC-PARC research centre – highlights the many ways in which the intersection of people, information and technology is transforming how we understand knowledge.

In the video, JSB begins with the above quote from J.M. Keynes to illustrate how we struggle to move away from old, trusted ideas and into new, uncertain times. Although delivered at a conference on the future of Libraries JSB goes far beyond this to grapple with knowledge management and innovation, highlighting that progress in the 21st century now follows a rapid series of 18-month s-curves driven by exponential advances in computation. The implication of this is that we no longer have the time that we had in the 20th century to reinvent social practices and adapt to change – today, change is rapid and unrelenting.

I’ll do my best to provide a summary of the key points (please note that although I wish I was as smart as John-Seely Brown, almost all the ideas that follow are his...)

We are moving from knowledge ‘stocks’ to knowledge ‘flows’

As change speeds up, we are moving from a paradigm where we ‘stored’ knowledge to one in which we participate in ‘knowledge flows’. Perhaps the most important implication of this is the difficulty in storing the tacit knowledge created by these flows – we no longer have the time to identify this knowledge, make it explicit, and store it. This poses significant implications for organisations who are investing significant capital in trying to capture and store knowledge (an example of how we have difficulty escaping from old ideas).

The half-life of our skills is shrinking to about 5 years

The speed of change potentially renders our skills obsolete every 5 years. This highlights the major problems this poses for formal schooling and the need to move away from education that is based around learning content. Instead, we need to learn the critical skills that enable us to dip into relevant knowledge flows in order to find and apply relevant content to a given problem. We also have to learn how to participate effectively in the vast, complex networks in which we increasingly find ourselves.

Homo Sapiens is becoming Homo Faber
Or rather, ‘Man who Knows’ is becoming ‘Man who Makes’. The default mode of operation in networked societies increasingly involves making and sharing knowledge, not simply consuming it. But rather than just building content and things, we are now able to build contexts as much as content. JSB highlights how maker culture, blogging and remixing enables us to change the context of a message or a piece of content. Millenials with increasingly sophisticated devices now expect to be able to remix and adapt content, and the implication of this is that we have to learn how to read ‘context’ as well as simply ‘content’. Maybe ‘context marketing’ will soon be on the horizon…

‘Effective play’ is needed to help us un-learn

If our skills will become obsolete every 5 years, JSB points out that ‘unlearning’ will become just as important as ‘learning’. He argues that our ability to learn through play is integral to helping us unlearn and develop a new, flexible and creative mindset. At the heart of the triangle of knowing, making and playing, are ‘imagination’, ‘curiosity’ and ‘agency’. This need for millenials to learn through doing, playing, and making should be shaping how we conceive of the future of work.

How imagination, curiosity and agency are shaping how we work (adapted from John Seely-Brown)

Reverse mentorship is a source of innovation

We may have instructed those young graduates we just employed to make the tea and hang out on social media. But instead we should be creating opportunities for them to mentor us so that we can learn about how they see and understand the world. If ‘yesterday’s cutting edge is today’s dust bin’, as JSB argues, then we need to be embracing the mindset, energy and inquisitiveness of those new to the workplace in order to stay as close as we can to the s-curve.

We need to ‘leverage the edge’ in the exponential age

Echoing the practice and language of lean startups and entre/intrepreneurship, JSB highlights the need to create now and seek forgiveness later. Leveraging the exponential power of social media, easy access to computing power and micro-financing and crowd-funding, JSB argues that the aim should be to excel on the edge and use this success to draw the core towards us. This is another way of escaping old ideas and making sure we are at the start of the new s-curve rather than on the tail of the old one.

So there you have it, a whistle-stop tour of some of the concepts and ideas that will shape – and are already shaping – our future. It’s scary to think that my skills are already slightly more out of date than they were when I began typing this article…

How reputation and ownership affect knowledge sharing

Here's the thing: I regularly share information on LinkedIn with a network of contacts, most of whom I've never met. And unless one of these people offers me a job, none of them are in a position to give me any financial reward for sharing. So why do I share?

And here's the other thing: I don't share this information internally in my organisation, with people whom I have met, some of which are at least in a position to reward me financially for sharing. 

So if money isn't an incentive for sharing, what is?

Dan Pink has demonstrated that money only can only motivate to a certain point, and that beyond this point financial reward actually de-motivates people. Even if a company would offer such an incentive for sharing, the promise of a promotion or a pay rise can only be delivered infrequently. So what else might be going on?

Reputation

Why do we share information on LinkedIn? Or Facebook? For example, why am I sharing this post on LinkedIn rather than on my company's intranet? If we don't share for financial gain, one incentive may be to do with enhancing our reputation - and our influence - in our personal/professional network. If someone shares a cat video on Facebook it is usually to make people laugh, but the flip side of this is that it increases their reputation in their network as someone who has a sense of humour.

But why doesn't this compulsion to share extend to sharing work-related knowledge on a company intranet? Perhaps we don't consider this kind of knowledge to be sufficiently interesting and therefore not worth sharing. Extending this logic suggests that we don't think that this knowledge will enhance our reputation or influence in our network, or - worse still - that my internal reputation may even be damaged by sharing what others might perceive to be 'boring' information.

So 'what people think of me' is potentially more valuable that financial reward. In other words, I share on LinkedIn so that other people in my network think that I am informed, insightful and useful. It is their perception of me that is valuable, as it increases my reputation, influence and social capital. And that's not to say that reputation is without financial value; reputation is increasingly becoming as important as profitability as a key strategic driver, hence the growth of the reputation economy.

But why are people more inclined to try and increase their social capital and reputation externally and not internally? Why are we inclined to share information outside of our organisation than within it? Is it because there are no official 'structures' in our personal network? Harold Jarche notes that structure drives behaviour in large organisations, but perhaps in our personal networks it is a lack of structure that drives behaviour. What is different about sharing our knowledge and expertise on social media, but not within our own organisation? One important reason is because our personal network 'self-organises' - I.e. the lack of hierarchy means that knowledge is free to travel between any individual in the network and does so based on factors including how interesting/topical/humorous/insightful it is.

Ownership

Alongside reputation, 'ownership' also plays an important role in driving sharing behaviour. When I am sharing on my own social media channels I 'own' my communication, and I alone reap all benefits gained from my increased visibility. But within the walls or an organisation it is primarily the organisation that benefits from employees sharing their work, not the employees themselves.

An example of this could be the resentment generated from organisations not sharing revenue and profits fairly amongst employees. Although this would appear to run contrary to the above argument against financial incentives driving behaviour, it is actually 'resentment of inequality' that brings disengagement. And few things reinforce the sense of inequality than an overly hierarchical structure.

A good example of this can be heard in the HBR podcast 'Are robots really coming for our jobs?' which tells the story of weavers in 19th Century America. As technology developed, the weavers were able to use their skill to bring about a significant increase in profitability for their organisations, but the weavers' wages remained stagnant for some 30 years. This highlights the problem of the 'them and us' mentality, a problem which can drive employees to feel disengaged and disconnected from both their work and their organisation.

If employees feel a greater sense of ownership over their work, it is likely that they will be more engaged and feel more invested in the success of the company. And this greater sense of ownership may make them feel more inclined to share their work in order to help colleagues.

If the goal is to increase knowledge-sharing, the challenge is to move away from an 'us and them' mentality. A greater sense of ownership and clearer reputational benefits to an individual's social capital are two key factors that are likely to drive greater participation and engagement in internal networks.

How is the network era affecting large organisations?

This post was written in conjunction with Carl Lyon of the QoE

Slavery was a terrible thing, but for thousands of years it remained a convenient way to get work done. Mass slavery persisted until enough people decided that dominance through fear was no longer an ethical means of organising people.

The widespread abolition of slavery heralded a paradigm shift in consciousness. The advent of the industrial revolution brought with it the emergence of the first large organisations. Command and control became the best way to coordinate the masses, and the profit motive became the new organising principle.

As large organisations became more complex, often through mergers and acquisitions, a more subtle variant of the command and control approach emerged - that of ‘conformism’. Groups and departments within the same organisation often adopted an ‘us versus them’ mindset as they sought to defend their perceived territory from the new arrivals. The resulting blame culture that emerged gave rise to a silo mentality, and inter-departmental politics became the control mechanism.

So what’s next?

We are now thirty years into the digital era, and fifteen years into an age of hyperconnectivity. Digital technologies are fundamentally changing the ways in which we work, think and socialise, with ‘search’ and ‘share’ becoming central to the human experience. Mass connectivity has brought with it mass transparency, shining a spotlight onto the internal workings of large organisations.

While this has liberated the individual, it has caused terror for many businesses and governments as they are no longer able to hide behind traditional marketing and communication strategies. Not only are the masses getting much better at reading the intent behind the message, they are increasingly able to broadcast their own in order to challenge previously unchallengeable power structures.

We are seeing the emergence of a new organising principle: the network. But what does this mean for large organisations?

1. Reputation is now becoming as valuable as the profit motive. According to Thomson Reuters and Interbrand, 75% of the value of today’s average corporation is intangible. And in a survey by the World Economic Forum, three fifths of CEOs felt that brand and reputation were responsible for more than 40% of their company’s market capitalisation.
   
2. The power of collective opinion can increasingly determine the fate of any organisation. Whereas ‘old power’ models were based on the ability of a person or an organisation to control information and people, ‘new power’ models are grounded in sharing, co-creation and the potential of the crowd.
   
3. People – both inside and outside the company – matter more than ever before. As the global population becomes increasingly connected through social media, people are rapidly changing their expectations of large organisations. From customer experience to recruitment to marketing, digital and social are forcing transparency and accountability on an unprecedented scale.
   
4. There is significant opportunity for an organisation to innovate by empower its workforce through networking and socialisation. And the potential to innovate is no longer confined to employees: digital and social now make open innovation - crowdsourcing ideas from outside the organisation – both possible and profitable.
   

But navigating these opportunities and challenges requires a new mindset, one that acknowledges the limitations of command and control, rejects the fear of socialisation and embraces the power of the network. If you can no longer tell people what to do – even if they work for you – then you need a new approach to leadership. If you want to inspire loyalty, trust and engagement, you need to create the conditions in which people can and want to relate to the values of your organisation. And if you want to reduce complexity, you need to appreciate that a socially empowered workforce capable of asking and answering informed questions can be a powerful partner.

Inevitably this new era will challenge organisations to produce, store and share intelligence in ways that were unimaginable only a few years ago.

But, like it or not, the future is network empowered socialization.

Source: The QoE April 2015, Carl Lyon Written: Tony Reeves, University for the Creative Arts

Complexity as an engine of innovation

This post was written in conjunction with Carl Lyon of the QoE.

A customer's journey is often made up of both intended and unintended outcomes, but customer experience is 'the real outcome'. Or to put it another way, what actually happened rather than what should have happened. But as complexity increases in large organisations, it is becoming increasingly difficult to identify and control all the variables that can impact on the customer journey.

This issue arose during our March QoE discussion which focused on The Art of Simplicity in large organisations. The engaging two-day event highlighted many factors that can exacerbate the problem of complexity, including technology, employees, vision, acquisitions, and leadership. But if complexity is here to stay, perhaps what is needed is a shift in our perspective to help us tackle the problem from a different angle. If we can view large organisations through a new lens, perhaps we may be able to derive value from complexity and use this to improve customer experience.

The hierarchical model of workplace organisation that emerged in the early 20th Century continues to shape the structure of large organisations. But the suitability of the hierarchical model for an era of hyperconnectivity that has been instigated by the internet and mobile technology is increasingly under scrutiny. It is becoming increasingly apparent that we are attempting to solve complex, 21st Century problems with solutions derived from last century's industrial model.

So how can we take a different perspective? Consider for a moment that a large organisation is not a hierarchy of people, but is instead a collection of networks. This is the perspective put forward by Christopher Vitale, who proposes that in order to cope with a hyperconnected age we need to view our reality as networks of networks. Informed by research on complex systems science, Vitale observes that complex, dissipative systems 'consume energy and turn it into waste, dissipating potential in order to produce ordered complexity' (Vitale, 2015, p.23).

If we adopt this perspective, we can interpret a large organisation as a complex system, dissipating much of the potential of its employees by forcing them to operate under a hierarchical model that is poorly suited to the complexity of the modern world. But if we shift our perspective to view an organisation as a network of networks, then every employee is a participant in a multitude of networks incorporating other people, information, and systems. An organisation consists of networks of employees, information, and systems, and the organisation itself is part of a network of other organisations and systems. In this network-centric paradigm, the actions of the organisation have an impact on the networks both within and outside the organisation.

How does this help? Well, according to complex systems science a complex system also contains a huge amount of 'energetic potential', and this energy has the potential to transform and enrich its immediate environment. If we view a large organisation as a complex system then the implication is that complexity is a positive force, and tapping into the latent creative potential of the network will provide opportunities for creativity and innovation . What is needed is a way to effectively harness the energetic potential of the network in order to drive innovation, and a way to understand those areas of the organisation benefit from complexity (e.g. R&D) and those that may be damaged by it (e.g. customer experience).

Vitale also highlights the principle of 'robustness' in complex systems science, which can be understood as a way to produce more and better forms of growth. Sustainable growth is both an aspiration and a priority for almost every large organisation, and it is therefore possible to argue that achieving and maintaining a state of 'robust complexification' should be a key strategic driver. If we shift our perspective to view an organisation as a complex network of networks, an important aspect of leadership in large organisations then becomes how to achieve and maintain a state of robust complexity. By taking complexity to be an asset consisting of the creative potential residing in all employees, there are significant opportunities to harness this potential in support of the aims of the organisation.

If customer experience is the 'real outcome' of an organisation's efforts, then it is essential for leaders and managers to understand where problems of complexity in their organisation are having negative impact on the customer journey. By viewing the organisation as a network of employees, each containing creative potential and each having a unique insight into specific areas of the organisation, there is scope to mine this wealth of knowledge and use it to improve the customer experience.

Source: The QoE March 2015, Carl Lyon. Written : Tony Reeves, University for the Creative Arts.

Why we need to reclaim our brains

This post was written for the Creative Huddle newsletter, 18th May 2015. Sign up here.

It’s easy to think that we are becoming smarter than ever before. The internet has placed the information of the world at our fingertips, and Google has made it incredibly easy to find both useful and relevant information. We are truly living in the information age, so what’s the problem?

 

The problem is that the internet is making us lazy. It’s reducing our attention span (so much so, even goldfish can focus better than us). Worse still, it’s making us think we’re smarter than we really are.

 

We think that all this technology is enabling us to work better, communicate better, and relax better, but there is a real danger that these perceived benefits are all in our minds. This has significant implications for learning: just because you’re reading something online it doesn’t mean you’re learning it.

 

The problem is that even Google can’t compare with real-world experience. But it’s important to remember that this isn’t a new phenomenon – the eminent philosopher and educationalist John Dewey was arguing for an experiential approach to learning in the 1930s. But in a world in which our daily activity is increasingly mediated by online technologies, it’s easy to think that an increased choice over what we can do equates to empowerment.

 

So before we become unconscious slaves to the internet, what can we do about it?

 

The answer is that we need to place much greater emphasis on understanding how our brains work. If we are to navigate this information-rich century, each of us needs a personal understanding of why we do what we do. To coin an educational word, we need to be more metacognitive and really take an active interest in how technology and information are shaping our reality.

 

If we know that students only remember 3% of a 45 minute lecture, we should really stop talking at them. If we know that constant multitasking is having an adverse affect on our productivity, we need to have both an awareness and a clear strategy to cope with the distractions brought by technology.

 

What does all this have to do with creativity? It's been shown that taking mental breaks, especially breaks from technology, can benefit creativity.

If creativity and innovation are in such high demand we need to help people learn how to reclaim their brains from all this distraction. This is especially true at the executive level, where creativity is increasingly perceived as a critical leadership quality.

 

The more we can increase our conscious awareness of why we are doing what we are doing, the more we are able to develop our own personal strategies to managing our thinking. In a world of work full of distractions, we need to fully grasp the importance of giving our brains more downtime. Understanding the impact of distractions is a critical first step to reclaiming our brains.

We call this approach Productive Creativity.

What makes a great teacher?

I was recently asked to describe the qualities of the 'ideal' teacher. After putting together a list, it struck me that this is a useful exercise for anyone involved in teaching as it forces us to confront our underlying beliefs and assumptions about teaching.

Here's what I came up with, but it would be great to hear whether you agree and what other qualities you might add:

A great teacher...

• Is a great listener and observer

•  Makes learning enjoyable, interactive and fun

• Engages each and every student in a group

• Creates a safe environment in which students feel able to share their thoughts and engage in discussion

• Knows what each student needs to learn next to fully grasp a concept or technique

• Facilitates deep learning through questioning - doesn't 'tell' students things but helps them construct their own understanding

• Regularly varies the learning activities - keeps students focused on task and accommodates their diversity

• Makes regular diagnostic checks to ensure that all students are learning and provides constructive, not judgmental, feedback

• Is aware of their own underlying beliefs and assumptions and is mindful of the impact these may have on students

• Learns from students and is open to perspectives and points of view which may challenge their own

• Acknowledges, values and accommodates  each student's individual strengths and responds accordingly

• Is able to facilitate engaging discussion by harnessing the knowledge and wisdom of each student

Thanks to the AllBusiness and PeerNetBC blogs for shaping my thinking on this.

Time to apply

As somebody who creates and delivers a lot of training sessions, I'm used to putting together workshops and activities.

I have a process which I work through which usually involves providing some background context to the activity, lots of questions to ask participants, and then the key theories or principles that underpin the workshop. Throughout the session I will regularly ask questions to try and determine how well participants are internalising and making sense of the information I'm providing.

But how is it possible to determine whether participants will really be able to apply their new knowledge to their own work once the workshop is over? For example, let's say I'm giving a workshop on creative thinking to a group of car mechanics. I may be an expert in creative thinking, but I have very little understanding of the day-to-day activities and processes that my participants undertake. What happens if they ask me how they can reimagine one of their complex assembly procedures?

The answer is that I can't. But in many ways it's also important that I don't, because if I were to provide an answer they wouldn't feel as if they 'owned' it. As a facilitator, it is always tempting to try and provide answers, especially when participants ask you to do so. But it's much more valuable to give them the time and space to arrive at an answer themselves as this will create the realisation that they have the ability to apply creative thinking to solve problems in their own specific context.

A common issue with many professions is that problems and situations are often complex, what Schon (1983) referred to as 'the swampy lowlands of professional practice'. A workshop facilitator cannot and should not attempt to provide answers, but should instead strive to create the belief in participants that they themselves have the ability to address and resolve these problems. As Schon observes, learners need time to 'reflect in action' as well as 'reflect on action'.

In future I think it might be a good idea to manage participants' expectations by making this abundantly clear at the start of the session. And also build in more time for them to reflect on how they might apply their new knowledge to their own specific practice.

The agony of choice

I recently came across this insightful and humourous TED talk by Dan Gilbert about the surprising science of happiness. The talk provides a fascinating insight into the human ability to 'synthesise' happiness - in other words, our ability to convince ourselves that we are happy. But it also highlights the complex emotional responses brought about by having to make choices. If you have 15 mins to spare have a watch of the video, he's a great presenter and the science is fascinating. Here are some key points from the talk:

If we don’t have options, we convince ourselves that what we have is great. We synthesise happiness.

As soon as you introduce choice, you introduce the fear of choosing the wrong thing. And consequently the potential for unhappiness.

Examples: Moreese Bickham, who spent 37 years in an American jail for a crime he didn’t commit, was exonerated at the age of 78. He stated, “I don’t have one minute’s regret, it was a glorious experience”. And Pete Best, former drummer of the Beatles, who stated, “I’m happier now that I would have been in the Beatles”.

Some implications for experience design:

• If we have limited options, it leads us to work joyfully and have a better experience. But if we have many options, we fear the impact of making the wrong decision.

• If we believe a decision we have made is irreversible, we convince ourselves that we made the right decision.

• Understand and fulfill customer/user needs as fully as possible while minimising their options. This should lead to them being happier and having a better experience.

 
There are also important links between Gilbert's findings and research into the effect of having to make choices on our willpower. This post from Creative Huddle explains how having to make too many choices can lead to 'ego-depletion'. Here are some key extracts:

Choice requires effort. Willpower is a finite resource.

The simple act of making decisions degrades one’s ability to make further decisions.

Example: Barack Obama “You’ll see I wear only gray or blue suits. I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m wearing or eating because I have too many other decisions to make”.

Implications for experience design:

• Choice causes fatigue.

• Don’t force people to make choices unless absolutely necessary.

Further reading: David McRaney on ego-depletion.